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

[Carole Eddington <eddington AT lvcm.com>]

Perry wrote:  Carole,

Would you tell us what tests you feel are important to test your new 500
gallon brewer and how you have your brewer set up?

thanks,
Perry


<snip>
>We are down to 8-12 Tablespoons (4-6 oz) of sugar in our 400-500 gallon
brewer
<snip>
>and 48 cups in the 500 gallon.
<snip>
>Carole Eddington


Dear Perry,

The units we are using are 500 gallon and 100 gallon units.  Air (no
recirculating pumps) is dispersed through diffusers and bubblers for
aeration, extraction and mixing, nylon baskets 18 mesh.

So far we have tested over 40 brews with SFI.  Over and over to get repeated
consistent results is our goal. Then we have had leaf analysis done before
applying tea and after applying tea.  One test we took a leaf that had been
sprayed over a month before and sent it in for a pathogen inhibition assay,
still showed strong suppression.

I had the water tested at our county water lab as well as each ingredient I
was adding to the mix, then made adjustments based on those results.  We
diluted the ingredients to get a representation of how much was in each
brew.  We mainly tested ph, sodium, chloride, EC.

I just found a small meter from Hanna that tests EC, temperature and Ph all
in one meter for $150 (I had been doing each separately with a variety of
meters). I still don't trust my new meter completely, so I am double
checking temperature with a separate meter.  I have done a lot of testing of
the water before adding ingredients, then immediately after adding
ingredients, and then a couple times during the brewing cycle.

I use a DO meter from American Marine for about $250.  Meters are really
tricky.  I have spent hours on the phone to be sure I am using them
correctly with the manufacturer and SFI.

I just sent in for a nutritional, chemical analysis of the tea, probably not
worth the money, microorganisms are the beneficial aspect of tea, unless you
add nutrients after the brew before applying - but Elaine I think is testing
for different thresholds of how much nutrients will start affecting
microorganisms - so I will wait for her results.

We have done about a dozen pathogen inhibition assays to see what the tea
may suppress in the lab --- but that is only lab results and not the field.
In fact we had them refrigerate the tea and then take it out every few days
(at day 2,3,7,14,21,28) and see if our tea could still suppress a particular
pathogen.  Very surprising, bogged down a bit at day 21, but was still
suppressing at day 28.

And all the field testing on a variety of crops and application rates.  Hope
this helps.

Carole Eddington