2 questions about compost tea

[blackcat]

I have these recipies:
"Bacterial Dominant Tea
1.5 pounds (700g) bacterial compost or vermicompost
3-4 tablespoons (45-60ml) liquid black strap molasses
4 teaspoons (23g) dry soluble kelp or 2 tablespoons of liquid kelp
3-4 teaspoons (15-20ml) fish emulsion

Equal Ratio – Fungi : Bacteria Tea
1.5 pounds (700g) 1:1 fungi to bacteria compost
3-4 tablespoons (45-60ml) humic acids
4 teaspoons (23g) dry soluble kelp or 2 tablespoons of liquid kelp
3-4 teaspoons (15-20ml) fish hydrolysate

Fungal Dominant Tea2 pounds (900g) fungal compost
3-4 tablespoons (50ml) humic acids
2 teaspoons (10ml) yucca extract
4 teaspoons (23g) dry soluble kelp or 2 tablespoons of liquid kelp
4-5 teaspoons (20-25ml) fish hydrolysate"




1. Do I need to use a catalyst?

2. When should I switch from bacterial to bacterial:fungal 1:1 tea and then from 1:1 to fungal dominant? (for cannabis)

 

[mrbong73]

How much water?
How much air are you introducing?
The recipes look pretty good. I might add some alfalfa meal to all recipes and molasses to all recipes.
Annual plants prefer bacterial soils but introducing fungi can help in phosphorus uptake.
Some people do a bacterial tea in veg then try for a fungal tea to go into flower.
Or you can shoot for a more balanced tea and let the plant decide.
Not sure about the yucca during the brew. Good wetting agent with saponins.
If you have the fish hydolysate use that in lieu of emulsion.
Maybe less humic acid as well.
Hope that helps.

 

[Farmer Jon]

Oxygen is the main catalyst in the brewing process, but for bacterial dominate tea's use sugars (blackstrap molasis works well), and for fungal dominate tea's fish hydro-slate is great.
Although fungus is more beneficial in the fruiting phase, it takes time to grow a colony large enough to be of any real benefit. Therefor I would recommend inoculating early on in order to develop a sufficient level of mycorrhiza to gain any real advantage.

There is quite a bit of info here on the farm, if ya search around i'm sure you will find your answers.
FJ

 

[blackcat]

thanks all, i will give these a try and post my results

 

[Blaze]

There are Dr. Ingham's recipes are they not? They work quite well IME. I would still add a catalyst though. I would also recommend just using the equal ratio tea all the way through.

Also I am not sure if using fungal tea towards the end really helps much. Fungal networks take a good 6-8 weeks to get fully established, it never made much sense to me starting to use fungal tea during flower since the fungal networks won't even be fully established when you go to harvest. If anything I would think you would want to use fungal teas first, then switch over the more bacterial dominant tea.

 

[blackcat]

Yes those are Dr. Ingham's recipies from Urban Garden magazine. I will try the bacterial tea for now because all I could find was fish emulsion, not hydrosylate which the 1:1 and fungal recipies require. I will also pick up a catalyst and give it go.

FWIW I am combining these teas with synthetic GH flora series in a peat soilless mix including earthworm castings. my goal is to reduce synthetic fertilizer intake and reap some of the benefits of AACT. I have heard from some sources that there is in fact a benefit of using AACT with synthetics. wether this is worth staying with synthetics and not moving over to full organic we shall see. I will post a grow journal. Thanks for the info everyone.

 

[Blaze]

There absolutely is benefits to using ACT with synthetic nutrients. Many organic growers will tell you other wise but they are wrong. Some of the most amazing plants I have ever seen were grown using Grow More at 25% strength in conjunction with weekly applications of ACT and foliar feeding.

Be warned though, is you use too much fertilizer you will negate the benefits of the ACT. Less is more when doing a hybrid system like that. However, if you do it right, ACT can reduce your fertilizer use considerably. My buddy that was using the Grow More & ACT combo reduced his nutrient use by 75%, and I have been able to reduce my use of liquid organic nutrients by 50% since I started using ACT.

 

[Seamaiden]

Watch that phosphorous. IIRC, TWM said that if you use a "nothing more than 10" rule for NPK values then you'll be safe with microbes.

 

[delamountain]

why are people so obsessed with tea and sugar?I love compost extraction it may take some doing to get correct ingredients but it is so much simpler and no brewing.tons of bacteria and fungi.I use the biologic systems method and they tell you that sugar and mollases will throw your bacteria /fungi balance out of whack because it promotes the bacteria growth to much.I dont use it in the foliar spray I brew and it works killer.Not trying to be a jerk and I know im new here just saying what works for me

 

[Seamaiden]

What if one wants bacterial domination? I'm growing an annual when I grow cannabis, and we already know that annuals actually prefer bacteria-dominated soils. Now what?

There isn't much work at all that goes into brewing. Put water in a bucket, put stuff in a bag, put bag into water, put airstone into water, turn on pump, let her rip for a day.

Lots of ways to get things done, dela, what's important is understanding what you're doing and why. I like using molasses, both in my brews and simply as feeds, because it gives me a superior product, and based on that, I ain't changin' a thing.

 

[Blaze]

why are people so obsessed with tea and sugar?

Because it works incredibly well. Too much molasses and sugar will throw off your balance, but the benefits of small amounts of molasses and other sugars in ACT has been well established.

 

[delamountain]

Thanks blaze. I think people are a little heavy handed with the sugars,but Im sure it has its place.

 

[Seamaiden]

I think that if you smoked some of my weed you'd appreciate what it can do. I've shared mine with Blaze and I think he likes it. I use sugars of many types in small amounts. I learned not too long ago that plants can take up some sugar molecules directly, and so it's not just microbe feeding I may be accomplishing, so there's that to consider in the equation. And, obviously when brewing a tea if it's left for any period of time I think we'd have to assume the sugars would be consumed by micorbes, but that can be changed up, either used before the sugars are used up, re-dosed with a small amount of sugar, that sort of thing.

I'm coming to believe that it is this in conjunction with a nice cure that helps bring out good flavors and smells that aren't readily apparent (to me) at first.

 

[blackcat]

There absolutely is benefits to using ACT with synthetic nutrients. Many organic growers will tell you other wise but they are wrong. Some of the most amazing plants I have ever seen were grown using Grow More at 25% strength in conjunction with weekly applications of ACT and foliar feeding.

Be warned though, is you use too much fertilizer you will negate the benefits of the ACT. Less is more when doing a hybrid system like that. However, if you do it right, ACT can reduce your fertilizer use considerably. My buddy that was using the Grow More & ACT combo reduced his nutrient use by 75%, and I have been able to reduce my use of liquid organic nutrients by 50% since I started using ACT.

thanks for the reassurance

 

[blackcat]

Watch that phosphorous. IIRC, TWM said that if you use a "nothing more than 10" rule for NPK values then you'll be safe with microbes.

Can you explain this for me? I tried to figure out what you meant but I just confused myself more.

 

[blackcat]

p.s. how should i dilute my tea for soil drench? for foliar feed? i was told 1 gal of AACT to 20-50 gallons of water. seems like alot because i just brewed up 5 gals for a 2 lighter.

 

[delamountain]

seamaiden I have no doubt your herb is quality and thanks for the feed back.

 

[Seamaiden]

Can you explain this for me? I tried to figure out what you meant but I just confused myself more.

Oh! Sorry about that. Generally it's known that high phosphorous levels will kill off certain microbes, or at least disallow them from growing/living/thriving. So, you can mitigate potential damage by limiting the percentage of P to 10%, and that's been found to not cause damage that higher numbers tend to cause. That said, I would think that something like, say, bat guano, even if as high as 12, wouldn't be so terribly inhibitive that you might risk impacting cultures. This type of nutrient interaction is something I'm not terribly well-versed on, though, so there are others who would probably be better at answering the question than I.

 

[blackcat]

Oh! Sorry about that. Generally it's known that high phosphorous levels will kill off certain microbes, or at least disallow them from growing/living/thriving. So, you can mitigate potential damage by limiting the percentage of P to 10%, and that's been found to not cause damage that higher numbers tend to cause. That said, I would think that something like, say, bat guano, even if as high as 12, wouldn't be so terribly inhibitive that you might risk impacting cultures. This type of nutrient interaction is something I'm not terribly well-versed on, though, so there are others who would probably be better at answering the question than I.

Thanks! but I'm still confused. 10% seems like alot of P.

e.g. GH Flora 3 part (1:1:1) @ 5ml per gallon is 1480ppm total with 145ppm of P. That is 0.0145% of P in my nutrient solution.


do you know what the limit for P is in EC/TDS?

 

[Seamaiden]

Absolutely no idea, especially if it's an organic molecule, then I would have to surmise that can't be measured using EC.