Dear Dave, I've been away.
Evidence has to mount up to be of real value. We should take assays of these constituents at a variety of times and places. I'm certain there are ranges of variability, but I'm curious how much or what kinds. I strongly support your "look, see" attitude and wish there was a lot more of it. Hugh Lovel >Response to a number of posts > >1) I gather my own horsetail from the woods. Of course, at a garden scale, >I only need a few handfulls, so a quart or so of dried herb is plenty. The >North American species is not E. arevense, the European species, but it is >very close. You want the species that have vegetative stalks (spore bearing >stalks are produced separately in the early spring). Harvest the vegetative >stalks and dry in about June. > >2) RS talks about horsetail 508 as "pushing back" the etheric when it is >too tenuously dispersed. As opposed to oak bark 505 that "pulls back" the >etheric. In both cases, this has an anti-fungus effect if the plant is >suffering from fungal disease. I don't know what it does for a healthy >plant, or actually for the fungus. Steve's observations are very interesting. > >3) I have always thought of the prep as providing Si, but in fact, it's >more complicated than that. Applied Biodynamics fall 1997 had the following >table showing chemical analysis of two preps (wish they had data on more) > >Concentration of trace minerals, mg/L or ppm >Element Valerian Horsetail >Ca 307 414 >Fe 7.4 0.2 >Mg 271 186 >Mn 2.1 0.9 >P 55 1116 >K 2650 888 >Si 12 177 >Na 3 2 >S 144 560 >Zn 5.6 0.1 > >Isn't this interesting? 508 has some Si as expected, but it's really high >in P and S, and has fair amounts of Ca and K. Who would have expected that? >Meanwhile valerian 507 has lots of K. Ghroman describes horsetail as really >a Ca plant that has a lot of Si to balance out the Ca. So what horsetail >provides is far more than merely Si. >Courtney and Kolisko point out that horsetail tea should be fermented for >maximum activity. It gets pretty smelly when you do that, giving off H2S. >Now we know why. > > >========================== >Dave Robison
