>I'll be meeting in early May with Elaine Ingham, Scott Crandall, Paul >Feiber, etc. out in Oregon on a vineyard research project. It might help >this project if we have one of Elaine's biological assay of each of the BD >remedies from the horn manure all the way up to fresh brewed and also >fermented horsetail decoction. I haven't sent in samples as I don't knopw >what Elaine might think of analysing so many samples without some money up >front. If we can get the funding for this I can come up with the samples. >Heck I make these things.
Hugh - Elaine has been very clear that she'd like us to pay for testing the preps. I don't recall her offering any time payments, etc. I realize that it sounds funny when she says she wishes someone would pay for testing the preps so that she can find out what's in them, but she's always been very clear how expensive it is to do her research and how she doesn't have enough funds, etc. BD is not her area of research, but for a popular person outside of biodynamics, she certainly is open to biodynamics. Anyway, it costs her money to run tests because it takes lab time and technician time. She's spent a lot of pro bono time answering questions on this list. the least we can do is honor her by paying the reasonable costs of doing these tests. Of course, we should also be prepared to face up to the possibility that this group is not interested enough in the physical realities of the preps to meet the expense of the testing and we'll just have to let this go by. These are the tests that Elaine requested: >The tests I'd want to see are total and active bacteria, total and >active fungi, protozoa, and nematodes. If the material was added in >fields with plants, running mycorrhizal colonization would be good >too! Just my opinion, but I think if we accept Elaine as an authority on soil foodweb lab work, we have an obligation to support the level of testing that she has requested rather than deciding among ourselves which tests are 'enough,' etc. -Allan
