1st Organic tea do i need anything else

GreenGrower14

Active Member
So this will be my first tea. If anyone has any suggestions id love to hear them any chance to improve my tea for my girls would be great.


So heres what i have.. (5 gallon batch)

5 gal RO water ph'd at 7.0
5 tbs Ancient Forrest Humus or should i use Farmer D Organic compost?
6 tbs Earthworm castings
6 tbs of used coffee grounds
1 tbs Mexican Bat guano
2 tbs Jamaican Bat guano
2 tbs Algamin kelp meal
1 tbs blackstrap molasses

Ill be aerating the tea for 2 days before i water it in and ill be storing the excess tea in my fridge how long will it last in there?

Thanks for the replies in advance lol

GG
 

mr.bond

Well-Known Member
If you're making a compost tea to add biological diversity to your plants, your breakdown seems a bit wacky. First, you don't need Ancient Forest AND Earthworm Castings. Ancient Forest IS Earthworm Castings. Plus the AF is alot more diverse than regular EWC. Second, ditch the coffee grounds, guanos, and kelp. Use this tea to increase microbial diversity, not feed the plant. Third, add a source of mycorrhizae fungi. I would recommend MycoGrow Soluble from fungi.com. It is cheap, easy, and ships fast. Aerate for 48 hours. It will last in the fridge for up to a week, discard when it smells bad. Shake daily to aerate while in the fridge. Let it warm up a bit from fridge to room temp before you add. Once you have a little ecosystem of microbes, fungis, and bacterias in your soil, then add your organic compounds (kelp, guanos, etc.) that the microbes will break down as a plant food source.

For more information check out this thread: https://www.rollitup.org/dwc-bubbleponics/361430-dwc-root-slime-cure-aka.html

Cheers and good luck
mr.bond
 

$waGgEr

Active Member
i like to use green sand in my teas and liquid sea weed. you should always chang up your teas a lil bit i dont like to get into a rut...mr bond up theres got this question all locked up so thats all i got on it..i wont waste time quoting him ppl dont need to read the same shit twice right. cliff note though make sure your using sulfer free molasses or itll piss off the fungi or some shit..good luck kid. organics is a way of life much respect.
 

randomseed

Active Member
If you're making a compost tea to add biological diversity to your plants, your breakdown seems a bit wacky. First, you don't need Ancient Forest AND Earthworm Castings. Ancient Forest IS Earthworm Castings. Plus the AF is alot more diverse than regular EWC. Second, ditch the coffee grounds, guanos, and kelp. Use this tea to increase microbial diversity, not feed the plant. Third, add a source of mycorrhizae fungi. I would recommend MycoGrow Soluble from fungi.com. It is cheap, easy, and ships fast. Aerate for 48 hours. It will last in the fridge for up to a week, discard when it smells bad. Shake daily to aerate while in the fridge. Let it warm up a bit from fridge to room temp before you add. Once you have a little ecosystem of microbes, fungis, and bacterias in your soil, then add your organic compounds (kelp, guanos, etc.) that the microbes will break down as a plant food source.

For more information check out this thread: https://www.rollitup.org/dwc-bubbleponics/361430-dwc-root-slime-cure-aka.html

Cheers and good luck
mr.bond
kelp is used in almost every tea recipe Ive ever seen. Its chalk full o good stuff that helps the process.
Also there is nothing wrong with using AF and EWC together, I do it all the time just to cover all the bases. Just take your normal amount of EWC and split it in half with the AF and EWC. Could be overkill but nothing that going to hurt.

As far as I understand the mycorrhizae will be useless in the tea, they dont activate untill they make contact with roots so they would do nothing in the tea (no reproduction without proper root enviroment).

Guanos are not directly part of the microb soup but its still ok, Mexican Bat Guano esspecially is high in bac counts and does set teas into bacterial overdrive.

For the most part your looking fine.
 

mr.bond

Well-Known Member
Yes, mycorrhizae only becomes active when it comes into contact with roots, however, almost all myco products have other forms of beneficial bacterias/fungis in them, including the MycoGrow Soluble I listed. Brewing them in the tea is desired.

The idea behind brewing the tea is to have biological diversity. Ancient Forest is pretty much the most diverse product on the market with over 80,000 variants of life. The molasses is a food source for the bennies, this is what they use to multiply into the billions in the 48-hr. window. Throw in some bat guano, and you're now diluting the herd, the 'powerful' bat guano organisms will likely overrun many of the bennies found in the Ancient Forest. Not to mention the mass amount of Nitrogen in mexican bat guano. If you're flowering, you don't want N. If the tea is brewed with bat guano, the bennies will be feasting on the bat guano instead of the molasses, and releasing a ton of Nitrogen because of it. Next thing you know, you pour your tea on your plant and it gets burned from the massive amount of available N. So don't add bat guano. Kelp is also a source of N. Plus, too much microbe food in your tea mixture is bad and can foster anaerobic conditions, which is the opposite of what you want to achieve.

Keep your plant food sources and your beneficial teas separate. Inoculate the soil with the bennies, then feed the soil with the organic food sources. The biologically-active soil will break down the organic compounds, and in turn, feed your plants.

I'm not saying that you can't make a tea with guanos, kelp, etc., I'm just saying if you want your tea to have instantly-available masses of nutrients in it, that's kind of the opposite of organic growing, and you might as well use synthetic nutrients. You want long, continued nutrient uptake -- not sporadic shots of 'hot' nutrients.

cheers
mr.bond
 

GreenGrower14

Active Member
Wow i really appreciate all the info everyone +rep to you all i think im gonna take mr bonds advice and add a fungi.so do you do a batch of just beenies and molasses and then do a batch of the food for them? And will using predatory nemitodes kill off any beneficial life simply because im pretty sure i got a batch of the roots organics soil that had gnats so i got some neems to kill em off but i dont want them to kill off any of the good guys..
 

mr.bond

Well-Known Member
hey greengrower,

yeah just do the tea then add your food later. the bennies in your tea are now in your soil and will break down the organics to provide food. you'll want to feed on a normal schedule of sorts, and keep your soil moist to keep the bennies alive. the bennies will be fine if you use neem oil. as for predatory nematodes, yes they can kill bennies. they can also be harmful to humans so watch out. the tea and some neem should rid you of your gnat problem after a bit.

cheers,
mr.bond
 
Yes, mycorrhizae only becomes active when it comes into contact with roots, however, almost all myco products have other forms of beneficial bacterias/fungis in them, including the MycoGrow Soluble I listed. Brewing them in the tea is desired.

The idea behind brewing the tea is to have biological diversity. Ancient Forest is pretty much the most diverse product on the market with over 80,000 variants of life. The molasses is a food source for the bennies, this is what they use to multiply into the billions in the 48-hr. window. Throw in some bat guano, and you're now diluting the herd, the 'powerful' bat guano organisms will likely overrun many of the bennies found in the Ancient Forest. Not to mention the mass amount of Nitrogen in mexican bat guano. If you're flowering, you don't want N. If the tea is brewed with bat guano, the bennies will be feasting on the bat guano instead of the molasses, and releasing a ton of Nitrogen because of it. Next thing you know, you pour your tea on your plant and it gets burned from the massive amount of available N. So don't add bat guano. Kelp is also a source of N. Plus, too much microbe food in your tea mixture is bad and can foster anaerobic conditions, which is the opposite of what you want to achieve.

Keep your plant food sources and your beneficial teas separate. Inoculate the soil with the bennies, then feed the soil with the organic food sources. The biologically-active soil will break down the organic compounds, and in turn, feed your plants.

I'm not saying that you can't make a tea with guanos, kelp, etc., I'm just saying if you want your tea to have instantly-available masses of nutrients in it, that's kind of the opposite of organic growing, and you might as well use synthetic nutrients. You want long, continued nutrient uptake -- not sporadic shots of 'hot' nutrients.

cheers
mr.bond
Thanks for the awesome info. I am planning to do a microbe tea of Ancient Forrest, MycoGrow, and molasses. Could you provide some guidance on proportions? Additionally, do you have a preferred organic nutrient schedule post microbe tea? This is for a soil (FFOF) grow, btw.
 

mr.bond

Well-Known Member
Thanks for the awesome info. I am planning to do a microbe tea of Ancient Forrest, MycoGrow, and molasses. Could you provide some guidance on proportions? Additionally, do you have a preferred organic nutrient schedule post microbe tea? This is for a soil (FFOF) grow, btw.
Hey thanks for the rep. check out this thread for more info:
https://www.rollitup.org/dwc-bubbleponics/361430-dwc-root-slime-cure-aka.html

the ancient forest and and molasses proportions are on that first page. i cant remember the exact amount of mycogrow to add, but search through the thread it is in there somewhere. cheers and good luck!

mr.bond
 
Hey thanks for the rep. check out this thread for more info:
https://www.rollitup.org/dwc-bubbleponics/361430-dwc-root-slime-cure-aka.html

the ancient forest and and molasses proportions are on that first page. i cant remember the exact amount of mycogrow to add, but search through the thread it is in there somewhere. cheers and good luck!

mr.bond
Thanks again. I purchased some MycoGrow Soluble from Fungi Perfecti and asked them about proportions. 1/2tsp. to a gallon, water as normal.

Also, the representative mentioned that the Soluble should NOT stay in water for very long..."Mix and use, its like having a fish outside the water, get those spores in the ground!"...so with that, I would say either do the Mycorrhizae entirely separate or add it at after the brewing period. Thoughts?
 
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