Re: [compost_tea] basic questions

From: Robert Norsen <bnbrew_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2005 11:01:39 -0800 (PST)

Forget the rules, Butch. Use your good sense. Bacteria are like other forms of life. Same for fungi and protozoa. They need food to survive. Some can hibernate a long time but if they are active they must eat. For soil microbes, food can be organic hydrocarbon debris or the exudate from growing plants or added kelp or molasses or dog dew or whatever but clean sand, clean clay, will result in the critters starve or go dormant. Among the thousands of varieties of microbes involved some will respond differently from others. Can they live by disolving clean rock for food? Elaine might know. I would believe they can disolve rock only in the presence of other food that gives them the ability to form enzymes and the enzymes and acids they produce disolve the rock and furnishes them with a small fraction of their 'food'.
The great thing about this system is that the debris that we can't use, what is left in the ground or on the ground becomes their food. Then in the wonderous way of the soil food web this life benefits the plants that they are dependent on and form ways to conserve the water they both need, they eat the forms of life around them including some forms that would harm the plants.
 
It is easy to think this was all planned by some very intelligent contoller. Or did it just happen because it worked?. Or rather it worked until semi super beings found ways to "make" plants grow under heavy fisted chemical control. Now our return to a natural way of soil life needs to gently , carefully nurture that life to return it to approximate a natural condition. A high ratio of fiber, old plant debris, animal waste, plant roots, live and dead will provide the essential food for the microbes. Live plants are important to furnish the exudates some species need. Compost and ACT can introduce part of the natrural microbe life forms.
 
Never a straight hard answer, Butch. So many variables - Bob
butch ragland <wilddog_202_at_yahoo.com> wrote:


I can't tell you how many times I've tried to get this
straight answer. If I understand, for long term
sustainability some form of organic debris must be in
the system. Either as residue or from some external
source.


--- soilfoodweb_at_aol.com wrote:
> Of course, compost tea alone cannot build soil. But
> it can go a long way
> towards getting you there. Compost can go a long
> way to getting you there.
>
> But we always have to be growing plants, and using
> the residues to help the
> soil build.

=====
Butch Ragland
Conflict is as addictive as
cocaine, alcohol, cigarettes,etc
I'm sorry to report that
cooperation is not



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Received on Sun Jan 02 2005 - 17:52:55 EST

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