Aerated Compost Tea Recipes - Help

Howdy folks,

so I am in the process of building my first ACT brewer and am preparing to brew my first tea today.
I was wondering if y'all would be so kind to help me with the recipes and help me decide what kind of teas I should brew and help me decide if I might need some additional components.

Here is what I have:
- Earth Worm Castings
- Diastatic malted Barley
- Alfalfa seeds
- Kelp
- Bloodmeal
- Bonemeal
- Epsom salt
- Neemseedmeal and Neemseed extract

The issues my plants are having:
- Yellowing from the bottom, working upwards. Bottom 30% of the plant basically have to be lollipopped or they will just grow into a tiny, yellow mess before crinkling and dying off. Old fan leafs further up also seem to be affected over time. New growth at the top seems unaffected and always looks healthy.
Watering with EWC slurry has helped in the past (during veg, yellow leafs did not bounce back but following growth did not yellow as long as watering with EWC) but I would have to water every time with EWC slurry or at the latest every second watering.
- Sometimes leafs further up the plant are affected in a way that makes me think of Magnesium or Potassium deficiency. I have used epsom salt in the EWC slurry in the past with no negative effect on the plants but no discernable positive effect either.


The plants are now in first week of flower and I plan to make a EWC and malted barley tea over the weekend, water them with it monday or so.
My plants also had no worms in their pots (unless some survived in the EWC I mixed into the soil) and I will add them today. A hand full per pot (just 5 gallon smart pots). Then topdress EWC and sow clover seeds and top with hay and start mulching with old leafs that I pluck etc.


So here are the questions:
- I read 1 tbsp/gallon malted barley for an ACT. Is that correct? How much EWC should I add? Should I add some alfalfa seeds into the same tea (considering I believe I am mainly N-deficient)? How much? Should I add some epsom salt? Anything else from what I have available?

- I am quite a noob when it comes to humic and fulvic acid. I just never really got it/what it is about. I know I will add hella enzymes to the soil with the malted barley ACT and I know the worms will help along with creating a better soil food web. But I read elsewhere that especially at the start, fulvic acid has to be added. Is that correct? Can anyone suggest a fulvic acid product in EU? Do I add it to the tea? How much/gallon?


Thanks a bunch y'all. If pics are needed, I will provide. But the plants look healthy for the most part and since the EWC slurry helped in veg, I have no reason to assume anything but an N-deficiency at the moment.
I also recently heard that rice hulls and buckwheat hulls as a perlite replacement in organic soil are known to leech N from the soil. Was not aware of this and it makes sense to me if true as that would explain the continuous deficiencies in my soil that seem not too bad overall but not really going away either.

Thanks for your help and suggestions.

BBB

I wouldn't use rice hulls as a 1 to 1 perlite replacement.
My guess would be poor aeration and poor drainage.

If that be the case, consider simple prodding with a stake or something first, or, a bit more severe, you can prod your soil with a 1/2" pipe, pulling out plugs. Fill the pipe with perlite then reinsert it in the hole. Use a stick or something to push the perlite out as you pull the pipe back out.

here is a recipe by tea labs

microbeman has an excellent write up on teas, microbiology and maximum efficiencies

it is very long or I would repost it and if the mods prefer I will be glad to do so but I feel that based on contribution and agenda microbman's site is simply a granular extension of ours in regard to microbiology arena of agriculture

I have found it useful

https://logicalgardener.org/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=41#p152

there is also our own tea stickys

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=267496

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=110620

I just finished brewing a tea last night and fed the ladies who had been a little stressed. This morning, they are loving life it seems.

I second the microbeman comment above. My tea was from his videos and site, and now that i remember, so is the brewer. 1.5 cups of ewc and 1/3 cup of bsm in 4 gallons of water and brewed for 36 hours.

Howdy all,

thanks for all the feedback, will start reading up asap and maybe try the posted recipe or one of them in the meantime.

Regarding the rice hulls perlite thing:
I doubt aeration is an issue. I am using fabric pots and I used 1 additional part of buckwheat hulls in the soil mix of my previous 2 rounds.
The water drained very well and continues to do so now that I replaced 1 part of buckwheat hulls in the recipe with EWC.
The soil is noticeably more compact but it still drains very, very well.

I cannot recommend the buckwheat hulls enough so far, the only drawback (and I just heard of it) seems to be that they leech nitrogen from the soil.
I didn't know that so I couldn't compensate for it. My next soil mix will simply get an extra 1/2 cup or so of bloodmeal or maybe even 1 more part of EWC, let's see.


Regarding the fulvic/humic acid stuff, I hope I will find those infos on microbeman's site or the links that Weird posted (nice to see you pop up my man, have you considered blessing the world with some Bubblegum seeds? )

I tried to simplify the information from Microbeman and myself into one document here. I believe it should answer most of your questions.
https://www.kisorganics.com/blogs/news/the-ultimate-compost-tea-guide

Long story short though, I think you're confusing or complicating aerated compost teas vs "nutrient" teas.

(admin can delete my post if the link is not allowed or someone can download the pdf and post it).

1. Simplify your additions, less is more in my experience.
2. Watering is the most important thing. Most problems are from over or under watering.
3. I kind of agree regarding the aeration, but impossible to know for sure. I have found rice hulls to not be sufficient aeration but can't comment on buckwheat.
4. If the problem is going from the bottom up then you're dealing with a mobile nutrient like nitrogen most likely. But again, this can be caused by improper watering. Most people I find that are doing all these different amendments and teas and complicated stuff also tend to overwater.

But....going off a couple photos and a paragraph of info is really not enough to diagnose and treat your issues. Just giving you some ideas to look into. Good luck!

Look anything like this?

Thanks Kis, will read through that. Already listened to a couple of potcasts with Coots etc., good work mate

@h.h.
Yeah sort of. That would be very late stage though and I think my leafs don't have such pronounced brown spots. Doesn't that speak towards a potassium deficiency?

Anyway, I will just take a few pics soon and post them so you can all give me your feedback if you want to.

I just pulled off all lower growth though as I enter week 2 of flower and they currently look quite healthy with a few yellowing or curling tips here or there.

So maybe have to wait a bit again before I can take some pics that show what's up.

Maybe I already fixed it though as I introduced worms and topdressed generously with EWC and clover seeds.

The picture is of a plant with root rot.

Easily confused with a nutrient problem.

As mentioned by KIS, it may be from overwatering.

It may be minor, with pretty good drainage, and your smart pots doing what they should. There may be a spot right in the middle that stays wetter than the rest, effecting only a few of the roots.
You have fewer roots feeding the plant. When you up your nutrients, it compensates to some degree.

Are they sitting on the floor?

Yeah, it never looked that extreme, the late stage looked somewhat similar but it was more of an overall wilting and not just a single tip or spot or whatever.

Anyway:
I have recently introduced worms and top-dressed generously with EWC.
Also plugged in the heater for the night-hours.

The plants look great, it's been a week since I plucked the last lower leafs and yellow growth and I have not since seen any new yellow leafs.

The only thing remaining is the odd slightly yellow tip here or there but the last time I checked, the plants were "praying" and looked very healthy.

And I haven't even given them the malted barley tea yet...

At the current stage I believe it is safe to say that I was simply dealing with an N-deficiency due to the buckwheat hulls, maybe the EWC I bought are a bit lower in N than others etc. etc.

Everything looks really good now and I can't wait to see how they will react to a malted barley tea.

I will still read the suggested sources and continue on exploring ACTs etc. but for the moment I am glad I first tried the worms + EWC topdress. It fixed my problems.

Thank you all!

yo bigbad,
maybe thats what you looking for, act with nutes...he did aact...
i

FatherEarth said:

Some of you are probably wondering whats in the tea.. I almost forgot, its microbemans recipe with my own adjustments:
*
https://microbeorgani...ost_Tea_Recipes
*
*
2 liters green waste compost

2liters quality earth worm castings

4 cups molasses

2 cups kelp meal

2 cups alfalfa meal

1/2 cup powdered soft rock phosphate

1/2 cup Glacial rock dust

1/2 cup pure protein dry 15-1-1

60 ml quality fish Hydrolysate( not emulsion) I use Organic Gem
*
*
So how does it smell?
*
for the first 8 hours it smelled a bit fishy, by morning when I came back in it smelled like sweet earthy goodness. The molasses takes over after the microbes get to work eating the funk.. Im certainly going to be doing more indoor brewing

Click to expand...

check also out
https://theunconventionalfarmer.com/
its also one of the organic thread bibles...

this was mine at start
https://www.kompost-tee.de/

normal base act is always 10 liter well,rain,spring,mineral water or osmoses water ,1-2 hands ewc and 50ml organic molasses...bit rockdust and or bio char
you use what you have...no need to do it exactly like the recipes except base recipe..
i use just normal base act until 3 week flower then i add little guano but i have feeling i drive better with just adding bokashi...combinations are endless...
but fo sho no epsom salt....

cheers bro

and i am back to use terraverm not biobizz....bb is steamed....you can use it but terraverm is better...
when you got another source for ewc, pls post...

I'm not using brand EWC.

I sourced a small worm farmer near me who has a setup on a small plot of land where he uses horse manure from the surrounding farms to do his EWC business.

But him and most worm farmers I saw have web pages and send their stuff everywhere.
There are huge price differences and differences in quality as well.
Hard to tell the quality for me still.

But yeah, I am staying away from any commercial brands that are sold throughout the world like biobizz etc.
Trying to get as much locally as I can.

The plants really look great btw.

Will still give them a malted barley ACT but I might keep it at that. I see no considerable deficiencies anymore. Maybe the odd yellow leaf tip or slightly light green leaf but those are the exceptions and it is still limited to lower growth which could also be due to those leafs not getting enough light since they are shaded from above.

I see no reason to tinker atm and will only add malted barley ACT because I can see no harm in it and hope it will give the plants that last "oomph" throughout the remainder of flower.

Thanks for all the feedback to everyone

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]

But yeah, I am staying away from any commercial brands that are sold throughout the world like biobizz etc.
Trying to get as much locally as I can.

Click to expand...

thats great...and much more fun this way...
[/FONT]

Howdy folks,

so I made my first ACT with malted barley and molasses. The plants seem to have liked it.

Quick question if someone is inclined to answer (as I am sure the answer is also hidden somewhere on microbeman's site etc.):

So I brewed the tea for 24hrs during which the airpump was running without interruption.
Is that how you guys brew as well?
Or do you put your air pump on a timer something like 5 minutes on and 5 minutes off or something?
It seemed a bit much to me to let it run without interruption for 36 hours...

I aimed for 36 hours by the way but the foam was at the verge of overspilling and no matter what I did, I couldn't keep it down. I brewed the tea until I could no longer with the foam, which was 24 hours.
Could be less foam next time if I use less molasses maybe ...

I brewed about 6-7 gallons of tea and used about 2 cups of malted barley (shredded in the blender) and a hefty blob of molasses. Must have been at least 2 tablespoons, maybe 3.


So yeah, all is good, just wondering about the brew time mostly.
36 hours is supposed to be the sweet spot but I simply couldn't brew more than 24 hrs because of the foam. I could simply brew 5 gallons next time and have more space for foam I suppose ...

And the air pump gets quite hot when running 24 hrs uninterrupted... I didn't burn my hand touching it but it was so warm, I didn't feel comfortable letting it run any longer as well.

Thoughts?

bigbadbiddy said:

Howdy folks,

so I made my first ACT with malted barley and molasses. The plants seem to have liked it.

Quick question if someone is inclined to answer (as I am sure the answer is also hidden somewhere on microbeman's site etc.):

So I brewed the tea for 24hrs during which the airpump was running without interruption.
Is that how you guys brew as well?
Or do you put your air pump on a timer something like 5 minutes on and 5 minutes off or something?
It seemed a bit much to me to let it run without interruption for 36 hours...

I aimed for 36 hours by the way but the foam was at the verge of overspilling and no matter what I did, I couldn't keep it down. I brewed the tea until I could no longer with the foam, which was 24 hours.
Could be less foam next time if I use less molasses maybe ...

I brewed about 6-7 gallons of tea and used about 2 cups of malted barley (shredded in the blender) and a hefty blob of molasses. Must have been at least 2 tablespoons, maybe 3.


So yeah, all is good, just wondering about the brew time mostly.
36 hours is supposed to be the sweet spot but I simply couldn't brew more than 24 hrs because of the foam. I could simply brew 5 gallons next time and have more space for foam I suppose ...

And the air pump gets quite hot when running 24 hrs uninterrupted... I didn't burn my hand touching it but it was so warm, I didn't feel comfortable letting it run any longer as well.

Thoughts?

Click to expand...

Malted barley is not an ingredient in ACT, thus the extra foaming.

h.h. said:

Look anything like this?
View Image

Click to expand...

What if it does? Serious question.

Jhhnn said:

What if it does? Serious question.

Click to expand...

He said that it would have been from root rot from overwatering.
Was trying to make sure my yellowing leafs from the bottom were not from me overwatering and causing root-rot.

@Microbeman

Hu? Damn I really need to do some reading...

The malted barley and molasses was always what peaked my interest in the ACT subject and I thought they are brewed with an airlift for 36 hours and then given to the plants to both "sweeten" the buds and increase resin production as well as overall improving the soil food web and thus plant health etc. as well. So even though there is no compost in that mix, I thought it is still considered an ACT

Enough with the questions in the dark though, I put off reading through your website long enough and will sit down this weekend and do some groundwork on the whole topic, maybe then my questions will be more sensible/to the point and actually deserve an answer

Because right now I plan to give the plants plain water for a week and then was considering a second watering with malted barley/molasses before going only water till harvest again.
And I still don't know how long I should brew it then and if it should run 24/7 for 36 hours or what.
But I bet I will find that info on your site microbeman.

Cheers all

/Edit

So I started reading on your site microbeman.
So far it seems that I didn't "brew" an ACT but an aerated tea (?) which I didn't do to feed the plants but to inoculate my soil and kickstart/support microbial population and build the living soil food web. Somewhat correct?

I also saw that malted barley wasn't mentioned anywhere (so far, what I read) on your site.
I got the whole malted barley idea from listening to Clackamas Coot on one of the KIS podcasts. I think quite highly of Coot, seeing as I run his soil mix (slightly adjusted).
The way I understood him was that a malted barley tea is in his experience by far and large the most beneficial thing you can give to plants. The way I understood him was that this is the one thing a grower shouldn't skip if they are at all, even just a little bit inclined to build an air lift and "brew teas".

From what I gathered it is, in his opinion, the thing that adds the most to the soil in terms of microbial population and strengthening/building/boosting the living soil food web.

So that's why I ended up with malted barley (and molasses as both a sweetener for the buds and a food source for the microbes to populate the aerated tea).


Now at the beginning of this thread, I thought I would add nutrients to the plants by brewing an ACT, particularly N, to combat a deficiency.
This deficiency was "solved" by topdressing generously with EWC.
So I didn't put any EWC into the tea I was brewing, as I didn't believe my soil was deficient in any more nutrients (I am coming around to think that I might need slightly more P for one pheno in my current grow in particular but overall it seems fine and yellowing/dying leafs from the bottom of the plants are all but extinct. I found a few of them and could post a pic I suppose but we are over the halfway point of flowering now and I currently believe that these yellowing leafs are normal due to not enough light being able to penetrate the canopy).

So the tea was brewed with the goal to inoculate the soil and boost the living soil food web.

If I misunderstood anything along the way, please feel free to criticize/correct me


So, now, with that out of the way, the question somewhat remains as to how long I brew and how much I mix in.

From what I understood, skimming through the first parts of your site, I probably used too much malted barley, could do with a little less molasses and could decrease brewing time to 24 hrs by preparing some EWC with crushed wheat and dilluted molasses. I suppose I could replace the wheat with malted barley, at least partially?
From what I understood, this basically "pre-cooks" the active ingredients of the tea and thus reduced brewing time to 24 hrs. Could be an option for me I suppose?

One question I did definitely not find answered but since it wasn't explicitly mentioned, I suppose the air pump is supposed to run the 36 (or 24) hours uninterrupted?

I believe I will simply try my next brew with less malted barley and molasses and maybe also put a bit less water in the bucket and see how that goes after 36 hours...

And adding EWC, kelp etc. would only be if I want to feed the plants with nutrients because they look deficient, correct?

Oh and I might add some glacial rock dust to the next brew, if I understood it right, this could be beneficial but definitely won't harm.