Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Soilsecrets@aol.com]

In a message dated 6/10/2006 11:20:38 P.M. Mountain Standard Time, mikakigr@gmail.com writes:

The 15 lbs now is as many bacteria as would be in  37 tons of compost,  in a liquid it is likely to live in / on the soil and also on the foliage. 

This kind of pseudo science and math is exactly what I'm concerned about.  There is no evidence of any efficacy in this kind of concept what so ever and it is very misleading to the poor consumer who is desperately looking for help and good advice.  There will certainly be an overgrowth of those bacteria that can tolerate the environment of water in a compost tea brewer, but the biomagnification of these numbers are not indicative of any benefit to the plants you are spraying this stuff on!  Furthermore the type of bacteria that are being propagated and encouraged from that 15 pounds of compost are only those that are capable of living in water with some Oxygen saturation, but most likely the bacteria will be dominated by the facultative anaerobes - those that can go anaerobic or aerobic.  Most of the nasty bacteria of your colon and small intestines are facultative anaerobes!  One of the limiting factors of O2 saturation is the elevation of your site and the temperature of the liquid (see attached chart).  For example if you are at sea level and the water is at 80 F the maximum O2 saturation you can have is 8 percent and that is not enough to keep the anaerobic bacteria out of the solution or to keep the facultative anaerobes from dominating the purely aerobic bacteria.  I hope I'm misunderstanding this guys extrapolation of 15 pounds of compost in a compost tea format being equal to the 37 tons, because that is just plain ridiculous!  That is also the kind of junk science that gives our agenda of Organic and Sustainable practices a black eye to the rest of the green industry. 

 

Dr. Michael M. Melendrez

 

 

°C	°F	O2 (PPM)	°C	°F	O2
0	32.0	14.6	21	69.8	8.9
1	33.8	14.2	22	71.6	8.7
2	34.8	13.8	23	73.4	8.6
3	37.4	13.5	24	75.2	8.4
4	39.2	13.1	25	77.0	8.2
5	41.0	12.8	26	78.8	8.1
6	42.8	12.5	27	80.6	8.0
7	44.6	12.2	28	83.4	7.8
8	46.4	11.9	29	84.2	7.7
9	48.2	11.6	30	86.0	7.5
10	50.0	11.3	31	87.8	7.4
11	51.8	11.0	32	89.6	7.3
12	53.6	10.8	33	91.4	7.2
13	55.4	10.6	34	93.2	7.1
14	57.2	10.3	35	95.0	6.9
15	59.0	10.1	36	96.8	6.8
16	60.8	9.9	37	98.6	6.7
17	62.6	9.7	38	100.4	6.6
18	64.4	9.5	39	102.2	6.5
19	66.2	9.3	40	104.0	6.4
20	68.0	9.1