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

["Jeff Lowenfels" <jeff AT gardener.com>]

Lots of folks do spray humic acid, seaweed etc. And it does work as
evidenced by the plant growth and results.
I do it myself in supplement to tea on certain things. And, I apply soy bean
meal to my lawn which is tea'd regularly once a week. It works, but it is
not a substitute as far as I can figure.

Wouldn't t this be like saving people who are drowning:  The compost tea is
like the Coast Guard. It comes in with trained divers (microbes) and the
equiptment (nutrients in the tea) and goes down and saves all the tired
people in the water (soil).  The nutient spray is like tossing in life
preservers and letting who ever is down in the water swim to them if they
can and hang on. Which would you rather have save you?

Then there is the question of mineralization to immobolize the nutrients
until they are called for.  You need biology to do that, so even if you
wanted to spray just nutrients, it would make sense to do teas for a few
sessions first, right?

And there is the question of amounts. How many guys in your soil need
feeding, which are going to eat preferentially, which are going to ignore
other food sources and thus not do their job in the web?

And there is the question as to why there are lower numbers of microbes in
the first place. May be it is compact soil, water that is too cold etc.

Nutrient application is just fertilizing. IMHO It does part of the job, but
not nearly all and not nearly as well.

Cheers,

Jeff