Alan, thanks for this post, I find it very interesting. I have been interested in compost teas for some time and have played with a brewer of my own creation.
When Will Brinton said, "good compost tea has all the microbiology a person needs for controlling foliar disease - WITHOUT BREWING IT other than we do already." does this meaning stirring or just letting compost soak in water? daniel ----- Original Message ----- From: "Allan Balliett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 10:20 AM Subject: COMPOST TEA was Re: Perry's recnt posts > Blame this one on me, folks, but one of the most astounding upshots > of this week's conference was the chance to meet with experienced > growers who have worked with compost tea and who have found teas to > be much less effective than we have heard people proclaim them to be. > > Alan York asks people to ask the hard questions. He says a hard > question right now is 'Do you know of a vineyard that has effectively > controlled foliar disease with compost tea for three seasons.' He's > willing to back this question down to one season. (The unusually dry > summer this past year has eleviated foliar diseases across the board, > tea or no tea.) > > Vicki Bess, who is a compost tea advocate who spoke at this > conference, felt that the push to diversity and high counts is not a > push towards teas that really work on the soils or even the leaves. > She said, and Will Brinton concurred, that it is the feeds in the > teas that select the final microbial mix and these microbes were not > necessarily the ones that would do as good of works as ones commonly > dominant in dry compost. Will Brinton stated that there is not need > for pumped up populations of microbials. He feels that this is > unfounded, unscientific hysteria. He went on to say that good compost > tea has all the microbiology a person needs for controlling foliar > disease - WITHOUT BREWING IT other than we do already!! Think about > it folks: > > Even better: Compost tea and brewer sales people in Pennsylvania have > received letters from the EPA telling them that they cannot sell > their products as disease control products because there is NO > SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE THAT THEY ARE EFFECTIVE. > > Again - I'm sharing this info for your own evaluation. I've got egg > on my face, of course. > > -Allan > > > >
