I'm using seaweed extracts and molasses along with topdress compost which has fruit and veg waste, leaves,grass,horse manure and have 50-100 worms has taken over 6 months to do compost am new to organics so massive learning curve.
Compost tea help
- Thread starter GG504
- Start date
kratos015
Well-Known Member
Sounds good so far. Organics definitely is a learning curve, but something to consider is that people will have different organic grows.
For instance, my water is heavily Calcified. So as a result, I have no Calcium inputs in my soil.
Some people have specific ingredients readily available in their backyards, others need to buy them. Some people can only get Guanos, others have neighbors with chicken coups/cow manure in their backyards.
Ultimately, what matters is that your soil has access to every macro and micro nutrients that plants require. True, some ingredients are better than others, but ultimately the point of organics is to use what is available to you that will work best for you. This is not always the same for everyone.
I always recommend using Clackamas Coot's soil recipe as a base, then improvise and adapt to not only what works best for you but also what is readily available for you.
Like my case with the Calcium. Crab Meal is an amazing organic input, I wish I could use it, but I can't because of the Calcium. Works in my favor, my hardware store has a good organic amendment blend in bulk for very cheap. Crab Meal also has chitin, but so does Insect Frass. I can use the Frass for the chitin, without getting the unnecessary Calcium.
Coming from bottled ferts, it is quite the learning curve. The biggest mindfuck is the fact that the soil is in control and not you. For me, that was the most difficult aspect to get used to.
Do lots of reading, absorb all the information you can, and in the meantime keep trying and seeing what works best for you. It'll take work, but once you get it dialed in the results will convince you that it was all worth the effort.
Totally agree wish I had gone organic sooner tested my water years ago and pH was spot on so am lucky in that sense. I find it more interesting as it's not just about plant, eventually I will find what works best for me. Don't get me wrong chems work just as well done it many a times that way, but I have definitely noticed the difference from having same strain from organic and chem grow, there is a noticeable difference of flavour from the two different ways. I am trying to get to point of perfect compost and hasn't cost me a penny just my time and patience. Thank you for you help it's appriciated.
JustBlazin
Well-Known Member
thanks for your amazing posts not just in this thread. You seem like you have a wealth of knowledge that you aren't afraid to share with the masses and for that myself and I'm sure the rest of riu community is truly grateful, thank you
i have been reading teaming with microbes and just finished the chapter on teas. Do you think the info in this chapter is outdated?
here's a bit of what was said
"Actively aerated compost teas contain lots of bacteria, fungi, nematodes, and protozoa because that’s what’s in compost. What makes these teas such a good soil food web tool (besides the high concentration of microbes) is that you can tailor-make AACTs to feed plants according to their specifi c needs by adding certain nutrients (see Rule #10). Use Rule #10, which applies equally to compost, mulches, and soil, when you make compost tea, and it evolves into Rule #11: by choosing the compost you begin with and what nutrients you add to it, you can make teas that are heavily fungal, bacterially dominated, or balanced. For many, the brewing process grows into a hobby in and of itself, not unlike making beer.
All recipes, however, start with the basic ingredients, the fi rst being chlorine-free water. Rule #12 is very important: compost teas are very sensitive to chlorine and preservatives in the brewing water and ingredients. It is vitally important that none of the ingredients you use contain any preservatives. This makes sense. After all, these chemicals are intended to kill or discourage microbial life. If you are served by a water system that uses chlorine, you will need to fi ll your brewing container with water and run air bubbles through it for an hour or two. The chlorine will evaporate, making the water safe for microbes. Carbon fi lters and reverse osmosis water systems also work well to remove both chlorine and chloromines, and are particularly useful if you need large quantities of water. As a general rule, a carbon fi lter containing one cubic foot of carbon will fi lter four gallons of water a minute. Next, you need to use good compost (forgive this redundancy: to us, all compost is good, or it isn’t compost). Again, make sure there are no chemical remnants in it, and by all means give it the sniff test. If it doesn’t smell good, it isn’t good compost. Obviously, the best way to know is to have it tested. Avoid “almost compost,” compost that hasn’t fi nished the process or has gone stinky and anaerobic. Don’t bother with compost that was allowed to overheat, killing benefi cial microbes and reducing its soil food web. If you have a low diversity of microbes in your compost, you will have low diversity in your tea. Vermicastings are a good substitute for compost. These are full of benefi cial microbes and tend to be very bacterial (remember the role bacteria play inside the worm, digesting food), especially when they are fresh. For the initial fi ve-gallon brew, you will need approximately four cups of either compost or vermicompost. You can use proportionately less compost the bigger the brew. As for the extra ingredients, you can feed the microbial population while teas are brewing. Molasses (nonsulfured, so as not to kill the microbes) in powdered or liquid form, cane syrup, maple syrup, and fruit juices all feed bacteria in teas and increase their populations. Two tablespoons of any of these simple sugars in four or fi ve gallons of water will help bacteria multiply and establish dominance. If you make a bigger brew, add more nutrients in the same proportion: the amount of all added nutrients will vary linearly as you increase the size of your brew. More complex sugars and fi sh emulsion are also good bacterial food, though both will also support some fungal growth. To encourage fungal growth in compost teas, add kelp, humic and fulvic acids, and phosphate rock dusts, which not only provide the fungi with nutrient value but also give them surfaces to attach to while they grow. Ascophyllum nodosum is a cold-water kelp that can be purchased over the Internet, at garden centers, and even animal feed stores, where it is often sold as powdered algae. The pulps of fruits like oranges, blueberries, and apples will also help fungi grow in compost teas, as will aloe vera extract (without preservatives) and fi sh hy drolysate (which is essentially enzymatically digested ground-up fi sh—bones and all). You can buy fi sh hydrolysate at some nurseries or make your own by adding papain (aka papaya peptidase) or kiwi (which also contains the appropriate enzymes) to a blend of fi sh to enzymatically digest the bones. Yucca and zeolites are also good fungal foods and do not support populations of bacteria"
was just thinking of making a tea for my flowering ladies(3 weeks) and wasn't sure what to put in, was going to use kelp, rock phosphate,molasses and ewc as stated above in the book not sure if i should put anything else in it you think that's not a good idea? I have only been doing organics for about a year and have only made 1 tea
but it smelled like a latrine so i haven't done another one...lol
once again thanks kratos for you wealth of knowledge
kratos015
Well-Known Member
Appreciate it friend, nothing special, just a guy who's gained lots of experience learning things the hard way and also knows how difficult it is to sort through good and bad information.
While I don't believe the chapter is completely "outdated" perse, the information itself is lacking context.
Compost tea can in fact have the bacteria, fungi, nematodes, etc. in it, however this is dependent on the compost itself having these things in it. The word compost is as ubiquitous as organic, in the sense that it can mean many different things. Compost technically involves anything decomposing, however as a result of such a ubiquitous term not all compost is equal. There is a huge difference between the compost that comes from a worm farm fed nothing but comfrey, scraps from your farm, neem meal, and OSF and compost that is one of us taking a shit in a pile of peat moss. While they're both "technically" compost, they are certainly not equal in terms of quality, texture, nutritional content, etc.
So, with that in mind, one's compost tea can only be as good as the compost being used to brew the tea.
What's more, AACT is only truly useful if you're attempting to "jump start" a new batch of soil. Consider this. Let's say you have the best quality compost in the world. You've already mixed it in your soil, and have turned and watered the soil daily for a few weeks to get the microbiology going. If your soil already has life in it, dumping an AACT is redundant.
Not only that, but this becomes an even greater issue when you start adding things like Alfalfa Meal, Guanos, and so forth to your AACTs. There's a big difference between top dressing with amendments, and brewing them into teas.
Top dressing = the microbes in your soil are decomposing them at their own rate, at their own pace, and are providing things according to what the host plant determines it needs via signal in the rhizosphere sent out in the form of terpenes.
AACTs = immediately available nutrients. The oxygen from the air pump/stones, molasses, and organic inputs are making the microbes multiple at an abnormally fast rate, yes? So, this means said microbes are also consuming the food at an abnormally fast rate. This means that all of the nutrients from the organic inputs are now immediately available, because the microbes in your AACT have processed the organic inputs and not the microbes in your soil. AACT is akin to hydroponics in the sense that it removes the microbes in your soil from the driver's seat and instead places you in the driver's seat. I'm no prodigy, that is why I love organics, because I'm not in charge. This is why I'm against AACTs. It puts me in charge, and tends to wreak havoc. If you need AACTs to make your living soil work, your soil was never alive in the first place.
Malted Barley meal is a great way to add fungi into the mix, using mychorrizae is also a must.
One thing to consider, is certain species of plants prefer fungi dominated soil webs and others prefer bacteria dominated soil webs. Cannabis tends to do best in bacteria dominate soil webs.
Again, keep in mind, the host plant will communicate its needs to the microbes in the soil web.
If a plant does best in a fungi dominated soil web, the soil web will account for this and will acclimate to it all on it's own. The same is true with bacteria dominated soil webs.
Consider that the host plant transmits signals to the microbes in the soil web via terpenes in the rhizosphere. The signals that a blueberry plant sends will differ from the signals that a cucumber plant sends, and that of a cannabis plant, and so on.
All that our job is to do is to provide food, water, and oxygen to the soil microbiology. We do not do a thing for the plants, the soil takes care of the plants, we take care of the soil.
If your AACT smelled like a latrine, you likely didn't have enough airstones/oxygen going into your tea.
However, why the need for a tea in the first place? You can just top dress with those same ingredients and get better results, because the soil will be in charge of things and not you. You can top dress with kelp and crab meals in flower, then cover that with EWC, and water with fish hydrolysate until the top dress begins to decompose.
I mean this respectfully, and not sarcastically. Are you brewing a tea because your plant actually needs it? Or just because you feel like you have to do something for the plants?
JustBlazin
Well-Known Member
thanks for your response i appreciate it.
what you said about the compost is spot on and exactly what the book said. Not all compost is the same and pretty much what goes in definitely effects what you get out of it. Unfortunately for me i don't have a good source for compost, could get some from my work that has it trucked in by the tractor trailer load but its from a huge municipal facility and its never all the way composted plus there's plastic in there sometimes not to mention not knowing if there's chemicals in there considering anyone can dump there yard waste at this facility for composting. So i am reduced to buying bagged ewc so i am unsure how good they actually are, i am waiting on a workbin to come in the mail, so hopefully in a few months ill be able to use my own ewc.
i top dressed my plants about a week ago plants are almost 3 weeks into flower but I use blumats so i just put about a tablespoon of half ewc half power bloom under the drip but was hoping to soak the rest of the pot with the tea to make sure it gets some of the good microbes as well.
also haven't hand watered in a few months and figured id give them a tea before the really start to flower.
last tea i only used one bubbler so this time i put in another one so hopefully it will be better.
think i read on either kis website or teaming with microbes that giving a tea is like shooting out broken down nutrients that are in plant available form with a shotgun and your plant can decide which nutrients it wants to attract to its rhizosphere to use
now i really don't have much experience with this stuff so I'm just trying to gain some knowledge.
i do use organic soil I mix up that has lots of stuff in it and my plants do usually pretty well in it with no teas so...... Your probably right it more than likely is superfluous but ill see if theres any improvements or if they get burnt and or look worse
once again thanks for sharing your knowledge
kratos015
Well-Known Member
Hey, not ignoring you, life's just been crazy hectic these past few months for me.
Good call not using the municipal stuff, play it safe when it doubt.
Plenty of ways to build your own worm bins, rubbermaid containers worked awesome for me. Bagged EWC isn't awful, just isn't great. Compost offers two things to your soil: microbes/life and nutrition. Any compost will have life, but not always be high in nutritional content. Take your bagged EWC for example, it'll have life but those worms are typically fed nothing more than peat and newspaper so there is very little nutrition in it.
With that in mind, grab yourself a basic 4-4-4 or 5-5-5 bagged organic fertilizer and cover your scraps with it. Gives your EWC some extra oomph. OSF works wonders for grit for them, and they go ape shit for neem/karanja meals.
As long as you're only using compost in your tea and nothing else, you'll be fine and won't see any burn. Only use compost for the teas. I always recommend a product called "Grower's Recharge" to people starting off with the teas. Its tons of microbes in powdered for that become activated upon contact with water. Simple dump some of it in your Blumat reservoir, so much easier than messing with buckets and air stones. I recommend the product so much I'm sure some people think I'm a shill for them at this point, but its a good product.
This is another half truth. The roots transmit signals to the microbes in the form of terpenes to get the microbes to bring specific nutrients to the roots. This is true. What's not true is how the nutrients are made available. Take your Power Bloom product for instance. The nutrients from it aren't available until it's begun decomposing. As you already know, if the roots signals a need for N, the microbes will munch on a source of N and shit on the roots for the plants to absorb it. Same with any other element the roots signals a need for.
Now, lets say the roots aren't signalling for anything yet. The nutrients will simply bind to your substrate and the water soluble stuff will runoff. Hence why runoff causing a living soil to lose nutrients is a myth.
So, the plant can absorb nutrients that have been broken down by having the microbes effectively hand deliver them, or they can get it from the substrate itself. Think of your soil substrate as a pantry, and the microbes as a food delivery service. Whether you eat something from your pantry (coco/peat), or get take out (microbes), you're receiving the amount of food you ordered and you (the plant) are in control here.
A nutrient tea blended with guanos and alfalfa meals and the like? This is akin to being strapped down to a table, a funnel forced in your throat, and spending hours having protein shakes dumped into the funnel. Doesn't matter if you can take it or not, it's happening.
You see, those microbes decompose the amendments in your tea at an extraordinarily rapid rate. This isn't a gradual process. As a result, the bulk of the nutritional content of whatever food you put in the tea will be made available to the plants roots immediately. The microbes have decomposed the organic matter before it has even been in your soil, so anything you put in your tea will be made readily available to the plants.
AACT subverts this entire process and puts us in charge and not the microbes. Effectively turning our living soil grows into a pseudo organic/hydro hybrid. Not what we want if the goal is a truly living organic soil. I'm not the sharpest crayon in the shed, so I'm happy that the microbes are in charge and not myself.
A simple compost tea won't cause burn. Those tea recipes with Seabird guanos and shit? Definite burn. 100%
I remember first starting organics, prior to learning and discovering true living soil. I made tons of teas, religiously. I'd get strange looks buying up all the panty hose at my local CVS. Tons of cleaning/sanitizing buckets and airstones. My reward was nutrient burn. And it got bad. Because I kept believing "organics don't burn, they said organics don't burn so this isn't burn I'm seeing".
The yields and quality I got killed my denial immediately. I'll put it to you this way.
I started with Sub's supersoil for my first organic run, water only. First harvest over 1lb, ~1.5lbs from 4 7g pots in a 4x4 tent with 1000w. With that success, I built an 8x12 room with 2000w. I discovered the teas prior to flower. "Supersoil will be even more super with teas!" I thought. Well, I had 12 plants and didn't even yield a pound. You read that right. To add insult to injury, the quality was some of the worst I'd ever produced. If I didn't have my outdoor going at the time, I'd have been ruined.
Hence why I preach all of the above, its not that I think I'm anything special. I just don't want anyone else to experience what I did.
JustBlazin
Well-Known Member
thanks for the great reply
i just put ewc a little kelp and a little rock phosphate so im hoping i won't get any burn
i dont due many teas anyways but ill remeber if i do to not put in those guanos and what not, think i read somewhere the higher numbered organic nutes will burn your plants if not properly broken down first, pretty sure i burn some of my last grow with a top dress with some of the higher ratio organic stuff, this time i just used the power bloom and ewc so im hoping no burn this time(its worked great for me in the past)
i just put ewc a little kelp and a little rock phosphate so im hoping i won't get any burn
i dont due many teas anyways but ill remeber if i do to not put in those guanos and what not, think i read somewhere the higher numbered organic nutes will burn your plants if not properly broken down first, pretty sure i burn some of my last grow with a top dress with some of the higher ratio organic stuff, this time i just used the power bloom and ewc so im hoping no burn this time(its worked great for me in the past)
kratos015
Well-Known Member
Burn is used to refer to two different things for some reason, which makes things confusing.
You have nutrient burn from having too many nutes for your plants to take, and also root burn from something decomposing at such a rapid rate it creates heat that will literally burn your roots. In some cases, amendments can cause both types of burn and really wreak havoc.
Guanos, blood/bone meals, feather meals, and cottonseed meals have the risk of causing both types of burn. Pretty much, NPK values of any sort that are over an 8 combined with rapid decomposing rates will result in burn of some sort.
Power bloom looks like pretty good stuff. Prefer the P to be around 6, personally. While the bone and feather meals can be decompose quickly, they must be added in fairly small amounts if the overall NPK is only 2-8-4.
So long as you stick to their recommended 1TBSP per gallon of soil, you should be fine and likely never see burn of any sort.
I've always gone a little less on the recommendations, personally. 3-4 TBSP per 5g pots, 5TBSP per 7g pots, etc.
Only exception to this is noting a heavy feeder, or if you're doing a full outdoor cycle. Some strains/phenos will gorge themselves. And outdoors when you're dealing with 8ft+ tall plants the challenge is feeding them enough, as opposed to too much.
Gaia green looks like great stuff from what I've seen, I'd use it if I could find it local. You should be just fine my man.