Tips On Brewing 1500 Gallon Batches Of Compost Tea??

Capfan · Jul 11, 2016

i have about 700 plants outside im looking to assist, about 5 gallons a plant, the plan is to make a basic compost tea with guano and kelp, i have 3 1500 gallon tanks ill be using to brewthe tea

its looking like for every 1500 gallons it will be 14 lbs of dried ferts..

Am i just going to overload the tanks with aeration and like 10 different tea bags ( stockings ) ?

One big paint strainer? looking to keep all solids out of the water so if it looks clean enough i can run it through the drip system, or ill end up just hand feeding..

Looking for tricks and tips!

MendoGiantZ · Jul 11, 2016

Awesome scene. Making tea for that big of an op could be a huge pain. I really wanted to get into making teas this year for my two gardens but it started costing to much and taking to much time. And I couldn't get it to not clog up the drips.

MendoGiantZ · Jul 11, 2016

Best of luck I would love to see what you come up with.

500lbs Guerilla · Jul 11, 2016

the way your irrigation is set up, it might be difficult without running pumps and a secondary irrigation system/hand watering.

Are your tanks cone bottom? If so, building a vortex system or even just bubbling with an appropriately sweet water blower would probably work. Filter or not, I wouldn't run it through the lines. It might not clog the emitters with solids, but you could get anaerobic growth in the lines.

Can you brew in 1500 gallon tanks and then drain to something smaller that you can put on the back of utv or something that can fit between the rows? The plants look like they have pretty close centers so that's probably not a sustainable solution. I'm just trying to think of a way to do it without running the tea through microbe killing pumps.

I personally think that as a tea, the best would be to have the tanks raised, and then gravity feed through a large diameter hose. No filters or socks, just let all the good stuff come out with the tea. That's a lot of work for a garden that size.

I don't know man. I'm sure someone here has experience with large scale tea applications. You could always get a stihl backpack atomizer and foliar the garden. Probably use a tenth of the tea and be done in a couple hours an application.

Seamaiden · Jul 11, 2016

I would brew in smaller batches and dilute.

If you need more information on large scale tea applications, look up Sensational Solutions and Humboldt University.

Capfan · Aug 3, 2016

1500 gallons at a time

Capfan · Aug 3, 2016

Savage Henry · Aug 3, 2016

That's badass, I'm gonna follow along an see how it all turns out.

Underthesun · Aug 4, 2016

Your plot looks huge! Awesome. Never brewed more than 50 gallons at a time here so no advice there. I'm not an expert and not a biologist so take my advice with a grain of salt. The way I understood it, is that a basic tea included compost and molasses at a 'roughly' 4:1 ratio. Adding kelp can be okay but not really needed. And adding guano will most likely not help the microbe life of the tea and guano should be applied as a nutrient tea separately. All this I read on microbeorganics website, and really only trying to help if I can. Your operation is leaps and bounds ahead of anything I have ever dreamed of and I imagine you have lots more knowledge than me, but that www-microbeorganics page has helped me big time if you haven't read it. I bet the guy that runs that page would have advice for you. Good luck!!!

Seamaiden · Aug 4, 2016

Savage Henry said:
That's badass, I'm gonna follow along an see how it all turns out.

Right? Crikey!

juiceyjay · Aug 4, 2016

Maybe @Ecompost could help you out. That guy is a wiz with organics he might know how to go about brewing 1500gal. Good luck man you got one he'll of a job in front of you, I'll be watching :D