Why ACT is mainly used only in the Cannabis world?

Hi Everyone,

There seems to be a lot of controversy regarding ACT and it's practical applications, if any. I personally started using it shortly after the beginning of switching over to natural soil growing. My soil wasn't where it should be (plants were burning) even after it sat for 2 months (Sub's Super Soil). After using ACT in my program via drench and foliar I started to notice my plants were reacting much better and my soil seemed to mellow. I was amazed on what a cheap air stone, EWC, and molasses and that launch my quest for knowledge. To this day I do own a ACT brewer I bought with a heavy duty pump (paid 100 bucks), microscope, and etc. After hearing out some folks, it seemed to me that I could be wasting my time hence the reason for this thread.

I have since slowed down on using ACT with one of my rooms that has a pretty new soil made 2 months ago and have yet to see anything out of the ordinary.


I would love to hear what everyone has to say about ACT positive/negatives or just plain wasting time.

I use them in attempt to constantly ass life back to the soil ecosystem ​

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lol. i'm high as fuck and that one got me

I need some ass life back. I'm living an assless life. That's my prob. In fact my wife's been a little under the weather. Maybe a touch of the asslessness?

hmm i've actually been assless lately myself too...

how do i get my ass life back???

In Santa Barbara they spray compost teas on some of the public parks instead of fertilizer and pesticide. I took a plant biology class (intro) and my teacher talked for an entire lecture about AACT and how is it beginning to become widely accepted as a way to improve dead soils and also to speed up the process of leaching out chemicals from contaminated soils, along with things like EM-1...etc.

IMO AACT is great when needed. I think a lot of people, myself included, needlessly use it. Cannabis growers have a tendency to go overkill a lot of times because we are trying to get absolute peak performance from our plants.

Hmmmm....this is what dude said to me just a little while ago...

Rrog said:

I'm simply observing that Weedies use ACT, and other growing populations don't. Seems painfully obvious. No seminars, no clinics, no presentations, no handouts, no class teachings, not a thing, except in Weedville. I'm not so stuck on something that I can't see this.

If it was so good farmers would use it. You would agree with that, right? If ACT really boosted... anything... why wouldn't a farmer use it? If it's so good, why is it the best kept secret in the horticultural world?

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Using a compost tea on lawns is very practical. Aerated or not. Golf courses came up a while back and no way you could add anything except a tea on the greens I speculate.

You might be right about a simple occasional bubbled compost tea that turned into giant vortex brewers used to feed plants weekly. Maybe as you say, it's evolved into an overkill.

i'm way too high to type up a coherent response, but agreed that it's overkill.

bout to go lay in the hammock in the backyard....enjoy the day fellas

[video=youtube_share;sdofUBR3SJc]http://youtu.be/sdofUBR3SJc[/video]

wtf kinda thread is this? ACT came from fucking container vegetable gardening, cannabis is always second in most gardening techniques.

i remember reading my first article about compost tea 3-4 years ago, had nothing to do with cannabis.

polyarcturus said:

wtf kinda thread is this? ACT came from fucking container vegetable gardening, cannabis is always second in most gardening techniques.

i remember reading my first article about compost tea 3-4 years ago, had nothing to do with cannabis.

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How many people do you know that uses compost tea that does not grow cannabis?

I routinely make a compost slurry and drench a plant. Houseplant, veggies included. I'm trying this outside now also, since I'm selling my house. And I bubble botanical teas.

I use it every once in awhile and can see the benefits for certain applications where just straight compost wont help. But I also think that once you have a healthy soil that the need becomes less and less.

NickNasty said:

I use it every once in awhile and can see the benefits for certain applications where just straight compost wont help. But I also think that once you have a healthy soil that the need becomes less and less.

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But when do you know when you have a "healthy soil"?
Why do you guys think that after a certain point it won't do anything?

I feel like everytime an AACT hits the rhizosphere it will be doing something.
It's essentially a super-charger-breaker-downer of the amendments you use to mix it.
If you choose the right ingredients in the right ratio, you can hit the jack pot and end up with a bucket full of plant ready nutes.
If you mix things a little off, you don't you don't get the best benefit..That kinda thing..

I've read and feel it true that you know you're brew has worked when it's much darker by the end of the brew.

With that said, how do we know when we brew a tea we hit the jack pot? We don't until the hours after when you've noticed your plant almost JUMP..
Or not...

John Nie Canna Guy said:

How many people do you know that uses compost tea that does not grow cannabis?

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how many do i need to know? i know several people that garden and dont grow cannabis that use compost tea and other organic methods.

If my soil is already full of plant ready nutes why do I need to add more? More is NOT always better. I have done ACT's Every watering for months before and no noticeable difference then now when I use maybe once every 4-6 weeks. If you are adding stuff to a plant that it doesn't need or use how is it helping the plant? I believed the same thing as you a year ago but the more my soil gets dialed in the less I find I need to use it.

Thinking about it from the microbes perspective, ACT is kinda like dumping a schoolbus full of rowdy children into a class that is already in session, with every seat in class taken. everyone is in their place already, things are moving along perfectly, and now all of a sudden they have to accomodate all these extra bodies....what ensues is chaos, lots of death (which releases some nutrients) and overall lack of harmony.

if things are dialed in, why mess with it. seems more stressful than beneficial....if you need the nutrients so bad, just apply a topdress and be patient...

that being said, I am going to apply an ACT to the community p-patch I just acquired...the soil definitely needs some help. indoors, things are dialed enough that I don't need to fuss with it.

very very few people outside the cannabis world use ACT. in fact, i am somewhat afraid to be seen applying the ACT at the community patch (it's at my school...) because it basically gives away the fact that I grow/have grown weed. last year I had a guy off craigslist come to my backyard to do some work on my friends van...he saw the compost tea brewing and said "oh, so you grow pot?" I pretended to act surprised...but the gig was up lol. my hydro store has a vortex brewer and all sorts of tea ingredients and premixed tea bags, but none of the local nurseries have a brewer or anything compost tea related. hmmmm....

I've seen this as a common theme. A lot of Pharmers saw fantastic results from ACT, but then as time went on they found that regular amendments do the same thing.

Don't remeber where I heard it, but I heard that you should use AACT with lotsa bacteria in the veg state and AACT with moste fungi in the flowering period. Also you shouldn't overkill the plant. only use it every 2 or 3 week.