Hi Thomas -- Thanks for your extended comment. With all respect, it's
Sunday and you do sell yucca products, so I'm glad you would defend them.
My take on the info I gathered yesterday is still - we should not be looking
at them for compost teas, but for other human and animal health uses.
Others can judge for themselves... Apart from animal benefits and the
benefits plants derive when they produce saponins naturally on their own -
an evolutionary "judgment," clearly - I don't see how adding yucca extracts
or saponin adds up for compost teas. Other teas, maybe. That's a
cost-benefit decision, I suppose.
> Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2003 20:27:03 -0800
> From: "Thomas Giannou" <thomas_at_tandjenterprises.com>
> Subject: Re: More Yucca & Saponin
> ...studies where Yucca Extract, in higher concentrations, will remediate
most all the fungal diseases in turf grasses. Too bad those studies were
not looking at the total biology in the soils. <
I agree with the latter lament but would point out that the former indicates
fungicidal activity... which is ok in its place. A natural fungicide, when
the people using it know what they are doing, is good.
> Yucca Extract is claimed to also make plant cells more permeable to water
and nutrient uptake. <
Yes, it does that. That's one of saponins' primary functions in nature, it
seems. But at what microcidal cost? The trade-off between emollient and
microbial enhancements tells me yucca extracts are not a good idea in
compost teas, where microbial enhancement is the goal. ...And plate counts?
Really...?
I don't want to suggest there are no benefits from yucca extracts or
saponins. Clearly there are -- your arthritis example is another promising
thing, probably already exploited by pharm people? There appear to be many
present and potential benefits for human and animal health to be realized
with saponin and yucca extracts, but not in compost teas. Yucca and saponin
teas as fungicides sound promising, but there are much better emollients and
nutrients for compost teas, imo.
I also have some sustainability questions about how and why we are taking
yucca extracts primarily from Mexico and Chile, but that's another, economic
and geopolitical issue, not about efficacy.
Whatever, I still think we should write off yucca extracts and saponin for
use in aerated compost teas. Bacterial action is not hard to achieve in
compost
tea. I think Matt's CT recipe vav his compost shows that even that can be
potentially suppressed with saponin sources like comfrey. Maybe his recipe
was foiled
by that or the corn gluten, or the two together? In any event, I seriously
doubt that yucca extracts or saponin are beneficial in aerated compost teas.
-- Kirk
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Received on Sun Nov 30 2003 - 19:25:02 EST