permaculture

[Steve Diver <steved@ncatark.uark.edu>]

Forwarding this announcement, a new publication
from ATTRA called "Notes on Compost Teas."

Steve Diver

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• From: Steve Diver <steved@NCATARK.UARK.EDU>
• To: SANET-MG@LISTS.IFAS.UFL.EDU
• Subject: ATTRA: Notes on Compost Teas
• Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 16:55:54 -0600

New item on the ATTRA web page:

Notes on Compost Teas: A Supplement to Compost Teas for
Plant Disease Control
http://www.attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/PDF/compost-tea-notes.pdf
A 19-page PDF download with text and slides (March, 2002)

Compost teas are a hot topic in organic agriculture.

The rhizosphere and the phyllosphere are those zones of rich
biological activity on the root and leaf surfaces. That is
where the spores from pathogens land and then germinate and
get a hold on plants which result in diseases like early blight,
anthracnose, and powdery mildew.

Yet, with compost teas you have an opportuntity to inoculate
these plant surfaces with a healthy population of diverse
beneficial microrganisms which fight the bad guys and save
your crops from disease outbreaks.

Organic growers, prohibited from using synthetic fungicides
to control diseases, are taking to compost teas
like a mud salamander to water after a long Texas drought.

Yet, disease control is just one of the benefits of compost
tea application. They also provide soluble nutrients,
enzymes, bioactive compounds, and other substances.
Crops tend to green up and look strong and healthy
after a dose of compost teas. In some instances remarkable
yield increases have been recorded. Well, if you are an agricultural
field that's been regularly dosed with chemicals and suffered
from tillage overkill for 20 years, and then one day a biological
farmer comes along with a cup of microbial tea, you would
be singing "green acres and sunshine", too. Such is the case in
California on a number of "conventional" farms converted to
"biological" farming. Soils that were becoming hard as a rock
and a haven for soil-borne diseases have been reclaimed with
bulk composts and compost teas.

"Notes on Compost Teas" provides a summary of liquid extracts
and compost tea brewing methods, it has a list of compost
tea brewing equipment, and it has a large selection of web
resources which you can look through for background reading
and research on this topic. The other section I think
you will find interesting is Elaine Ingham's data on
characteristics of a healthy soil foodweb, minimum standards
for compost, and minimum standards for compost teas.

Of special interest is the section titled "Key Literature,"
which contains several OFRF research reports, a pointer to
SFI's "Compost Tea Brewing Manual," and compost tea reports
from William Brinton's at Woods End Agricultural Research
Laboratory.

There is also a section with slides that provide a
complementary presentation on compost teas, including
microscopic close-up views of the phyllosphere. It is
a jungle out there on the leaf surface, with hundreds
of species of microbes living there amidst the undulating
epidermal surfaces covered with a forest of trichomes.

Best wishes on the Spring Equinox,
Steve Diver

===============================================
Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas (ATTRA)
P.O. Box 3657
Fayetteville, AR 72702
800-346-9140
501-442-9842 Fax
http://www.attra.ncat.org

ATTRA is a project of NCAT - National Center for
Appropriate Technology
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