Lacto B + ACT?

[rrog]

Do you guys do both? I like brewin' up Lacto B per JayK's method. Building an ACT brewer also. Is there a Lacto B content in the ACT? Seems there would be.

 

[self]

sometimes I do both, sometimes I only use LAB as a foliar, or as a soil inoculant for transplants...I tend to use my ACT to water or to fill up tray reservoirs...but I have nothing to back any of that up, just whats seemed natural to me.
it does seem like act would have some LAB in it, but maybe the aeration & agitation helps other things edge it out?
curious to see what the experts say...

 

[rrog]

Thanks for the input

 

[guest2012y]

Sometimes in the final stages of an fish hydrolysate fungal ACT I will add a splash of lactobacillus. I have no clue what the tea pros would say about this,but I get a nice fungal tea that rocks the plants in a couple days.

 

[jaykush]

i do them separate.

ACT will probably have some LAB but no where near the concentrations that the LAB culture will.

 

[mad librettist]

LAB (EM) is what I use when need to power through some organic material, or when I screw up and stink up a soil.

to facilitate or reestablish a plant's reationship to the soil, I use ACT


remember that you LAB serum is actually a BIM (beneficial indigenous microbes) serum containing many different kinds of critters.


EM is really boring to look at under a scope.

 

[guest2012y]

My thought was based on the idea that I don't want the lacto dominating the tea,so I added it at the end. Idea being the lacto will begin it's actions right before watering.

I use lacto for the reasons we use lacto.
I use the common ACT as a tool,there are certain times and purposes one is needed.
The other fungal and lacto combo ACT teas are more experimental.

 

[rrog]

Very good information. Thank you

 

[cyat]

The em1 seems do be making my ladies extremely happy! just an oz. per gallon, haven't made tea with it yet tho

 

[Microbeman]

There are at least 100 species of lactobacillus, most of which are found at some level in healthy soil and therefore some will also be found in compost. They are facultative anaerobes (maybe some are not but AFAIK) so unless you have some species which really boom in O2 environments, you should probably not find as high a population in ACT as you would using a lactobacillus fermentation process. Using some methods (just gathering from the air) I've read it will be hit and miss whether you get the desired species. One either needs to inoculate the culture with a source which contains the desired species (e.g. with dairy product containing the species ala Jay) or gather some wild cultures from 'healthy' soil local to the area one is growing in.

As to whether an ACT brew or a fermentation would contain more I'd have to say it depends. Without DNA testing one cannot definitively tell one species from another (except for educated guessing). As Mad has pointed out, looking at EM under the microscope is like looking at water compared to ACT. If I were to assume that the long rod bacteria in ACT which look like the long rod bacteria in EM are one and the same, I'd say that the numbers in ACT are 10 to 100 times higher. Plus very little is moving in EM.

I see no advantage to adding lactobacillus to ACT unless you have reason to believe you may have pathogens in your tea.

Cheese, How do you know you have a fungal tea?

 

[organicterra]

I see no advantage to adding lactobacillus to ACT unless you have reason to believe you may have pathogens in your tea.

I've been wondering about this. I have a book on compost tea that claims adding EM-1 to a finished ACT will prolong it's shelf life but I was rather skeptical.

 

[guest2012y]

Cheese, How do you know you have a fungal tea?

With this particular tea applied, less than 24 hours the surface of the soil is coated in a white fuzzy fungus that lasts about 3 days and then breaks down. Sometimes that fungus actually grows overnight.

This is the only reason I assume it's a fungal tea...it only grows that fuzz on the soil after this particular tea is used.

Less than 4 days later the plants are glowing healthy.

 

[mad librettist]

With this particular tea applied, less than 24 hours the surface of the soil is coated in a white fuzzy fungus that lasts about 3 days and then breaks down. Sometimes that fungus actually grows overnight.

This is the only reason I assume it's a fungal tea...it only grows that fuzz on the soil after this particular tea is used.

Less than 4 days later the plants are glowing healthy.

I've never noticed white mold after spraying fungal ACT, but I have often observed white mold wherever EM is sprayed, and on the poop of animals fed EM or EM bokashi. My buckets get a white mold that is very velvety feeling and quite copious.


The way I tell a fungal tea is with the scope. First time I saw one, which had been brewed the regular way, btw, I thought it was just a dead tea. Then I noticed the FOREST of spores.

 

[Microbeman]

I've been wondering about this. I have a book on compost tea that claims adding EM-1 to a finished ACT will prolong it's shelf life but I was rather skeptical.

Which book is that?

 

[GoneRooty]

Probably something by Dr Ingham. Here's a link to teraganix about using EM to extend shelf life of tea up to 10 days.
http://www.teraganix.com/EM-Solutions-for-Compost-Tea-s/93.htm

 

[Microbeman]

Probably something by Dr Ingham. Here's a link to teraganix about using EM to extend shelf life of tea up to 10 days.
http://www.teraganix.com/EM-Solutions-for-Compost-Tea-s/93.htm

I highly doubt that Dr. Ingham would say something like that. I have written an email to the company you linked requesting their supportive data.

 

[organicterra]

Which book is that?

Compost Tea Making By Marc Remillard

 

[Microbeman]

Compost Tea Making By Marc Remillard

I know Marc and was interviewed for that book. I never noticed that about EM until now. I'll ask Marc where this information comes from. It seems absolutely false but I might be proven wrong.

I thought I told Mark that I did not mix the two but use them in tandem. What he says in the book is almost word for word from the website linked earlier.

 

[GoneRooty]

Maybe it was his book that website was going from. I guessed Ingham since I know she's said some suspect stuff and they mention her on the website. I would be interested in what you find out from them MM.

 

[Microbeman]

I got feedback from EMROUSA. They just got that information from some of their customers. They gave me some names of companies to follow up. They want to me to do some testing for a definitive answer so we'll see in a while.