Soil Food Web Gardening with Compost Teas
- Thread starter trichome fiend
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CanadianDank
Well-Known Member
I believe the foam in alfalfa is mostly due to its high saponin content. Although alfalfa is also food for the microbes when used in a compost tea
WeedFreak78
Well-Known Member
I've been running a 5gal bucket with tea brewing continuously for close to a month and a half now, it's probably the best thing I've done to help the overall health of my plants and compost having a constant supply of tea on hand, it's all I water with now. Daily I add fresh leaf and pruning waste and occasionally old dirt, roots, etc., plus I'll throw a splash of fish fert, pinch of alfalfa meal or a scoop of oatmeal in it every so often. Every week or so I scoop out the solids, throw it in my compost and add some new stuff. I just top it with RO as I use it. Everything I ever read said compost tea has a finite life, but I say BS, if you keep it fed, it'll keep producing. The slime I have going is amazing.
DonPetro
Well-Known Member
What size tent you got there?
ibitegirls
Well-Known Member
24" x 24" x 48"
Greenthumbs256
Well-Known Member
could anyone tell me if mixing em1 and mammoth p could be done?
I mean without one killing the other, or anything negative happening! I know em1 out competes just about everything else, I'm worried it would kill the microbes in the m.p.! I'm asking bc of a side by side experiment i'm planning to do!
I mean without one killing the other, or anything negative happening! I know em1 out competes just about everything else, I'm worried it would kill the microbes in the m.p.! I'm asking bc of a side by side experiment i'm planning to do!
I add 2.3-2.5% by volume, this is just based on lots of testing on our own homemade compost which we tested at 5% protein. If I add anything like kelp or BSM or other I use 0.50%. This is on top of any compost I add.
The thing with any of this is the amount of protein contained within the compost before you begin, since this is at the heart of the chemistry.
You can get compost tested for protein levels, much of it is extremely low in protein, ergo teas or substrate do not, or rather can not, contain sufficient access to enough amino acids without extra help from outside. .
As consumers, we should start to demand that compost/ media/ substrate manufacturers begin to display the protein content of their offerings. It is only in the levels of proteins that we can value the bag.
you should know, microbes in EM1 are subject to the Krebs cycle, as a result for example, to fix a single NO3- from a source of organic N, we see N fixing microbes spin up KREBS 32 times. This means that N fixing microbes almost definitely have to form relationships with PSB's in order to have access to sufficient Phosphorous to operate 32 KREBS cycles to get access to the Nitrogen they require.
Ergo i propose that any microbes dependent on ATP, need PSB's as partners. This includes LAB, Cyanbac, fungi, yeasts, mold, other bacteria and viruses.
Of course if you know the origins of the waste, and you know its antibiotic free, then why not use it? Forests are powered by animal dung, bird insect, mammal, livestock and so on, just as they are old leaves, twigs and clippings.
Think about the components of the soil food web, think about whats been lost in modern farming...in both cases its animals front and centre. We removed animals from the land with the use of nutrients, synthetic manures, and in doing so we lost the substitutes bench and we began running out of front line soldiers in our soils, and so we are also losing soil fertility and integrity too.
Just as there isnt a vegetable to match the protein capacity of a grass fed steak, so there isnt a green waste product that can add as much protein to our soils as a well reared/ lived cowshit. Not withstanding the impacts of different herbivores on the whole carbon cycle, but thats a whole new debate.
if you arent a vegan, and you arent obsessed with the concepts of good and bad, as applied outside of a human mind, then dont worry and do use manures.
Know you input sources, this is the key to achieving organic purity, but try not to worry too much as this concept has nothing to do with the soil food web, just as test match cricket is really the same as the one day series....
There are things we can do with unknown waste material, anaerobic digestion, bokashi fermentation and so on. green waste also may contain traces of hazardous chemical residues and or be part of a synthetic program. Cow shit can be part of this same system of course so if you want pure, know beforehand whats been fed what and injected when......
Ecoli....arrgh... try not to get sucked in to the human concept of good and bad. In a healthy soil system you needn't worry about ecoli and again you wont get it from manure more than you do soil, its a soil microbe at heart and vegans can get it by badly watering plants and allowing ecoli to splash up on to the material they then consume.
In healthy soil systems ecoli isnt a problem but a part of an overall picture and it is omni present so worrying about it wont help.
I personally think what happens in healthy soil is that ecoli, probably under the orchestra of a glomus which senses its host plant to which is its connected is under attack, is allowed to operate its secondary metabolites, which the plant then uses via harpin protein interactions to defend itself, thus the plant remains alive and this prevents the death also of the glomus.
https://www.maximumyield.com/harpin-proteins-enhancing-your-plants-natural-defense-systems/2/1044
the soil food web is much more than fungus versus bacteria, its yeasts, molds, viruses and so much more.
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tko2184
Well-Known Member
Well I tried and am trying the whole compost baby oatmeal thing an I don’t know if it is supposed to smell I have had it there 24 hrs and do now see som slight growth but my concern is the smell it sldoesnt stink to say but does have a sourness slightly to it. Is this normal and what exactly is frowning mycelia or mycorrhizae?
Greenthumbs256
Well-Known Member
I use it all the time, mix of neem and karaja
Sorry to hear that. Why did you use neem?
Greenthumbs256
Well-Known Member
Neem works best with karanja!
Check out "neem ninja"
Check out "neem ninja"
washedmothafuka
Well-Known Member
"Applications of synthetic fertilizers kill off most or all of the soil food web microbes."
This is outdated. As long as synthetic fertilizer is not used in excess, it doesn't harm the soil food web. There was a journal on this somewhere I'll see if I can find it
This is outdated. As long as synthetic fertilizer is not used in excess, it doesn't harm the soil food web. There was a journal on this somewhere I'll see if I can find it
Greenthumbs256
Well-Known Member
If you find that journal or what ever proof you have, I'd highly appreciate if you wouldn't mind tagging me in it. Thank you regardless, it may be "old news" but I didnt know that!