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Insect Frass

habeeb

follow your heart
ICMag Donor
Veteran
can I make a mention on crab meal, instead of frass?

I was looking at the nute profile for crab shell.. isn't the iron through the roof?

 
B

BugJar

can I make a mention on crab meal, instead of frass?

I was looking at the nute profile for crab shell.. isn't the iron through the roof?

yeah crab meal is awesome stuff and contains chitin. Have you looked at the microbiological activity in frass. off the freaking charts.

I have had enormous success using it for foliar.
 

FatherEarth

Active member
Veteran
Ive got six lbs of Frass on the shelf, 50lbs of crustacean meal and 50lbs of crab meal. Working on a build then Ill get to testing this stuff. Ill be sending in some soil samples for testing as well. Time to start myth busting and see whats what...
 

Hash Man

Member
Insect frass has chitin in an uncalcified form, so it does not need to be composted to make it available to the plant. That's the main difference, aside from the ridiculous amount of beneficials in the insect castings. The Crab and crustacean have lots more calcium than the frass. Usin both together would make sense as the higher levels of calcium in the crustacean shell to offset the higher levels of magnesium in the insect castings. From what I have seen; there is almost 3 times the magnesium than calcium in the frass. People start seeing things that look like zinc issues or phosphorus issues when using the frass, but I honestly think its a calcium imbalance.
 
B

BugJar

I honestly think its a calcium imbalance.

It actually mentioned adding calcium on the full application instructions.

I can't really say that I am seeing the chitin in effect but the effect are pretty profound.

I followed the application rates exactly with added calcium and soluble kelp and they really loved it.

it seemed a bit like stone soup as in I was adding bokashi, ewc, soluble kelp and DE to the frass in a tea.

the effects were noticeably different when using the frass.

honestly
 

Babombeez

Active member
I'm glad people are starting to like the Insect Frass. And YES, use calcium with it. Gypsum works great, or Cal Carb foliar spray! Frass is amazing for foliar!!!

~beez
 

CoastalSFC

New member
I agree, Crab meal and frass would be an awesome 1,2 punch. I have used with Snowstorm Ultra which is Jasmonic acid, This also raises the plants immune system. These 3 together have given me the frostiest product to date.
 

Hash Man

Member
The frass has bugs for sure. I had 25 lbs left over from the season and dumped it in a bucket. After a week lots of bugs were crawling on the top layer... Must be small darkling beetles... The top few inches were wet as well . Im not sure if the Bugs were urinating on the frass or what, but i threw it out and probably wont use the frass again. I used 1 ton of the stuff on my outdoor and it didn't kill fungus gnats or anything. I had better results with rainbow mix an guano. I use ogbiowar now and have better results there.
 

GET MO

Registered Med User
Veteran
i used the stuff when i had some bugs i didn't know what they were (come to find out they were root aphids) i would mix it in the new soil and rinse the roots then transplant. it got rid of them for a long while (they just recently came back after about 6 months). One thing i noticed when i top dressed with the stuff is that it would start to mold up not long after being applied. it worked better mixed into the dirt. I got root aphids again and was thinking bout getting another bag of this, but don't know cuz I'm running coco recirculating and not sure how it would effect other nutrients in reservoir...
 

Kygiacomo!!!

AppAlachiAn OutLaW
its about the only organic ingredient I haven't tried...haven't even seen it anywhere...

i got mine from Buildasoil but they have it at amazon as well..i only want to use this stuff to induce SAR to make my plant stronger from within. im trying to build some outdoor tanks this year with Aloe vera,protekt,insect frass for the chitin and B1-thiamine plus only running proven strains..no more chemdog,white widow and og kush for a while till i get a few mold free years
 

nodestar

Member
I've used Insect Frass (brown paper bag) for about 6 months now. I replaced Fish Hydrodsadsadasdsad with it. 1 Tbs per gallon of water every other day will feed light to medium feeding Sativa's by it'self. Probably not enough for modern hybrids.

I grow in organic heavily amended soil. Lots of calcium in various rock forms as well as powdered shells and lots of Silica from Diatmousisusdsdasd Earth etc. Standard amendments. But no NPK mixed into the soil. So I top feed all my NPK. I now use Insect Frass alongside liquid gold. Which is another Fish Hydoslarsdasdadewe replacement made from fermented/decomposed mash that's left over from brewing beer. https://www.kelp4less.com/shop/lg-liquid-gold/ It's way expensive and I just started using it so no comments on it.

As for the Frass. I'll only make one objective claim and that's that my stems are noticeably thicker than before I used frass. This is something I can easily observe. I've read that Chitin and Silica work together to make more hardy plant cells. As for the rest of the claims. I believe them but have no way of knowing. If the Frass does contain pathogens or mean bugs I'm not concerned. My garden is indoors but fairly "exposed". I encourage most types of life. I have Fungus Gnats and Grand Daddy long legs and Silver Fish and all types of bacteria. I add Raw Milk and Kombucha and Worm Castings along with the standard fungal amendments. The best plants I ever grew were in soil and completely infested with these small beetle type bugs that turned out to be some very common beneficial insects that were feeding on the Fish Hydrosdfsdfsdflate. Sadly they left during the winter. Hopefully they will return.

The claims made about Chitin seem pretty impressive. It's basically the same price as Fish and buildasoil sells it with free shipping and I already get my worm castings there. So I won't stop using this anytime soon. Even if all the claims turned out to be false it would just be Fish Hydrodasdadas that gave your plants thicker stems.

EDIT: Obviously if you have a sealed garden you would be rightfully concerned about bringing in bad guys.
 
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