Compost Teas: 24 hour, EM, IM, BD & fermented plant extracts

["Soil Foodweb, Inc." <info AT soilfoodweb.com>]

If compost is made correctly, it will not have E. coli in it.  By definition.
You have to mess up big time to have fecal contamination even in manure-base
compost.  People do mess up big time (what was the name of that accounting
firm?), so that's why we need testing to be performed on the compost and on
compsot tea.

But just thinking things through, understanding the basis for why E. coli is
killed in a properly made compost, lets you know that it isn't the scary thing
some people would like you to think.

After all, you lick your fingers all the time.  Why aren't there E. coli on 
them
waiting to contaminate you?  It's called, washing your hands.  You pick up 
candy
in your hands in candy all the time, why doesn't that cause E. coli to grow?
Growth conditions aren't apprpropriate, even if the sugar is present.

Look at the written versions of the papers from the recent Composting meeting 
in
Ohio, on the Biocycle website.  Both papers about compost tea and E. coli  - 
DID
NOT USE COMPOST!!!!!!!!

I find it astounding that the papers were accepted for presentation at the
meeting, actually.  They pretend to be talking about compost tea, but they
aren't using compost.  How can it be compost tea?  They didn't use material 
that
meets the standards of compost.

It's like saying if I took lemonade, and added E. coli to it, held the 
lemonade
at warm temperatures for a couple days, we should legislate against lemonade
because E. coli could grow in it.  It's ridiculous.  Scare tactics to suggest
that - oh horrors - E. coli can grow in lemonade!

Same thing here.  If you don't make compost tea, how can you try to make the
case that E. coli can grow in compost tea?

---------
Now, should you ask your compost maker for evidence that their compost has no 
E.
coli?  Yes.  When we have tested Freedom Organic compost, we have not found E.
coli in their compost.  But, any composting company that sells compost needs 
to
have that documentation.

Quick and easy methods for assessing human pathogens are being developed, in
light of the antrax in the mail scare last fall.  I'm hoping this will occur
sooner rather than faster.  We are working with people who do molecular
fingerprinting, a rapid way to assess the diversity of bacteria and fungi in
your soil, composst and tea.  The price of doing this is down from 1000's of
dollars, to merely $60 per sample.  We're working out how to present the data,
turning the gene sequence data into something that means something to a 
grower.
So, just a bit longer....

One last thing - the reason we aerate compost tea is to make certain the
bacteria and fungi that compete with, inhibit and consume E. coli, pathogens,
the bad guys, etc are growing.  In neither paper in the Biocycle meeting did
they document they have any kind of life other than E. coli in the compost 
they
used.  So, again, they did not use compost.

Enough sugar was added to let a few bacteria drive the tea anaerobic.  The E.
coli grew up fast, and with nothing to control them, were detected.  With
correct aeration, with compost used to start with, this doesn't happen.

If people pretend to test compost tea, they have to first make compost tea.

Elaine Ingham

compostteas-request AT lists.ibiblio.org wrote:

> From: "Jaszewski, Thomas" <tomjasz AT mirage.com>
> To: "'compostteas AT lists.ibiblio.org'" <compostteas AT lists.ibiblio.org>
> Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 07:39:38 -0700
> Subject: [Compostteas] E. coli and compost tea
>
> This entire issue is of major concern to me. We continue to work on
> developing a base for the tea that would preclude the possibility of
> producing E. coli. Am I correctly assuming that with a product like APC,
> there would be little if any chance of growing E. coli, even if the oxygen
> levels were to low? I understand that a number of products, like Freedom
> Organics, use manure. I also see our own results demonstrated FO produces a
> wonderfully diverse tea. I have to admit to not carefully reading the label.
> Had I done so we probably would NOT have brewed with it. It is just too
> scary for many of us who have already taken enormous personal risks in
> converting to tea based horticulture programs.
>