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

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  • From: "Frank Teuton" <fteuton AT sympatico.ca>
  • To: "Jeff Lowenfels" <jeff AT gardener.com>, "Tom Jaszewski" <tomj AT lvcm.com>, "William F. Brinton" <wbrinton AT woodsend.org>, <compostteas AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Compostteas] Re: Safety and E coli
  • Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 08:04:38 -0400

Hi Jeff,
 
Of all the comments in here, the following one lept out at me:
 
"Stop being an organic gardener and become a scientific one."
 
It would be illuminating for me to know what you think is unscientific about organic gardening and farming. It may interest you to know that many people feel the word 'organic' hinders English language practitioners; in French and other languages the distinction is between chemical farming and biological farming. Thus organic gardening translates as 'jardinage biologique' in French.
 
When you recognize this and re-pose your comment as:
 
'Stop being an biological gardener and become a scientific one.'
 
I think you will realize that it doesn't quite make sense.
 
There is, of course, no limit to the amount of scientific knowledge a particular grower could ask him or herself to gather in the course of growing a crop, to the point of being uneconomically obsessive. (At this point you may decide to become a researcher rather than a grower, eh?)
 
There are legitimate questions about the robustness or fragility of the compost tea making technology. They include the possibility of anaerobia when recipes are exceeded, the issue of aeration parameters, and the need to begin with high quality compost. Just to illustrate this, consider the following:
 
Factors affecting oxygen transfer include temperature, bubble size, salinity, and depth of the water.
 
 
A four foot deep tank with identical volume and aeration equipment operating at the full depth, would deliver twice the carrying capacity for fish as a system 2 feet deep, all else being equal, and bubble size difference can affect carrying capacity substantially as well.
 
****************************
 
While using compost from vegetable sources is one way to attempt to sidestep the whole manure problem, see if you can find vegetable matter that has zero bird droppings, no trace of dog manure, or any trace of other vertebrate manure. Not too easy, eh?
 
Recall the alfalfa sprouts with salmonella problem?
 
 
Note that they seem to be seeking a sterilizing type of answer. Remember Bob Rodale, who wrote long ago in Organic Gardening magazine about the Chinese practice of sprouting in earth boxes? That is just the opposite type of answer. It is the kind of answer biological growers and compost tea people are looking for, the answer of finding a competitive microbial matrix with which to outcompete and control disease.
 
In earth boxes sprouts can begin right away the crucial business of organizing rhizosphere mutualists; in a sterile sprouting environment these mutualists are virtually absent. The food value differences Rodale recited in earth box sprouts were really quite remarkable.
 
The long and short of it is, that compost tea and soil food web and organic (biological) growing are part of a paradigm which sees healthy life as intertwined and interdependent with other life forms, whereas the matrix society we live under too often turns to sterilizing everything (e.g. anti-bacterial soap) as the answer.
 
It might be worth your while to read some Louis Bromfield, for example Out of the Earth is quite a good read, see especially the 'Chicken Litter Story'. The idea of sterility in agriculture, and the battle of those holding to ecological, balanced matrix concepts against it, is a very old one.
 
It is sad for me to see members of the US Composting Council who have every reason to know better, engaging in what looks to me like 'echo-effect' germophobia. But, Dennis Avery used it to advantage in his screeds against organic agriculture, and as Auden put it:
 
"You and I already know what every schoolchild learns, those to whom evil is done, do evil in return."
 
Another thing to keep in mind here, Jeff, and others, is that the parties in this dispute also represent institutions which compete with each other; SFI, Woods End and BBC labs, for example. I am not saying there is crass loss of objectivity, but the fact that competing interests are at work here should not be forgotten in considering the arguments being put forward.
 
Remember too, the difference between science and technology---properly understood, science is a quest of discovery of law like regularities, demonstrated by repeatable experimental evidence, whereas technology is usually connected to market forces to a degree that science is not. Science is made possible by the development of wealth sufficient to support it, but it is not dependent on any specific wealth center, but on the repeatability of core experiments.
 
That is why what I have specifically demanded of the compost tea naysayers is the details of their experiments which purport to show the E.coli risks of compost tea making.  At the same time, I hope we can get more clarity on the parameters needed to properly aerate and house our multiplying microherds.
 
Yours for more clarity,
 
Frank Teuton
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, June 17, 2002 10:34 PM
Subject: RE: [Compostteas] Re: Safety and E coli

A few points.
 
First, don't get me  wrong, I think the debate is healthy ( AND I APPRECIATE IT BEING KEPT ON A HIGH LEVEL) , but in this internet age I bridle at the words "I have a friend who..." I am sure there was something wrong with the eye and it could have been e coli in tea, but it could have been lots of other things. The point is there are a lot of variables it would be nice to check on.....
 
Second, no one should use compost with E.Coli for anything...putting on food crops? In teas? Ick. In fact, it is not compost if it has E.Coli. Either it didn't heat up enough or long enough OR it didn't sit long enough after the heat to allow the beneficial to do their job.
 
Third, if any of us are worried, then it is our own fault. HAVE YOUR COMPOST TESTED if you use manures. If you buy compost, then ask of the test of the material you are buying. How else will you know what is in it and what you are doing to your soil and plants? This is the day and age of science. Take advantage of it. Stop being an organic gardener and become a scientific one.
 
Fourth, you can find composts that do not have manures added to them if you don't want to follow the above.
 
Cheers,
 
J
 
 
 
 



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