Re: [compost_tea] Post-NOSB decision

From: soilfoodweb@aol.com
Date: Tue Nov 19 2002 - 17:04:44 EST


I think things have slowed down because many of us are gearing up for the
winter. Tea making has slowed down. You do want to think about getting a
good dose of tea on your soils before the winter snows fly, or before the
soil freezes. Remember though that the most active period of decomposition
is in the winter. When snow covers the soil, bacteria and fungi are still
doing their work in the free water available under the snow. As long as
things aren't actually frozen, the cold-loving bacteria and fungi are active,
decomposing plant residues, improving soil structure.

The NOSB has decided not to approve any regulation of compost tea. Compost
tea is allowed in the organic program. The regs then come down to what OMRI
and CCOF have ruled, basically -

If the compost is certified organic, and all the materials going into the tea
are certified organic, then the compost tea is certified.

Simple. Logical.

There will likely be a new Compost Task Force appointed - at least that's
what the minutes of the NOSB meeting indicated. It would be a good thing to
have tea machine makers as well as people actually ACTIVELY making compost
tea and those of us ACTIVELY doing compost tea research invited to
participate in the process. I have volunteered to be part of the task force.
 We'll see what happens.

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



.



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Apr 23 2003 - 16:57:32 EDT