How Much Substrate Can One Gallon of Compost Tea Inoculate?

According to http://microbeorganics.com/ my aquarium pump is only powerful enough to brew one gallon of compost tea at a time.

I have 25 gallons of soilless substrate to inoculate (Pro-Mix Premium Organic Vegetable and Herb). Will one gallon of tea be enough?

Most batches of tea are brewed in 5g batches minimum and I would recommend mixing that brewed tea with water. In veg I cut the fresh tea by 1 part tea to 5 parts water. In bloom I increase the potency to 1:2. I have made half batches of tea with 2.5g of water and half the amount of solid matter, it works but I wouldnt brew with less water.

5g of brewed tea makes 30g of feed at 1:5.
Feed your plants the same amount of fresh mix as you would any other watering.

If you have a pile of dirt, not in pots with no plants in it just mix the compost into the soil.

Thanks for the responses, I am still curious how much substrate you can inoculate per gallon of compost tea though.

Does no one here inoculate their substrate before growing in it to jumpstart the microbial population?

Plenty of people do that, just nobody ever tries to do it with the minimum possible amount of liquid.

Pour your gallon on and see what happens! If it doesn't wet the whole pile, brew some more.

What kind of pump do you have are you sure sure it can only brew one gallon? Microbe man was really, really particular and had strict rules about his tea brewing. Plenty of people have made plenty of tea without following his exact guidelines.

If you’re using fresh compost in your soil mix you don’t NEED tea. Like average said, don’t worry too much about the proper aeration part, just ask a local farmer in your area(non cannabis), farmers been using manure “teas” with zero aeration for centuries. Not saying aeration isn’t beneficial but rather not necessary to the extent that microbe man claims.

Thanks for the advice, fellas. It seems obvious now to just keep adding tea until the whole pile of substrate is wet, that should've occurred to me.

Right now I have an 1800 cc/min pump (~0.06 cfm), which according to that webpage is the minimum amount of airflow needed to properly aerate a gallon of tea. I was taking that webpage as gospel, but I might just ramp it up to 2 or 3 gallons to make sure I have enough inoculant.

I rigged up a 13-outlet bubbler using drip irrigation equipment to distribute the airflow throughout the bucket, hopefully that'll bump up the efficacy a bit.

I still use teas from time to time. I also topdress with compost when I amend after a run.
I mainly brew a tea up specifically to hit a new or lacking soil with a massive amount of biology.

DoctorChaos said:

Does no one here inoculate their substrate before growing in it to jumpstart the microbial population?

Click to expand...

I made up a few teas, and once I potted my organic 'soil', I watered a few times while letting the substrate sit for a month before my seedlings were transplanted.

Some
- compost tea
- fresh kelp tea
- some worm castings tea

Added a tablespoon of black strap molasses - must be no sulphur & no preservatives
And a little bit of wheat germ and baby cereal I found in the cupboards

That will ferment after a day or two ... and the naturally occurring rhizobacteria in the molasses will multiply ... so remember to burp your bottles

A good way to kick start your microbial life before the plants get to settle their roots in their new home.

PS:
No aeration with a pump.
I just shake the hell out of my tea bottles every day until they are bubbly and frothing with the fermentation.