[compost_tea] re: Water pH

From: chris reid <reidchris_at_earthlink.net>
Date: Sun, 29 Feb 2004 14:00:44 -0500

Elaine Ingham said: Does any have experience brewing with water outside of
the neutral range ?
if so please share your results?

Reply: No experience on this topic. For those who are fond of simplicity,
please skip this post. For those who are interested in developing a keener
or thorough understanding of the various factors that can be at play in tea
quality, you should not be too distressed by this post, so maybe it's okay
to read it.

Elaine's question is one I'm interested in, too, and haven't stumbled across
much in the archives so far on the topic (but am going to look for Seaneen's
post). Elaine in past posts has mentioned that Bruce Elliott helped a
customer troubleshoot some problems that occurred with tea in the range of
pH 8 or so. She suggested contacting Bruce for more info. I emailed his
company's info mailbox, but never got any reply (unless it came with a
spam-sounding message heading or no heading at all and was trashed without
opening), so can't share the reply for the general knowledge, but hey, I
tried. If anyone has the info, I hope you will post it as I would like to
add to the compost tea document on brewing technique (in the works).

This brings us back to a couple of points about pH.

First, there is the pH of the water you start with. .

But once ingredients are added, are you checking pH? I am under the
impression that some of the leonardite-based humic acid products are pretty
alkaline in order to keep the extracted humic acid in suspension (this is
not completely clear to me so this may be a mangled explanation -- from
reading some old Jose posts). If that's the case, it is also my
understanding that to keep it in suspension, the pH of the tea would be
required to be 7 or above.

Next, if you are anticipating using the tea as a foliar spray, does it make
sense to
* monitor the pH and keep it above 6.2 or
* monitor temperature and try to match to ambient?

Can a low pH or high pH tea burn the plant leaves -- or grow organisms that
are not optimal for the situation you are dealing with?

I have no idea. I bet there's somebody out there on the list though who is
metering and tracking this sort of data and might be able to make some
tentative observations about what happened or field results they did or
didn't get with their tea.

If you're checking your pH, what instrument or method are you using to do
so? I would be interested in knowing which pH meters people are using and
how they are finding them (cost, ease of use, accuracy if you have compared
to another source of pH info).

If not a meter, then how are you checking? I have seen it mentioned here
that litmus paper is not that accurate -- what is the cheapest good enough
method, and what are the advantages of highly accurate meters over a "good
enough" method? I remember somebody posted about using a pool testing kit.
It's not clear to me how much precision is useful here, but if anyone has
concepts, facts, or experience on the subject, I'd like to hear your input.

Points that come to mind: is it easier to grow out the fungal hyphae in a
pH that is below neutral? Has anybody tracked results of tea tests with
same ingredients/different pH (deliberately manipulated) to see what
happened?

Is there any value in matching other soil conditions in the tea (such as
pH -- and if pH, the means by which the change in pH is accomplished (a
simple "make it more acid/basic" or the use of different mineral sources to
accomplish this task, as in soil balancing.

Also, we have talked about the concept of matching brewing temperature to
ambient temperature, though I'm not clear whether people are recommending
the soil temperature in the root zone where tea will be applied, the air
temp, the surface soil temp, or what -- and what range of temp is
recommended. For example, within 5 degrees, 10 degrees, etc. I THINK this
is pretty much a concept at this point but welcome clarification (not clear
whether there is a group of data, or a couple of people with data, or a
couple of people with observations, or what).

The organisms that will live in the phyllosphere (cool name for the mini
environment of the leaf surface) -- do they use any particular minerals in
their work that make sense to add to a tea intended for foliar use to try to
stimulate their growth in the tea? The answer is probably "We don't know,"
but we're coming into Experiment Season, and even a few concepts to play
with would be of interest.

Thanks.

Chris Reid








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Received on Sun Feb 29 2004 - 14:56:43 EST

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