Diseased Compost for tea.

HurtsGood · Jul 1, 2014

so guys have a quick question for you. so I'm going to be making compost tea and the compost that I have is about 8 months old. The leaves that are in a compost came from a tree there appears to be diseased. now I might be a little paranoid.
But is there a chance that I can pass the disease from my tree to my peppers using composted leaves?
the tree in question is some type of fancy oak its had this disease for about 9 years. I've never seen this disease on any other plants except trees that are near it. I'm not sure what it is but it appears to be some type of white mold that turns brown, the leaves curl.
I have included photos of leafs.

any insight would be appreciated.

magicpepper · Jul 1, 2014

it is very possible, i had 4 elm tree's on my property and 2 ended up getting that dutch elm disease, we cut them down and had them mulched up, not thinking i put it around the other elm tree's and sadly they are gone now as well. a few other tree's died to. but i could be wrong. it could be a coincidence but i wouldnt chance it in my opinion

solid7 · Jul 1, 2014

If you're going to hot compost the leaves, go for it. Make sure your leaves are in the center of the pile until they reach about 190 degrees. No disease will get through that.

HurtsGood · Jul 2, 2014

magicpepper said:
it is very possible, i had 4 elm tree's on my property and 2 ended up getting that dutch elm disease, we cut them down and had them mulched up, not thinking i put it around the other elm tree's and sadly they are gone now as well. a few other tree's died to. but i could be wrong. it could be a coincidence but i wouldnt chance it in my opinion

Man that sucks MP. I might just do a test pepper. I guess one of my faily used some of the mulch a 2 months ago on plants dint hurt them.

solid7 said:
If you're going to hot compost the leaves, go for it. Make sure your leaves are in the center of the pile until they reach about 190 degrees. No disease will get through that.

I`m hoping the bing got hot enough. The bin only get sun light for a couple hours a day. I might just brew me up a test batch I`m thinking.

Thanks guys if anyoe else has an opinion let me know.

solid7 · Jul 2, 2014

HurtsGood said:
I`m hoping the bing got hot enough. The bin only get sun light for a couple hours a day. I might just brew me up a test batch I`m thinking.

The amount of sunlight has nothing to do with how hot the pile is capable of getting. Keep a big pile - a minimum of one cubic yard in size, and keep a 50/50 ration of Browns (your leaves) and greens. (high nitrogen - coffee grounds, urine, food scraps, etc) Let it heat up nice in the middle, and turn it when it needs it.

Yes, if it's a tree disease, and you're going to mulch around trees, that's risky. But since it's tree leaves on a pepper, I wouldn't hesitate in the least.