Re: [compost_tea] Re: CACT and Idea for non-tested brewing approach

From: <soilfoodweb_at_aol.com>
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 20:46:12 EST

Just back from Darwin, NT, Australia. Phew! Hot, and humid, and monsoon
rains! Two days were really nice - if hot - because we were in-between too
hurricanes (called cyclones here!).

David Boehme put on a great school, lots of wonderful contacts,

should be seeing a Compost Tea Center in Darwin soon!

But, on to Chris' response:

> Still the best way not to go anaerobic is to remember: LESS IS MORE
> (food that is) and a good recipe, plus colder water.
>
I think that matching the water temperature to the soil temperature, or
foliar temperature, makes sense. Many people have suggested and pointed this out,
so I am not the only person thinking this one through. Brewing in cold water
in midsummer isn't going to work too well, most likely, or brewing in hot
water in mid-autumn, or early spring, isn't going to work too well either.

> 2. The success of this method depends in part on how badly overfed the
> microbes are. Way too much food and it is unlikely to do the job without
> dumping out part of the tea and refilling with de-gassed water.
>
Exactly right. Too much food is not a good thing. The Goldilocks Principle
applies.

> 3. I think the next place we have to be careful with this idea is the
> pump's capacity. What happens to a pump that's on the brink of #gals it can
> handle when you top off the brew with more water? In terms of oxygen in the
> brew, does the extra water slow the rate of addition of oxygen? Moral:
> Have extra capacity. Don't brew at the top of your pump's capacity.
>
But remember that the water you add should be at max oxygen content, because
you have aerated to blow off chlorine. That water should up the oxygen in the
tea brew ASAP. The additional water will not slow oxygen transfer, but will
enhance it.


> 4. When it's time to apply the tea, do we need to make any adjustments in
> gal per acre? We were trying to understand what adding water actually
> did -- I think Elaine would say "exit the notion of dilution" because we
> added space and oxygen for more microbes to grow, and helped keep some
> existing microbes from going inactive.

What SFI has shown, and even more so in the WSARE grant we have just
finished, is that coverage on the leaf surface is what is important. The little
microscope unit is finished, and the handbook is about done (just a few more
pictures to take!). Looks like it will be about $400 US for the entire kit. Then
you can test EACH BATCH of tea that you make, with the occasional checks with
SFI to make sure you are keeping your search images up-to-date.

So, when you make tea, if you would have made 5 ug of active fungi per ml of
tea, but you added water to the tea, and now have 4 ug of active fungi per tea
(you added 1 gal of aerated water into a 5 gal tea brew), you would still add
the same amount of water in the sprayer, since your active fungi is above the
minimum level of 2 ug.

However, the number of microbes per > gallon is likely to be less with this
> added water, depending on how far into
> the brew the additional water was added. Should we adjust gal per acre
> accordingly by simply subtracting the water added from the water we would
> normally use as the carrier for the application? (EXAMPLE: If we were going
> to apply 5 gal per acre, and had to add 195 gals of water to be able to
> spread it on an acre at the 5 gal/acre rate,
>

The tea itself is diluted, and you have to know what the active bacterial and
fungal biomass was, and how much that was dropped with the addition of water.
 You can easily test that a couple times to know what the reduction would be.
 Or you learn what amount of food you can add that will keep the brew from
going anaerobic when temperatures are hot.

Hope this helps!

Elaine




Received on Sat Feb 14 2004 - 00:44:42 EST

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