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Mixing compost tea with organic feed?

Nutty sKunK

Nutty sKunK

Well-Known Member
So I’m brewing up a compost tea atm.

I’ve gone 2.5gallons of water

1/4cup of EWC
1tsp of organic molasses
Half a cap of organic fish stuff (just melted fish by the looks of things)
And a little seaweed extract

Now my question is I’m feeding my plants organic bottled nutrients every watering at a low feed, I’m growing in peat.

Can I mix my organic nutrients into the tea once brewed and give it to them or does it have to be separate?

Cheers!
 
meangreengrowinmachine

meangreengrowinmachine

Well-Known Member
Nutty sKunK said:
So I’m brewing up a compost tea atm.

I’ve gone 2.5gallons of water

1/4cup of EWC
1tsp of organic molasses
Half a cap of organic fish stuff (just melted fish by the looks of things)
And a little seaweed extract

Now my question is I’m feeding my plants organic bottled nutrients every watering at a low feed, I’m growing in peat.

Can I mix my organic nutrients into the tea once brewed and give it to them or does it have to be separate?

Cheers!
Click to expand...
Your nutes will just kill the microbes in your tea.
 
Nutty sKunK

Nutty sKunK

Well-Known Member
meangreengrowinmachine said:
Your nutes will just kill the microbes in your tea.
Click to expand...
Even if the nutes are organic? They say they boost microorganisms n such in the soil...

So could I give them tea then feed directly after?

Just cautious as I don’t want to underfeed them by giving just the tea as I’m feeding light dosage every watering.
 
Rurumo

Rurumo

Well-Known Member
That tea is not very strong, so yes, you absolutely could add your usual organic nutes to it. It will not harm the tea in the slightest. If you ever decide to mix up "hotter" tea with guano and other things, you could just replace your usual nutes with it for that watering, but I would only give a tea once per week-that seems to be the sweet spot.
 
Nutty sKunK

Nutty sKunK

Well-Known Member
Rurumo said:
That tea is not very strong, so yes, you absolutely could add your usual organic nutes to it. It will not harm the tea in the slightest. If you ever decide to mix up "hotter" tea with guano and other things, you could just replace your usual nutes with it for that watering, but I would only give a tea once per week-that seems to be the sweet spot.
Click to expand...
Amazing news thanks dude! Super helpful!

Quick question - how’s long is best to brew was going for 24hrS..
 
Dontjudgeme

Dontjudgeme

Well-Known Member
Nutty sKunK said:
So I’m brewing up a compost tea atm.

I’ve gone 2.5gallons of water

1/4cup of EWC
1tsp of organic molasses
Half a cap of organic fish stuff (just melted fish by the looks of things)
And a little seaweed extract

Now my question is I’m feeding my plants organic bottled nutrients every watering at a low feed, I’m growing in peat.

Can I mix my organic nutrients into the tea once brewed and give it to them or does it have to be separate?

Cheers!
Click to expand...
I use dry amendments vs bottle feeding, I do however ph my tea. On my bottle fed plants I purposely leave a little tea for them too. I don’t mix the tea with my nutrient solution, but I’d imagine if I did it wouldn’t make a difference because I’m gonna ph it anyway.
 
L

loco41

Well-Known Member
Nutty sKunK said:
So I’m brewing up a compost tea atm.

I’ve gone 2.5gallons of water

1/4cup of EWC
1tsp of organic molasses
Half a cap of organic fish stuff (just melted fish by the looks of things)
And a little seaweed extract

Now my question is I’m feeding my plants organic bottled nutrients every watering at a low feed, I’m growing in peat.

Can I mix my organic nutrients into the tea once brewed and give it to them or does it have to be separate?

Cheers!
Click to expand...
I'm no expert, but I would probably keep them separate. Using the tea by itself should give the microbes a better chance at surviving and establishing themselves in the soil. Mixing the two before watering it in would just run the risk of diminishing your microbes you just brewed up in my opinion.

I grabbed this little section from www.microbeorganics.com

Adding Ingredients to a Finished Brew;

As I’ve mentioned we used to make 1200 gallon batches of ACT which we applied on our farm garden beds through an irrigation system. We used the same tank if we wanted to apply some other diluted soil amendment or fertilizer, like fish hydrolysate, molasses (occasionally) or humic acid.

I had read that many growers and landscapers were adding some of these amendments into their ACT just before applying and I believe this process was endorsed by SFI. Anyway we decided to try saving some time and money and dumped 5 gallons of fish hydrolysate into a 1200 gallon batch to pump out. I had, as usual examined the finished brew microscopically and out of curiosity took another sample after mixing in the fish hydrolysate. To my astonishment and dismay I had wiped out or put to sleep almost half of the microorganisms. This was the last time we did this.

We always apply amendments separately from ACT and this is what I recommend unless using the most minuscule amounts. I surmise that adding anything to a finished brew can have similar negative results. The amount of FH we used was 0.4%. If you have a microscope, go ahead and experiment.
 
Nutty sKunK

Nutty sKunK

Well-Known Member
loco41 said:
I'm no expert, but I would probably keep them separate. Using the tea by itself should give the microbes a better chance at surviving and establishing themselves in the soil. Mixing the two before watering it in would just run the risk of diminishing your microbes you just brewed up in my opinion.

I grabbed this little section from www.microbeorganics.com

Adding Ingredients to a Finished Brew;

As I’ve mentioned we used to make 1200 gallon batches of ACT which we applied on our farm garden beds through an irrigation system. We used the same tank if we wanted to apply some other diluted soil amendment or fertilizer, like fish hydrolysate, molasses (occasionally) or humic acid.

I had read that many growers and landscapers were adding some of these amendments into their ACT just before applying and I believe this process was endorsed by SFI. Anyway we decided to try saving some time and money and dumped 5 gallons of fish hydrolysate into a 1200 gallon batch to pump out. I had, as usual examined the finished brew microscopically and out of curiosity took another sample after mixing in the fish hydrolysate. To my astonishment and dismay I had wiped out or put to sleep almost half of the microorganisms. This was the last time we did this.

We always apply amendments separately from ACT and this is what I recommend unless using the most minuscule amounts. I surmise that adding anything to a finished brew can have similar negative results. The amount of FH we used was 0.4%. If you have a microscope, go ahead and experiment.
Click to expand...
Very interesting! Seems like adding stuff is a no no.

But would the effects be similar if they were added to the soil separately? Or would the microorganisms need time to colonise?
 
L

loco41

Well-Known Member
Nutty sKunK said:
Very interesting! Seems like adding stuff is a no no.

But would the effects be similar if they were added to the soil separately? Or would the microorganisms need time to colonise?
Click to expand...
To be honest, I'm not really knowledgeable enough to answer one way or the other. I prefer to build my soil myself and then shoot for pretty much water only. I make "nutrient teas" out of some of the dry amendments at times, but the only bottle thing I use is yucca extract from time to time. That said, I would like to think the microbes have a better chance of survival (not saying the bottled stuff would kill them off, but if that were the case) if the compost tea was watered in by itself as opposed to adding the concentrated bottle nutes directly to the freshly brewed tea.

Just my thought process on it all,. Either way you go though, I hope you end up with some beautiful plants.
 
Nutty sKunK

Nutty sKunK

Well-Known Member
loco41 said:
To be honest, I'm not really knowledgeable enough to answer one way or the other. I prefer to build my soil myself and then shoot for pretty much water only. I make "nutrient teas" out of some of the dry amendments at times, but the only bottle thing I use is yucca extract from time to time. That said, I would like to think the microbes have a better chance of survival (not saying the bottled stuff would kill them off, but if that were the case) if the compost tea was watered in by itself as opposed to adding the concentrated bottle nutes directly to the freshly brewed tea.

Just my thought process on it all,. Either way you go though, I hope you end up with some beautiful plants.
Click to expand...
Similar to my reasoning... I just really don’t want to yellow them out. I’m gonna try it on one as she still has her first set of leaves (front left) and even if she yellowed a tad it wouldnt be the end of the world as I currently water every 2 days

31B9BDAC-D74B-4800-8553-883F49518067.jpeg
 
Nutty sKunK

Nutty sKunK

Well-Known Member
Well the deficiency is still progressing at the same rate - might of even gotten worse.

But I think I have found the problem!

My regime was feed lightly every watering which was going great. Until in the nutrient companies schedule I cut out the silicon around week 3 of flower. It occurred to me that this was around the same time the yellowing started increasing.

The silicon is highly alkaline. Making my feed pH 9 and now without it the pH of the feed is 5.2!! What a shift. Seems to high but the pH of the soil is 5.1. So looks like they’re schedule offsets the acidic peat by feeding higher pH. Since you use the silicon from seedling to early flower in their schedule.

So basically my soil is now too acidic blocking these nutrients.

Water tomorrow so for the meantime I’m gonna use the silicon until my organic pH up arrives in the next few days.

Hope it fixes the issue if not it’s flush time but I hope I can avoid that!!
 
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