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

["Scott Alexander" <daylily AT bigpond.com>]

I posted this before but did not receive any comments.
Scott


Elaine replied -
I'm confused.  Hay bags?  Soil in the compost bag?

Hi Elaine and the CT Group - OK, lets start again.
I have huge cultivated beds in which I grow my daylilies. The soil must very
very fertile and have a pretty good soil food web because I plant a daylily
piece the size of your thumb and a year later there is a huge clump with 10
to 12 divisions in it. I mulch with organic hay between the rows and if I
disturb the hay when digging plants, there are lots of springtails. So - I
deduce, there could be lots of fungi in the top 2 inches & maybe some in the
hay? If not, then maybe protozoa in the hay? I have a bag with alfalfa and
hay hanging the brewer - is this not acceptable?

Is it not a good practice to have soil in the brewer? It has never blocked
the spray equipment or damaged the pump.

Another thing. When I dig a daylily I often see a dozen or more worms around
the roots and crown. Doesn't this mean they are feeding on the
micro-organisms which have gathered there?  So . . . if I was to dig up a
plant with a football-size ball of soil and place this in a bag in the tea,
wouldn't the microbes from it be extracted? They certainly would be
indigenous and wouldn't they be the "right" ones?  The root growth three to
four months after planting is quite phenomenal and from this i deduce that
there must be billions of beneficials in that root ball feeding off the root
exudates and feeding the plant as well. It is always difficult to shake the
soil off the roots, so from that i deduce that there must be a huge
population of microbes gathered there.
So in the brewer there is a bag of compost, a bag of vermicast, a bag of
rock dust, a bag of alfalfa & hay, and a bag of old forest litter and old
wood chips which have fungi threads in it, plus - kelp, fish, humic acid,
fulvic acid, molasses, and saponim. Now how could e. coli get in there?
I don't think I mentioned it in the information I sent SFI with the last
batch of tea that there was a daylily plant - leaves, roots and all - in a
bag in the brew. Maybe it helped to build up the bacteria (Total = 983) and
fungi (Total = 18.8)? Maybe it had no value at all?

A lack of springtails doesn't mean no fungi.  Lots of other critters eat
fungi.  Some recent work by Andy Moldenke suggests that enchytraeids eat
fungi.  As do sow bugs, and earthworms, and beetle larve, and millipedes and
centipedes and .....  a zillion other critters in the forest floor.  Low
springtails may just mean someone else got there first.....

That's good news! My next test will show fungi totals = 30 !?!? (VBG)