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Re: question for elaine
Hi Robert -
Not such a simple question. There are harmful aerobes. And beneficial anaerobes.
It's just, in general, the conditions in compost and tea, if kept aerobic and the appropriate foods are added, will select for mainly beneficial organisms.
The reason we choose the food resources that we do is to give the beneficials an extra edge. The foods recommended for tea should select for the beneficials.
If oxygen is low, reduced, or clearly anaerobic, the disease organisms will win, for the most part, in competition with other organisms. Certainly human pathogens do better when the aerobes cannot compete with them.
Think of the conditions in your digestive system. Definitely low oxygen concentrations, which lets E. coli grow and do it's function, which we all need to have. E. coli is a normal inhabitant of your colon, and you need to have it in the anaerobic part of your digestion.
When dealing with most compost, the putrefactive bacteria typically WERE high in number inside the animal digestive system. In the composting process, we selected for the beneficials by getting the material aerobic and making sure the starting materials didn't result in the compost too hot, or anaerobic..
We want to continue to select the beneficials by maintaining aerobic conditions. And by adding the right foods to let the beneficials grow.
OK? Make sense?
Elaine Ingham
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
www.soilfoodweb.com