Peter 6,

Doing just a quick scan of favorites I found this from "Earth Wise" (a commercial tea brewer) as it relates to fungi/bacteria growth in compost tea:

"Bacteria/Fungi -- Bacteria can be grown in tea. They will actually multiply. Fungi are different. It is very difficult to grow fungi because fungi are basically one organism that breaks small parts off to keep growing. While you are growing bacteria, you are extracting fungi from your compost. Your brewer must agitate the water enough and your food must be in the liquid so the fungi will come out of the compost into the tea.

Brew times that favor fungi are a little long for simple bacteria so you have to balance your brewing to get the best of both."

One would have to say the person stated the known facts correctly according to this web page, and Earth Wise did link to "Soilfoodweb.com for testing of a tea. Just my quick look around; I do trust this helps somewhatÂ

Blutranes

Here is a link that might be useful: Earth Wise Compost Tea Recipes'

The main argument for ACT is more good organisms less bad. Specifically that is hard to prove, yet there seems to be good results overall.
If you use ACT and have less or no wilt then one must believe it helps, does anyone believe it hurts save the question about e-coli.

A couple of things.....verticillium wilt is a soil-borne fungus that invades and compromises a plant's vascular system so foliar applications of ACT are unlikely to have much effect. It works from the roots upward and is not present on the leaf surfaces or any outer portions of the plant. Second, to my knowledge there is NO control agent for VW, bacterial or otherwise. Planting resistant varieties and crop rotation are the primary controls (with the exception of fumigation, which is not practical for most home gardeners). You may get better results applying ACT as a soil drench - at least the high populations of beneficial soil microbes will work to combat many strains of pathogenic fungi.

I correspond with people all over the world that tell me, and my own experience confirms this, that the best way to control plant diseases is to get your soil into a good healthy condition so the plants you grow in them are strong and healthy. One couple in New Zeland tells us that when they first moved to where they are now they could not grow tomatoes because of plant diseases but after getting the soil well amended with organic matter and getting all the nutrients in balance the tomatoes no longer had those diseases and grew well and produced better than other peoples that did not amend their soil.
If you are the average backyard gardener you simply do not have enough room to move plants far enough to even think that "crop rotation" will help.

Here is a link that might be useful: Disease Suppression with Compost

I've yet to see any controled study that gives any evidence for ACT helping cure or control a disease. I have seen a study or 2 that seemed to show that NON aerated compost tea helped in a very limited number of diseases and when aerated, the tea stopped being effective.

I'm not saying that ACT does nothing- but I've yet to see evidence that it really helps. If it does, then I suspect the applications would be very limited, and it may be a soil effect as whatever gets on leaves ends up in the soil (drips off when it rains, or mist that misses). That doesn't even mean that it's the microbes- you have to think it's full of nutrients and they may be helping as well.

In short- I doubt it's the magic bullet that many purport it to be. Nobody's really been able to provide good evidence for its efficacy, only anecdote. It is sort of fun to make.

Thank you all! A few comments: gardengal, I woulld add that there are no KNOWN biological controls. I stick to the belief that every living thing has lots of enemies; we just haven't found this lot yet. kimmsr, I'm with you on the wisdom of Dr. Hoitink. I met him a couple of times while on the Michigan Composting Council and was very impressed by his research. pablo nh, you express the fear that has risen in my bosom, viz. I might be doing more harm than good by aerating compost tea. Would you be so kind as to direct me to the study or 2 that speak(s) to that point (if you still have the citation, obviously). Regards, Peter B.