You asked why there is negativity to Soil Soup machines.
Soil Soup machines are not capable of routinely delivering the biology needed to get the benefits that have been documented to be possible with real compost tea.
Think about the fact that you have to have the right sets of bacteria, fungi, protozoa and nematodes to get the benefits of compost, or compost tea.
The "rightness" of the biology depends on the plant you are trying to grow. So, if the machine you are talking about does not result in BACTERIA, FUNGI, PROTOZOA and NEMATODES from the compost being extracted and surviving in the tea, then the material should not be called compost tea.
We differentiate real compost tea, that can give all the benefits of protection from disease-causing organisms, retention of nutrients, cycling into plant-available nutrient forms, improvement of soil structure, reduction in water use, and increases in rooting depth, from tea not able to give all these benefits. Anaerobic teas do not have the organisms required to give these benefits.
The tea able to perform properly is called Actively Aerated Compost Tea. Any tea that drops into anaerobic zones (less than 5.5 to 6 ppm oxygen), will no longer have living beneficial fungi, protozoa or nematodes. The beneficial organisms do not survive lack of oxygen for much length of time. Just like people.
Soil Soup has recently changed the bag in their machine. They sent all their clients nylon bags, to replace the felt bags they used to have. Reason? Mildew grows in the felt. You can't get the beneficial fungi through the felt. I am VERY happy to see this change. Maybe, just MAYBE, that will be enough to put the Soil Soup machines over the edge into OK, BUT they must have DATA to document the improvement.
Soil Soup has no data to show that their machine makes compost tea. You might suspect that Soil Soup has data to show that their machine does not make a material that contains adequate sets of organisms, but they don't show that data, of course.
Please note that folks showing great results in the field, not just the lab, have hard data on their websites. Please note that plate count methods are totally inadequate to show whether active organisms are present in tea. Plate counts cannot tell you whether you have adequate diversity in the bacterial community, and they are beyond hopeless in telling you anything about fungi. They miss protozoa and nematodes completely. So, trying to shore up the reputation of a compsot tea using plate count methods is just proof that the tea couldn't make the grade with methods that show what is really going on.
Everything we do at SFI involves direct observation of the organisms in your sample. We can differentitate active from total bacteria and fungi. That's what you need to know - what organisms are GROWING in the tea, at the time you put the tea out.
Look at the KIS brewers, for example (www.simplici-tea.com), or the EPM machines (www.composttea.com), or WormGold machines (www.wormgold.com), or Alaska Giant. They all show that their brewers are capable of extracting and growing the organisms in a good compost.
Look at Laura Sabourin's machines, Tea-rrific, in Canada(laura_s_at_vaxxine.com)
Overseas, look at The Compost Tea Company in New Zealand, or talk to the SFI lab in New Zealand (cherryle.prew_at_xtra.co.nz).
Talk to the Australia SFI lab, about brewers in OZ - soilfoodwebinst_at_aol.com
Talk to the Van Iersels, or Compara, or the SFI lab in Eurpoe about brewers in Europe. Or talk to Kerry White about compost and compost tea in England (kerry_at_compostcomposttea.co.uk)
They have DATA, and often they have scientific trials reported on the effects of their tea makers on plant production. These machines can work just great. You have to use the properly, and that can take a bit of learning curve, but the probability of success is high. The probability of success is not there with machines that can't even extract or keep alive the organisms you need to give improvements.
Now, Soil Soup machines do on occassion make teas that kill black spot fungi, or give a short term control of certain problems on leaf surfaces. But the anaerobic bacteria that grow in Soil Soup (how do you know they are anaerobic? Use your nose. The tea stinks) do not last on leaf surfaces. Leaf surfaces are aerobic. So control is short-lived.
Addition of anaerobic bacteria to the soil means the soil is moving more anaerobic, not aerobic, and plant roots require healthy, AEROBIC conditions in soil in order to grow.
We have to keep working on Soil Soup to make their machine do what they say it does. But right now, you cannot call what comes out of a Soil Soup machine compost tea. Call it Soil Soup. It is not compost tea.
Compost tea should contain all the beneficial organisms you find in compost. Based on all the data I have, Soil Soup is not capable, ever, of giving you the set of organisms your plant needs.
Go to the Soil Soup website and look for any DATA. Not testimonials, they don't count. Please notice that the testimonials on their website, at least the last time I looked, are from employees of Soil Soup, or from family members. Not exactly confidence inspiring. Yes, they may have a pretty website, but why would you buy a machine based on prettiness?
Are you trying to make pretty, or are you trying to help your plants?
Elaine Ingham
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
SFI Corvallis, OR
SFI Port Jefferson, NY
SFI Lismore, NSW, Australia
SFI Hilversum, The Netherlands
SFI Cambridge, New Zealand
www.soilfoodweb.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
compost_tea-unsubscribe_at_yahoogroups.com
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark
Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada.
http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511
http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/0PSxlB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->
Yahoo! Groups Links
To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/compost_tea/
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
compost_tea-unsubscribe_at_yahoogroups.com
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Received on Tue Dec 16 2003 - 11:11:57 EST