So this is actually a thing that I've thought about a bit, being a fermentation nerd, eventually deciding against it and going in favor of lactobacillus culture as a tea addition. I'll explain the reasoning...
Kombucha's fermentation process creates alcohol, carbon dioxide, and acid by consuming sugars over time, eventually creating an environment in which the scoby can't live anymore. Because it's not solely bacterial or yeast fermentation, there are a lot of variables that could affect the final product negatively. Additionally, I'm not sure of the effect of the tannins of the black tea on the roots- it's entirely possible that it's beneficial, but is that a variable that needs to be adjusted?
Lactobacillus is far simpler of a ferment (fill a mason jar with cabbage, cover that with water, add 5% of their combined weight in salt, leave at room temp, burp when you see bubbles, it's ready when it smells sour), can be added to other teas (like alfalfa or kelp) and with the addition of some molasses, a sealed container, and time, can create an effervescent effect equivalent to kombucha.
Plus this: (
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0c40/890b2fecf79dd03de54b402ba729e20579d1.pdf ) lays out, to my untrained eye, a few arguments that the presence of lactobacillus can be good for plant roots. If I'm not mistaken, Teaming with Microbes does as well.
Thank you for your answer .Every time i search this subject i am getting more and more confident that this is the ultimate add on to a plants tea .
There are more than the Lactobacillus family ,which seems to be more than 30% in total in Kombucha
The question is ,will all these ingredients be beneficial ? Bitamines are in low numbers but there are also aminoacids and many more bacteria families,proteins,enzymes,yasts etc
I.e , nitrogen‐fixing
Acetobacter nitrogenifigens sp ,will this cause nitrogen fix in soil ?
What about the yasts ¨?
In
Plants,
Yeast Raises Temperatures
Yeast is
good for a lot more than just baking bread or brewing beer.
Yeasts, which are single-celled fungi, are everywhere in nature and can perform many ecological functions, like breaking down dead
plant tissue and encouraging root growth. "
To test this possibility, we supplied the plants with heat-killed yeast and examined the effects on plant growth. Sugarcane and tomato plants supplied with dead yeast cells displayed a similar increase in root biomass as plants supplied with living yeast (Fig. 2). These results indicate that the root-growth-promoting property of yeast occurs with living and dead cells. Interestingly, tomato plants provided with dead yeast produced more biomass than plants supplied with living yeast. A likely explanation is that nutrient uptake from heat-killed yeast is more efficient than from living yeast, possibly because the dead yeast cells release their contents into the soil, which can then be acquired through various nutrient transporters in the root cells.
G. diazotrophicus has been found in different plants like coffee tree and pineapple.
[5][6] Gluconacetobacter diazotrophicus is also known for nitrogen fixation.
[2] This feature allows the bacteria to work on nitrogen in the air in order for the correct amount of nitrogen can be received by plants.
[2]Gluconacetobacter diazotrophicus is a notable microbe because studies have shown that the bacteria can help tomatoes and other crops grow.
[7] Besides to be a nitrogen-fixing bacterium,
G. diazotrophicus synthezises Indole-3-acid acetic, that could contribute to promote the growth of the associated plant.
[8] This microbe fights off
Xanthomonas albilineans which is a pathogen found in sugar cane.
[9] In regard to the ecology of this microorganisms, the numbers of
G. diazotrophicus that colonize sugarcane decrease when the plant is grown under high nitrogen fertilization doses.
[10] Overall,
Gluconacetobacter diazotrophicus, through the research restated, plays a significant role in the environment for plants specifically sugar cane, helps to grow crops, and can be found in areas that are acidic and contain oxygen.
"The most abundant prokaryotes in this culture belong to the bacterial genera
Acetobacter and
Gluconobacter. The basic bacterium is
Acetobacter xylinum
A. xylinum and a
Zygosaccharomyces sp. The predominant acetic acid bacteria found in the tea fungus are
A. xylium,
A. pasteurianus,
A. aceti, and
Gluconobacter oxydans (Liu and others
1996).
Gluconacetobacter sp. A4 (
G. sp. A4), which has strong ability to produce D‐saccharic acid‐1,4‐lactone (DSL), was the key functional bacterial species isolated from a preserved kombucha by Yang and others (
2010). Strains of a new species in the genus
Acetobacter, namely
Acetobacter. intermedius sp. nov., were isolated from kombucha beverage and characterized by Boesch and others (
1998). Dutta and Gachhui (
2006,
2007) isolated the novel nitrogen‐fixing
Acetobacter nitrogenifigens sp. nov., and the nitrogen‐fixing, cellulose‐producing
Gluconacetobacter kombuchae sp. nov., from kombucha tea. An investigation by Marsh and others (
2014) indicated that the dominant bacteria in 5 kombucha samples (2 from Canada and one each from Ireland, the United States, and the United Kingdom) belong to
Gluconacetobacter (over 85% in most samples) and
Lactobacillus (up to 30%) species.
Acetobacter was determined in very small number (lower than 2%).
n addition to acetic acid bacteria there are many yeast species in kombucha. A broad spectrum of yeasts has been reported including species of
Saccharomyces,
Saccharomycodes,
Schizosaccharomyces,
Zygosaccharomyces,
Brettanomyces/Dekkera,
Candida,
Torulospora,
Koleckera,
Pichia,
Mycotorula, and
Mycoderma.
Yasts : Candida guilliermondi,
Candida colleculosa,
Candida kefyr, and
Candida krusei.
C. krusei were identified in kombucha from a district of Ankara (Turkey; Safak and others
2002).
The presence of the following was also established:
Torula (Reiss
1987),
Torulopsis (Konovalov and others
1959; Herrera and Calderon‐Villagomez
1989; Markov and others
2001),
Torulaspora delbrueckii (Teoh and others
2004),
Mycotorula (Konovalov and others
1959),
Mycoderma (Konovalov and others
1959; Reiss
1987),
Pichia (Reiss
1987),
Pichia membranefaciens (Kozaki and others
1972; Herrera and Calderon‐Villagomez
1989),
Kloeckera apiculata (Danielova
1954; Kozaki and others
1972; Safak and others
2002), and
Kluyveromyces africanus (Safak and others
2002).
Chemical analysis of kombucha showed the presence of various organic acids, such as acetic, gluconic, glucuronic, citric, L‐lactic, malic, tartaric, malonic, oxalic, succinic, pyruvic, usnic; also sugars, such as sucrose, glucose, and fructose; the vitamins B1, B2, B6, B12, and C; 14 amino acids, biogenic amines, purines, pigments, lipids, proteins, some hydrolytic enzymes, ethanol, antibiotically active matter, carbon dioxide, phenol, as well as some tea polyphenols, minerals, anions, DSL, as well as insufficiently known products of yeast and bacterial metabolites.
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