Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Soilsecrets@aol.com]

Paul,

 

That is hilarious and made my day,  good points for sure?   It reminds me of when NMSU was doing research with compost tea and trying to grow better grass on the high desert soils of the Jornada Ranch which is Chihuahuan desert.  The Research Ranch is located at high elevation of 4,000 feet to 5000 feet.  Of course I've already said that the compost tea project failed big time, but the real issue I guess is why the heck are we trying to grow beef on such fragile land in the first place.  There is also the Leyendecker Plant Science Research Center and Farm that the compost tea was applied on irrigated crops such as alfalfa, onions, cotton etc., and it failed on those sites as well. 

 

Your point about the building of top soil/humus in the soil as the foundation of a good effort is well taken and significant because again compost tea cannot directly be responsible for such benefits.  I think it can contribute the foliar uptake of minor and major nutrients that a crop does need and consequently if you measure for those benefits you could see a reason to use compost tea.  And perhaps on the long run if you are recycling biomass that was made healthier by providing these minor and major nutrients via foliar feeding with a good quality compost tea, then the re mineralization of this biomass could help to contribute to the Soil Food Web and result in a slow Humification process.  But it will be very slow and not a ridiculous claims like building 12" of top soil in just one year. 

 

 

Dr. Michael