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

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  • From: "Tom Jaszewski" <tomj AT lvcm.com>
  • To: <compostteas AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Compostteas] Elaine Responds - Responses to Vol 1 #8 - 11 msgs
  • Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 16:58:54 -0700


Hi to the list -

Elaine here. I'm on vacation. Even I get to take it easy sometimes. Well,
OK, not in my personality to take it easy. I've been snorkeling -- lots --
it's what my husband loves to do. I went to see Star Wars #2. I watched
sunset and star rise from Haleakala Crater. I've eaten a lot of good food.
Some not so good food -- my digestive system let me know. I have a
digestive system that has problems, as some of you know.

I read through the recent mails, and yes, fungi in tea are harder to
achieve. Fungi grow in tea just fine, but you have to first extract them,
and then feed them, without getting too much competition from the bacteria.

Both Soil Soup people and Growing Solutions people have told folks that
fungi don't grow in tea, but clearly, they are completely wrong about that!
Fungi grow fine in tea, you just have to get the environment right for them.

The trick is to balance bacterial and fungal extraction from the compost and
bacterial and fungal growth with the food resources added.

Too much bacterial growth, and the fungi can't compete. Both because of
lack of oxygen, which fast-growing bacteria use up rapidly, and because
bacteria have better enzymes for grabbing resources (food) than fungi in
liquid culture. So, you have to give the fungi some help.

Bacteria are easy to pull off the compost. Fungi are not. Anything that
filters the tea, filters out the fungi because fungi are strands, filaments,
not tiny little dots like bacteria.

So, a fabric bag is a real problem. The fungi get stuck in the fibers. A
filter that pulls out the particulates MAY pull out the fungal strands too.
You have to clean any filter often so the fungi don't get filtered out. So
when trying something new, you have to check to see what it does to the
fungi.

Fungal foods -- saponin is good, but it foams to high heaven. Bruce Elliott
shared his experience with me once -- everything was fine when he left late
evening, after putting saponin in the brew mid-afternoon. When he walked in
early the next morning, his entire facility was waist deep in foam. His
phone conversation with me was rather, ah.... but he came to appreciate
vegetable oil. Just a few drops helps cut the foam. But be careful of the
kind of oil - SOME canola oils and olive oils are anti-fungal. You might
want to test before and after adding the oil to see what effect the oil had
on the organisms.

Fungal foods are important. In Australia, the Nutri-tech products work
great (thank you Scott for testing this and giving me the opportunity to say
something!), as do the Tryton products. Which do you want to buy? I am not
going to rule on this!!! Try them both, see which works best for you!!!!

In the US, try the Helena Chemical Co.. Hydra-Hume AN. New Era Farm
Services has a couple good humic acid mixes, please try the different ones.
Acta-Grow has several good humic acid products. We aren't done testing
Bio-Vita, so stay tuned there. Eco-nutrients works well in some conditions.
Hum, I could go on, but stay tuned to the SFI website - we are about to
re-vamp the products page and put all this kind of data on the website.
Hopefully, some of that will get into the compost listserve too.

There are a number of products that when you add them, they kill the
bacteria or fungi. So, we need to know those things.

Equisetum - no data that I am aware that show fungal improvement. Please
remind me if I have forgotten your data that shows otherwise. (I am not
perfect, the search and locate memory function sometimes doesn't function,
you have to help me out!!!!)

But, potassium and nitrogen are improved, usually, since Equisetum
concentrates those nutrients. So, if your fungi aren't growing because your
soil lacks K, throw some horsetail in the brew. What if you don't have
Equisetum? Try banana peels. They are high in K - well, usually. Some of
the commercially grown banana apparently DON'T have normal levels of K. Get
organically grown bananas to be sure.

So, fungi need K, and N too. They need ORGANIC nitrogen. Any nitrogen that
is complexed with organic material. Urea is not a good idea, because urea
is rapidly converted to nitrate and that grows plant disease fungi.

Organic foods - but not too much food! We are getting people to reduce the
molasses in the teas because in most tea makers, aeration is limiting. The
recipes in the Compost Tea Brewing Manual are based on the work we did with
the MICROB-BREWER, which has outstanding aeration. None better. So, higher
amounts of sugars could be added and not affect fungal growth because of
lack of aeration. But bio-films become a problem.

No clay. That definitely helps the bio-film form. And makes cleaning your
tea maker a real pain.

So, I'll check for more questions Friday, so send questions! I enjoy the
exchange. You folks have great comments, and new points of view. Let's
share this experience! What have you been doing that works? What doesn't
work for you? Comments and experiences all accepted, just keep things
factual.

Elaine





  • [Compostteas] Elaine Responds - Responses to Vol 1 #8 - 11 msgs, Tom Jaszewski, 05/22/2002

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