Re: Thomas' response to Re: [compost_tea] soil chemistry facts

From: Robert Norsen <bnbrew_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Sun, 5 Sep 2004 20:34:52 -0700 (PDT)

Atta boy Ted. Between you and Elaine I think I got it. Hard sell? This could put a bunch of family farms back to fun and solvent. It makesCompost and ACT both effective and economical compared to what has been sold by industry. Bob

Ted Peterson <ted.peterson_at_tcsn.net> wrote:Thomas:
 
Try this as a thought experiment:
 
1. Active bacteria feed.
2. They do not have digestive tracts but feed and get rid of wastes through osmosis and diffusion.
3. To break down the food they need, they release enzymes or use material broken down by the enzymatic action of other bacteria/fungi and higher order living things.
4. Different bacteria feed on different nutrients (for the bacteria) and diffuse different waste products.
5. Plants use the waste products as food. When the plant wants more food of a specific type, they send out messengers that the bacteria need to feed. The bacteria feed and release waste that the plant uses.
6. While a lot is known about the process in general, specific bacteria that give the plant specific nutrients is still in the discovery stage.
 
So while I can make a general statement that I have been running a park for almost three years without adding any inorganic or organic nutrients and that the plants are healthy by plant assay, I can't make the same statement about the soil health. The soil actually shows low in many nutrients, however, the CEC has remained constant (24 to 28) which means that the capacity for the bacteria to feed is there. Specific nutrients indicate low and the tests come back with recommendations to add certain things to get the amounts in soil up to where traditional plant maintenance practices says they should be. However, the plant assays don't indicate the same thing. The brix is up and plants test healthy across the spectrum. I argued this point the the Park Maintenance personnel until they finall threw up their hands and agreed to leave the park alone. It was a hard sell though.
 
I use A&L Labs. If I followed their indications based on soil tests, I should be adding all kinds of stuff to the park. I talked with them by phone and mentioned that the plants they were testing came from the soil they were testing. They flatly stated that that couldn't be true because plants coming from the soil they tested should have been way below norms for brix and other indicators.
 
It is important to remember that ACT does not directly feed the plants. Sure there may be some residue of N in the tea but it is not enough to feed a plant. So what is going on?
 
Bound minerals and nutrients can be made available through bacterial enzymatic action. Given decay, rain cycles and a soil biology healthy for your area, plants should be able to self sustain with little input. This means that you have to have a time table that plants operate on not necessarily a customer's time table. If you absolutely have to have it greened up on a couple of weeks, add what you need to but understand that this added NPK does nothing for your overall soil health and may actually decrease overall soil health.
 
It is a hard shift from plant centered methodologies to bacterial centered methodologies because all the tests we use are based on practices that directly feed the plant. There is no test that shows bacterial/fungal potential in the soil to produce exactly what the plant needs when the plant needs it. This is a hard sell to maintenance people who are sitting with a warehouse full of chemicals and a computerized schedule that says: Apply chemical X during June and Y during September.
 
Ted Peterson
EW/SOE
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: Thomas Giannou
To: compost_tea_at_yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, September 04, 2004 5:49 PM
Subject: Re: [compost_tea] soil chemistry facts


Elaine,
 
I never said you are against compost and I have never entertained the thought. I am simply saying there are different sources of nutrients ending up in the plants (nutrients which are released from the soil by the organisms, nutrients which are in the compost, and nutrients which are in the various tea applications). There are also other sources of nutrients being added.
 
In your original message you were saying all the nutrients plants need are already in the soils (but are mostly bound up) and all we need to do is add compost / food with the organisms to release those bound up nutrients.
 
My question was that when we look at what nutrients are in and on a plant, how can we differentiate between the nutrients that are in the compost VS nutrients that are in the tea VS the nutrients that are released from the soils that eventually end up in a plant? You said "We don't need to differentiate between nutrients in compost, versus the not-soluble set of nutrients in soil. Often, we don't have enough compost to put down all the needed-for-growth nutrients that you plants need."
 
I read in your original message that you said all the nutrients were already in agricultural soils that plants need and that none need to be added. When I consider what people are adding to their compost and to their teas, and the fact that chelated minerals are in teas, then it's highly probable that those organic and inorganic nutrients in compost and tea are ending up in the plants.
 
It seems clear to me that data needs to be collected about the nutrients (organic and inorganic) made available from the compost as well as the nutrients being made available from various tea applications and the nutrients that are being solubilized out of the soils by the organisms when you consider what nutrients end up on or in any given plant. If you don't collect that data about the organic and inorganic nutrients that are in the compost, tea and soil, and somehow tie it to what ends up in the plants how are you going to present any relevant data about the nutrients that are coming out of the soil that are ending up in the plants? How are you going to define what nutrients are coming out of the soil when you also have nutrients coming out of the compost and the tea that are going into the plants?
 
In prior conversations about compost tea, you said compost tea was loaded with chelated minerals. If compost tea is being applied frequently, then it seems like there would be a fairly high probability that the inorganic elements that ended up in a plant have come from the tea. Lot's of people are putting trace minerals into their tea and into their compost.
 
What data can you present in this situation that shows how many nutrients are being made available out of the soils VS the nutrients that are being made available out of the compost VS the nutrients that are being made available out of compost tea applications and how can you tie that data to what actually ends up in or on a plant? I keep coming back to this question because it seems reasonable to know which source the nutrients are coming from that end up on and in a plant before claiming that the soil contains all the nutrients that plants need.
 
--Thomas Giannou
http://www.tandjenterprises.com
 
----- Original Message -----
From: soilfoodweb_at_aol.com
To: compost_tea_at_yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, September 04, 2004 2:39 PM
Subject: Re: [compost_tea] soil chemistry facts


Thomas -
 
Parent material is the mineral fraction of the soil. This is a standard soil term.
 
I did not say that there is an inconsequential amount of nutrients in 1 to 3 tons of compost. Please re-rread my e-mail.
 
When you consider soil that has less than 0.5% organic matter in it, and you need to have the total set of nutrients or even the exchangeable nutrients turned into available nutrients for the plants, you either have to add compost, with all of the great sets of available nutrients in it, or (!) you have to add compost so the great set of diverse organisms in it begin the job of solubilizing the massive set of nutrients locked up in the soil parent matterial.
 
You are trying to make it sound as if I was arguing against compost, when my message was nothing of the kind.
 
I don't like when someone tries to get argumentative, and tries to tell me I am saying something that I never said! Please stop doing that.
 
The organisms - whether from compost, or compost tea, will solubilize the massive set of total nutrients tied up in plant-not-available forms in the soil.
 
The point of my message was that INORGANIC FERTILIZER is absolutely a waste of people's money, except for that short period of time when you are trying to get the organisms established, and have to have soluble nutrients present for your plants don't die of lack of available nutrients.
 
Elaine R. Ingham
Soil Foodweb Inc., Corvallis, Oregon
Soil Foodweb Inc., Port Jefferson, New York
Soil Foodweb Institute, Lismore Australia
Soil Foodweb Institue Cambridge, New Zealand
Soil Foodweb Inc., Hilversum, The Netherlands
Laboratorios de Soil Foodweb, Culiacan, Mexico
Soil Foodweb Inc., Jerome, Idaho




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Received on Mon Sep 06 2004 - 02:06:17 EDT

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