Charybdis: It Who Inhaled the Grub's Stomach and Built a World
Tim Wilson, the man cited in a prior post above, repeatedly refers to aerated compost tea vortex brewers as bioreactors. Rather than being a superficial or pretentious difference in nomenclature, I think this is an interesting distinction that affords creative contemplation of what these devices may be capable of and how their design might potentially evolve.
A proper laboratory bioreactor allows precise control of atmosphere and temperature. It is not too much of a stretch to envision a scalable agricultural bioreactor design with a simple, user friendly interface whereby a large array of specific beneficial microorganisms could be acquired and propagated as needed. For example, I am thinking of a device like a rice cooker or instant pot that would allow a farmer or gardener to add a few inputs along with a culture, press a button, and end up with several trillion photosynthetic bacteria.
The area of exploration I am most curious about with these more engineered bioreactor systems is the realm of insect gut biota. I wasn't able to find any research related to agricultural applications in this subject, but there is a
pretty wide precedent for using bioreactors to culture termite and borer beetle gut biota in order propagate bacteria capable of breaking apart recalcitrant lignin polymers in order to produce fuel sources.
What made me think of this arose from a handful of huge grubs from the Darkling Beetle (Tenebrionidae) which I encountered while planting something in the interim of another aerated tea batch. These grubs inhabit the mycelial substrate of soil and feed on plant roots. I can't draw any conclusions, but there seems to be an interesting question of what sorts of bacteria and fungi are present in the gut of a grub. Needless to say, I added a mashed dollop comprised of a single grub to the vortex in the blind hope that some benefit might confer into the final microbiologic slurry.
As things stand as outlined by Tim Wilson, the protocol for a successful tea brew appears to be very simple. At the risk of unnecessarily overcomplicating things I am still curious about various additives to an aerated environment:
The JMS concoction utilizes a potato to incorporate starch into the solution and is left in a non aerated state. I am curious about adding the potato starch into a super aerated solution. Has anyone done this?
When home brewing Lactobacillus I use rice rinse water. I am also curious about adding fermented rice water to the brew mix.
Michael Phillips' recipe for calcium tea:
Ingredientscomfrey leaf, green nettle, effective microbes, garlic scapes, raw milk (5 gallons), gypsum, humic and fulvic acids
Directions"Cut away the top of a 55-gallonplastic drum. Gather approximately 20# of green herbs and loose pack into drum.
Fill drum two-thirds of the way with unchlorinated water.
Add 2 gallons activated effective microbes, along with raw milk in the case of the calcium tea.
Add 5 to 10# of available rock powders, stirring into solution at the top of the brew.
Top off drum with water, using cut-off tops anchored by bricks to keep herbs in suspension.
Stirring is probably good to enhance breakdown of rock powders but I did little of this.
Fermentation lasts approximately 10 to 14 days, which when complete is marked by a rather through breakdown of the herbs and an engrossing smell, to say the least.
Roughly remove plant debris using a garden fork. Add two quarts of humic/fulvic acids per drum.
Brew is ready for use but can also stay in drum for subsequent sprays.
A loose cover lessens evaporation."
Questions:
I am curious what would occur if a variation of this recipe were used for vortex systems which the nettles, comfrey, and garlic scapes were incorporated as separate fermented plant juice (FPJ) concentrates and the milk and other components were actively aerated for 24- 36 hours. The idea of the aerated milk as a food source for something is interesting, but without a microscope there isn't much point in trying this out. On the other hand, it might be possible to drastically cut the amount of EM used if an aerated system is employed as they could potentially propagate exponentially and the cost this recipe would be reduced significantly (unless Activated Em connotes a prior propagation and stretching of resource).
Finally, my favorite YouTube channel related to fruit tree growing in extreme environments is called, "Yes it will grow here!" by a wizard in Arizona named Jay Barringer who has an ultra densely planted food forest (300 trees on 1/8th acre). One of
his secret techniques is to crack an egg into his bare root soaks and also to periodically foam up a froth of egg protein around the roots of his trees. I wonder what the addition of an egg might afford or risk in an aerated compost tea. Again, without a microscope there is no way of knowing and I am probably going to proceed fairly cautiously.
Karn Piana
Zone 7 Semi-Arid Steppe
Northern New Mexico
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/11/2018 08:08AM by Karn Piana.