Life thrives in complexity. Modern agriculture has made great strides towards simplifying the process of growing crops but fails to account for complexity in nature. Fertilizers/pesticides/herbicides are generously administered to monocrops but the soil microbes are destroyed. While the plants may grow, the soil is dead. The only way to continue crop production is to add more chemicals.
In rich, healthy soil, microbes thrive with incredible diversity. Some microbes chelate plant nutrients, some send out filaments holding soil together, some create oxygen, and here and there are some less desirable germs. The key aspect is that they balance themselves.
In nature, things are in balance. Harmful insects are kept in check by natural predators. Mowing down a vast area for a monocrop will wipe out pests, but it will also wipe out predators. This gives the pests an advantage while populations reestablish. Planting vast areas of a single crop year after year depletes the soil of specific nutrients and offers advantage to pests where they are able to propagate to destructive populations. The only way to counter these effects is to add more chemicals.
I was talking with a senior executive at a phosphate mine about fertilizer and organic methods. His view is that phosphorus is a natural fertilizer. My view was that it has been concentrated to the point that it is destructive to the soil microbes, upsetting the balance of life, giving the undesirable microbes an advantage.
The answer the guy proposed was to add more/different fertilizers/sprays/chemicals to make up for the imbalance. The guy just did not understand. The balance is already there.
Croplands have been abused for decades. Even where chemicals were not used, the bareness of the soil exposes the microbes to damaging UV radiation, altering the balance. Aerobically produced compost tea adds complexity, via the diverse microbe species within it, which is critical to healthy soil.
Healthy soil produces healthy plants. Bugs are lazy, weak and opportunistic. They prey on weak, sick, and damaged plants. Offer a bug a healthy robust plant, it will look for an easy meal elsewhere. The same with plant diseases. A weak plant will succumb to a wilt or blight long before a healthy plant. A diverse bacterial soup reduces the opportunity for plant diseases to gain a foothold where it becomes a crop destroying problem.
Compost tea is a step in the right direction, but its only a piece of the puzzle.
Polyculture, crop rotation, companion planting, fallowing and inclusion of various microclimates all contribute to increased complexity of the greater environment.
There are monocrops where
bees have to be brought in to pollinate the crop. With all other life extinguished, there is a limited window for
bees to gather the resources needed for their survival. Monocrops wipe out bees-they wonder why the bee population is crashing. By growing a great variety of crops, there is always something in bloom-the bees thrive.
Everything has a job to do. The microbes, grasses, compost and manure, legumes, toads, worms, bees, birds, poisonous plants, deep mulch, morning dew, even weeds-all contribute to the richness and diversity of a healthy environment.
Compost tea is barely understood. Exactly how it works and what it does is only now being studied by agriculture scientists. I can tell you without the studies how it works and what it does. It increases the complexity and interaction of life in the soil and on every surface to which it is applied.
In humans and livestock, a healthy body creates a wide array of antibodies as a wide array of germs tries to infiltrate their systems. The only way a body can develop these antibodies is to be exposed to them in amounts that are small enough to be defeated before sickness can set in. Compost tea would be an outstanding source of exposure.
Compost tea helps build healthy soil. Healthy soil leads to healthy plants and animals which leads to healthy immune systems which leads to healthy people.
Of all the articles and papers I've read on compost tea, I've not yet seen anything negative. Perhaps Monsanto will pay a scientist to write something.
