Compost Tea

[HomeHydro]

Hello Everybody,
I was wondering if anyone was familiar with brewing and using compost tea? What your favorite recipes are? Brewing setups? Longevity and/or storing methods?

 

[Recoil]

I spoke to a guy yesterday who was selling a compost tea brewing machine also sprayers and he sells the compost. Sounded a bit far fetched to me. I am planning on googling it to see what people using the compost tea really think. We are nearly all grassland here, do you have any experience with using compost tea on grass?

 

[HomeHydro]

Hello Recoil,
First I would never buy a compost tea brewing machine, their to simple and easy to build. Essentially it's nothing more than a container of water with a air pump to make bubbles rise up from the bottom to the top of the water. Just like a a pot of boiling water boils, except with room temperature water. Because naturally if you boiled the water it would kill the beneficial microbes and defeat the whole purpose, so the air pump takes place of the heat.

How big you make it just depends on how much you want to make. I grow plants hydroponically and don't have a farm. Most of the people using compost tea for hydroponics only brew a few gallons at a time, usually in 5 gallon buckets, but I have seen 55 gallon plastic drums used as well. Many people use irrigation soaker hose to make the bubbles instead of fish tank air stones, and you can either make a tea bag out of cheesecloth to hold the compost recipe, or just toss in the compost freely and strain it out later when you pour the water out.

I even wrote an article about making compost teas, but I just haven't gotten around to trying it myself. The article was more of the idea behind it, what it does, how to build a compost tea brewer, and a few simple compost recipes to get them started.

I don't know what the salesman told you, but compost tea is mainly to enrich the beneficial microbes, bacteria, fungi, micro flora, etc. in the soil, not to specifically add nutrients. The beneficial microbes etc, in turn decompose the organic mater in the soil and break it down into the nutrients the plants can then absorb. The compost tea brewer is basically an incubator that provide the perfect aerated environment for the beneficial microbes to grow, breed, and multiply by the millions.

While the principal behind brewing compost tea's is sound, it's really hard to actually tell how much good it's doing without lab testing since you cant actually see the microbes themselves, or working in the soil. Not to mention since compost teas are all about beneficial microbes and enriching the ecosystem in the soil, naturally the compost tea is only going to be as good as the compost tea recipe you start with in the first place. There is an infinite number of recipe combinations.

Some people use worm castings, some compost from their yard, some add molasses as food for the microbe, some even add beneficial fungi and/or bacteria to their compost tea recipe, some even add humic and fulvic acids. Bottom line, it's all about the recipe and how you tailor it for your needs.

Since in hydroponics we don't use soil, it may seem like it would have no benefit in hydroponics. But even though the plants get a balanced ratio of nutrients from the water, the root zone is still important. The beneficial microbes, fungi, bacteria, and micro flora attach to the roots themselves, as well as to the growing media. Some of the fungi actually help the plants absorb nutrients, and other fungi and microbes kill pathogens. The plants root zone is an entire ecosystem and a huge subject, and I have a tone of information on beneficial microbes, fungi, bacteria, and micro flora, and how they affect the plants and root zone if you are interested in knowing more about it.

 

[Clive]

I've seen some quite complling on farm trial data for this

But trying to find any practical way to do it at scale is a challenge

 

[HomeHydro]

Hello Clive,
Naturally the scale is going to be different for everybody, and would determine the size of the tea brewer you build. But you can also have multiple smaller ones instead of one large one. It only takes 3-4 days to brew a batch, and you can just add it to your existing irrigation system (like a inline fertilizing system) to distribute the compost tea to your land/crops. Once your done with the compost itself, you can add it to your soil like you normally would.

 

[Haythers]

Do you think that applying this through a dribble bar from a sprayer would work well to activate grass seed when over seeding or reseeding with a broadcaster??

 

[renewablejohn]

I use liquid comfrey diluted as a growth fertilizer but would not call it a compost tea.

 

[Barleycorn]

Google Innovative Farmers they are doing trials on it.
I have a brewer made from a 1000 gallon milk bulk tank.
Mike Harrington (Edaphos) makes bacteria / fungal preparations to brew which are aimed at specific purposes, such as N fixing. Has the advantage that at least you know what you're using. Bad compost will make bad compost tea.

 

[HomeHydro]

Haythers,
I don't think compost teas will increase germination rates for seeds any better than using just plane water. The idea for using compost tea is inoculating the soil/root zone with beneficial microbes, fungi, bacteria, micro flora etc. to enhance the soils ecosystem, thus enrich the soil. So you want the compost tea to be absorbed into the soil. I don't think the beneficial microbes will have any effect on sprouting the seeds themselves, However it would have some an effect on combating pathogens/disease after the seeds do sprout and root into the soil.

Barleycorn
Do you have a particular compost tea recipe you use? Do you inoculate your soil/crops regularly?

 

[Andy]

Would spreading the compost or a good dose of muck on the land not just put the beneficial microbes directly on the soil anyway? Is the idea behind this to make your muck/compost benefit more land per tonne?

 

[HomeHydro]

Hello Andy,
the goal of the compost tea is to breed and multiply the beneficial microbes in the compost/recipe. Think of the compost tea brewer as a incubator. In the lab they use a incubator to grow germs etc.. Well your doing the same thing with the compost tea brewer. Your taking the the living organisms in the compost/compost recipe and multiplying their numbers. Yes if you put the compost directly on the ground you would be adding the same beneficial microbes, but if you brewed the compost in a brewer (making compost tea), then you multiply their numbers. In other words, if you start with 1,000 beneficial microbes. you can grow that 1,000 microbes into 100,000 microbes.

Will they multiply in the soil naturally? Yes but at a far slower rate because the highly oxygenated circulating water in the brewer provides the optimum conditions for them to bread and multiply. Some brewers will even add a special type of molasses as temporary food (sugars) to speed up the breeding and growing process even more.

 

[Andy]

Thanks for the extra info. This is an interesting concept but I feel it will only be of any significant benefit to land which does not receive compost/muck as often as 1 year in 10. Any land which gets muck/compost more often is probably not short of such microbes.

Brewing and spreading the 'tea' in sufficient quantities to be of benefit may also be an issue, it would probably be more economically beneficial to spread slurry/AD digestate than 'tea' but I appreciate this is not always available.

Only my thoughts on the matter.

 

[HomeHydro]

I don't know why you would think it would be difficult to apply the compost tea. Your already watering your plants, is that hard? just add it to the water your already watering your plants and water like normal.
I'm sure you have seen those sprayers you fill with fertilizer concentrate, and screw it on the end of the hose, and just water to fertilize plants with. Same principal,


And sure how much benefit it adds will depend on the organic mater and ecosystem of the soil to begin with, as well as the compost tea recipe you use. Some areas it will have more effect than others. I probably wouldn't bother in soils like rich rain forest soil, but heavily taxed and worked farmland is another story altogether.

 

[Andy]

Sorry, I was talking on a commercial practical farm perspective. Not many crops are irrigated in the UK, only high value root crops really. I see little commercial use on cereal and grass crops.

 

[HomeHydro]

Sorry, I was talking on a commercial practical farm perspective. Not many crops are irrigated in the UK, only high value root crops really. I see little commercial use on cereal and grass crops.

I didn't know that about the UK. I don't think there is any type of crop in the US that isn't irrigated in some way. Even in areas that get a fair amount of rain have irrigation systems, they just don't use them as much. The government regulates the water usage for farms too. Some pecan farms in California have reticently had to let their trees die because of the drought and not being able to get enough water to irrigate their farms. Some crops use large sprinkler systems, some use ditch canals, some drip irrigation systems.

 

[Blaithin]

Rains too much in UK most of the time anyway. They really wouldn't get in their fields if they irrigated

I always see compost tea as a concentrate of compost. Like Essential oils being the concentrate of their plants. Compost doesn't always provide the microbes as tea either. It can provide good nutrients yes, but good compost is usually well heated which can lower the microbe count.

Think of it like your tea, you get more out of your cuppa than you do out of eating the leaves in the tea bag

But on a large scale... that would take a set up to be sure. It would take a lot of investment to get a set up for the scale here. Plus only some small areas irrigate with any regularity, we just don't have the water sources to use it. And depending how much you use when watering.... Imagine the amount of tea needed for a whole quarter I've thought of doing a set up for the garden, one day. But right now I'm just working on getting the garden set up.

 

[HomeHydro]

I always see compost tea as a concentrate of compost. Like Essential oils being the concentrate of their plants. Compost doesn't always provide the microbes as tea either. It can provide good nutrients yes, but good compost is usually well heated which can lower the microbe count.

Compost tea will provide some nutrients but not really that much because to get the nutrients you need the microbes to break down the organic mater to create it. That takes time, and you don't really brew it that long. Absolutely composting creates heat, and heat kills microbes. That's why compost tea brewers don't use heat at all, just luke warm/room temp water, and they provide the perfect temperature and oxygenated environment for the microbes to breed rapidly. As for the particular type of microbes in the compost tea that are multiplying, that's why there are so many different types of compost tea recopies. What you get out of it is only going to be as good as what you put into it. If you use a wide variety of ingredients, you get a wide variety of microbes out. If you want to concentrate on certain strains, you can do that too. You can even add powdered/dormant microbes that were grown in a lab, not compost. It's all about the recipe

As for needing to large expensive brewers, well that really depends on how much acreage your trying to inoculate. But you would have to be brewing swimming pool size quantity's for it to start getting expensive. I've never seen anyone doing that much. Don't forget the compost tea is a concentrate, not just plain water. In other words if it takes 1,000 gallons of water to irrigate the plants, you don't need 1,000 gallons of compost tea. Just a fraction of that (probably 1/10) is all you need at a time. I haven't heard of anyone brewing more than a few hundred gallons at a time except a guy earlier in this thread that made a brewer out of a 1,000 gallon bulk milk tank.

The most expensive part of making a large compost tea brewer is the water container if you have to buy it new. But you can get all kinds of things used. I can get a 275 gallon liquid shipping containers used for about $50, or plastic 55 gallon drums used for $10. Heck I can get an above ground inflatable swimming pool for a couple hundred bucks new that will hold 1,000-2,000 gallons if I wanted to go that big. Then all you need is some soaker hose and a large aquarium air pump, Install a drain plug, and Walla you got a large 1,000-2,000 gallon compost tea brewer. Their extremely cheap and easy to build.

 

[Blaithin]

Build it sure. Then you need to get the water, the equipment to get it to the fields, spread it on the fields, etc. As said, nobody here irrigates.

1,000 gallons is nothing as far as water goes. I couldn't begin to guess the water needed to irrigate a quarter section which is what most fields here are. But it isn't out of the realm you'd need 1,000 gallons of tea for each quarter. Only way I can see farmers applying it here is with their sprayers which wouldn't be a huge issue. They wouldn't need to dilute it that way and need extra water.

In fact they could probably just have a trailer like they have for their pesticides and keep the tank on it. Make the tea in that tank and then just drive to fields and fill the sprayer as they do with pesticides and herbicides.

If they were willing to commit it wouldn't take much at all other than the fact that they're only going to do it once or twice a year. Wouldn't be a regular thing in a sprayer like irrigation could be but that shouldn't be a huge issue. Once the microflora are there they're there. As long as nothing kills them they shouldn't need regular top ups.

Although I wonder how much the sprays used on crops would effect them....

 

[Farmersdaughter]

Not done any large scale compost tea yet but been looking into it done a few courses and a go at garden level. Think the key is starting with really good quality compost. Have been learning to use a microscope and it is amazing seeing what is in good compost. If you can look at your own compost and tea you can check you have good stuff in there. To apply to grass land I like the idea of a slit areator with a tank of compost tea on to get the tea into the soil.

 

[HomeHydro]

Ya, I understand that apparently you guys over there get so much rain you don't irrigate, and that certainly changes the game as far as applying it. I'm not trying to argue that point. My example 1,000 gallons to water a area was just an example, I was in no means trying to say how much that would cover, that's why I didn't specify. But using your figures of needing 1,000 gallons of compost tea to cover a quarter (I don't really know that measurement) and the 1/10 ratio, that would mean it would take roughly 10,000 gallons of water to cover one quarter.

My whole point for saying diluting it is simply to be able to evenly cover a larger area at once. As an example: If it takes 10,000 gallons to cover one quarter, and you have 1,000 gallons of compost tea you can cover the entire quarter at a 1/10 rate and apply multiple times if you dilute it, if not you would have to brew 10,000 gallons at once. It's just an example of how you can accomplish the same thing without having to make huge amounts of compost tea all at once , but rather evenly cover the area with smaller batches at more frequent intervals. After all it only takes a couple days to brew a batch, you could brew 10-15 batches a month if you wanted to. The whole point is you don't need large batches.

I guess water is either expensive where you live even though you get so much rain, or you just don't have the infrastructure to move the water to where you would need it because you say getting the water is a problem. Neither is really a problem here. For farms here its not a mater of moving the water, or even how much it costs, but being abbe to get the city to allocate the water to you so you can grow your crops in the first place. At least here on the west cost and lots of the mid west. For us the water is hard to come by, but cheap and easy to move to where you need it.

I'm not trying to sell you on using compost teas, I was more interested in knowing if people over there were using it, and/or felt it was benefiting them, as well as if they had a particular compost tea recipe they were using. Or if they just through in whatever they had at the time.