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

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  • From: compostteas-admin AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • To: TimelesEnt AT aol.com
  • Cc: "Compost tea List Serve" <compostteas AT lists.ibiblio.org>, "Mina, Vincent/Irene" <mauimina AT t-link.net>
  • Subject: Re: [Compostteas] chromatography
  • Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 14:22:13 -0500

Hi Carol -

Let's keep sight of why paper chromatography was suggested. The point is to
have a simple test that is easy. Convenient. Not difficult. On-site. Cheap
- coffee filter or whatman filter paper #1, and a drop of your tea is pretty
inexpensive.

Isn't the fact that it takes 24 hours to get the data back from SFI, and TAFB
costs $80, the reason why folks are looking for something less expensive, easy
to run on each batch? Use the SFI test on occasion to confirm that your
method
is each-batch testing is telling you that the tea is good.

Are chromas faster than 24 hours? No. The extraction of the material you put
on the filter paper to do the chroma test takes 24 hours (and requires sodium
hydroxide for the extraction - not nice stuff). Once they have been developed
- three to four days later and using more nasty stuff - what do they mean? I
know no one that can tell you what the different patterns mean. What compound
is each band? No one has ever been able to explain that to me. I'd love to
do
the work and figure it out. Send funding.

Chromas require the use of toxic chemicals. The amount of silver nitrate,
gold
nitrate or ferric sulfate needed to do chroma tests is significant. The
reagents are metals, nitrates, sulfates and you have to dispose of them
correctly. I dislike contributing to more pollution if we don't have to use
these chemicals.

Realistically, the chroma tests have to be sent to a lab to be done correctly.
They are not cheap, they are not fast, they cost money, they are difficult to
interpret. None of these are reasons we embarked on this discussion about
simple, easy-to-use, immediate results to tell if your tea is poor, ok, good
or
excellent. Doing an SFI test is faster, cheaper, easier to interpret. Tells
you something different though.

The point of doing paper chromatography is to have something EASY, that you DO
RIGHT AT THE TEA MAKER.

So, if you want to talk about chromas, we should form a thread about that.
Could we start a thread that calls itself "BD CHROMA", and keep on with the
filter paper thread as something separate?

So, I would like a group of people to try the filter paper to see if it would
give useful patterns. Please try it, and then tell everyone else how it
worked. Clear patterns? Nothing useful? What about different paper
materials? Works better.

The beauty is that IF this tells us something useful, everyone could do it.
I'd do the work to relate it to the SFI tests. What do the different patterns
mean? But we need some observations first. Give it a try. Report what
happens.

OK?

Elaine





Elaine Ingham

P.S.
Hey, I've been elected a trustee for the Maui organic growers group! This is
marvelous! I'll be doing a Farm Tour in Hana in August! Everyone is invited
-
ok, you have to pay money, but the person to contact is Vince Mina
mauimina AT t-link.net See you there!

Here's the background for my comment -

TimelesEnt AT aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 7/14/02 1:06:30 AM, ggerrard AT resonant.com.au writes:
>
> << >
> >We would have to do some testing to see if this would actually be
> >indicative of good tea. So, who wants to work on this with me?
> >
> >Elaine Ingham
> >Soil Foodweb Inc.
> >
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> Hi Elaine,
> I used to be a chemist, and I'm interested in doing whatever I can to help.
> Haven't been able to save up enough money to buy my one gallon Alaskan tea
> brewer yet, so I don't have any tea to test.
> I noticed that iron sulphate was mentioned along with silver and gold
> compounds.
> I don't know why that wouldn't be usable, harmless and inexpensive.
>
> Gee, I wish I had a lab.
> Carol





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