Re: [compost_tea] Step-by-step checking CT quality

From: soilfoodweb@aol.com
Date: Mon Mar 03 2003 - 11:21:45 EST


Precisely, Tom. If your compost is documented as having adequate fungi, then the problem is not with the compost. You start working on the other factors.

If you bought a compost tea machine with documented ability to extract the fungi from the compost, then it is not the design of the machine that is a problem.

Check the movement of the water through the compost when you are brewing. If you have good water movement, the machine is working properly.

If you fill a plastic container half full and seal it, and let it incubate for 24 hours at 72 F, and then open the container, and smell no bad smells, then that is a good indicator that your tea was nicely aerobic. You can use an oxygen probe to document that it stayed fully aerobic.

BUT REMEMBER, the itme a tea machine goes anaerobic is between 14 to 20 hours. I have to laugh when people measure oxygen at the start, at 8 hours into the brew and then at the end. You know they are trying to pull a fast one on you when they pull stuff like that.

Additional factors:
Cleaning of the machine.
Residues of something in the machine
Water quality.
Some thing you are putting in the recipe that is actually killing the organisms, not helping them.

When you are having problems, back off to the minimal set of foods into the machine. Run a tea with molasses and kelp. Establish the baseline again. Is it your foods, or the water that is a problem?

Please contact Kirk Waterstripe at SFI about the concentration of molasses to use. We just got done with some really interesting studies that Kirk will report at Biocycle. We'll blow some people's socks off with this stuff.

I know it is frustrating when you just can't get a decent tea, but there has to be a reason for it. Go back to square one, and start checking each thing.

Elaine Ingham
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
SFI Corvallis, OR
SFI Port Jefferson, NY
SFI Lismore, NSW, Australia
SFI Hilversum, The Netherlands
SFI Cambridge, New Zealand
www.soilfoodweb.com

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