Great recipe, started week 3 of flower and I'm looking for all the ingredients. Untill I find everything, I've started a simple worm cast, bat guano, black strap tea . It's been about 12 days since last tea but my plants seem to love it.

John henry said:

Great recipe, started week 3 of flower and I'm looking for all the ingredients. Untill I find everything, I've started a simple worm cast, bat guano, black strap tea . It's been about 12 days since last tea but my plants seem to love it.

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Add alfalfa:kelp mix 1/2 cup :1cup ratios for a 5 gallon brew.

Alfalfa works great with kelp especially during flower when crystals are being formed, so perfect for your next tea.. it's helps with the density and Crystal formation. Good luck :)

I read on another thread, but want to ask on here... Maybe @Seamaiden or @organix4207

I read that bacteria process most of the nurtrients, holding onto most of them and slowly releasing the rest. Esp with phosphorous... Some of the digestion of fertilizers should be done by FUNGI in the rhizosphere... And the biggest enemies of bacteria are protozoa and nematodes.... Brewing a tea for longer then 48 hours causes protozoa to become more prevalent and eat the bacteria, making the nutrients more available..... So those two microbes are known as fertilizer spreaders, and would be great to have in teas every once in awhile....

So I'm thinking since my current tea is on day 4, I should dilute it today and add alfalfa, then brew it 2 more days and feed, and ill give them a bacteria enriched tea a week after this tea to get the bacteria levels back to normal in the soil? Idk... Here's the original post link

Credit on theory goes to formerlumpdew on grasscity

Feel free to ridicule and reject my theory - I will not be offended in any way.

Bacteria and fungi are at the bottom of the food chain in the soil food web. It's probably important to point out that not all compounds needed by plants are absorbed in the same way - or even similar ways.

Mineral cations (both base Alkaloids and base Acids) are moved directly into the root hairs through the cation exchange whereby the root exudes Hydrogen (H) atoms that are exchanged with the cations required.

Let's take fish meal as an example. Since this is a meat it contains a wide range of proteins. Plants cannot assimilate or use proteins. This is where the bacteria comes in and breaks down any number of compounds in this meal. The bacteria will use come of the Carbon © to live and exude what it doesn't use. Some of these exudes can be taken up by the plant's root hairs. Most require further processing by fungi, protozoa and nematodes.

Phosphorus cannot be digested by bacteria and that job is for a huge range of fungi strains - attracted to the rhizosphere by other plant exudes. Different exudes attract different strains of both bacteria and fungi as needed to maintain its health. This is why spraying on some form of Phosphorus is 'an interesting concept' to say the least.

So that's the Reader's Digest version of some of the ways that plants take up nutrients.

Back to the bacteria - bacteria do not exude all of the nutrients that it takes in. It holds on to them - storing up for winter as it were. The main enemy of bacteria are protozoa and nematodes. Lowenfels refers to these 2 microbes as 'fertilizer spreaders' in that they eat the bacteria, keep enough Carbon © to survive and their exudes are available to the plant's roots.

So here's my theory - alfalfa teas contain extremely high levels of protozoa (highest levels are Flagellates and Ciliates). The other way that occurs is by accident by beginning to brew a legitimate AACT and it goes for 3+ days - by that time you're down to a tea that is protozoa rich and low, low levels on everything else. The alfalfa tea can be ready in 24 hours of aeration.

It's my theory that by applying a tea with these elevated protozoa levels a massive consumption would take place in the root zone spreading fertilizer everywhere. They would also eat themselves back to normal levels.

By applying an AACT 24 - 36 hours later this would put the bacteria colonies back inline leaving the fertilizer (protozoa exudes) intact and available.

There it is - warts and all!

LOL



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That Is all

I think that by cutting down your brewing time, you will be automatically selecting out in favor of bacteria and fungi over nematodes and protozoa. I often steep my alfalfa tea for no more than 1/2 hour. I've been under the impression that we don't want a protozoa/nematode-dominant tea, but instead are going for bacterial or fungal dominance.

That's exactly what I was under the impression of, but this guy's theory threw me off hardcore..... I think I'm going to wait a brew for the alfalfa protoazoa thing and test it out on my tomatoes , sraeberries and cilantro..... Robert Plant is a God and therefore people should have to test out his food (her food in this case) before eating it himself lol

I'll also run this whole concept behind my dude that I usually run questions through, and bring back the info to y'all

You want a fungi tea for bloom, meaning less then 24 hour teas to process phosphourous.
For veg, you want a protozoa tea so brewing times should be over 2 days

This was a great discussion, worth revisiting anytime. Organic for LIFE, and that more abundantly!

Using living soil what should I do to make it reusable

Slickrick82 said:

Using living soil what should I do to make it reusable

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Add back what's been depleted, may have to source a bunch of 'stuff' to do that.
Organic is great and I will always use what I know to apply it; that being said there's a place for 'solutions' in my garden as well and since I combined the two, I haven't seen any pests! Organi-chem!! Ymmv.

Frostfire said:

Add back what's been depleted, may have to source a bunch of 'stuff' to do that.
Organic is great and I will always use what I know to apply it; that being said there's a place for 'solutions' in my garden as well and since I combined the two, I haven't seen any pests! Organi-chem!! Ymmv.

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What u use

narleyharley said:

At the moment I have a pretty solid veg tea, the only ingredients I use are corn seed, alfalfa,/kelp blend, wormcastings, and molasses, using different rations every week so they get a week of amino acids (corn seed), mycos (castings) and alfalfa kelp for enzymes. Or it's corn seed for enzymes. Not sure.

Anyone have a flowering tea recipe they'd like to share? Or any thoughts on this? I was thinking about adding organic phosphourous to the mix in small doses for veg and larger doses for flower .... Thanks guys

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First I would like to say I keep it simple with my amendments and buy premade mixes that have all the different amendments in one. My go to is roots organics terp tea series. The grow, bloom, and bloom booster. I also keep kelp meal, worm castings, molasses, Recharge (soil amendment with humic and fulvic acid, kelp, molasses, and a bunch of microbes). I use different ratios depending on the size of the batch. I can get more specific if needed but that’s basically it. Bubble it for 12-36 hours and drench. Then take the tea bag and save it for a top dress or toss it in the used soil bin.

Slickrick82 said:

What u use

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Masterblend, organic foliar feeds and some organic 'kickers' in the MB soil drench.

NachoBznz said:

Hey Narley
Glad to sea someone else using organic teas.
For flowering I use a Comfrey tea which has roughly a 2:0.6:5 NPK. To increase micro-organisms I use worm tea. I had a friend who added rabbit manure tea which is high in Phosphorus. I'd err on the side of using bonemeal and pure phosphorus in teas as it has the tendency to burn roots.
Comfrey grows like a weed but is beneficial in all gardens.
To make the tea just leave two handfulls of leaves in a coveres bucket of water for two weeks and BOOM, a high potassium fertilizer. It's a good idea to dilute up to 1:15l of water, though. I get really dense buds with these.
Let me know how it goes!

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Sorry, old message post.......Comfrey tea??? Organic Comfrey Root??? I've been hearing more about this recently and this is a very old post. Same thing as what you're discussing here? If anyone sees this, a quick response should would be appreciated. Thanks boys . Yes yes and girls