permaculture

[Soil Doctor <soildoctor.org@gmail.com>]

Hi Killian

Sorry for not replying earlier; busy planting a big microbiological compost 
tea corn trial in Mexico. Thanks for your response - glad I could help. It 
would be great if you posted the thread.  No objections here. All the best.

Doug

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Doug Weatherbee, M.A.
Certified Soil Foodweb Advisor
Certified Permaculture Designer
http://www.soildoctor.org

San Miguel de Allende, GTO
Mexico
415.152.3410 (San Miguel #)
310.359.8549 (U.S.A #)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 4
> Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 14:22:09 -0400
> From: Killian O'Brien <admin@pri-de.org>
> To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Subject: Re: [permaculture] Compost Tea and Urine question
> Message-ID:
>       
> <7E471FF35774474AA10A2EEEF1CAB26A0149FB14E648@P1EC1EVS03.HMC1.COMCAST.NET>
>       
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> 
> That was a truly excellent response. I will post to our Facebook page and 
> perhaps website in case anyone else has the same "bright" idea. Unless, of 
> course, you object.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Killian O'Brien
> PRI-De
> admin@pri-de.org
> (313) 647-4015
> 
> killiankob@yahoo.com
> (760) 617-4693
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org 
> [mailto:permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Soil Doctor
> Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2010 10:58 AM
> To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: [permaculture] Compost Tea and Urine question
> 
> Hi Killian
> 
> Compost tea that has been brewed from properly created aerobic bacterial or 
> fungal dominated compost, fed either bacterial or fungal foods at the 
> beginning of the compost tea brew time, and actively aerated with oxygen 
> during the entire brew cycle is a collection of beneficial aerobic 
> Bacteria, Fungi, Flagellates, Amoebae and Nematodes.  You may have a small 
> # of facultative anaerobic microbes like Archaea and some Bacteria, and 
> maybe very very few Cilliates. But the #s dominance of aerobes is 
> absolutely key for a beneficial compost tea.  Actively aerated compost tea 
> isn't a fertilizer (well a tiny tiny portion is plant soluble fertilizer at 
> any given moment but I'll get to that below). It's an innoculum of 
> beneficial micro-organisms designed to reproduce more in your soils, 
> adjusting the bacterial:fungi ratio of your soils to meet your plant needs 
> (different plant groups require different bacteria:fungi biomass ratios for 
> optimal growth and health - check out a comment I mad
> e on this here - 
> http://permaculture.org.au/2009/11/08/soil-food-web-course-with-dr-elaine-ingham/
>   ).  
> 
> The amount of soluble plant available nutrients (fertilizer) like Nitrates 
> (NO3) or Ammonium (NH4) is very very small in comparison to the amount of 
> nutrients tied up and unavailable to plants (non-soluable) inside the 
> bodies of all those beneficial microbes.  At any given moment in a 
> biologically live compost tea, a flagellate is eating a bacterium and 
> excreting NH4 as waste (soluble), then a fraction of second later an other 
> bacterium or a fungal hyphae is absorbing that waste NH4, or an other 
> nitrification bacterium is converting that NH4 to Nitrite (NO2), then 
> another to NO3, then an other bacterium absorbs it, and so on, billions and 
> billions of times a second.  When this biologically live compost tea is 
> placed on plant leaves or on the soil near plant roots, the plants "feed" a 
> wide range of photosynthetically derived exudates (sugars and simple 
> proteins) to the bacteria and some fungi, increasing their numbers.  
> Bacteria and fungi predators come in, eat them and make n
> utrient rich plant soluble excretions right on the root surface (or 
> rhizosphere.) This is the true function of a beneficial aerobic compost 
> tea: microbial innoculum that juices up microbial nutrient cycling that 
> produces plant soluble nutrients (fertilizers).
> 
> Putting high concentrations of urine in a good compost tea means increasing 
> the salt content of the tea.  This will change the ecology of your tea, 
> killing some beneficial microbes and selecting for the growth of Halophilic 
> microbes.  Halophiles are "extremophile" organisms that thrive in 
> environments with high concentrations of salt.  Sure, when you increase the 
> salt concentration in the tea you will "release" a plant soluble nutrient 
> pulse because you've just burst the bodies of a bunch of nutrient dense 
> microbes that aren't Halophilic.  But what you've done is get a short term 
> soluble nutrient gain at the expense of losing the long term microbial 
> innoculum producing ever increasing nutrient cycling.
> 
> Doug
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Doug Weatherbee, M.A.
> Certified Soil Foodweb Advisor
> Certified Permaculture Designer
> http://www.soildoctor.org
> 
> San Miguel de Allende, GTO
> Mexico
> 415.152.3410 (San Miguel #)
> 310.359.8549 (U.S.A #)
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~