Compost Tea

[Blaithin]

I'm not in the UK, I'm in Canada

As I typed it out I was thinking it out. You wouldn't need to dilute it in water, it's not necessary. That's just handy if already irrigating. For here it would make more sense to use in a sprayer as that's how liquid is applied to crops and all crop farmers already have that equipment.

I think it would definitely be beneficial but that the initial set up and investment would be a deterrent to farmers here. More so because their scale is so big, compared to many UK farms at least (I believe...) However if the microflora is at risk from the sprays used, then it would be rather pointless to spray on the tea only to have it knocked out by glyphosphate and other sprays.

 

[HomeHydro]

Hello Blaithin,
I'm not familiar with the farm sprayer equipment, and it sounds like it would be very labor intensive, Also it sounds like it's for foliear feedings, or spraying pesticides. So it sounds like it sprays a fine mist on the foliage, which wouldn't be what you want. Most of it would dry up in the air and/or on the foliage and never make it into the soil .Also a fine mist wouldn't saturate the soil, you'd lily just get a thin layer on the very top that dries up quickly. You want it to saturate and gravity feed far down into the soil.

I'm not sure what glyphosphate is, but part of the problem with much of the soil and farmland these days is the microbiology of the soil has been depleted through the use of so many chemicals pesticides and fertilizers that it has killed off much of the microbiology in the soil and destroying it's ecosystem. So yes for farmers that want to use chemical fertilizers and pesticides, trying to replace the beneficial microbes in the soil will have limited effect. But for those that are trying to move away from using those chemical fertilizers and pesticides by enriching the soil naturally and using organic pesticides or beneficial insects to gt rid of pests, then using compost tea is a way to rapidly sped up replacing those beneficial microbes, fungi, bacteria, micro flora, and acids in the soil much faster than naturally. It can take decades to do it naturally.

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.

Absolutely, the compost tea is only going to be as good as your compost tea recipy.

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.

I'm not a farmer, but that sounds like that would water the land while it tills it in and really mix the compost tea into the ground. .

 

[bactosoil]

Hello Blaithin,
I'm not familiar with the farm sprayer equipment, and it sounds like it would be very labor intensive, Also it sounds like it's for foliear feedings, or spraying pesticides. So it sounds like it sprays a fine mist on the foliage, which wouldn't be what you want. Most of it would dry up in the air and/or on the foliage and never make it into the soil .Also a fine mist wouldn't saturate the soil, you'd lily just get a thin layer on the very top that dries up quickly. You want it to saturate and gravity feed far down into the soil.

I'm not sure what glyphosphate is, but part of the problem with much of the soil and farmland these days is the microbiology of the soil has been depleted through the use of so many chemicals pesticides and fertilizers that it has killed off much of the microbiology in the soil and destroying it's ecosystem. So yes for farmers that want to use chemical fertilizers and pesticides, trying to replace the beneficial microbes in the soil will have limited effect. But for those that are trying to move away from using those chemical fertilizers and pesticides by enriching the soil naturally and using organic pesticides or beneficial insects to gt rid of pests, then using compost tea is a way to rapidly sped up replacing those beneficial microbes, fungi, bacteria, micro flora, and acids in the soil much faster than naturally. It can take decades to do it naturally.

Why would you want to add fungi and bacteria to soil that already has it within the structure already ? and if you do how do you know its sypathetic to the natural order in relation to soil type etc ?.Bio stimulation works much better by waking up the soil biome reather than trying to adversely change the balance and this can clearly been seen when bacteria and fungal counts are undertaken ( and no it doesnt take too long either) . You can also over stimulate and this is where the balancing act is needed . A good example of fast bacteria is bioclogging which though not good for infiltration can occur in a matter of two hours

 

[Barleycorn]

I have been playing with compost tea for ages, but not using it commercially yet.
For those interested there is a very good compost tea Yahoo group.

 

[HomeHydro]

Why would you want to add fungi and bacteria to soil that already has it within the structure already ? and if you do how do you know its sypathetic to the natural order in relation to soil type etc ?

While the soil may contain beneficial microbes, and by microbes that includes all microbial life plant or animal (bacteria, fungi, micro flora, nematodes, etc... both beneficial and pathogenic). In many places the addition of chemical fertilizers and pesticides have left the soil almost sterile of of microbial life. And yes, depending on how much of the chemical fertilizers and pesticides were used and residual left in the soil it can take decades to rebuild the soil ecosystem. Reintroducing these microbes to the soil is an attempt to return the soil to natural conditions.

If your concerned about the microbes not being sympathetic to the natural order in relation to soil type, then you shouldn't be using compost in the soil to begin with. Why? Because it's those same microbes in the compost that you would be multiplying in the compost tea and be putting in the soil. Also there are labs that test and study the microbial life of soil, as well as how they interact with organic mater and plants.

All microbial life is categorized into two categories, their either beneficial, or pathogens. Beneficial microbe don't harm plants in any way, and many species even aid the plants in various ways through chemical reactions in the rhizome and/or attaching to the roots themselves. Pathogens are microbes that harm plants and cause disease. They grow beneficial microbes in lab cultures and sell them to consumers, farmers etc. I have and use two different types right now, Trichoderma and mycorrhizal fungi. Both for different reasons. While I say two types, each contains thousand of strains of the fungi, as well as other beneficial microbes.

Bio stimulation works much better by waking up the soil biome reather than trying to adversely change the balance

Yes the point of compost teas is to wake up the soil ecosystem. Not adversely affecting it. Adversely affecting it was done by the chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Waking it up and returning it to natural conditions is the whole point to using compost teas.

You can also over stimulate and this is where the balancing act is needed

Perhaps if you focus on a narrow range of microbe, but there are billions of different types and strains, again both If the soil has a wide range of microbes, the soil ecosystem will regulate itself. The soil's ecosystem is like a war between the sides. If the pathogens out number the beneficial microbes, they take over and cause disease and sickness in the plants. If the beneficial microbes out number the pathogens they hold the pathogens at bay and benefit the plants, if theirs not enough food (pathogens) to freed on, they slowly die off.

Here is a list of some of the articles I have on the subject. While they refer to growing plants hydroponically, most of the information still applies to growing in soil. I tried to upload them to this post because it said it accepts text documents (.txt). but when I tried I wasn't able to because they are actually "rich text document" files (rtd.) and the forum doesn't recognize that file extension. But if you are interested and want me to, I can e-mail them to you. Just contact me at the e-mail address on the contact us page of my website. The link to my website is in the signature of my posts.

Beneficial Biology Demystified
What Should We Know About Biological Inoculants?
Beneficial Soil Microbes
Biological Products in Indoor Gardens
Understanding and Using Trichoderma Fungi
Trichoderma in Hydroponic Systems
The Pythium Predator
Organic Hydroponics
Worm Power! From Waste to Worthwhile
Buying and Applying Mycorrhizal Fungi
Clean and Green: Hydroponic Hygiene
Differences Between Organic and Inorganic Plant Growing Systems
Furry Frustrations
Hydroponic Humates
Humic Acid: The Black Nectar from the Gods
Shopping for Humic Acids
Hydroponic H2O: Water Quality and Treatment
Online Extras Trichoderma Fungi
The Fungus Among Us!
The Grey Ghost

For those interested there is a very good compost tea Yahoo group

Where can I find the group?

 

[Barleycorn]

Where can I find the group?

https://beta.groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/compost_tea/info?referrer=scionexchange

 

[nails]

Is it as good as this tea/

 

[Old McDonald]

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

Since you are using comfrey (one of the world's most neglected plants) you may be interested in an article I wrote, as a Blog, and accessed through my website. Alternatively for direct access go to http://oldmcdonaldscomfrey.blogspot.pt/

The problem I see with diluting the comfrey is that unless you know the analysis of the leaves you have used, you do not know the analysis of the diluted fertiliser. I think it would in fact be considered a "tea" although that description does not fit well with me either - I would rather call it a liquid fertiliser.

 

[bactosoil]

@HomeHydro compost has many uses and applications but on some sites we don’t use compost at all and do not use any compost derived bacteria or fungi to put into compost teas( dont use compost teas at all) .By triggering the biota in to regeneration through very simple cheap stimulation its possible to affect all zonal layers and improve the health and output of soil within a timescale of a year or two .
Totally agree about the wars going on within the ecosystem but being able to see this as quickly as possible and being able to statistically quantify
this leads on to being able to act as the UN and create some normality .You only have to put a multi meter in the ground to help see some of the battle ( though this is not how we assess the situation)

 

[HomeHydro]

bactosoil
biota is just another word to say the same thing (ecosystem), and I do agree that not all soil conditions are the same, so some areas are far better off than others. I don't know about the UK, and you may have very different laws there, but here in the US some farmers have relied on chemical fertilizers and pesticides so heavily year after year that it has completely killed off just about all microorganism in the soil. Each year they would use chemicals more and more microbes would die off. Since those microbes are needed to turn organic mater into nutrients, each year there would be less nutrients in the soil. Perpetuating the problem, thus causing farmers to use more and more chemical fertilizers to replace the nutrients the microbes are no longer creating for the plants. They have done this for so many years the soil is baron of microbial life.

It would be interesting to know how you can trigger dead microbes into regenerating without introducing living microbes into the soil first? It would also be interesting to know how you can keep them living, breading and regenerating in a soil that contains high amounts of chemical fertilizers that killed them off in the first place? That's the part that takes so long. Once the chemicals that kill the microbes are gone from the soil, then yes it only takes a couple of years to regenerate the ecosystem. But because of how heavily they have relied on chemicals, it can take more than a decade for enough of it to leach out of the soil to allow the microbial lift to begin to flourish again.

I've always considered Compost tea a cheep source of beneficial microbes since it's so cheap and easy to build a compost tea brewer, and you can multiply the microbes by the millions in just a couple of days.

Barleycorn
Thanks for the link

 

[bactosoil]

Quite agree about chemicals and fertilizers affecting microorganisms within the soil , but nature is a tough act and despite degredation of the ecosystem to truly make soil baron in near impossible , yes maybe lifeless and dormant but not dead .It is conceivable that even if you expose a soil sample to extreme temperatures, radiation, extreme pH levels, extreme pressures and harmful chemical you still will not remove all opportunities for life( and accept not everything is that tough) .
Soil is highly adaptive and has to just get on with putting up with the conditions that conventional farming approaches throws at it and makes the best of it
with some populations crashing and other loving it .As advanced as soil testing has become there is a huge journey to go with it , when testing gets to the stage of showing in real time in situ soil life or ability for life numerically that is when it will get really beneficial .

 

[Chasingmytail]

I used comfrey tea on my tomato plants and they are huge! Most hideous smell - bought it on ebay.

We didnt get around to making the compost tea here - spent most of the time making tons and tons of organic compost and its been bloody marvellous used it everywhere it is jampacked full of worms and the veg is loving it. Did the stupid thing of buying the microscope which was silly as we arnt science trained and cant work out head or tail of anything we see because its not necessary and perhaps bought too much in by E. Ingham. Been better buying a school microscope and concentrating on learning to do a animal worm count.

 

[Fat hen]

I've been interested in compost tea to dilute and spray onto arable land. I've been informed by a Professor that even diluted it willl have the desired effect of improving soil fungi and biota levels and reduce fungicide usage.

We have a large duck pond polluted by large numbers of the aforementioned fowl and tree leaves. I have tried it neat on veg garden with dramatic results - beetroot frequently bigger than pineapples, etc. Got it tested...high in K Ca Mg S. Am considering this as a readymade source of compost tea, once filtered. Any suggestions please?

 

[Cece]

How has this worked for folk?

Any before and afters on grassland?

 

[figal]

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?

I`m looking for a fish hydrolysate to buy in Spain or near, could you help me?. I make compost teas for avocado tees

 

[Cece]

You can make fish hydrosolate using fish guts etc and keeping in a lacto bacillus and molasses serum

 

[figal]

You can make fish hydrosolate using fish guts etc and keeping in a lacto bacillus and molasses serum

I was thinking of using fresh prawns, crushed and unfermented, what do you think?

 

[Cece]

I don't see why not. I've made it myself but I'm probably not the most suitable to ask as I've never isolated the mix just added it to compost.

 

[Deutzdx3]

I have just put a whole wheel barrow load of my alpaca poo into a 40gal drum. I'm planning on spraying it on my field as where the go to the loo is over a foot long now and the rest is ankle height. My thinking is it has to be better than nothing. I'm only spraying onto grassland. No science has gone into it. Quite literally suck it and see. Save on a tonne of fert and gets rid of some poo. If any one wants any they are welcome to it.

 

[Bury the Trash]

what a waste of prawns