Re: [compost_tea] Brewer types,fish oil and DE
Mike Benton,
I have taken a while to reply to your post as I had sent a sample in to SFI=
Lismore Aus that had a bearing on this topic.
I use the rubber disc type diffusers in my machines and they create a mediu=
m
size bubble of high oxygen transfer rate.
I have used fish emulsion regularly as a way of feeding fungi and keeping
the foam down The oil content seems to be the important part (for fungi) an=
d
I have found it difficult to source high oil content fish hydrolysate. So I=
have been using cod liver oil, however it goes straight into emulsion so is=
no good to keep the foam down however it does feed fungi incredibly well.
There is a guy in Eastern Australia who passed this info on to me - he said=
he had done lots of testing with it and it gave consistent results. I
believe he lurks on this site so if you are still there thanks for the info=
.
I have trialed using sunflower oil as an oil to keep the foam down and this=
works ok (you need a fair bit though). Canola oil is fungicidal so it may
not be a good idea to use it (it is in most vegetable oils). Does anyone
know if sunflower oil has any fungicidal effects?? The oil does float on th=
e
top so it does not come into contact with all of the tea. The following tes=
t
results I got today and the recipe has 0.1% cod liver oil as well as 6%
molasses, paramagnetic rock dust, 2.5% humic acid by weight, sunfower oil
(to keep foam down) and other material. (You need massive aeration to keep<=
BR>
this aerobic).
It took 3 days to get to the lab so the numbers direct out of the tank woul=
d
have been better.
This material was used as a soil drench and inoculant on strawberries.
By the way what is DE?
Regards Mike Harvey New Life Soils www.composttea.com.au
Sample
Unique
Tea
Active
Total
Active
Total
#
ID
Volume
Bacterial
Bacterial
Fungal
Fungal
Hyphal
(mL)
Biomass
Biomass
Biomass
Biomass
Diameter
(µg/mL)
(µg/mL)
(µg/mL)
(µg/mL)
(µm)
4134
NLS-Soil food
1
40.3
110,080
239
382
3.5
Bold
In
Excellent.
Excellent.
Excellent.
Disease-
Means Low
desired
suppressive
range.
fungi were
extracted.
Desired
1 -
10 -
150 -
2 -
2 -
(A)
Range
1
150
3000
10
20
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Benton" <compost_at_mweb.co.za>
To: <compost_tea_at_yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2004 12:40 PM
Subject: RE: [compost_tea] Brewer types,fish oil and DE
> OOPS yes Kirk I did me to say water.In my rush to get everything done =
I
had
> a bit of brain fade :}
> On diffussers,I also started with drilled pvc about 3 years ago and wi=
th
big
> holes ,then I got inside the unit while it was running,goggles and sno=
rkel
> time,luckly this was in summer..There I realised that smaller was
> better.This meant drilling about 2000 holes af about 1mm or 1/25"=
.Hmmm
less
> than funny.I have been interesed in waste water treatment for a while.=
I
> found rubber diffusers thru the net in the USA but the costs where too=
> high.So I started making them locally.This allowed me to change the si=
ze
of
> the slash that let the air out.As for durabilty I have only had one
customer
> with damage to the sleeves and he has a triple 1200 lt set ,running if=
one
> big blower and at times I suspect the his workers are putting all the =
air
> thru one tank and stressing the sleeves to much.As for cleaning being<=
BR>
> difficult,I can not agree ,less than 10 minutes turn around time.
> Bending PVC is easy enough.Use glycerene heated up to 110/120 C if I
> remember right.?Or was that210C Icant remember..
> I did a fish oil brew and this time the oil formed an emulsion on the =
top
of
> the water.There was still foam ,so I added a teaspoon of cooking
> oil.[Veg}Made great tea even the fishy smell was reduced.
> Anyone using DE in their tea ?If so why?
> Regards
> Mike Benton
> Compost Technologies
> mike_at_composttea.co.za mobile 0823345371<=
BR>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
Yahoo! Groups Spons=
or |
ADVERTISEMENT=
font>
 | =
tr> |
 |
Yahoo! Groups Links
Received on Thu May 20 2004 - 11:58:59 EDT
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0
: Tue Feb 07 2012 - 14:15:19 EST