Questions About A Tea

so i decided to make up a batch of tea. ive never done it before so its kinda a test run.

i did 4.5 gal water with
8tbsp bat guano (10-3-1)
8tbsp dr earth organic #6 (4-8-4)
(fish meal, alfalfa meal, rock phosphate, etc.)
1cup worm castings

i guess i was wondering if this will be ok here in a few days. i dont really want to buy anything else. at least not "specialty" stuff. i can get cow/horse manure composted or not though.
is this going to be too much? should i dilute it or just use it like water? does it need anything else (that is fairly common that i can get at a supermarket, basic garden center.)?

its outdoor soil by the way. thanks

Yo man, get you a fish tank pump and an air stone and bubble that stuff....you'll be golden!!

Save your money and dont mix the things in your using for nutes into the tea, just add it to the water. you will use less and it will be more effective.

and rock phosphate in tea???
why
I'm pretty sure its not soluble and needs to be mixed into the soil

ill probably just stir/dump it 5 or 6 times a day until i go buy a pump. also, will it get contaminated by any nasties being outside without a lid in the sun?

the phosphate was in the organic#6 mix already. basically got the mix after i planted, and dont want to dig around em to add it. i kinda wanted to balance the high N guano out a little. it says SOFT rock phosphate also. i missed that. does that make a difference?

so should i leave that mix out altogether next time? i will be getting a higher P guano in the next few weeks. gotta wait for shipping though.

im thinking this is gonna be the way for me to feed all year, so, when i get this horse and cow poo, should i go like a cup per gal semi-fresh or composted?

i know im full of questions, but do you all think the mix i have be good to use like water or does it need diluted?

jelmo44 said:

Save your money and dont mix the things in your using for nutes into the tea, just add it to the water. you will use less and it will be more effective.

and rock phosphate in tea???
why
I'm pretty sure its not soluble and needs to be mixed into the soil

Click to expand...

yea he's right for sure, I should have been more specific, but I don't know how much good any of it will do if it's not brewed. It would be basically like adding it to the soil, and it would still have to break down...I would think, I'm no expert.

you should mix a soil batch and let it sit for while with the rock phosphate in it.

Your tea is to feed the bacteria in the soil, not the plant. So put some EWC, compost, humus, stuff like that that will grow bacteria on it. then you need to add something like molasses, aguave nectar, guava nectar, or some sort of juice or something for the bacteria to eat. Then you dilute it in your water and feed it. Another good thing for the tea is the alfalfa meal, it has a growth hormone in it and it makes a BIG difference, in my experiences.

Then mix your fish emulsion, kelp, guano to the tea after its diluted with water so your not wasting so much and they get the food.

this is where a lot of people seem to be confused is the difference from tea and feeding.


Rock phosphate, bone meal, blood meal, guano, EWC, compost, dolomite lime, humus and all that stuff can be pre mixed into the soil (amending the soil) and let it sit for a month before you use it and then the bacteria from the tea and the humus and EWC will eat all the organic stuff, which makes it possible for your roots to absorb the nutrition.


If you want some of my recipes, let me know.

Really the tea is about more than just bacteria, but bacteria can multiple readily and very rapidly so they tend to dominate. We can make balanced or fungi-dominant tea also but we have to take a couple extra steps in order to give the fungi a head start. Some tea ingredients are more beneficial to/able to be utilized by bacteria while other ingredients are more for supporting the fungi; and dosage also matters here. Molasses (unsulfered blackstrap), for instance, at higher doses is definitely more for the bacteria as they'll be able to utilize the sucrose and other simple sugars it contains. Low doses of molasses are better suited for balanced or fungi-dominated teas. Soft rock phosphate, kelp meal, humic and fulvic acids are good for fungi in particular. Guano (high P or balanced in particular) is good for fungi too; it contains other micro-organisms as well and hence is a biologically active material.

There are also protozoa (ciliates, flagellates, amoeba) and nematodes in compost/humus and thus in the tea as well. These are the organisms that eat bacteria and fungi (and other protozoans and nematodes, too), so they are largely responsible for mineralizing (releasing for plant availability) the nutrients which had been locked up in the bodies of those microbes. All of these organisms require oxygen, so an air pump is crucial. Direct sunlight isn't good for the microbes either.

But, teas certainly do feed. All of the microbial activity that goes on in the brew has to be resulting in ions or free immobilized nutrients. These may be assimilated by other micro-organisms, or the plant (if one is around) quite immediately. Either way the microbes ultimately do end up feeding the plant; so I can only conclude that tea does indeed feed the plant. 'Ultimately'- but really those nutrients are being cycled all the time. They may be largely retained within the bodies of microbes, but the life processes of a microbe results in plant available nutrients and the consumption/death of a microbe results in plant available nutrients: microbes are living and dying all of the time, so microbes are feeding the plant all of the time.

jelmo44 said:

you should mix a soil batch and let it sit for while with the rock phosphate in it.

Your tea is to feed the bacteria in the soil, not the plant. So put some EWC, compost, humus, stuff like that that will grow bacteria on it. then you need to add something like molasses, aguave nectar, guava nectar, or some sort of juice or something for the bacteria to eat. Then you dilute it in your water and feed it. Another good thing for the tea is the alfalfa meal, it has a growth hormone in it and it makes a BIG difference, in my experiences.

Then mix your fish emulsion, kelp, guano to the tea after its diluted with water so your not wasting so much and they get the food.

this is where a lot of people seem to be confused is the difference from tea and feeding.


Rock phosphate, bone meal, blood meal, guano, EWC, compost, dolomite lime, humus and all that stuff can be pre mixed into the soil (amending the soil) and let it sit for a month before you use it and then the bacteria from the tea and the humus and EWC will eat all the organic stuff, which makes it possible for your roots to absorb the nutrition.


If you want some of my recipes, let me know.

Click to expand...

the rock phosphate isnt separate. its in a mix with fish meal, alfalfa and some other stuff.
ok, so i can see that its a feed the soil not the plant instance. im not really understanding why i need to feed the bacteria sugars though, besides to make them multiply. if they can break down the guano and blood meal etc. in the soil, why not in the bucket?

im probably just missing something along the way. is it necessary to have big complex sugars like molasses or guava also? like would cane sugar or brown sugar be acceptable or easier for the bacteria to process.

id love to see your recipes though. hopefully i can source some of the ingredients localy

Nullis said:

Really the tea is about more than just bacteria, but bacteria can multiple readily and very rapidly so they tend to dominate. We can make balanced or fungi-dominant tea also but we have to take a couple extra steps in order to give the fungi a head start. Some tea ingredients are more beneficial to/able to be utilized by bacteria while other ingredients are more for supporting the fungi; and dosage also matters here. Molasses (unsulfered blackstrap), for instance, at higher doses is definitely more for the bacteria as they'll be able to utilize the sucrose and other simple sugars it contains. Low doses of molasses are better suited for balanced or fungi-dominated teas. Soft rock phosphate, kelp meal, humic and fulvic acids are good for fungi in particular. Guano (high P or balanced in particular) is good for fungi too; it contains other micro-organisms as well and hence is a biologically active material.

There are also protozoa (ciliates, flagellates, amoeba) and nematodes in compost/humus and thus in the tea as well. These are the organisms that eat bacteria and fungi (and other protozoans and nematodes, too), so they are largely responsible for mineralizing (releasing for plant availability) the nutrients which had been locked up in the bodies of those microbes. All of these organisms require oxygen, so an air pump is crucial. Direct sunlight isn't good for the microbes either.

But, teas certainly do feed. All of the microbial activity that goes on in the brew has to be resulting in ions or free immobilized nutrients. These may be assimilated by other micro-organisms, or the plant (if one is around) quite immediately. Either way the microbes ultimately do end up feeding the plant; so I can only conclude that tea does indeed feed the plant. 'Ultimately'- but really those nutrients are being cycled all the time. They may be largely retained within the bodies of microbes, but the life processes of a microbe results in plant available nutrients and the consumption/death of a microbe results in plant available nutrients: microbes are living and dying all of the time, so microbes are feeding the plant all of the time.

Click to expand...

ok, starting to get it a bit more. so its sort of like building an ecosystem in a bucket and then introducing it to the soil? would the fungi serve the purpose of breaking the organic matter down as well?
basically, please correct me if wrong, what im getting of this is that i will be starting a mini compost pile to constantly break down the soil and organic matter around and under the plant.

back to what i have now, worm castings, guano, and this mix of ingredients, all of which list the microorganisms contained, and 5gal water.
say i add (4 tbsp?) sugars and airate. then the organisms multiply. would this be considered a "concentrate" of bacteria etc. and benefit from being watered down further?
then, would i add blood meal and whatever else and let them get to work?

Making a fungus tea for indoor growing is only useful at the very beginning of the plants life though, that way it has time to grow in the soil. Doing it part way through the life cycle really wont give it much time to grow and be beneficial to the plant. Fungus doesn't multiply in the tea, because it cant. It needs roots to live and such. So if you don't start up a healthy fungus network early on with your plant, it doesn't really matter.

The molasses or juice gives the bacteria something to eat on in the tea, which allows it to grow and multiply.

And no the tea doesn't feed the fuckin plant, yes it does feed the bacteria and such, and the bacteria eat shit in your amended soil which makes it possible for the roots to uptake it.

Just think the roots are your kids, the grocery store is your tea, and you are bacteria. The grocery store doesn't feed your kids, you go there, get what you need, and then feed your kids.

Fungi don't necessarily need plant roots to live; only certain mycorrhizal varieties (arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in paricular) that become entirely dependent on plant roots for carbohydrates and thus sustenance. Plenty of other fungi are strictly saprophytic: they decay organic matter for carbon. Some fungi can even do either, and the presence is still of benefit to the plant (not to mention endophytes). There may be from hundreds to thousands of species of fungi in good compost/humus and you think its all about the bacteria?

Myco largely wont function or proliferate in teas; that is correct. If you add spores or propagules to a regular tea brew it is likely that they'll be destroyed. But if you think you can't get a tea dominated by fungi or that it has no benefit you're mistaken. You just have to activate the fungi well in advance of the brew. Some powdered oatmeal in the compost, moistened and let to sit for a few days at a high temp will allow for the fungi to dominate the substrate. By then it will be over-taken by mycelium and ready to go into a brew.

This I find particularly interesting...

jelmo44 said:

And no the tea doesn't feed the fuckin plant, yes it does feed the bacteria and such, and the bacteria eat shit in your amended soil which makes it possible for the roots to uptake it.
Just think the roots are your kids, the grocery store is your tea, and you are bacteria. The grocery store doesn't feed your kids, you go there, get what you need, and then feed your kids.

Click to expand...

And without the grocery store they would probably starve, huh? Really though that isn't even logical, just doesn't make sense as obviously you fail to realize a couple things (or else you're just narrow minded). Not sure I can explain this to you very well but here goes. The tea is the inoculant and whatever ingredients you put into it. So if all you do is use compost or castings and molasses (which is fine) then you have a tea which is just that: a strictly simple compost tea, but it still contains all of the nutrients (potassium, minerals) that were put into it even though those things may be largely locked up in the bodies of micro-organisms it can be released in plant available form at any time.

You may however brew a tea with guano and kelp meal (which provides complex carbohydrates for fungi) in addition to the humus and molasses, which will certainly result in a more nutritional end product (where else would those nutrients go?). Get a TDS meter and check the finished brew. It will probably be well over 800 because there are dissolved solids in it (obviously). Of course they 'feed' indirectly as well by introducing high populations of beneficial microbes to the plant; but it isn't just limited to soil application (foliage, too) and so it isn't just because the microbes break down organic matter for nutrient availability. Their very life processes (and not just those of bacteria) indeed result in plant available nutrients (among other benefits), and the plant attracts them into the rhizosphere by producing exudates because it knows this. They do not just "eat shit in my amended soil which makes it possible for my roots to uptake it"... and what do you suppose that even means?

Plant available nutrients are being cycled in the compost tea, and the compost tea further helps cycle the nutrients in the soil (as well as add nutrients). I say 'cycle' because all the carbon, all of the nitrogen, phosphate and other vital plant nutrients can't be locked up in the bacterial biomass all of the time. And it isn't; with other organisms present, those nutrients are being mineralized (made plant available) and probably re-assimilated all of the time. A big part of what the microbes do is keep the nutrients locked up in the rhizosphere, but largely only temporarily.

if you would read what I said I did tell him to add the guano and all the other stuff, after you make the tea, or else your just wasting your money

Lol. Riiiight. You know exactly what you're talking about.

Poor child.

well thanks fellas. very nice info. i think ill keep it simple for awhile with just castings and some molasses though