Sustainable Growth Boise, Microbial Introduction Wrap Up

Hello!

We have really been busy these past couple of months attending trade shows and starting our spring applications. The interest of homeowners wanting Organic Lawn Care fertilizing is growing all the time and we are gearing up to meet their needs and exceed their expectations.

When we make liquid compost extract we first start with a high quality blend of compost to have the maximum numbers of bacteria, fungi, protozoa and beneficial nematodes. There are other critters in high quality compost but they dont seem to make it through the process of compost teas or extracts. I have always sourced or make my own blends of compost to make sure I have a bacteria dominated and a fungi dominated piles so I can mix them custom for the days applications. On an average day I will mix a little bit of each type of compost on site for the greatest diversity and maximum results. Usually for the type of extractor we now use for lawncare applications I end up with about 30 lbs of compost blends per 250 gallon batch. I mix kelps, humates and other organically certified or approved amendments depending upon the conditions that I know I will encounter. We have a microscope on site to test each batch of liquid compost for content before any applications are made

Part 3: Basic Theory of Microorganism Introduction…

Some of the most basic equipment needed for large scale agriculture or horticulture operations depends of course on your actual needs plus room for expansion. While running the company Sustainable Services Idaho, a company I started near Twin Falls Idaho in 2003 with the help of outside investors I had perfected the procedures and systems needed. When I was working for Magic Valley Compost as a soils consultant and playing around with brewers then deciding to go with extractors, whole new systems never before arranged had to be thought out.

One major consideration for lage volume extraction is the water supply. The Hronek machine extacted about 2000 gallons of Liquid Compost Extract (LCE, as named by Steve Diver) per hour so you needed a pump that would deliver that amount or do like I did and get a large tank for supply. At Sustainable Services Idaho we had a 12 thousand gallon supply tank connected with a 2 inch supply hose, gravity fed through the building into the extraction machine. This tank was equiped to be heated if needed in colder climates like Idaho. We purchased this tank for $500 dollars and kept it filled by use of a float controlled inlet line from our well.

Another consideration of large scale extraction is compost supply. Compost used for extraction has a different set of considerations since your not growing microbes as in brewing. I will start here next time.

 Meanwhile, check out our website sgidaho.com for products, pictures and other information. Sustainable Growth Boise is our local company doing organic landcare.

Part 2:Basic Theory of Microorganism Introduction…

After buying one of the first prototype extractors from Dennis Hronek and hauling it back to Idaho from Colorado, the learning curve was minimal. First off we had to accept that we were not going to spend 24 hrs waiting for usable material that we used to call compost tea, now what we were producing was called compost extract. In the past the old brewers used approximately 15 pounds of compost but the new extractor used about double that amount to make 500 gallons. The old compost tea had to be applied within 6-8 hours and the new extract could be kept up to 10 days during cooler weather which allowed us a greater window of application especially in situations such as rain or scheduling conflicts. There were many benefits, mostly that we had a product ready for sale with less inputs of materials and time.

In comparison to brewing, the extractor was not dependent upon water temp, Ph and foods. The foods most brewing companies list as “Secret” are usually a mixture of seaweed, molasses, sometimes rock dust and sugar and drive the cost of the end product up. With extracting you simply shovel in the compost and whatever organisms are on the particles is what you get in the end product so your not multiplying like brewing. What you start with is what you end up with.

The major groups of microorganisms in good or complete compost in order of usual numbers are bacteria, fungi, nematodes, protozoa, mychorhizal fungi and microarthropods. The last three rarely present in arid region dry compost. Bacteria live in colonies that emit an alkaline slime that helps them adhere to things and also supposedly play a role in soil Ph. I have heard that 90 plus percent of the soils microbes are not fully understood nor identified so who can say. The fungi in soil grow out in threads called hypha and individual threads called hyphae. These pull the smaller glued micro aggregate soil pieces formed by the bacteria together and form a larger particle called a Macro aggregate. The fungi are acidic and help to keep the soil more acid, especially in a forest type situation. The nematodes in soil are non segmented worms that come in three main catagories. The ones most heard of in farming situations are the root feeding nematodes and the good guys are usually considered to be predatory nematodes. There are whats called switchers that feed on fungi but when fungi is not present they will switch to root feeding. The soils “Truckers” are protozoa. These microscopic feeders prey upon bacteria and release soil nitrogen and other waste products throughout the soil because they are so mobile. The main groups they are catagorized are flagellates, amoebe and cilliates. Mychorrhizal fungi are fungi that are symbiotic with the plants roots and exchange valued nutrients in exchange for sugars released by the plant. These fungi can extend the roots by some estimates up to 18 inches on some farming crop roots and many yards on some tree roots. The two main categories are ecto and endo with ecto being with trees and endo with some trees but also other plants.

I have often told my farming customers that saving water is the easiest thing to accomplish by spraying these critters onto your soil and it makes sense if you believe the EPA and a Ohio state scientist who both claim that by using good compost the soils structures can be changed. How this happens is like the previous statement, the microbes grab the soil particles and form aggregates. First the bacteria slimes the smallest particles into micro aggregate then the fungi pull these into the larger macro aggregates then walla, you have little pore spaces for water and critters to hide in. We have seen this happen very quickly and sometimes with only one application.

 Next time I will outline some of the equipment needed for large scale ag operations and touch upon organic lawn care equipment needed. Also I will give some typical and not so typical results from using compost teas or compost extracts and why these things might be happening.

Part 1: Basic theory of microorganism introduction by the use of compost teas, compost extracts and high quality compost

Hello,

Many of you who read this post may have seen me post before on the Yahoo Compost Tea listserve , I have posted off and on sporadically for years and even abandoned it for a year or so when there was just too much chatter and not much learning going on for awhile. I will start this posting out with how I got involved with the uses of teas then on to making a quality product to creating a company based around supply of the liquid, consulting and other company ventures along the way. If you are currently considering buying into this movement, this information might be worth your time to investigate. Either way, lets get started!

Some time ago, around the year 2001, I was required as part of my job as a organic farming consultant for Magic Valley Compost a Jerome Idaho company to travel to Indianapolis Indiana to attend the ACRES conference. ACRES is a sustainable farming and a general all around the government is out to get us kind of conference whereas the majority of the attendees if not menonite are looking for ways to do anything other than conventional in order to queitly rebel against the current establishment. I looked at my intended training schedule for the event and noticed I was signed up to sit in on Dr. Elaine Inghams soil biology primer class or one titled with the same content. Not knowing or interested in reading about what form of microbiology that resided in the soil I manuevered my way into another class that I thought might be more pertinent, Soil Balancing the Dr. William Albrecht way as presented by Neal Kinsey of Kinsey Ag, a consulting/soil testing company.

While sitting in the rather organized and somewhat dry class of Neal I could hear the laughing and other noise emitted from the class next door, I seemed like they were having a lot of fun over there. During one break outside in the hallway on one of the days there was a large crowd of people posing questions to a short woman with dark graying hair and glasses whom seemed geniunely interested in their questions while being very confident and convincing with the subject matter. I was later informed by a friend of mine that it was indeed the guru of Compost Tea concoctions and everything that slithers and hides beneath our feet in the soils called microbiology. This brief encounter led me to want to attend other classes in the conference that she would be giving and during one such class after I was sufficiently pumped up wanting to get back to the shop and brew my own little batch of life giving sea monkeys she said that Soil Foodweb a company she owned that had offices in Oregon, New York and Austraila would soon be doing a first ever certification for Advisors. Recognizing right away that this might be a good oportunity for marketing services and learning more I checked into it when I returned to Twin Falls Idaho.

I called the Soil Foodweb (SFI) offices and immediately signed up for the certification course and was introduced to Shep Smith, an Oregon transplant from Florida who had trained in entomology and general laid back attitude of live and let live, Arden Anderson, a doctor who also studied the Carey Reams theories, consults and promptly told us to never give out free information, Jim Toler, a quiet man who later went on to form Willamette Organics, Alli Clark, the best personality Soil Foodweb ever employed, the Soil Foodweb (SFI) staff and a host of other people who would go on to be good friends or contacts.

About a year before I attended these conferences my employer and another employee had upon the recommendation of SFI purchased a Growing Solutions compost tea machine. The machine was a large light green circular contraption that contained several baskets that sat upon the top of the water tank as air disc on the bottom released thousands of bubbles per second designed to break free the microorganisms contained within the compost that was placed into the baskets at the top that in theory was to be extracted but instead just compacted the material within. Well after many thousands of dollars sent to SFI proved we could not reach the threshold that supposedly meant that we were making good compost tea, we tore into the machine and modified it. We removed the baskets and the air disc and placed Bobo-Laters along the sides. The Bobo-Later is a PVC pipe/door screen design by Bob Norsen of Seattle Washington that is cheap and works really well in most situations. Finally we had a machine that was nothing more than a 500 gallon holding tank for $12,000.00 or so being the initial investment that still couldnt make the SFI minimums, so we did what all good students do and set the machine out behind the shop and purchased another brand. The second machine we purchased was an EPM 500 gallon machine, or Earth Tea machine. This machine, now the latest and greatest according to SFI since Growing Solutions had since fallen out of favor was tested and for sure THE machine to own according to them. I believe we paid almost $9000.00 for this one not counting freight. So, doing what SFI recommends we tested, then tested again, then tested some more, almost gave up after still not recieving any good high quality tea according to the SFI test using the manufacturers powder blend then tested again. Sometime during this endless stream of money flowing back to the SFI labs I was spending a lot of time on the phone with the EPM ownership and was told that SFI test were not an indication of the machines performance as others were getting results in the field without the test. I was told to add a little Beauvaria if I wanted a good test and also to take the dirtiest sludge containing sample, pour most of the water out and leave the sludge in the bottle then send that in for testing. I never tried either system to see if they worked, bummed that we had spent so much time and money on machines and test. I did call SFI to inform them of what I had learned but was informed that I must have not heard the instructions right and was wrong, but soon thereafter others were reporting the same results and instructions and EPM soon fell from being SFI recommended. Although on occasion I did witness otherwise.

 Dennis Hronek, a Nebraska farmer/Entreprenuer had sometime during this same time period, around 2003, invented the Extractor. The Extractor if you can visualize works on the concept of a top hopper that you shovel compost into that contains a common screw type auger with wide flites that the compost gets forced between and through a metered hole into the wash chamber. The wash chamber has another auger that carries the compost to the dump end but on the way sprays the compost with 7-10gpm water through metered nozzles and a screen of approximately 50 mesh surrounds the auger to allow the dirty compost water to flow through a pump into a holding tank. This is extraction in a nut shell and I have often described it as sending the compost through a carwash and collecting the liquid runoff minus the large particles. This machine, for all its worth, cuts the production time down to making 500 gallons in about 15 minutes ready to apply whereas a common brewer may take 18-24 hours with the added cost of adding foods to grow the microbes.

Next time I will continue with Part 2, the benefits of aerated compost tea ACT compared to liquid compost extract or LCE and large scale production techniques.

New Website Online January 17, 2008 for Sustainable Growth Idaho (Boise)

Were very excited to announce the posting of our new website to be unveiled this Thursday. Local and national customers will be able to locate products and services easier than before.