Malted Barley vs crab meal

I’m wondering if I could replace crab meal with malted barley?
Crab meal is so expensive to get out here in Vancouver bc, so heard Coot say he has been leaning toward barley to get his chitin in his soil.

Firstly welcome to ICmag

Secondly what about Insect ferts, like black soldier frass for example..

They contain chitin.. heres a ca source i found.. you could do a mix.


https://www.gardenerspantry.ca/insect-frass-fertilizer.html

Thanks! That’s funny I bought a whole bunch from them and put in my last soil but someone said its not ideal in the soil mix. Not sure why because it seemed like a good idea to me. Lol.
Have you ever heard it’s better as a top dress than in the soil?

NoTillPunk said:

Thanks! That’s funny I bought a whole bunch from them and put in my last soil but someone said its not ideal in the soil mix. Not sure why because it seemed like a good idea to me. Lol.
Have you ever heard it’s better as a top dress than in the soil?

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I found there is a lot of differing opinions on the same subject. Some say toe ma toes, some say toe mah toes.

where are you buying your fertilizers from? I would think that insect frass would be more expensive than crab meal. I get my crab meal from a bulk fertilizer store that is geared towards agriculture. you can also get big bags at the livestock feed store in spring. maybe you can find a locally owned garden center that can order you a bag. Down To Earth brand in the cardboard boxes is expensive so if you're buying fertilizers in boxes or small bags that are name brand, you'll pay a lot more.

Chitin is inside of crab/crustacean shells, mishrooms and even in the shells of roly poly bugs. its not exactly in poop/frass from what i recall of the subject. barley has the enzyme chitinase and when the enzyme comes into contact with chitin in the shell, it will form chitosan which is what the end goal is. chitinase is not a replacement for chitin because without both, you don't get the benefits of barley tea.

I would start calling around and asking store owners if they can find a bulk price for you. shipping can get expensive since its so heavy. seems like being in vancouver near crab fishing would be favorable. i live just south of you and its comparatively priced to other amendments so it's not "expensive"

You would think I could find it but it’s not around. I have to order it from the east coast.
Shipping is brutal. This stuff isn’t prevalent oddly enough. The hunt continues.

Look at shrimp meal as well, really it's the crustacean meal you're after, shrimp, crab, prawns, lobsters, crayfish etc all would work well.

Depending how hands on you want to get, check the docks and seafood stores in Steveston - River Road, etc. The main shell is just garbage after using the legs. Even in English Bay you'll find Asian-Canadians setting out traps.

I have located some in New Brunswick from a commercial company so hoping they can help. I need about 30lbs. I guess there’s no processing plants on the west coast. Talked to Tad at KIS in Washington and he’s working on getting stuff across the border in the next few months. Excited about that.
You must be close to me, Microbman. I’m actually moving to van island so may find some sources there too! Microbeman, did you crush your own meal?

Cheers!

I was close to you but now way south. I did not use crab but would have crushed my own

So this was kind of a question I had a couple years ago. I've been using a homemade CC-based soil recipe for a little under 2 years now.

I believe that you do not want to exclude Crab / Shrimp / Crustacean meal in the soil mix, in comparison to insect frass I think you'd need to be supplementing Cal over time if you exclude the crustacean meal, I don't know this personally as I haven't bought insect frass. You will not see benefits instantly from the crustacean meal other than its chitin alone, but you NEED to have chitinase to break the chitin down faster to experience its effects. I have found in what I use, chitinase is contained in barley, rye, and worm castings that have been produced with chitin in the worm bed mix that would become digested and turned into chitinase. Crustacean meal generally takes 3 months or longer to start to become available much like Basalt and Azomite where they can take up to 6-8 months to truly breakdown and become available, if I have this wrong please correct me.

Another reason Coot includes more barley / rye is because of its beneficial fungal properties and the rye has even more phosphatase count than barley. I use a equal weight mix of both, I don't skimp out. I want all the natural chitinase and phosphatase I can get my hands on.

edit: Also for costing. I'm not sure if you get Amazon up in Canada. Or if you can get DownToEarth amendments. The 5lb boxes for a small scale grower don't cost much for shipping. I buy my alfalfa and kelp meal from BuildASoil because I use so much of this I need higher quality since I don't flush at all.

NoTillPunk said:

I’m wondering if I could replace crab meal with malted barley?
Crab meal is so expensive to get out here in Vancouver bc, so heard Coot say he has been leaning toward barley to get his chitin in his soil.

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if you're after chitin instead of hunting down the raw materials, why not try and source some cheap live beetles and smash them up and just add to the soil? they are arthropods and the main component of their shells is chitin. they should be really cheap to buy from someone who breeds for feeding reptiles, fish and other critters. i don't know about where you live but i can buy thousands for less than $40. i'd assume their shells would break down quicker in a living soil too. anybody care to chime in?

BasicallyBasic said:

if you're after chitin instead of hunting down the raw materials, why not try and source some cheap live beetles and smash them up and just add to the soil? they are arthropods and the main component of their shells is chitin. they should be really cheap to buy from someone who breeds for feeding reptiles, fish and other critters. i don't know about where you live but i can buy thousands for less than $40. i'd assume their shells would break down quicker in a living soil too. anybody care to chime in?

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I use roly polies (Armadillidiidae, also called pill pugs) for my source of chitin. Live, not smashed thank you very much A few years back I didn't have my own compost yet so I hauled some mushroom compost back home from a local garden. I quickly found out it was full of roly polies and theirs eggs. I was a bit worried at first but after doing some reading I was excited to experiment. After a couple of years with them now, they are almost as valuable as my worms. They chow down on my mulch layer, not as much as the worms do but they provide me with chitin from their shells. They are considered terrestrial crustaceans, blue bloods. They get pretty chunky so I'd like to think they really aerate my soil. They can eat live plants too so you have to keep them well fed with a nice mulch layer. In my experience so far they've been well behaved except for one incident. Last year, they ate over 70% of the butternut squash seeds I tried to sow