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

["Soil Foodweb, Inc." <info AT soilfoodweb.com>]

> Hi folks -

Please remember the reason for all this discussion about the size of pumps, 
CFMs,
mixing, extracting, etc is to EXTRACT organisms, to MIX them so they find the 
foods
you added in the tea - presumably uniformly distributed, but not always as
sedimentation and biofilms do occur - and to MAINTAIN AEROBIC conditions.

You can mix too much.  You can smash your organisms to smithereens if you get 
too
much of a tornado or hurricane going.  It takes real hurricane force, but you 
can
achieve the equivalent of a violent storm in a tea maker.

I did some testing once (for free because I wanted to know the information as 
did
the person who owns the tea maker) where the person kept adding more and more
aeration to the tea tank.  The organisms that were extracted from the compost 
were
smashed to bits above a certain mixing level.

So, please be aware that too much of a good thing can be detrimental.

Compost tea makers need to remember the "Goldilocks" principle - not too much 
and
not too little.  We want "just right".  Remember the porridge - not to hot 
and not
too cold?  The bed?  Not to soft and not too hard?  Same thing here - enough 
to
extract, but not too much that the critters are crushed.

And 90 degree turns in pipes are stupid.  The faster the mixing, the more 
critters
end up smashed on the opposite side of the pipe of that 90 degree turn.

How do you know when you have the mixing, extracting and aerating just right? 
 Ask
the organisms.  Ok, so you can't talk to them.  You send samples of the tea 
to the
lab to get counted.  Again, plate counts for total organism numbers don't 
tell you
what you want to know.  You have to do direct counts, which is what SFI does. 
 We
also do active organisms, not just total organism biomass.  You need to know 
how
many bacteria, fungi, protozoa and nematodes are ACTIVE, and are going to 
manage to
grow and stick to your leaves....

Go forth and brew!

Elaine Ingham
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.