I am prepping these hole for next year also. Here is a shot of my new and old mix together with lava rock and biochar and some DE mixed in there. I am pruning the plants when I swing through to bush them out and keep them low.



V

BTW I was also showing with the pictures of how I replace the grass ring around the base of the plant as not to leave a big ring around the plant. The grass and surrounding plants love the neem seed meal. lol

Originally Posted by VerdantGreen

bugjar - tell us more about the malt... i thought the starches were converted to sugars during the malting process? i agree its good to be scheptical about the latest wonder fads...
and are you saying the enzymes are no longer intact?

I'll break down the process as I have personally malted hundreds of pounds
we all understand that malted barley is the base for beer.

what malting is is sprouting the grains and then halting the sprouts once the chit is equal to the length of the grain. it is stopped by malting it. spreading it out on the floor and traditionally burning fire underneath. obviously they don't use fire these days but it is still malted slowly up until the 120f range depending on the lovibond of the finished product. obviously any enzymes that would be active in room temperature water have long since been denatured. speaking of denaturing there is also the issue of mechanical denaturing. that malt powder is very fine, can anyone tell me what happens when you turn a living organism into very fine dust? you guessed it. not living so much any more.

some sugars have been converted by the sprouting action but in reality it is very very little and most of it was in the cell walls of the sprout that isn't even there in the final product. however it makes sense to me that what is there regardless of how little it is should be very bio-available for any plant you might feed this water to. though I seriously question its solubility

so if you steep malt in 120 degree water you start to see proteolytic activity. where some of the thermophilic enzymes left start to activate and break down protein. still no real sugar.

when the temp climbs higher you start to see amylase enzymes actually get to work converting those complex starches into less complex sugars. but only when it is around 135-160f and the enzymes denature out of that range very very quickly

you can steep malt in tepid water all day and all it will do is get soggy it will never become beer and it will never be able to be fermented or really come alive in any way I am aware of other than being a starchy mess and giving the native lactic bacteria a place to hang out. btw even those are more effective and alive at higher temps

in baking the yeast reacts to the wide array of amino acids in the proteins and helps in baking but it is being acted upon by an outside force.

So as a catalyst in the soil there may be something to that claim but it is certainly is relying on your soil microflora and not internal enzymes and it would make more sense to me to top dress with it or something less time consuming

if seeking the benefits of the enzymes you best bet would be to sprout it yourself and then puree like some have suggested but even then you are going to suffer a lot of mechanical denaturing.

I have yet to hear one compelling argument for it that was based in any sort of fact.

I very heavily question any individuals research regarding anything related as somehow they missed obvious,huge, almost unavoidable and daunting amounts of information. regardless of who that person may be or how respected.

I type this with no negativity in my heart only pure love for all of you and our most beloved herb.

It is nothing personal but we all know science needs reviewed.

stoner science needs seriously reviewed.

so in short. it is a carb until converted into a sugar by amylase and no enzymesae active until it is around 120F. I am sure it makes for some nice microbe food in the end

[vStagger Leev]

@Verdant Green

For bloom I use the BioHeaven, TopMax, BioGrow, and BioBloom. i'll get my recipe on here if anyone is interested. I really dont follow much of the directions on the bottles, more or less use it as a standard. Last round I was dumping in almost 3tbls/gal of bloom during week 5-7, also dumping on the TopMax @ almost 1.5tbls/gal.

Veg is just hte FishMix and BioGrow, alternating or use half strength with both at the same time. Easiest bottled nutes, that are truly OG

Glad to see this thread already has a "sticky" on it! Much love, SL

[vStagger Leev]

https://imgur.com/qhQ7nbw,txUtKY7#1

https://imgur.com/qhQ7nbw,txUtKY7#0

[VortexPower420]

Bugjar- I recant my malt statement as I thought differently. I have read before about malt being used as a sugar, I guess I should have researched it a little more and I will.

I personally am still using grains that I sprout, there is something zen about bring a jar of seeds to life and then spread it around.

Timbuktu

[Microbeman]

It is difficult to find any published information on this. I have doubted the veracity of using dried barley malt myself, except as a source of carbohydrates, which of course would feed soil bacteria/archaea & fungi.

The most success anecdotally (reported to me) seems to come from sprouting the grains a little longer in length than one would to create barley malt and then submerging these in water with aeration. If not aerated, I have been told it goes stanky.

I have been told that the production of glandular trichomes is greatly increased through the use of the resultant liquid on soil. The reason, if true, remains a mystery to me but I suspect it has something to do with either an increase in microbes from the liquid or as a result of the liquid providing a food source to microbes in the soil or a combination of the two. The other possibility is that the enzymes created are having a direct effect on plant growth. Just guessing.

[xmobotx]

i agree timbuktu ~for those sprout rinses; i like fresh

MM; i speculate in my conjecture that it has a lot to do w/ the sprouting enzymes and the foodstock theory you provided

[VortexPower420]

My thought was that the enzymes just allow things to go faster, both microlife and plant life, then you introduce co-enzymes from kelp/rock dusts/sea minerals and its like throwing gas on a fire.

That is how I picture it n my brain.

Timbuktu

I am not totally discounting malt as being a good strata for microbial growth. in fact we rely on the fact that the amylase is there and does it's job, and then Saccharomyces can ferment it. every time we raise a bottle of liquor or beer made with barley.

Its enzymatic contribution to the soil web when steeped at room temperature is what I doubt and want to make sure that people don't have misconceptions about it being used as a sugar without proper extraction.

starch is pretty complex usually so I feel like it would be fairly difficult for any microbe to cleave it in any sort of helpful or orderly fashion.

all that said I am really on versed on the malt side. The organic matter contributed might make a happy home for all of our bug buddies in the soil and therefore *could* have great benefits.

Just so we can make sure we are all on the same page

malted barley = sprouted and then kilned to around 120f average

the reported beneficial enzymes are denatured in that range so steeping in room temperature is really not doing anything.

I do have a very very strong feeling that throwing malt flour into a composting batch of soil would have profound effects and provide a medium complex enough to keep our little buddies happier and healthier for the duration of the composting. I actually added a pound of un-milled malt barley to my most recent batch of soil to see if there were any noticeable results.

mushroom cultivators edible and otherwise have used malt barley to culture mycelium and it can be pretty rapid so we can only hope it has the same effect in out rootzone.

it should be noted that the results are better with unmilled grains then spent grain and much much better than flour.