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Re: [compost_tea] colloidal clay and rock phosphate
Jeff Lowenfels wrote:
> Lawrence,
>
> Thanks for the good sites on Rock Phosphate. Very useful.
>
> I guess my question is whether the clay used in the powders is
> acceptable in tea making....impacts etc?
Well the soft (Florida rock) phosphate with colloidal clay is lower in P than the rock phosphate
but releases P more rapidly. I don't know anything at all about the clay or how it got mixed with the phosphate
or how it reacts with soil or how it would react in compost tea. How would any other clay react in CT?
I'd guess that the clay in SPWCC, when added to CT, would represent a non issue, based on what the clay consists of.
Maybe the proportions of clay to phosphate would be an issue, as in too much clay for the CT for the amount of P that would be available.
Seriously though, I don't know whay it woudn't work just fine for what you want to do. I would mix the rock phosphate or SPWCC with
other rock dusts, i.e. pond fines (often very fine mesh) and even perhaps some New Jersey Greensand. What about a little wood ashes too?
1) On another note, I am interested in how one makes a lactobacillus culture to use with/before/after IM or 24hrCT. I am aware of
a method of making a probiotic drink called Rejuvelac. You soak wheat berries overnight, next day slightly grind dthem up and immerse in a
gallon or so of water - let stand at room temperature until it ferments and has a slightly lemony/acid/carbonated flavor, and it is ready to
refrigerate and drink. It seems you could make large batches of this for use in making CT for a soil drench. Wonder if this would be useful
2) Based on something Robert Verzola wrote in the sanet-mg list about making IM tea starter from sticky rice and forest compost:
To quote Robert (and Allan Balliett):
<><><><><><><><><><>
On 26 Dec 2002 at 21:17, Allan Balliett wrote:
> I've noticed that the Korean Natural Farming Movement uses
> topless/bottomles 'boxes' of rice that they leave sitting on forest
> soil for several days as an innoculant for one of their EM-like
> anaerobic brews. Is it practical for Aerobic CT makers to take
> microbes from the forest without really disturbing the forest floor?
> If so, what would be a practical way for US farmers to do so?
This is how we learned to do it, based on instructions from friends
who market EM locally. (Actually, "we" is my wife more than me, as
she mastered the whole thing and I was mostly a kibitzer.)
She used sticky rice, boiled as usual. She put the rice, still on the
pot where she boiled it, on the mini- (micro- actually) forest behind
our home. The pot was covered with cloth, then covered lightly with
dried leaves from the ground.
After several days, the rice was covered with what looked like
loosely fluffed cotton filaments. The beneficial fungi, I suppose.
Then she mixed a brew of water (boiled water, cooled down) and
brown sugar (organically processed) -- I can ask for the ratios later
if anyone is interested -- put it in a big clay pot, added the fluffy
material from the rice pot, covered the clay pot with cloth, and then
let it brew. This was supposed to be the "mother" liquid or starter. It
can be kept indefinitely by mixing a new brew of sugar solution and
adding spoonful or so of starter to it.
This is how EM is supposed to be made. The final product is sold
locally as some kind of soil, compost and foliar elixir (with a lot of
positive testimonies). It has been sprayed on chicken and hog
manure and these quickly lose their smell. In fact, I've visited a
place where the hog pen did not smell at all, because they say they
spray the EM regularly on the bedding.
It appears to me, however, from what I heard on this list, that this
would be anaerobic tea. I've never smelled it really carefully, just a
quick sniff, and I don't remember it stinking at all. Certainly, there
was no active aeration (no sprays or air bubbles for instance). It
can be done even where there is no electricity. (Important for us...)
My wife comes from a culture which still brews their own coconut-
based wine, banana-based vinegar, etc. so the process was familiar
to her.
I wonder if it might be better to optimize one brewing process for
the bacterial output, and optimize a separate brewing process for
the fungal output, and then spray the amounts indicated for the
ideal bacterial-to-fungi ratio?
Is there a simple test (smell again, perhaps?) to determine if the
brew is predominantly bacterial or fungal?
<....>
Roberto Verzola
Philippines
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Last Winter I took some leaf litter and compost off the ground in a wooded area and placed it on top of
a small plastic container of leftover rice. I put this outdoors in a metal barbecue grill away from light and rain.
This Spring I had a look at it and saw that the container was filled with a soild cake of variously-colored
soft, slightly damp material and the leaf litter was still on top but had become part of the mass. It had a strong
fungus smell, not particularly sweet (like tempeh is) and had patches of what might have been mold and others that were a fine fuzz
that might have been bacterial growth. I speculated whether this material could be used as starter to make even larger quantities
of fungal matter which could, in turn, be used to make large batches of fungus-dominated compost that could be directly applied to garden
soil for enrichment. Could this become a procedure, basically a dry rather than a tea-oriented one, worth considering within an array of
methods used in a soil enrichment program?
Thanks for any feedback.
LL
--
L.F.London
lfl@intrex.net
http://market-farming.com
http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech
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