Nutes in compost tea

G

gread

Member
Hello guys and gals,

I have recently started to brew compost tea, I have been using a mix of worm castings, garden soil, potting mix, volcanic rock dust, seaweed and molasses.

My question is -
Is it ok to add my bloom nutes to the compost tea and bubble as normal for 24 hours?

My thoughts were that organic nutes need to be converted in to a plant available form, the beneficial bacteria multiplying in the tea will go to work on the nutes I add, do I run the risk of making a very hot tea and burning my plants!

I saw a post on this forums, someone stated that tea can burn if nutes are added, I feel like this tea should be chucked out!

Maybe I should just water the ladies now, the tea has been bubbling for about 17 hours, can I PPM test the water to check if its too hot?

Another option would be to just dilute the tea by half with some chlorine free water, but then the ladies wont be getting their standard feed?

I am using a 25L bucket (5gal for you yanks)
I added the same amount of nutes to the tea I would normally feed with plain water -

3ml per liter Old Timers Bloom - 75ml
0.5ml per liter plant magic magne cal - 12.5ml
0.4ml per liter plant magic platinum - 10ml

Ladies are currently in week 6 of flowering, they all had quite a serious cal/mag deficiency due to feeding a non organic bloom boost without any cal/mag alongside, I'm pretty sure I massacred the bennies in my soil with that salty bloom boost and possible kicked the PH out of whack well. After two waterings with compost tea growth has returned to normal and the buds are all putting on weight and frost.

Any quick advice would be great, the tea will be ready in about 8 hours!

-Gread
 
Beemo

Beemo

Well-Known Member
gread said:
Hello guys and gals,

I have recently started to brew compost tea, I have been using a mix of worm castings, garden soil, potting mix, volcanic rock dust, seaweed and molasses.

My question is -
Is it ok to add my bloom nutes to the compost tea and bubble as normal for 24 hours?

My thoughts were that organic nutes need to be converted in to a plant available form, the beneficial bacteria multiplying in the tea will go to work on the nutes I add, do I run the risk of making a very hot tea and burning my plants!

I saw a post on this forums, someone stated that tea can burn if nutes are added, I feel like this tea should be chucked out!

Maybe I should just water the ladies now, the tea has been bubbling for about 17 hours, can I PPM test the water to check if its too hot?

Another option would be to just dilute the tea by half with some chlorine free water, but then the ladies wont be getting their standard feed?

I am using a 25L bucket (5gal for you yanks)
I added the same amount of nutes to the tea I would normally feed with plain water -

3ml per liter Old Timers Bloom - 75ml
0.5ml per liter plant magic magne cal - 12.5ml
0.4ml per liter plant magic platinum - 10ml

Ladies are currently in week 6 of flowering, they all had quite a serious cal/mag deficiency due to feeding a non organic bloom boost without any cal/mag alongside, I'm pretty sure I massacred the bennies in my soil with that salty bloom boost and possible kicked the PH out of whack well. After two waterings with compost tea growth has returned to normal and the buds are all putting on weight and frost.

Any quick advice would be great, the tea will be ready in about 8 hours!

-Gread
Click to expand...
answer to your question... yes it is ok... i add food sometimes to my tea brew...

http://www.bioag.com/images/BioAg_Compost_tea_demo-reference.pdf

dont use too much... use in moderation...
moderation is always best in organics... like you said... too much can kill the bacteria/fungi development...
thats why organic food is always low in food content...
if you at week 6,, just let it go... no more food/tea this late imo..
better luck next time :bigjoint:
 
DonBrennon

DonBrennon

Well-Known Member
gread said:
Hello guys and gals,

I have recently started to brew compost tea, I have been using a mix of worm castings, garden soil, potting mix, volcanic rock dust, seaweed and molasses.

My question is -
Is it ok to add my bloom nutes to the compost tea and bubble as normal for 24 hours?

My thoughts were that organic nutes need to be converted in to a plant available form, the beneficial bacteria multiplying in the tea will go to work on the nutes I add, do I run the risk of making a very hot tea and burning my plants!

I saw a post on this forums, someone stated that tea can burn if nutes are added, I feel like this tea should be chucked out!

Maybe I should just water the ladies now, the tea has been bubbling for about 17 hours, can I PPM test the water to check if its too hot?

Another option would be to just dilute the tea by half with some chlorine free water, but then the ladies wont be getting their standard feed?

I am using a 25L bucket (5gal for you yanks)
I added the same amount of nutes to the tea I would normally feed with plain water -

3ml per liter Old Timers Bloom - 75ml
0.5ml per liter plant magic magne cal - 12.5ml
0.4ml per liter plant magic platinum - 10ml

Ladies are currently in week 6 of flowering, they all had quite a serious cal/mag deficiency due to feeding a non organic bloom boost without any cal/mag alongside, I'm pretty sure I massacred the bennies in my soil with that salty bloom boost and possible kicked the PH out of whack well. After two waterings with compost tea growth has returned to normal and the buds are all putting on weight and frost.

Any quick advice would be great, the tea will be ready in about 8 hours!

-Gread
Click to expand...
Not sure where you're at with this, have you already added the nutes? when did you add them? If you added at the start you should be ok, if you added after brewing, it's possible you've killed your bennies. I think it's Microbeman who's done testing on adding nutes after brewing teas.
In my opinion, you want to keep your tea's separate. If your after microbes to boost your soil population go for straight aact, if your after nutes, just do nutes. You should only need a couple of AACT's max per run, if at all.

If you have already added the nutes at the end, I still don't think it would cause you any issues, just less microbes, you'd still get the benefits of the nutes.
 
Last edited:
G

gread

Member
DonBrennon said:
Are the nutes not organic?????, whats the point of a compost tea, if you're feeding synth's? lol
Click to expand...
Im using all organic nutes

Yodaweed said:
He said bloom nutes to compost tea, makes me feel like he's putting salt based nutes in with organic stuff. Last paragraph he mentions he killed all good stuff with the salt nutes hes using so idk.
Click to expand...
I was referring to a few weeks ago when I accidentally used a non organic bloom boost. I now have a fully organic bloom boost

DonBrennon said:
Not sure where you're at with this, have you already added the nutes? when did you add them? If you added at the start you should be ok, if you added after brewing, it's possible you've killed your bennies. I think it's Microbeman who's done testing on adding nutes after brewing teas.
In my opinion, you want to keep your tea's separate. If your after microbes to boost your soil population go for straight aact, if your after nutes, just do nutes. You should only need a couple of AACT's max per run, if at all.

If you have already added the nutes at the end, I still don't think it would cause you any issues, just less microbes, you'd still get the benefits of the nutes.
Click to expand...
Nutes were added at beginning of brew, only non organic fert used was the magnecal.

I've had people swear by using AACT every watering, at what point does the soil microbiology no longer need assistance?
 
DonBrennon

DonBrennon

Well-Known Member
gread said:
I've had people swear by using AACT every watering, at what point does the soil microbiology no longer need assistance?
Click to expand...
If your soil already has good microbial life, you may actually do more harm than good by constantly applying AACT's. Your soil, or more so, your plant should dictate the microbial life within your soil. If you constantly interfere by adding more microbes, you're likely to offset the balance.
 
G

gread

Member
DonBrennon said:
If your soil already has good microbial life, you may actually do more harm than good by constantly applying AACT's. Your soil, or more so, your plant should dictate the microbial life within your soil. If you constantly interfere by adding more microbes, you're likely to offset the balance.
Click to expand...
I will take that in to consideration DonBrennon, thanks for the advice, I started giving the ladies tea due to a defeciency that I couldnt seem to deal with. Plants were showing a cal/mag def and one was yellowing badly. The tea seems to have bought them back to life. buds are fattening every day.

They have had 3 feedings of tea, I will give them a break with the next feeding and see how it goes from there

-Gread
 
OrganicSmokeOnly77

OrganicSmokeOnly77

Active Member
Don't take any offense to this, but you're going about this tea thing all wrong my friend. Teas are meant to strip and quickly multiply the millions upon millions of bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and nematodes in the compost, creating a soluble liquid that you can inoculate both the rhizosphere (lower area of the soil where roots grow) and the phyllosphere (leaf surfaces) with. Making it into a liquid lets nutrients and microbes seep down deeper and more quickly into the soil, without the aid of shredding organisms (ie. Worms). It is also the only way to inoculate leaf surfaces. It is not meant to be a way to provide liquid bottled nutrients to your plants. Those bottled nutes are not even necessary and should be organic and applied separately if you must. Amend your soil with your choice of amendments (all types of meals such as bone, blood, alfalfa, crab, neem, etc.), mulch with some grass clippings, apply an aerated tea made with some molasses and worm castings, then sit back and relax. The microbes will do the hard work breaking the nutrients down and literally serving them to your plants on a platter in exchange for plant exudates.
 
A

abrahamx

Active Member
I grow organic and use nothing but water and a good soil mix. I think if you add nutes its not organic. Maybe a compost tea from some compost out back sure, or some kelp and earthworm castings. And some good ol ro water and your golden. Why buy nutes. Heres my Critical Sensi Star at 32 days. Nothing but water and a top dressing of earthworm castings and some kelp. Thats the no till method in soil that has had four previous grows in. Just my two cents really. I stopped using nutes along time ago and have not noticed a difference in yeild(maybe I aint getting huge mega yeilds but I am not looking for that. I get about 4-5 ounces per plant which works for me and have got 8 off one plant) and quality and taste went up. Yummy.
 

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A

abrahamx

Active Member
OrganicSmokeOnly77 said:
Don't take any offense to this, but you're going about this tea thing all wrong my friend. Teas are meant to strip and quickly multiply the millions upon millions of bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and nematodes in the compost, creating a soluble liquid that you can inoculate both the rhizosphere (lower area of the soil where roots grow) and the phyllosphere (leaf surfaces) with. Making it into a liquid lets nutrients and microbes seep down deeper and more quickly into the soil, without the aid of shredding organisms (ie. Worms). It is also the only way to inoculate leaf surfaces. It is not meant to be a way to provide liquid bottled nutrients to your plants. Those bottled nutes are not even necessary and should be organic and applied separately if you must. Amend your soil with your choice of amendments (all types of meals such as bone, blood, alfalfa, crab, neem, etc.), mulch with some grass clippings, apply an aerated tea made with some molasses and worm castings, then sit back and relax. The microbes will do the hard work breaking the nutrients down and literally serving them to your plants on a platter in exchange for plant exudates.
Click to expand...
Yep. What he said.
 
2

215roller

Well-Known Member
Like everyone else said don't mix chemical nutes with other organics, otherwise your grow isn't truly organic.
 
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