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Re: [compost_tea] Hyphal diameter vs active fungal biomass



Hi Eltjo -

You asked:
To end up with a compost tea that has excellent disease surpressive
qualities, is it more important to have a high active fungal biomass
and a 2.5um hyphal diameter or lower numbers but a hyphal diameter of
3um?. The tea would be used for controlling mold and fungal diseases
on potatoes.

It depends on the diseases you have.  In tea for both potato and vines, it is more important to have adequate biomass of fungi.  The wider diameter hyphae are "icing on the cake" if you have them. 

Let's be careful on the "controlling" terminology here.  The folks at the ICTC have been poking about this, and they are correct.  I can talk about control, because I have data showing control.  But you can't, unless you collect the data.  So, use terms like the "tea improved the health of the plant so the disease could not establish".  Or the protozoa and nematodes consumed the disease, the way a cat consumes mice.  we can use this approach, to say there's a mechanical control, because this is not a pesticide interaction. 

There is little to show that compost tea really has a "killing" effect.  We occupy the leaf surface so the disease cannot establish on the leaf surface.  We consume all the food a pathogen might use, before the pathogen arrives, so the disease cannot establish. 

These are important to avoid the pesticide label on tea.  OK?


What is a realistic goal of Active Fungal Biomass with a diamter of
3um?

Minimum of 2 micrograms of active fungal biomass, better to have 10 ug, even better to have 30 ug. 

According to the SFI reports soil drenches require teas with a total
Fungal to Bacteria Biomass of 5 - 10. I have not seen too many
reports with ratios >1. How beneficial is it to use such a tea (soil
drench) prior to or during transplanting spruce and fur trees.

What you want to achieve is SOIL with this ratio.  What does it take in tea to inoculate enough fungi to grow back the desired soil range?  We have seen improvement of fungi in soil back to the desired SOIL range using teas with the TEA level of desired activity. 

Sort of two different things, and I may not have emphasized this before.

OK?

Elaine
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
www.soilfoodweb.com

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