On 11 May 02, Frank Teuton wrote: ---8<--- > However, I will say that I am frustrated that Elaine seems to be more > tied in to manufacturers of teamakers than to the core process of > teamaking and the paramaters that would help us all to make good tea > without going more deeply into hock. I expect that this alliance from > the inception has kept us from doing more in the DIY department.
Good heavens such impiety! My disenchantment was cemented by the snotty response I received to my suggestion at newsletter 2 or 3 that the essence be placed at the beginning of the newsletter rather than woven into the commercials. 8-] ---8<--- > Like Jose's, it makes good bac tea, but had poor fungal aspects. And > with chunky tea, such as if the sock falls in the vat, (bin and dun > it), the thing can get pretty clogged up. In some quarters Masanobu Fukuoka will fall into Jose's 'eco-icon' definition but in my book he just makes darn good sense. To quote a little from Fukuoka's "The Natural Way of Farming"... "I would like to give one more example of just how amazing nature is when we take even a causal look at what transpires there. I remember searching once, while at the Kochi Perfecture Agricultural Testing Centre, for a benefical bacterium with which to prepare compost from straw and brush. I needed an organism capable of quickly decomposing straw and other coarse plant material. This was something like the benefical bacteria scientists search for today to convert garbage and sludge into artifical manure for use as fertiliser. I collected refuse from garbage sinkholes as well as cattle, hog, chicken, rabbit and sheep droppings. From these, I isolated and cultured microorganisms, obtaining samples of many different bacteria, fungi, slime moulds and yeast. I was able in this way to collect a large number of microbes suited to preparing compost. I then inoculated samples of each of these into straw in test tubes or within concrete enclosures and observed the rotting rates. Later, however, I realised that such an experiment was really quite worthless. To one concerned with how long things take, an investigation such as this may seem useful, but a closer look reveals that nature makes use of far better methods of treating garbage and preparing compost. Rather than going to all the trouble of isolating benefical microbes and inoculating straw with this "fermentation promoter", all I had to do was scatter a handful of chicken droppings or clumps of soil over the straw. Not only was this the quickest way, it also gave the most completely rotted compost. There is no call for making a lot of fuss over "microbial" and "enzymatic" farming methods. The following transformations take place on a rice straw casually dropped onto the earth. The straw draws a lot of flies and other small insects that lay eggs from which maggots and other larva soon emerge. Before this happens however, rice blast disease, leaf blotch and rot causing fungi already present on the rice leaves, spread rapidly over the straw but spider mites are soon crawling over this fungal growth. Next, different microbes begin to proliferate at once. The most common include yeast, blue mould, bread mould and trichoderma fungi, which destroy the pathogens and begin to decompose the straw. At this point, the number and types of organisms drawn into the straw increase. These include nematodes that feed on the fungi, bacteria that feed on the nematodes, mites that consume the bacteria, predaceous mites that feed on these mites, and also spiders, ground beetles, earwigs, mole crickets and slugs. These and other organisms mingle and live in the straw, which undergoes a succession of "tenants" as it gradually decomposes. Once the fibrin-decomposing fungi run out of food, they stop growing and are supplanted by lipoid- and lignin-decomposing bacteria which feed on the fungi and the scraps left over by the fungi. Before long, parasitism and cannibalism sets in among the aerobic bacteria, and these are gradually replaced by anaerobic bacteria. Lactic acid bacteria round off the process with lactic acid fermentation, at which point all trace of the straw disappears. This is just the briefest of looks at the total decompostion of a single piece of straw on the ground over a period of several days. Microbiologists are well aware of how rapidly and perfectly the process of decomposition and rotting break down garbage in the natural world. Yet man, believing that he has to make intense use of beneficial microbes to speed up putrefaction or that he must raise the temperature to promote bacteria growth, prepares compost. He should stop and consider how worthless and undesirable such efforts are. Frankly, anything that he does just disturbs the rapid and perfect nature processes. People must not forget, in looking at the rotting of a straw, at the fertiliser response, at soil improvement and at all the other processes that take place in nature, that what man knows is only the minute, infinitesimal part of the natural order. In addition to the very visible lead roles are an infinite number of supporting roles that perform important yet unknown functions. If man jumps onto centre stage and begins giving out directions like a know-nothing director, the play will be ruined. When something goes wrong in nature, the biosystem changes course. Unlike in a factory where the damage may consist only of a broken gear, in nature a disruption gives rise to an unending series of repercussions." E & O E Cheerio... Rex ps: I like it when you ruffle Alan's feathers! ;-)