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

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  • From: "Soil Foodweb, Inc." <info AT soilfoodweb.com>
  • To: compostteas AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Compostteas] Re: Saponin and varibility
  • Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 18:35:32 -0500

In reply to Carole and Scott-

I'm back from Hawaii. I actually got tan! Went on a whole afternoon
snorkeling cruise, just my husband and I. Our 27th wedding anniversary!
Had a great meal at Wolgang Puck's restaurant at the Four Seasons on Maui -
Chuck Boerner was so nice to arrange it! The meal was made with his organic
foods from Ono Farms! This was a meal right up there with the best! Check
out Ono Farms on the web - www.onofarms.com The best coffee in the world!
Organic!

Ok, enough commercial! Sorry. Back to work!

Saponin - Helena Chemical Co has exclusive rights to the best saponin
product we've tested yet - no preservatives. And sorry, I haven't seen a
better one. Anything else we have worked with has negative effects, because
of the preservative in the material, low concentration, doesn't get the
organisms to grow. If someone knows of something else, let me know, and
let's test it! But, track down the saponyn product from Helena because it
works.

Aloe vera - you have to be careful about not getting the layer of plant
material right next to the leaf. David Von Pein pointed this out to me at
the Coff's Harbour seminar last March. And he's right - that layer of
material is detrimental to life. So, don't scoup that layer out with the
slime.

Why would leaves have something so detrimental to life? Ah-hem, who eats
aloe vera leaves? No foliar insect that wants to live. So, suggests
another use for that material, doesn't it? Anyone know if someone makes
that pest-repellant? Can we put it in the tea? Spray it on your leaves?
Prevent foliar insects from chowing on your leaves? Lots of research to do
here to figure concentration, amount to add so we dispel bugs we don't want
and not the bugs we do want.

Paul Wagner is correct in saying that if you have good growth, the bacteria
and fungi generally stick just fine. But, just to be sure.... stickers
work. Saponin and Nu-Film work well. Fungi seem to like both of them. But
get the materials without preservatives.

I, of course, being the scientist that I am, want data on anything you try!
I know certain people then say "See, Elaine is just trying to get more money
by making people test", but really, you need the data to know if what you
are adding to your tea is working. Whether the things you add help fungi,
or bacteria.

You need to have the people who make additives for compost tea put data for
their product on their web sites. Don't buy anything if they don't have
data on how it works. Then you know whether to buy the product or not.

I can just hear certain people making that comment again - "Elaine's just
trying to build up her business again". But you have to know whether
something you spend money on is going to work or not. How can you trust a
salesperson to tell you the truth?

Take a look at the GSI website. The data they have shows a big bar where
the "without" their catalyst is much shorter than bar for "with" catalyst.
What they don't show you is that there's no significant different between
the two numbers, really. Plate count data can't differentitate 510 million
bacteria from 550 million bacteria. So, make sure real data, replicated
trials, are on their websites. There needs to be at least three different
runs, using the same conditions, compost, water, temperatures, foods,
etc.and you then get see the variation possible from run to run.

I enjoy the results of four bottles of tea that Kevin Chambers sent in to
us. Same batch of tea. Different amounts of tea in each container, and
total bacterial numbers varied as much as 600 micrograms of total bacterial
biomass per ml. This is not normal to have this type of variation, but we
need to look at quantity of tea being sent in a container. Please remember
to keep the tea less than half the volume of the container. Your microbes
need to breath.

So, do we know everything about tea? No. But we're learning. Shipping
conditions are important. You need to test your first three teas, to make
sure you are doing everything just fine. You need to know you know how to
make tea. You learn the color, smell, texture, oxygen concentration of your
machine, your compost, your starter, etc in your conditions. And then your
set. If something happens, and the tea smells bad, or looks funny, or
something is odd, don't use it. Test it on a place where you won't mind if
you lose a plant or two.

But that's the beauty of this list serve. One person can try something, see
if it works, then let everyone else know what happened. Did the Soil Soup
nutrient mix kill the fungi? Did the EPM nutrient starter enhance the
protozoa? Did the Hendrikus Schraven organic fungal foods increase fungi?
If each person checking things out tells exactly how they did the testing,
I'd be happy to keep the records on that, and when someone runs another
trial, I'd add it to the table of information.

Maybe we could have a fund that everyone contributes to do testing on these
different materials. Or when people want a copy of those results, the
listserve can send it, but charge something for the info, and that would
fund getting the testing done. Can Tom Jaszewski (one of the listservants)
be the coordinator of that fund?

Well, just an idea.... As you all know, I am driven by data. We need more
data to quantify what we're doing. Only by insisting that people selling
you compost tea machines, compost tea catalyst, or starter, or activator,
and compost have data to prove that their material has the organisms, or
feed the organisms, will we get the data we need to know when something is
going to work, and when it isn't going to work.

Sorry for the long answer, but this is important for people to understand.

Elaine Ingham
Soil Foodweb Inc.
www.soilfoodweb.com



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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Saponin (Carole Eddington)
> 2. Saponin (Scott Alexander)
>
> --__--__--
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 16:17:13 -0700
> From: Carole Eddington <eddington AT lvcm.com>
> To: compostteas AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: [Compostteas] Saponin
>
> Hi List,
>
> I am new to the list, but have been following everything.
>
> On 12/1/01 we took our tea sample out for Soil Food Web Testing, then
> put in a saponin, Thermex 70 from Peaceful Valley immediately after and
> took another sample out with the Saponin. The active fungal biomass
> without the saponin were 7.45 and with saponin 4.1. Elaine said it may
> have been some type of preservatives in the saponin or something. I
> have found Desert King is experimenting with a dry powder saponin
> without preservatives. I got a sample but I have not tried it yet.
>
> When we did one Leaf Organisms Assay on 2/13/02 one of our treatment
> plots where we have put a dry mix down and sprayed the entire tree had
> 102 percent coverage (100 percent bacteria and 2 percent fungi). We
> used a tea without saponin. So I keep figuring the wetting agent
> advantage may not be necessary as long as we have enough active
> organisms when applying the tea. Paul Wagner from NY SFI says when they
> are active they start eating immediately and produce sticky substances
> to get them glued. Elaine? But saponin as a food source would be
> great. Any other experiences?
>
> Carole Eddington
>
> --__--__--
>
> Message: 2
> From: "Scott Alexander" <daylily AT bigpond.com>
> To: <Compostteas AT lists.ibiblio.org>
> Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 09:36:26 +1000
> Subject: [Compostteas] Saponin
>
> I haven't tracked down any Yucca extract for my saponin but have been
> scraping the gel out of aloe vera leaves. Is this stuff OK?
>
> Scott
>
> --__--__--
>
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> End of Compostteas Digest




  • [Compostteas] Re: Saponin and varibility, Soil Foodweb, Inc., 05/26/2002

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