[sensibudz]

Many people have asked me exactly what compost tea is, how its made, and how it benefits the plant.

In this thread I will explain all of my techniqes, what you will need, ways to make, and how to use it, and why you should use it.

1) What is compost tea?
Compost tea is just that, a mixture of composts that resemble a tea color. In soil all sorts of living things exist such as bacteria, fungi, worms, and other organisms that allow the soil to be productive. Some organisms in the soil eat smaller living things in the soil, and make them into plant usable forms. Compost tea can be used to kill pathogens that eat the beneficial food you originally plan to give to the plant. When using a compost tea, you are allowing more beneficial organisms into the soil, allowing for less pathogens in the soil. Allowing a plants soil to come into contact with certain fungis and bacterias also allows the plant to build a stronger immune system.

2) How Do I make compost tea?
Compost teas is made by steeping, or tea bagging a compost in water to make a liquid full of beneficial microorganisms that will be applied to the soil. Vermicompostis great for building a soil tea. I use 60 percent compost in my tea. You can also use soil from the outdoors because it also contains productive microorganisms. However, it has a lower concentration of organisms, and you will need to brew it a little longer. The organisms in the compost need a source of carbon so they can flourish.Bacteria usually grows faster than fungi in a broth they like. However, fungi have the advatage of being able to metabolize carbon sources that most bacteria cannot, such as cellulose. Now, if you use dextrose as a sugar source, bacteria will proliferate, and the tea will now contain more bacteria than fungi, which we dont want. We want fungi in order to fight fungal pathogens such as leaf blight. Since sugar will be 20 percent of you mixture, look around and find the best prices possible. Raw sugar can can be used, alon with molasses. The sugar should be added to the water and allowed to dissolve before brewing.
Soil organisms need some source of N in order to survive. For this I like to use yeat extract, it is a grounded powder. You may also use non fat dried milk!! You can also experiment with wheat, ricemeal, etc........... I like my mix to be 10 percent yeast extract.
Kelp powder meal is also going to make up 10 percent of your mixture, as it is rich in potassium and micronutrients that assist the plants and bacteria living in the soil.
So we now have a mixture of 60 percent compost, 20 percent sugar, 10 percent yeast extract, and 10 percent kelp meal.

3) How do I brew the tea?
I like to use a 5 gallon trash can with a lid of course, with a fish tank air pump and an air stone. Now add your ingredients into the can, and mix them around with a rod of some sort, and then add water until almost full. Now guessing that your plumbing is not going to clog, you can add the compost straingt, if not you will need to put the compost into a semi permiable bag. Put your air stone in the can, turn on the pump and in 3-5 days you have an amzing compost tea that will blow up your budz!!

4) How do I use it?
Dilute your mixture 1-5 for soil, and 1-10 for foliar applications. I recommend regular applications because it will fight off pathogens and helps to condition the soil.

5) Why should I spend the time to make compost tea?
Making compost tea help you and your plants in many ways. It allows your plants to fight off many diseases, helps eradicate nutrient deficiencies. Compost tea will also make your plants less dependent resulting in less worrying about when to feed you plants.

You will now be able to grow bigger-chemical free trees that will now use the nutrients you feed it more efficiently!!!

Another bonus to compost teas is that they can be used in place of fungicides rather than using chemicals that can remain on your plants. In fact a compost tea can be used to fight Botrytis cinera (Gray Mold) and Fusarium wilt (Fusarium oxysporum).

The following diseses can be treated with the given compost tea

Disease
1) Late blight
2) Gray Mold
3) Fusarium wilt
4) Downy-powdery milder
5) Apple scab

Compost Tea
1) Horse compost extract
2) Cattle compost extract
3) Bark compost extract
4) Animal manure straw extract
5) Spent mushroom compost

Well im new to this community, but not the horticulture and hope to enlighten many minds, I hope this is the first!! Bog, Gypsy, and everyone that has contibuted, give yourselves a pat on the back!

[Prometheus]

Interesting stuff! I'm thinking about starting to make my own compost tea. I've seen the effects good compost soil can have on my ornamental plants in the garden, so I guess it would be great to have some of those benefits indoors as well.

Have you heard about a product called Bio-Bact? This is something I have used with great results. I think it contains many of the same good organisms as in a compost tea. At least it promotes growth of beneficial fungi between roots, which help the plants in their uptake of nutrients. It has also helped keep my plants disease free. So if you can find it, it might be worth checking out..

This is the only link with information about it in English that I could find. :

https://www.hollandagro.com/hollandagro/biologic/

[sensibudz]

Hello, no I haddnt heard of it!! Looks like a great product, glad youve had success with it!!

Ill look into it further!

[sticky367]

Can you spray compost tea for mold in flowering?

[TNTBudSticker]

Originally Posted by sticky367

Can you spray compost tea for mold in flowering?

Another post was asking about that...if the PH is high,then it can be done.Kills mold on contact or mildew if foliar spray.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=10283

Wow...11 year old post activated :-)

[Mr. Organic]

Originally Posted by TNTBudSticker

Wow...11 year old post activated :-)

[Granger2]

There is an excellent Sticky in the Organic Soil forum called "Tea Article." Loaded with info. Good luck. -granger