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About the author

Kathy Voth

Publisher, Editor and Author

Kathy worked with the Bureau of Land Management for 12 years before founding Livestock for Landscapes in 2004. Her twelve years at the agency allowed her to pursue her goal of helping communities find ways to live profitably AND sustainably in their environment. She has been researching and working with livestock as a land management tool for over a decade. When she's not helping farmers, ranchers and land managers on-site, she writes articles, and books, and edits videos to help others turn their livestock into landscape managers.

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2 Comments

1. Curt Gesch says:

   February 2, 2021 at 8:24 am

   Thank you for the article. I don’t make compost tea, but use lots of compost. I wonder, however, if there is another factor to consider: personal experiences. If a person uses compost tea and sees the results desired, perhaps there is something unique about that person’s soil, weather patterns, compost preparation, skills in application, observations of the crop, etc. So . . . I don’t make compost tea, but “if it works for you, use it.”

   • Kathy Voth says:

     February 2, 2021 at 9:11 am

     I think there are a variety of reasons a person might see the results desired. First, someone going to all this trouble is likely to do other beneficial practices that are providing good results and so their observations are confounded. Second, long, and recent experience demonstrate that people are good at seeing what they want to see, no matter what information they are presented. In fact, research demonstrates that presenting them contrary facts can actually make them dig in further and be less likely to change.

     And of course, there is always the possibility that I’m wrong and someone will bring me some peer-reviewed published research that demonstrates something different than what this article says. And in that case, I’ll be back right away with an update.