Compost Tea Recipe- Please Critique

[girlwondergrows]

So, I'm trying to reduce costs and improve results. I'd love to replace Canna Boost which I am currently using, as well as get better utilization from some of my additives which seem to end up getting cleaned out of my filters rather than ending up in my coco coir.

Here is a compost tea regimen I am working on, I'd love your input!

Part one: Triacontinal from alfalfa.
4 cups (560 g) of alfalfa pellets
3 0z "Foliar Agent" non-ionic surfactant
8 oz isopropyl alcohol

Combine with 2 gallons water, bring to 190* F ( 89* C) and allow to steep 1 hour.

Part 2: Everything else, all by volume
5 cups worm castings (using commercial bagged castings from E.B. Stone)
3 oz molasses
3 oz soluble kelp extract
2 oz amino acids (extracted from soybeans)
2 oz crab meal
3 oz Met52
2 oz Fulvic Acid Powder
All of Part 1
Add well water to 25 gallons

Aerate for 24 hours, filter through stocking, dilute to 50 gallons total then water into roots at the rate of 1 gallon per 5 gallon pot. Apply once per week.

Please give me any feedback!

 

[dankworth]

Some peeps are cautioning against the use of alfalfa/triacontanol into flowering. Like it's okay in veg, but not past the stretch of wk 1-2 flowering. If I remember correctly, that is. Personal experience encourages me to go light on the alfalfa, and to omit for most of flowering.
Is the crab meal for the chitosan for an SAR reaction?
I believe the alfalfa has a bunch of aminos. Good to know that the soybeans can provide aminos.
Does the metarhizium anisopliae grow in a tea? My understanding is that it may not, but I have not looked into it that closely.
May I ask where you sourced your fulvic acid powder?
May I strongly recommend Cap's bennies for your teas. Using them right now.
$100 and I am taking care of root aphids, and getting all the bacteria one could want. This will last me for like 6-12 months I am guessing for an 8k room.
I am betting that the trichoderma is promoting an SAR rx that is bringing back the electric lemon smell in my cultivar. Love it.
Do you have an opinion on the use of fish hydrolysate in tea?

Good to see you around girlwondergrows.

 

[girlwondergrows]

I'm thinking the caution against alfalfa in flower must be because of the nitrogen. Canna Boost has triacontanol (or so I am led to believe) and it works wonders through the end of the flowering cycle. Assuming perfect extraction of the triacontanol, the 2 ppm desired can be reached by 140grams (about a cup) of alfalfa pellets in 50 gallons of tea. I'll post details on this calc. later as I' dog tired now.

The aminos are from soybean hydrosalate. Basicly the same process that creates braggs liquid aminos. I assume fish hydrosalate is the same, haven't worked with it at all so I don't have an opinion one way or the other.

I don't know about the met52, I am unaware of anything directly stating that it would not work, though I have not investigated since I started using it as a soil amendment a few months ago. One of the many projects I need a proper microscope for- mix a batch of tea where the met is the only living additive and track the growth.

The crab meal was to promote the growth of the met 52 and any other microorganisms that consume it. I want to make life as hard as possible for anything with an exoskeleton in my soil.

The fulvic was sourced by a friend, we split a 50 lb sack for $7 a pound I believe. It may have been from a place in Australia, though I can't be sure of that. I think most of the bulk suppliers are offering a comparable product. I'll try and get more info if I can.

I haven't had much time to research cap, though I'm hearing a lot of good stuff. I want to get myself as free from hydro specific inputs as possible, so I'm weary of jumping into a new product line. But I'll have to take a look. On the phylloxera/root aphid front I'm getting a shitload of flyers and almost no crawlers. The met52 is defiantly having an effect, and a positive on on plant health, but not completely eliminating the problem. I'm noticing a lot more "grubs" in the soil, I assume the larval stage of the flyers and I wonder if gnatrol would kill those...

Thank you for the input, I look forward to more!

 

[dirk d]

your formula looks too complex. how much air are you using?? is your goal to replace your nute line or up microbial #'s? why would you add well water?? you should be using some filtered water. and all that work to filter through a stocking?? you should be filtering through a 400 micron screen. Are you going to use that entire mix at one time or are you saving for future use?? 24 hours of aeration may not be enough time depending on your goals.

 

[Seamaiden]

What's wrong with well water? If it's not chlorinated or chloraminated it should be fine, it's certainly most likely potable and if anything like mine, can most certainly allow living organisms. We only filter ours through a whole house carbon + particulate filter, no other softening or treatment.

GWG, I think you're going to end up needing a nutrient tea to go along with this, unless you're working with well amended soils and already have a nutrient regimen planned (recalling your desire to get away from hydro store nutes), or are perhaps using primarily dry amendments (Dr. Earth pre-mixed organics, for example).

 

[dankworth]

Check out Cap's foliar pack, it has not only met52, but beauveria bassiana as well. I used a ridiculously small amount to colonize my rhizosphere. It has other stuff too, I think Bti for the gnats among other things. And his great white substitute has 18000x the same strains. It is very much worth it to take a look.
I am always looking for best value, and I have to say that Capulator's product line offers by far the best value. I hate to sound like I am pimping his products. I can say that they are everything they are cracked up to be. And damn that met52 is expensive!
You are far ahead of me on your knowledge base regarding ingredients for teas. I appreciate you sharing your knowledge.
G0od to know about the 2 ppms triacontanol. May I ask if you have run a whole flowering cycle w/2ppms tria?
I tried to give the bennies a home by topdressing my chow buckets with ewc, then covering it with more coco. And some Azomite because it was there.

I wish I knew more about teas, I am afraid that I do not have that much useful information.

 

[dirk d]

What's wrong with well water?

when the goal is to make the best possible compost tea you need to make sure you have clean water. thats all i was saying. Lots of wells are very old and have lots of impurities in them. also if your ground water has been exposed to herbicides/instecides then you are at risk. if you've had your well water analyzed and its clean its fine. i would still run it through at least some kind of filtration to ensure the very best water.

 

[dankworth]

I personally have a ton of iron bacteria in my well water. I imagine that is less compatible. But a well a mile away has almost none.

 

[outwest]

I'm a big fan of simple filtration systems as a best practice. For my needs RO is Ridiculous Overkill, but a simple solution gives me peace of mind.

outwest

 

[girlwondergrows]

I should say I'm at the beginning of the journey away from the hydro store, I'm sure the door will have a few more opportunities to hit my ass before it's done. I'm running DTW Canna coco, PK and Boost with ProTekt. Occasionally foliar with their rhyzotonic, have some cannazyme on hand but don't use it often. I plan to continue the canna base and PK, and would initially like to replace Boost (with alfalfa or pure triacontanol) and cannazyme (with vigorous microbial activity). I'd also like to add a lot more "functionality" to my regimen by doing sugar foliars (as per JK), possibly replacing the silica.

No need to filter too fine, I'll be hand watering to and solids will just end up "top dressed" and the well water is fine, no chlorine and very drinkable. I do use mostly RO in the feed barrels because the well water has high calcium content but I feel that may even be helpful to the microbes. And the aeriation is 4 air stones off one of the 4 head eco air pumps. Occasioanl mixing with 1/6 hp sump pump and hose, which is used to filter and distribute as well.

The mix will all be used at once, and 24 hours seems a little short based on first batch. Perhaps 36 hours to get really foamed up.

Sorry for typos, tired. Thank you again, let's continue the conversation.

 

[outwest]

That's some fancy stuff you got going. I take a pretty simple approach to my teas. I focus on microbes rather than nutrient sources. I'm using a super soil so it's heavily amended. My goalis to maintain rich microbial life so the soil can do the rest. I like to mix it up in terms of my microbe sources. . .always use caps bennies, but I have several different compost sources that I like to use. I try to mix it up a little every time. Plants seem to love it. Whatever tea I brew for top feed, I always use as a foliar as well.

outwest

 

[Seamaiden]

One suggestion--I would be careful with the sump pump, because the impeller can destroy the very microbes you're trying to culture. This is why jellyfish and other plankton feeders are kept in containers like kriesels, and/or only air movement is used. Sometimes even that can be too much.

Foaming is not necessarily a good indication of microbial activity, especially if you're using sugars, and ESPECIALLY if you're using aminos. The foam is much more likely a result of a type of chemical reaction that's used in a chemical filtration method called foam fractionation.

Foam fractionation consists of a water column in which superfine bubbles are introduced and mixed for a period of time. The bubbles cause dissolved organic molecules (most of them, anyway) to attach themselves to the bubbles due to the fact that they have a hydrophobic and hydrophilic end (another type of polarity, if you will). As they attach, on a molecular level, to these bubbles, they are carried upward and create a foam. This is why you see some beaches with that foamy crap on them. The finer the bubbles and the longer the contact time with the water, the 'better' (drier & denser) the quality of the foam that's pulled out.

The other term for this type of filtration is protein skimming. Which is why I suggest that you'll see a lot of foaming if you're going to be adding in even more aminos (proteins).

Don't forget to look into fermented plant extracts. I've been reading some amazing things, for example, using Camellia blooms to make a tea to help other flowering plants.

HTH!

Dirk D, gotcha, thanks!

 

[leadsled]

Maybe use alfalfa meal rather than pellets. Is that why you use alcohol? The alfalfa pellets contain some type of binder that is not desired.

IMHO, there are alot of ingredients in your tea recipe. Why not spread it out throughout the week, One day alfalfa tea, another day tea with compost, etc?

edit p.s. like sea said that sump pump will destroy fungal hyphae if you got any in your teas. better off using a diaphragm pump.

 

[outwest]

IMHO, there are alot of ingredients in your tea recipe. Why not spread it out throughout the week, One day alfalfa tea, another day tea with compost, etc?
.

This is my thinking as well. Love the slow and steady!

outwest

 

[Aerojoe]

is the isopropyl alcohol supposed to extract something? at that concentration is it safe for beneficial bacterias to thrive?

 

[green punk]

Yo- Dankworth...what is a SARs reaction?

 

[leadsled]

Yo- Dankworth...what is a SARs reaction?

Systemic acquired resistance is the plants reaction from certain additives, basically the plants immune system is given a boost.

 

[Disambiguator]

On using the water supply Ca in your calculations.

There are 5 forms of calcium that are commonly used in horticulture: Calcium Carbonate- CaO3, Calcium Nitrate- Ca(NO3)2, Calcium Chloride- CaCl2, Calcium Gluconate- C12H22CaO14, and Calcium Proteanate- Ca(C2H5COO)2 ) Calcium is always used as CA2+ within plants, but each form of calcium has a different absorption co-efficient meaning that each form of calcium is absorbed into the cell at different rates and each requires different mechanics for the cell to take it in. Each method requires more or less energy for the cell to exert to do so.

The most typical form of calcium in untreated water is calcium carbonate which is virtually unusable by fast growing plants because the molecules are far too large and immobile to be absorbed by the roots and transported to where the plant needs them.

When there is too much Ca already in the untreated source water being used as the base to the nutrient formula it can cause the good Ca in the plant food to become unavailable. These molecules try to go through roots and up into the plant where they can be used. Because the molecules are too large to be absorbed efficiently, they end up accumulating on the outside of the roots. This causes a log jam that can lock out the good forms of Ca that you are trying to feed them. Using more than one form of calcium is good business practice.

The most common cause of Ca deficiency is related to poor translocation of calcium to/through plant tissue rather than a low external supply of calcium. Calcium may be available externally but it is in the wrong form for the plant to absorb readily. The plant is dependent upon microbial activity to break down large Ca molecules into a form that it can metabolize.

In organic growing, naturals chelates, including humic and fulvic acid, organic amino acids or those derived from micro-organism based chelation processes are used to break down and “fix” molecules into forms that facilitate plant uptake.