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Re: Beneficial microbes - composting



Hi David -

I think Steiner knew about the organisms in organic matter, but didn't write about them much because it is a complex subject.  He knew his audience.  But, getting the organisms back into compost is why Steiner told people to bury cow horns in good, healthy soil.  I've pointed this out several times already. 

Steiner didn't tell people to make compost in the middle of an ag field, or in parking lots.  Woodlots and forests are important as reservoirs of very beneficial organisms, but the beneficials are concentrated in a very thin layer in that reservoir.  They are concentrated in the O horizon, and within the O horizon, in the humus layer of the O horizon.  That's where you would take an inoculum handful.  This tiny fraction of the forest floor is what would be removed by people in order to get the beneficials. 

Consider that just by harvesting truffles from the forests in Europe,  people have just about destroyed the natural fungal population.  They don't even remove the forest floor, they just disturb it.  But over the course of just a few decades, edible truffle populations have fallen to near extinction, if the mycologists in Europe are to be believed.  Commercial production has replaced some of the production, but acid rain and global climate change haven't helped the situation any. 

In the US, we see the Forest Service in many parts of the U.S. requiring permits, and putting limits on mushroom picking for commercial purposes.  We have to preserve this resource, not exploit it further.  As I have already said, if you have your own forest, and want to mess it up, that's your choice.  It would be much wiser to remove just a few handfuls to get the organisms in your own compost pile, and place your compost pile next to the forest instead of disturbing that resource.

In Australia, the forests are extremely depauparate in that humus layer where the beneficial fungi live and make humus.  Where we have tested the forest floor in Australian forests, disturbance has harmed that humus layer.  Where the forests are less disturbed by human or animal impacts, there are more beneficial fungi present.  This observation begs the question of what has happened in Australia?  Are the forests soils naturally deficient in humus-developing fungi?  Or has the level of disturbance already been so great that the forests are in decline, and thus are very disease susceptible? 

The spread of different  fungal diseases through forests in many parts of Australia  is very disturbing.  My understanding from reading Australian newspapers is that the problem is extensive.  The erosional problems developing because forests are being lost is impacting water quality all over the continent.  The Great Barrier Reef is in decline, because of the erosional problems. 

Is this problem developing because we have already destroyed much of the fungal community that used to be there?  Just a question, but the little bit of observation we have done suggests a relationship.  Arid climates are very fragile.  Tropical soils are extremely fragile.  It doesn't take much disturbance to lose a forest when it's already hanging on by just a thread. 
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You have to read Hoitink (that's right, Ohio State University) carefully, and understand exactly what mix of organic matter he is using.  His conclusions make sense in the larger picture only when you understand that he uses fir bark as his main ingredient in his "compost".  Of course a pile of fir bark immobilizes N (think about the C:N ratio in the starting materials!), but you can't conclude that ALL compost will behave the way firbark compost behaves.  Hopefully, you will start with something other than mostly fir bark.

So, read the Luebke's writings about composting.  Their tradition is straight from Pfeiffer, which of course links directly with Steiner's work as well.   All the work that SFI has done on compost has supported the Luebke tradition.  SFI gives credit where credit is due, and don't try to claim we are the sole authorities in the field.  A MIX of starting materials, including fungal foods and bacterial foods, and the high N needed to control temperature.

Temperature is critical in the composting process.  Hoitink lets the compost get
TOO hot, which kills the bio-control organisms as well as everything else. 

Answer?  Don't let the compost get that hot.  How hot is hot?  No more than 155 to 160 F.  Control that temperature by controlling the amount of high N containing material you add to the pile, and by turning at the appropriate time.  DO NOT LET THE PILE GO ANAEROBIC, BECAUSE THAT TOO KILLS MANY OF THE BENEFICIAL  ORGANISMS YOU NEED. 

Let me point out that the activity stain we use is fluorescein diacetate.  But we go one better than what Hoitink does, we identify the organisms that are active.  And please realize that used as SFI uses this staining procedure, we can differentiate active aerobic from anaerobic organisms. 

Hoitink adds the FDA to soil and measures the fluorescein released.  Much like a Solvita test, this just measures a level of a certain set of enzyme activity in the soil.  There's alot of esterase immobilized on clay, sand, silt and organic matter, which should not be included in assessing current organism activity.  By doing the direct counts, we exclude that extraneous, left-over activity. 

Of course, if you want to know about non-organism associated esterase enzyme activity in the soil, then combining direct FDA assessment, and the FDA hydrolysis, you can figure out non-organism esterase activity.  It all depends on what you want to know.

Do we know the answer to everything?  No.  There's lots more that still needs to be understood. 

For instance, the question Steve Diver brought up the other day - fermentative versus putrefactive anaerobes.  SFI in Corvallis has just started to differentiate these processes, and now offers a way for you to figure out if you are doing a "not-so-harmful" anaerobic fermentation, versus a not-beneficial putrefaction.  This is still very early in the process of trying to figure this out, so the results will be interesting, useful, but will suggest more questions than we'll answer right at first. 

Not available yet in Australia.  This is a US-only assay.  It isn't reasonable for Australians to send compost, soil or tea to the U.S. for assessment, because the organisms in the samples would change too much by the time they got here.  So, maybe some day these additional assays will be available in Australia, but not until more people in Australia understand the need to understand the biology in their soil, compost or compost tea.

Elaine Ingham
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
www.soilfoodweb.com