[compost_tea] Re: G.S. I . Tea results, Hi everyone, Dr.e ,ted ,steve,thanks for the help
I don't mean this to sound like I'm taking issue with your results,
but I've been talking with professionals and homeowners for several
years on the forums. One thing we agreed upon a couple years ago is
that when you extend your watering times, even on a full chemical
maintenance program in the middle of the Arizona desert, your turf
will look much better. It takes very little management to go from
daily watering to weekly, semi-weekly, or even (much) longer
watering cycles. My next door neighbor did not water her turf for 5
full years and her lawn always looked better than mine (much to my
chagrin, but I learned from it).
So all I'm saying is that using watering frequency as a measure
of 'goodness' of your tea is of no value. I could start out with a
horrible lawn, make a tea that was simply dissolved ammonium nitrate
in a 2,4-d base, and make the same claim at the end of the season
simply with proper watering management.
I think a better measure for tea is the cost of materials used per
1,000 square feet per year. Those on a chemical program will have
fertilizer cost ($1 per 1,000 square feet per application times 4
applications per year), herbicide ($1 per 1,000 square feet per
application times 2 applications per year), and fungicide ($15 per
1,000 square feet times 2 applications per year). Plus they have
the additional hassle of trying to figure out what their problems
are (insect damage or disease), what to use on it, how to use it as
safely as possible, what else to buy when it doesn't seem to work
the first time, and where to get a good deal after the see the price
of fungicide. Whereas compost tea typically costs $0.10-$0.30 per
1,000 square feet times 4 applications per year with no herbicide or
fungicide needed. You still might want to fertilize with organic
fertilizer. I like corn meal at $1 per 1,000 square feet times 4
applications per year.
David Hall
San Antonio, TX
--- In compost_tea_at_yahoogroups.com, "w.reece speas" <wrspeas@y...>
wrote:
> Hi everyone hope all is well for everybody. I have been
spraying my tea on my customer yards for a year now and getting some
pretty good results some better than others none doing soil samples
so we are doing our best at trying to figure out what they get ,
one customer has gone from watering everyday to just 3 sometimes 4
days a week depending on the temperatures we had this last august we
only had one 3 to 5 ft area go brown but that was at the entrance
to his business and it is surrounded by pavement and cement.
These numbers are not nessacarily a thumbs up for GSI machine but
not bad it has taken me a year and lots of test one specific
adjustment to the machine and a variety of help from a lot of people
in here some incouragement some not but all helpfull in the long run
some differant compost this specific batch came from a supplier in
the northwest just not to mention their name in here out of courtesy
to them test date 10/25/04, sample # 99901 ,ABB / 292 ,TBB /
> 8,576 ,AFB / 37.0 ,TFB / 45.8 Hyphal Diameter / 3.50 all
excellant , Disease suppressive fungi were extracted
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Received on Mon Nov 08 2004 - 12:24:44 EST
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