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Re: [compost_tea] Differences between compost tea, compost piles, and vermiculture



Matt and others,
 what is your organic matter level in your soil and what sort of tonnage / ha are you adding from sward management / pruning etc each year.
 
Many of these ideas and conversations are incomplete and can go down a path that does not relate when we have o/m levels at 8%, 15% or down at 1%or less, this has an impact on management decisions.
Please when asking questions give enough detail for them to be understood on the international multi crop forum we have here.
Bill Quinn.
----- Original Message -----
From: Matt Leamy
Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2003 10:43 PM
Subject: Re: [compost_tea] Differences between compost tea, compost piles, and vermiculture

Hi, first time contribution,  a word of thanks to all those regular contributors, the information from this group is helping to spread knowledge of sustainable practices far and wide.    
 
This question was thrown at me from a commercial compost sales manager not so long ago.  He was concerned that Compost Tea's would compete with Compost.  In at the deep end I said to him "no", for reasons that Tom and Jeff have said.
 
My understanding is that there is more to it than that.  Please correct me if I am wrong but it does concern me that compost manufacturers should think that they might have no future.  With a CT we extract the organisms from a compost, multiply it, apply it to our crop and it is as if we get an energy boost into the system.  A compost does that as well, perhaps more slowly because the rate of activity may not be as high at the time of application.  The compost will have a higher diversity because it has more diversity and complexity of foods that will also last much longer.  The brewing process itself limits the diversity of organisms extracted because there is a limit on the diversity of foods and logic suggests that with a short brewing cycle, the most competitive ones will dominate.   The compost will have those important higher food chain organisms that a CT won't have in abundance, the nematodes and amoebae.  It will have the bulky carbon material that builds topsoil rich in humus. 
 
However, a CT can introduce a lot of the organisms and with some crops it is common practice to mulch with bulky carbon rich materials.  And this can be done at a price considerably less than buying, or making on commercial scales,     compost.  Was the sales manager right to be concerned? 
 
By the way we work very hard at selling our New Zealand Organic Avocados to America.
 
Matt Leamy
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2003 11:18 AM
Subject: RE: [compost_tea] Differences between compost tea, compost piles, and vermiculture

The comparison is really apples to oranges. CT does NOT replace compost or vermicompost. Most of us still need compost to build organic materials in our soils. Compost tea does not add carbon sources to soils in the volumes we need. Compost products are needed to build many agricultural as well as horticultural soils.

 

Tom Jaszewski

www.livesoil.com

702-595-7012

 

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