M
mrbong73
- 580
- 28
ITB,
What's your take on the addition of kelp/seaweed (in whatever form) to an ACT as a food source?
What's your take on the addition of kelp/seaweed (in whatever form) to an ACT as a food source?
ITB,
What's your take on the addition of kelp/seaweed (in whatever form) to an ACT as a food source?
Kelp is a good addition to soil, compost and ACT but in moderate amounts. If used in compost tea, one can expect it to delay a little bit the bacterial division [I believe because of the plant hormones] but it does have a benefit as a food source, especially for fungi [from my experience] in the end result. If you are using kelpmeal in ACT, brew for a little longer if it is a diverse nutrient cycling tea you are looking for. If you are going for a fungal tea with very few bacteria, usually around 18 hours is good [provided you have fungi in your compost]. I use a maximum 0.25% kelpmeal and that is just with the regular livestock grade stuff. If you are using more potent kelpmeal, like the water soluble or liquid concentrate, then back off on that maximum even more.
You know, one thing about compost tea is that you really can't go wrong as long as you are not putting some evil crap in there, overloading it or unless it smells putrid. You can even make a good compost tea by stirring (vermi)compost and light foods with a stick over a period of 4 to 8 hours. It just gets better from there up as one learns to use efficient methods to boost the dissolved oxygen and extract and multiply the organisms.
So when you say you want 0.25% kelp meal, are you going by volume, or weight? I had always weighed my soluble seaweed. After reading the above posts though I'm thinking I may be using more than I should. My original amounts were based off the recipes in "The Compost Tea Brewing Manual." I am using 5 grams per gallon of 1-0-17 soluble seaweed powder - is that too much you think?
Definitely need different rates with using a soluble seaweed extract powder vs kelp meal. Just setup a test with some kelp hydrolysate I got from Clack, I'll know more tomorrow! :)
All my measures are by volume. e.g. percentage of the volume of water used; like 0.25% (MAX kelp) of 5 gallons.
If using measures in weight (mass) one can encounter problems, especially with amounts of (vermi)compost which varies according to moisture content.