Allotments 4 All
Allotment Stuff => The Basics => Topic started by: caroline7758 on April 03, 2011, 21:05:53
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Was anyone else confused by the item on compost tea on GW this week? Why are the RHS using it if they don't even know what the ingredients are??
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I use manure in a old onion sake I fill it half full fill my spare wheely bin and hang it from a wooden rod and leave it to soak for about three weeks and I then use it as a feed for my flowers, beans it works well . I did not see the programe but this must be the same thing ;D
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i know it may have seemed like an april fool's joke, but compost teas, compost wines and microbial brews are now at the cutting edge of organic growing techniques. I've been brewing my own recipes since the mid 1990's and grow wholly organically, with fairly impressive yields. when the RHS bods told Rachel they weren't sure what exactly was going on, but the science was complex - they hit the nail on the head!
Most scientific approaches to microbiology focus on pure (single) species, which are then isolated, grown in macro cultures (so they and their actions can be seen) and therefore only ever understood by their singular properties. Due to the sub-microscopic size, the way differing species interact, or work cooperatively together, can never truly be witnessed. You can of course see their combined effects in terms of the nutrients they cycle and how they change soil structure, chelate minerals, modify water retention, cation exchange capacity and so on...
The problems with compost tea come if you don't brew it right - if incorrectly done, you can introduce pathogens magnified many times and herein lies the mystique of getting the ingredients and the method right. a dark art, it is, much like alchemy Cheesy
but if anyone has any questions, i'd be happy to weigh in with my experiences and knowledge...
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Hello there and thank you for your offer to discuss this.
I am sure there will be loads of Qs - I know there was a mixed response when it was discussed on Friday's GW program.
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i'll do my best to answer what i can, but again, the microbiology is somewhat complex... for the last decade or so on, i've been like that chap in the Yakult adverts - the one who talks about bacteria endlessly - you know? the one who everyone avoids at parties and the pretty girls ignore? ;)
the issue is often *whether* the brews work. once that's tested (aginst controls of course) then the science becomes more interesting, though you can delve into it too much sometimes - like my dad often says "i need to know the time, not how to make a watch!"
in its simplest form, rugbypost has it right - the victorians would steep some cow/ruminant feces (in a burlap sack) in the rainwater butt for a few weeks, then apply liberally. It's still all about the microbes (as is composting, really) but we have the benefit of plant science to at least help us understand the mechanisms, even if it can't be pinned down easily.
anyway, please feel free to ask away.. :)
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Yes, exactly, nail on the head: does it really work?? We could discuss the rationale behind compost tea until the cows come home but is there any published data that says it makes any difference to plant vigor or yield? As you say, controls: here is a bunch of plants we grew at Risley with all our usual TLC and here are a similar group of plants that got the TLC plus the compost tea and you can see a significant difference between the two groups.
I guess that's the nub of the criticism of what was shown on Friday, Rachel seemed to think that the snake oil element was a good thing whereas everyone else thought it was a bit off that she didn't challenge Risley to show us some actual data.
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there's no published data that i'm aware of - it's only just becoming more mainstream, after being a niche/fringe area of research for quite some time
my own trials are of course anecdotal... but favourable, in the main (though a pal in canada found those fruit bushes treated with one of my recipes were singled out by bears and decimated).
but as this only just becoming more mainstream, there appears to be a need to cast the net wider, to encompass the findings of more experienced researchers/growers.
I've been considering donating some of my brews to those who want to try it, to see if it works and in what context (mostly it's been family, friends and keen organic growers i've met who have tried it in the past).
I'm about to get another brew on, now the soil's warmed up, but i'd need potential researchers to report back data on a wide range of indicators...
maybe, now the uk's waking up to the *potential* it might be the time to get an amateur research network up and running? i'm not sure what the appetite is out there, for such an idea...
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Theres a lot in gardening/horticulture thats just rule of thumb, without knowing why. One classic is seaweed - seaweed tea does wonders for the plants that have survived the winter, but no one has ever pinned down exactly why.
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But MicrobeMan, even in a niche it is easy enough to do a pilot study with say 100 plants per group so I'm a bit confused as to why that hasn't happened, particularly as Risley showed it as a proprietary system they'd paid a lot of money for. Surely the company selling the product has generated the data?
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@ lincsyokel: i agree re rule of thumb - and seaweed tea is a good example. i have algae (trace amounts) in most of my brews - you can really smell it when it's added to the rainwater butt.
@denbyVisitor yes it is easy to do a pilot study, providing you get engagement. scpeticism is a funny old thing though, back in the 1990's i tried to get a few "official" trials off the ground using some of my brews, but i was dismayed to find key influencers didn't think it *could* work, so therefore refused to even try it. also, there is a widely held misconception that all bacteria = disease, though without microbes we'd have no bread (unless unleavened), no wine, cheese etc.
the amount of times i gave the brews away, only to find them still in their bottles untouched, some weeks/months on.... and this is just a hobby to me.
but yes, the company who supplied the ingredients in the GW piece possibly do have some data. I went down to Cirencester for a seminar on microbe usage back in 1999, met Dr Higa from Japan, where more folks take it seriously and there was plenty of data from accross the world - largely 3rd world countries who couldn't afford expensive N imports. I just put the lack of interest into research in the uk down to scepticism and cultural myopia.
that being said, i'm currently doing trials with Lincs uni, so maybe the tide's turning..?
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there's no published data that i'm aware of - it's only just becoming more mainstream, after being a niche/fringe area of research for quite some time
my own trials are of course anecdotal... but favourable, in the main (though a pal in canada found those fruit bushes treated with one of my recipes were singled out by bears and decimated).
but as this only just becoming more mainstream, there appears to be a need to cast the net wider, to encompass the findings of more experienced researchers/growers.
I've been considering donating some of my brews to those who want to try it, to see if it works and in what context (mostly it's been family, friends and keen organic growers i've met who have tried it in the past).
I'm about to get another brew on, now the soil's warmed up, but i'd need potential researchers to report back data on a wide range of indicators...
maybe, now the uk's waking up to the *potential* it might be the time to get an amateur research network up and running? i'm not sure what the appetite is out there, for such an idea...
[My Bold].... Well I, for one, would give it a fair go.
I have heard reports from certain 'indoor growers' that compost tea is the bees-knees a far as organics go. I am familiar with the cow-muck-and-burlap-sack method of 'brewing' it.
If it's data you want, I'll help if I can, no problem.
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Yeah me too and I am a sceptic that's for sure. I think: if a company wants 600 quid a shot for this stuff they need to either show me some pretty hot data or failing that try to pull the wool over my eyes with flannel about the wonders of good guy bugs. And from what I saw on Friday they have gone for the latter course.
But even if that is so, it doesn't mean that the concept has no merit. I would love to take you up on your offer and give it a try but it is a bit late in the year for me and I have only been doing this allotment lark for 2 years so I am still getting set up. It would be interesting to see the results of a trial and Risley are well set up to do one - that is what they should have been talking about on Friday. grrrr - another lost opportunity...
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well, it'll take me 2 - 3 weeks to get a fresh batch brewed up. I'll post a call on here for those who wish to try it out. but it's never too late to try it... as long as you can do a control and make sure you don't get cross contamination, which might otherwise skew the results...
the best trial i have found is using tomatoes in grow bags - ok, you may argue that one grow bag has perhaps different compost in it from another, but if you double up - 2 x test and 2 x control, it reduces chance/probabilty of such varience.
works especially well on strawberries, oinions - legumes as well, but equally good results from herbs and although the "blind taste test" may be subjective, if you ask enough folks to put the blindfold on an try the different produce, the results optimise, the more folks you persuade to taste.
all muck and magic? that'll be for you to decide!
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I'd love to be involved please.
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Yes you have definitely got our attention, now I am thinking about my Shirley and Rosada tomato seedings and if I can get a greenhouse up and could test the tea.
I guess we are looking at whether the plants do better but also if they acquire an additional resistance to root diseases like onion rot because you mentioned onions ? Is that right? MM you will definitely get loads of interest if you are posting about this on allotment forums but we need a bit more to guide us and get any meaningful data.
Come back MM we are definitely interested.
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The other wonder stuff that's never really got off the ground despite it being magic is worm poo, sold under various names such as Wormcast Pro. Has a fabulous effect, no one knows exactly why.
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Intersting to know that- our local worm farm brought me some samples to try in hope that our gardeners would buy it.
Also been offered a tour of the worm farm! :)
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I guess we are looking at whether the plants do better but also if they acquire an additional resistance to root diseases like onion rot because you mentioned onions ? Is that right? MM you will definitely get loads of interest if you are posting about this on allotment forums but we need a bit more to guide us and get any meaningful data.
sorry i had to dash - daddy duties n'all :D
yes, the whole perspective of microbes is a "ground up" approach. I was asked to talk to some local farmers recently, about the whole microbe as soil amendment subject. In the main, famers are so used to thinking about feeds "top~down" - about their uptake of N before the rain washes it away, or it escapes in gaseous form into the air. Instead, microbes work from the ground~up, pumping nutrients until the plant says "enough" (the signalling system is by way of polysacharides excreted from the roots).
It's a different way of looking at things, but it's really just about the soil and "nature's barter market" where one species of life gets something in exchange for something else. i digress...
rots, molds, pathogens (whether they be bacterial, fungal, or phages) will be reduced using microbe brews, just because of the sheer numbers of positive (ie non-pathogenic) microbes outcompete that of the pathogens, when applied to the soil, in most cases trapping the pathogens in the bio-films they produce, or just by eating them (a good source fo nitrogen for a hungry microbe!). Some fungi and bacteria will produce vitamins and anti-oxidants, others an organic disinfectants/antibiotics (eg streptomycin).
The issue really is the nature of the soil you're working on. The key thing is to recognise we build healthy soil over time - ok, so old news to allotment growers, but to mainstream plant growers it sometimes comes as a disappointment to learn that microbes brews are not like chemicals: x+y doesn't always = z every time. If you have zillions of pathogenic spores in your soil (eg with bad potato blight infestation) it's going to take a fair old application of microbe brews to change the nature of the contaminated soil - but an improvement will be seen.
which leads me on to the next post - about worms and wormage...
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The other wonder stuff that's never really got off the ground despite it being magic is worm poo, sold under various names such as Wormcast Pro. Has a fabulous effect, no one knows exactly why.
little bit of microbe trivia which will put thing into perspective on this subject:
whenever soil is assessed for health, worms are often counted as an indicator of health and diversity of soil. Ok, fair enough - not surprising. What has been found over and over is that whenever a high worm population is encountered, the microbial population is also noted to be high and show great diversity between species. Conversley, where there are low microbe counts, the worm population is low. Why is this? Well, put simply worms and microbes have a symbiotic relationship. Worms, having no teeth but seven stomachs are a little like "cows of the soil" and like cows (and other ruminants) microbes are required for digestion. A worm needs microbes to digest organic matter and the microbes are "incubated" in the guts of worms - hence the connection and the mutal benefit we see as a symbiotic relationship.
I ferment my compost with microbes, for this reason... then i put the fermented compost in the ground for the worms to feed on - about 8 weeks later (shorter in summer) the compost is all gone and i have healthy, highly humic soil as a reward. Mid way through the process you can dig into the fermented compost piles and find what my 9 year old son calls "worm nests" - millions or red worms, zilions of baby worms (which are white), worm eggs - it's amazing to see.
i'll try to figure out how to post pics to show you a typical worm nest.
the red worms are like the pioneers - once they've been in to munch up all the larger organic fractions, the earthworm population then blooms...
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The other wonder stuff that's never really got off the ground despite it being magic is worm poo, sold under various names such as Wormcast Pro. Has a fabulous effect, no one knows exactly why.
little bit of microbe trivia which will put thing into perspective on this subject:
whenever soil is assessed for health, worms are often counted as an indicator of health and diversity of soil. Ok, fair enough - not surprising. What has been found over and over is that whenever a high worm population is encountered, the microbial population is also noted to be high and show great diversity between species. Conversley, where there are low microbe counts, the worm population is low. Why is this? Well, put simply worms and microbes have a symbiotic relationship. Worms, having no teeth but seven stomachs are a little like "cows of the soil" and like cows (and other ruminants) microbes are required for digestion. A worm needs microbes to digest organic matter and the microbes are "incubated" in the guts of worms - hence the connection and the mutal benefit we see as a symbiotic relationship.
I ferment my compost with microbes, for this reason... then i put the fermented compost in the ground for the worms to feed on - about 8 weeks later (shorter in summer) the compost is all gone and i have healthy, highly humic soil as a reward. Mid way through the process you can dig into the fermented compost piles and find what my 9 year old son calls "worm nests" - millions or red worms, zilions of baby worms (which are white), worm eggs - it's amazing to see.
i'll try to figure out how to post pics to show you a typical worm nest.
the red worms are like the pioneers - once they've been in to munch up all the larger organic fractions, the earthworm population then blooms...
yes, thats why worm poo works so well. QED.
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yes, thats why worm poo works so well. QED.
indeed! it's all about the micobes ;D
and i managed to add nine pics to my gallery, for those who aren't squeemish!
enjoy!
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Thank you MicrobeMan great post and very interesting, I would be interested in learning more. I have a wormery and read about the liquid in the sump and you get different opinions some say it's great for the plants once diluted while another say it's not. What is your opinion?
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I have a wormery and read about the liquid in the sump and you get different opinions some say it's great for the plants once diluted while another say it's not. What is your opinion?
it rather depends, is the straight response, but it *should* be ok for your plants, provided that it's stabilized - that it's a product of a healthy wormery, with plenty of energetic worms.
if the worm population is looking decidely lazy, if their numbers have dwindled (as it's getting colder, for example) then i understand why some might say it's not a good idea to use the juice, as it may just be the waste food "juice" dribbling through the layers and collecting at the bottom. not a problem, if you have a healthy worm population, as it'll be steeped in lots of friendly bacteria - humus forming bacteria and thus will be ok. BUT, if there aren't many worms or the worms are sluggish, then the liquid will have less "friendly" bacteria and indeed could be a vector for pathogens, a food for "unfriendly" bacteria.
Wormeries are great, but worms can be picky - bannana skins need to be wel shredded and aged a little before they'll munch them and citrus they simply don't like - too much of one type of food waste can upset their constitutions, for example. Spraying compost wines/teas on a wormery (or a conventional black plastic council-provided composter) will help with their digestion and encourage reproduction.
fermenting your compost and putting it in the ground will work better, as you can include all those food wastes that you wouldn't normally dare to put in a compost bin or classic wormery (including cooked foods and meat wastes). I'm overdue in redesigning an area of my website to explain how to make really good fermented compost (to make worm nests - see previous post and gallery pics) with a series of "howto" videos at www.sustainable.org.uk/bugs/ (http://www.sustainable.org.uk/bugs/) but i'm a little camera shy ::)
but, in answer to your question and with the above caveats, you should be ok to use it as a feed - make sure you dillute with rainwater or tap water which has been stood for a week or so, so the chlorine can vent off, otherwise the chlorine (even in trace quantaties) will retard/kill off the microbes you want to add to the soil of your plants. You can use it neat as a drain conditioner, if you don't want to risk it on your plants - useful in the summer months.
hope this helps
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Thanks for the quick reply MicrobeMan
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Well anyway.....
This thread did pique my interest somewhat, so I disappeared off into the ether for a while to have a read. Unfortunately, due mainly to strong medication, I tend to read much, but retain little, as it were, so it took a while...
After that, here's what I did.... I took a builders bucket (with his permission;)) and three-quarters filled it with water from the garden pond. (It just seemed that water that had things already living in it would be preferable, as opposed to tap water which, when the Chlorine has evaporated, is sterile to all intents and purposes) and added an air-stone attached to a tube attached to the air-pump so the water fairly fizzed with bubbles.
Then, I added a spade-full of home-made compost from the compost heap we keep in the chicken pen. We add all sorts of kitchen-waste to it (Chickens love mashed potato :D), paper, cardboard, weeds, veggie scrapings, dead cuttings and seedlings, grass.... anything that will rot down really. The chickens then get to eat what they will and poop on the rest... It works wonderfully.... Meanwhile, back at the bucket, I gave the water/compost mix a good stir and added a guesstimated ounce of organic plant food (Biobizz). It smells just like molasses (And probably is) .... Let the whole thing bubble for two days, strained it into the watering-can and used it on a couple of plants that needed a boost.
I can confirm the plants picked up really well and turned a vibrant green within the week.....
Works for me.....
Any advice to improve my method (provided it costs nowt or as near as ;)) would be most welcome.
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This thread did pique my interest somewhat, so I disappeared off into the ether for a while to have a read.
Let the whole thing bubble for two days, strained it into the watering-can and used it on a couple of plants that needed a boost.
I can confirm the plants picked up really well and turned a vibrant green within the week.....
Works for me.....
Any advice to improve my method (provided it costs nowt or as near as ;)) would be most welcome.
well, Nigel B, i'd say you've got the method "down" as they say ;D
i would bubble the compost mixture for a bit longer - say a week or two, depending on where it's sited and whether it's in the sunlight (less time if it gets really hot) and i'd add some topsoil, too, just to get some of those soil bacteria and fungi in there (and the nematodes of course)...
if you have any seeweed extract type fertilizer add a bit of that too, as algae are a useful component to the cooperative synergy.
btw sorry to hear you were ill - i have been ill too for about 3 weeks, so i sympathise :-\.
but i've been busy behind the scenes working on putting together a new blog and website to address the importance of microbes in growing. my blog (only just started) is at this link (http://plant-alchemy.blogspot.com) and the new website i'm in the throes of putting together is at http://www.muckandmagic.info (http://www.muckandmagic.info), which i hope will build into a detailed resource for those interested in the subject.
and for those wishing to give my microbe brew a try, please email me offlist (pm??) and let me know where to send out to...
in the mean time, Kudos to you Nigel B for starting your own experiments!
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MicrobeMan
Your links don't work.. I think these are correct?
http://www.plant-alchemy.blogspot.com (http://www.plant-alchemy.blogspot.com)
http://www.muckandmagic.info (http://www.muckandmagic.info)
If you put the links in your signature, you won't have to keep typing them out, they'll appear in all your posts.
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MicrobeMan
Your links don't work.. I think these are correct?
http://www.plant-alchemy.blogspot.com (http://www.plant-alchemy.blogspot.com)
http://www.muckandmagic.info (http://www.muckandmagic.info)
If you put the links in your signature, you won't have to keep typing them out, they'll appear in all your posts.
yes, thanks ceres i messed up with the url tab thingy, but sorted it out in the re-edit - thanks!
i will put those links in my signature, once i work out how best to do it {faceplam}
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The Henry DoubledayResearch Assoc now Garden Organic have been into compost teas, comfrey and nettle in particular for many years. Those of us who were into the old All muck and magic programme on TV in the 80s have bee going down that route for years. Bob Flowersdewwith his pig tail was young then.
Garden Organic have a members experience this year concerning growing in pots and giving them compost teas. I did not go in for that one because if I grow in pots sooner or later I forget to water them.
Sounds as if RHS are now jumping on the bandwagon.
I remember going to the agricultural research station north of london while at school in the 60s and seeing the experients with fertilizers. Round the experimental plots which contained wheat the farm manager used manure. It has always stuck with me that the wheat grown on the manure was noticeably superior and remember them saying that they were always striving to get somewhere near to those results artificially.
My aunt too used to have amazing blackcurrants growing on the outwashings from the cow sheds.
So those new to it welcome to the smelly world of those of us with buckets of compost tea brewing in the garden.