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  • From: Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] [FWD] Adam Ormes Court: compost tea, Elaine Ingham, biodynamics
  • Date: Sun, 17 May 2015 11:28:54 -0400

[FWD] Adam Ormes Court: compost tea, Elaine Ingham, biodynamics

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Adam Ormes Court ormus23@gmail.com [compost_tea] <
compost_tea@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Sun, May 17, 2015 at 7:18 AM
Subject: Re: [compost_tea]
To: compost_tea@yahoogroups.com
I posted a question about compost teas a month ago, however nobody answered
it...

Here it is again:

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Greetings,

My first post here.

Have become interested in this subject through Elaine Ingham's work; for me
it casts a very interesting light on the biodynamic horn manure
preparation, especially given that Steiner was talking about
vortex-stirring it in a barrel, ie oxygenating. (Biodynamicists please take
note, I'm not being reductionistic here - I feel that there is more going
on with the preps - but that fact in itself is very interesting.) A friend
and I interviewed her recently and asked about biodynamics among other
things, so if you're interested in that you can listen to the interview
here: http://www.needfire.info/home/interview-with-dr-elaine-ingham
Anyway, moving swiftly on, this leads me to my question...

I've been looking at the literature on the oxygen content of compost teas.
In Elaine's compost tea manual, I see that the advice is not to allow
oxygen levels to drop below 6ppm in order to prevent the development of
anaerobic organisms. The relevant chapter features a chart showing oxygen
levels over time as the tea brews, starting at 8ppm, and starting to dip
after 8, to a low of about 5ppm after 19 hours and starting to recover
thereafter. It is also stated that the tea brew used molasses and kelp -
which in itself is a little confusing as I thought that adding molasses was
generally not a good idea? But regardless of that, the point here is that
the oxygen dropped below 5ppm and therefore the quality of the tea is
likely not great as anaerobes will have had a chance to multiply.

Therefore... I would like to know what the D.O. content of the brew ought
to be at before the organisms start to affect it. Or is this not a simple
equation?

The second part of my question is regarding what happens after the brewing
stops.

I've yet to get a good picture of what happens once a bubbler is turned
off. Do the organisms start to die off for lack of oxygen, or do they
become dormant? How quickly does the quality deteriorate?

In this context the research done into making compost teas with flowforms
is particularly of interest to me. There is a document here
<http://flowform.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Oxygenation-Report.pdf>
which in its final heading documents some research done by Joel Williams at
Laverstoke Park into the D.O. content of water put through a Flowform,
which shows that it remained high for 8 days, which was not when it went
down, but when he stopped taking readings. My understanding is that this is
in stark contrast to brews made with bubblers.

If this is true, then it would seem to me that this would be worthy of
further investigation... have any here looked into this?

Best,

Adam

--
"The roots of knowledge are bitter, but its fruit are sweet."
— Cicero, Roman Statesman (106-43BC)




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