Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Ryan Albinger" <ryalbinger@earthlink.net>]

I am a user and believer in aerobic compost tea.  I encourage anyone to
give it a try, it's not rocket science and you don't have to spend a
fortune.  You just need good compost and/or worm castings, possibly some
good additives, and a compost tea brewer that will get maintain oxygen
concentration in the solution.  For my little compost tea brewer, I built a
little bucket bubbler brewer that cost me $21.  (and for those following
Soil Food Web results, the lab stated Excellent Bacteria, Excellent Fungi,
Adequate Protozoa, and no Nematodes with the compost and ingrediants I was
using)  Easy step by step instructions and parts list have been put
together by Bruce Dueley and David Hall and are available at: 
http://dchall.home.texas.net/organic/teamaker/ .  Or without hassle or
worry, buy a Bob's Bitti or Bobolator.
I focus my response to nay sayers like this.  If you think it works, it
works, and it can go the other way.  If you attribute the benefits of the
compost tea to just the nutrients- well, at least you know you seen
benefits.  On that line, I would also add the ability of foliar nutrients
to be absorbed by the plant are greater than soil applied of the same
amount.  So if extracting nutrients from compost by leachate, extraction,
and/or aerated brewing, well that is a low cost, simple way to get those
nutrients effectively into the plant and getting some biology that you may
or may not believe are of help the plant and soil.  Spend the time and a
couple bucks on a good compost tea brewer, learn how the believers are
making good tea by their standards, and experiment for your situation.  If
the good biology helps, wonderful.  If it's just there, so be it.
Aerobic compost tea has been shown to do good.  Some say it does nothing. 
I have yet to hear it does bad.  In light of the potential benefits, why
not give it a try?  Where else can you get benefit from less than $1 an
acre product?  With my products and homemade brewer, I brew aerobic compost
tea for about $.035 per gallon including equipment expensed, electricity,
labor, and product purchased and produced.  Applied at 10 gallons per acre,
and more could be better, it costs me $.35 an acre for the brewed tea at 10
gpa.  I call myself crazy for not trying it sooner.

Ryan Albinger


> [Original Message]
> From: TradingPostPaul <tradingpost@riseup.net
> Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Compost tea and bugs in a jug
>
> On a backyard scale, I've used some compost water on container plants,
> simply because I couldn't add compost or worm castings to the soil level
in
> the container. But I didn't give it time to multiply the bacteria because
I
> just wanted some goodies from the compost that would leach into the
> containers without raising the soil level too much. Now, in starting my
> growing beds and wide rows I use compost - lots of compost - but trying to
> make good use of it I work it into the soil instead of leaving it on top
to
> dry in the sun and wind. 
>
> paul, tradingpost@riseup.net
> listowner
> ---------------