Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Steve Diver <steved@ipa.net>]

Michael -

Compost teas vary in efficacy for disease suppression 
and/or plant growth promotion depending on several factors,
namely the source of compost, the brewing method,
the geographically-influenced agroclimate, and the crops 
being treated.   

Many organic farms perform quite well without ever
using compost teas.   

Other biological amendment products and soil management 
practices can achieve the desired results of disease 
suppression and plant growth promotion.  Some of these 
perform more consistently.   

It would be great to read your comments on these
other products and methods.   What works in your
experience.  

Fyi, the popular articles on Dr. Linda Chalker-Scott's 
web page are written for gardeners and landscape
owners. 

http://www.puyallup.wsu.edu/%7ELinda%20Chalker-Scott/

Her statement you shared, "Aerated compost  teas have 
no scientifically documented effect as a pathogen suppression", 
is inaccurate or outdated, as demonstrated otherwise by several
peer-reviewed journal articles and by presentations at 
scientific symposiums such as American Phtyopathological 
Society.

If you have a link or a citation to the arboretum study,
apparently a compost tea field trial that she conducted, 
please post the link.   

Steve Diver 



>From: Soilsecrets@aol.com
>
>Ryan,
> 
>You may say that nothing bad can happen concerning  Compost tea.  But not 
>being exposed to several million dollars a  year worth of damaged crops on 
>commercial farms like we at Soil Secrets are  exposed to, you are sheltered 
>from 
>this bad news.  I and my staff of PhD  Soil and Crop Scientists must contend 
>with 
>this all the time as we are hired by  professional and commercial farmers 
>who 
>got sucked into the Compost tea  concept.  As one client said to me last 
>summer after he had purchased a 500  gallon compost tea brewer and hired the 
>famous compost tea person to advise him  on using this machine and 
>evaluating the 
>finished product - "She has gone from  his hero to zero club".  
> 
>There are studies where an increase in foliage disease did occur, caused by  
>compost tea.  Check out the City of Seattle's Washington Park Arboretum  
>study 
>done  that showed if nothing else no difference between spraying  water and 
>spraying compost tea.  In fact in some cases the compost tea  caused an 
>increase in foliage disease in this study.  Dr. Linda Chalker  Scott did the 
>study. 
>One of her conclusions and I agree 100 percent because I  done 30 years of 
>trying to make compost tea work as well:  "Aerated compost  teas have no 
>scientifically documented effect as a pathogen suppression" 
> 
>Dr. Michael