JASON :
I, for one- believe you are on the right track- i am of an age where my memory- well-- but i believe it went something like- SLOW & STEADY WINS THE RACE--your approach has that wonderful smell of COMMON SENSE- flesh-out if you would -your experiences- Chris Reid, i trust- would find that info worthy of his/her { i'm sorry- it matters not- i just don't know } efforts---
take very good care- charls
Jason Austin <jason.austin_at_shaw.ca> wrote:
Anthony wrote:
snip .. I am of the persuasion that provided the movement within the extraction bag/container is suffice, most of the extraction of organisms and nutrients will occur well before the hour is up and more than likely within the first few minutes. snip ............
That is interesting Anthony. Bob and I had an offline discussion recently about continual or sustained brewing brewing - that is where the farmer applies CT all day from the one brewer. I am of the opinion - and I think Bob agrees but I'll leave him to speak for himself - that continual or sustained brewing is feasible and your results reinforce that belief as I'll show below..
Typically in conventional CT brewing, all the ingredients are placed in the brewer at the beginning of the cycle; and we know there will be a drop in DO fairly early on because of the bacteria bloom as is shown on both your graphs.
We know also (from Elaine I believe) that a problem with sustained brewing, is that over time the diversity of the bacteria is lost.
The question is to apply this knowledge to a sustained brewing approach.
My circumstance is different from many of you because I have a large brewer (400 gallons) on a small acreage (5 acres of which about 4 is farmed) so I apply about 100 gallons an acre. Because of this I try to have my tea as both ACT and a nutrient source for the plants, so I make mine with ground kelp and alfalfa meal (see the reported benefits of a simple alfalafa tea by itself at
http://www.nurserysite.com/clubs/peninsular/tea.html ) I call the result NCT (Nutrient Compost Tea!)
To use a human analogy, when we invite guests over for dinner, we don't arrange for them to arrive just as we get home from work. Instead we have them come later so we can heat the house; lay the table; prepare the food etc. And when they come we rarely put everything on the table at once - we serve the various courses over time - perhaps the soup; then the main course; then desert; followed by coffee. And if our guests bring a bunch of kids to be with ours; we may serve them in sittings; serve the kids first then the adults - in other words a sustained meal.
I believe the same approach can (should?) be used in brewing - the only difference is we hope the bacteria will breed like crazy and that our guests don't :-P
I am going to change the way I brew, to a more sustained style that aims for a steady growth instead a bloom and bust cycle. (I will refer to the quantities of my system which is a 400 gallon brewer and a 100 gallon sprayer.)
1. Prepare the environment for the bacterial and fungi before I introduce the compost. Warm the water, have it aerated and the food source in first. (Unlike mollassess, the dry alfalfa and seaweed I use are not an immediate food source for the bacteria, and need to be softened and broken down a little first. So I will brew them in warm water for a few hours. As a bonus, there was speculation on this list last year that there is protozoa in the alfala which may be beneficial.)
2. Introduce the compost but in a smaller quantity than I normally use. Anthony's results above show the bacteria are extracted quickly, and also it is a lot easier to handle small loads of satuarated compost than one big one! What seems like a manageable quantity of compost going in doubles in weight coming out.
3. During the 18-24 hour brew cycle:
- drip feed soluble food sources like mollasses to avoid a growth bloom.
- change the compost at various intervals both for convenience and to maintain diversity
- add dry foods at various intervals
4. When the tea is ready, withdraw the first 100 gallons.
5. While the sprayer is being filled:
- change the compost again. This, I believe is the key to sustained brewing - to maintain the diversity of the bacteria in the brew
- add presoaked dry food (in my case)
- continue the drip feeding of any soluble food
6. While the CT is being applied:
- continue the drip feeding of any soluble food
- have a water filling system with an automated shutoff like a toilet cistern. If the water inflow is measured correctly the brewer would be filled again by the time the sprayer comes back for the next fill. Ideally the incoming water would be prewarmed so as not to create a shock in the brewing system.
The key, I believe, is moderation, and to avoid:
- excessive food
- excessive compost (because of the practical problem of handling it, and also there is potential for it going anaerobic if it is in too long and exceeds the capacity of the brewer to keep it aerated)
- excessive bacterial bloom
- excessive change in the brewing environment like introducing a large quantity of cold water. Better to refill at a steady rate with warm water.
In my case I am withdrawing 25% of my brew each time I fill up and my turnaround time to fill and spray the 100 gallons is about 20 minutes. I might need to increase the drip feed to the brewer once I start drawing down.
If you are tempted to ask the obvious question - why would I want to apply more CT when I seem already to be at over capacity for my 4 acres - well .....
- I stopped using fertilizer two years ago (other than for some potted trees). The alfalfa and kelp supposedly are excellent as nutrient foliar sprays and I want to see what I can achieve with my NCT
- I know I am not being scientific and my tea has not been tested (the Canadian lab is not up and running just yet) so I figure I will overcome shortcoming in my tea by applying in quantity
- and the best reason - as far as I know, no one else is trying this!
I'm prepared for the long haul and don't expect to turn my place into a Findhorn garden over night - but I am happy with the results from 2003 which was my first year with my NCT. I am also bringing in as much wood chips and garden waste to compost as I can, to increase the organic level of my soil. So give me a few more years to overcome the 46-0-0 that was applied around my holly trees for quite a while and maybe the fairies and elves will return :-)
The most noticeable benefit has been the obvious drought tolerance my trees showed during our dry summer here in BC last year. My biggest mistake was spraying CT during blossom time in my plum and apple orchard - my fruit set was down by 75%. (I think there is a movie called Dumb and Dumber ???) And I lost a bee hive that was in an area that got a lot of CT - you never know with bees but they had been there for many years, and were there when I sprayed, but not there a few weeks later.
Jason
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Received on Sun Jan 11 2004 - 03:47:55 EST