I am a "coventional" commercial grape grower in the Niagara Penninsula.
2002 was a normal year for disease pressure, and spray schedules had to
be maintained. The ONLY reason I decided to throw caution to the wind
and use compost tea was for disease suppression and reducing my
pesticide bill. I achieved that. I saved close to 75% of my previous
years spray bill. And I used no insecticide. This was on 30 acres.
Bill
RiverValley wrote:
> This was posted on the BDnow! list server.
>
>
>
> I personally find it very interesting, any comments?
>
>
>
> daniel
>
>
>
> Blame this one on me, folks, but one of the most astounding upshots
> of this week's conference was the chance to meet with experienced
> growers who have worked with compost tea and who have found teas to
> be much less effective than we have heard people proclaim them to be.
>
>
>
> Alan York asks people to ask the hard questions. He says a hard
> question right now is 'Do you know of a vineyard that has effectively
> controlled foliar disease with compost tea for three seasons.' He's
> willing to back this question down to one season. (The unusually dry
> summer this past year has eleviated foliar diseases across the board,
> tea or no tea.)
>
>
>
> Vicki Bess, who is a compost tea advocate who spoke at this
> conference, felt that the push to diversity and high counts is not a
> push towards teas that really work on the soils or even the leaves.
> She said, and Will Brinton concurred, that it is the feeds in the
> teas that select the final microbial mix and these microbes were not
> necessarily the ones that would do as good of works as ones commonly
> dominant in dry compost. Will Brinton stated that there is not need
> for pumped up populations of microbials. He feels that this is
> unfounded, unscientific hysteria. He went on to say that good compost
> tea has all the microbiology a person needs for controlling foliar
> disease - WITHOUT BREWING IT other than we do already!! Think about
> it folks:
>
>
>
> Even better: Compost tea and brewer sales people in Pennsylvania have
> received letters from the EPA telling them that they cannot sell
> their products as disease control products because there is NO
> SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE THAT THEY ARE EFFECTIVE.
>
>
>
> Again - I'm sharing this info for your own evaluation. I've got egg
> on my face, of course.
>
>
>
> -Allan
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: < wpb_at_sympatico.ca <mailto:wpb_at_sympatico.ca> >
>
> To: < compost_tea_at_yahoogroups.com <mailto:compost_tea_at_yahoogroups.com> >
>
> Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 10:57 AM
>
> Subject: Re: [compost_tea] Re: Why have regs, and the ICTC
>
>
> > Elaine,
> > Thanks for your response, and all your points were well taken. But
> > believe me, it's just the tip of the iceberg. I too am eagerly
> waiting
> > for responses to Laura's questions, and I believe that since this was
> > the venue chosen to solicit members, this is where the answers should
> > be. I feel this was just a retaliatory response to the "big industry"
> > association, and might lack the necessary thought and substance to be
> > viable. I hope I am proven very, very wrong. I haven't eaten crow for
> > quite some time, but I ALWAYS carry some A-1 sauce with me.
> >
> > Bill Baranick
> >
> >
> > soilfoodweb_at_aol.com <mailto:soilfoodweb_at_aol.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> > compost_tea-unsubscribe_at_yahoogroups.com
> <mailto:compost_tea-unsubscribe_at_yahoogroups.com>
> >
> >
> >
> > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
> http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> compost_tea-unsubscribe_at_yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service
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.
Received on Thu Jan 30 2003 - 15:45:32 EST