Post your Organic Tea Recipe!

Hey there fellow Organic Growers here is my recipe for brewing a bacterial/fungi organic tea. Post yours and discuss!

Seedling Brew (less than 4 weeks old):
5 TBS Black Strap Molasses
1 cup Earth Worm Castings
5 tsp. Liquid Kelp Extract
5 Gallons of Water

Feed every 3rd watering with no dilution needed.

Vegetative Brew:
1/3 cup Peruvian Seabird Guano (careful, this stuff burns easily!)
1/3 cup Mexican Bat Guano
1/3 cup Earth Worm Castings
1/2 cup alfalfa meal
5 TBS Black Strap Molasses
5 TBS Liquid Kelp Extract
Optional: 2-5 TBS Fish Emulsion (depending on how strong you want it)

Feed every 3rd watering at 2 cups per 5 gallons water

Flowering Brew:
2/3 cup Peruvian Seabird Guano
1 cup Earth Worm Castings
2/3 cup Indonesian Bat Guano (High P)
1/2 cup alfalfa meal
5 TBS Black Strap Molasses
5 TBS Liquid Kelp Extract

Feed Every 3rd watering 3 cups per 5 gallons water.


Thanks for reading. Anyone want to share their recipe along with their dilution ratios? Im still trying to figure out mine.

damn CB, that looks complicated lol. i just planned on throwing some horse poo in an old pillow case and letting it sit in a barrel full of water for a few weeks. i was gunna do that same with nettles and bracken only straight into the water of course. hope that works lol. looks like you have a hell of a regimen planned. i was thinking with both of my teas that i would just dilute 5:1 with water. i was also gunna use earth juice bloom and also some wood ashes come flowering time and maybe before the grow to raise the PH a bit.

I shall keep making my Russian comfrey fert. Tried and tested.
Hey, nice to get the organic forum!!!

hey is russian comfrey a perrenial or anual?

and can you also use that method with the bottles with other plants as well? for example nettles, bracken etc.?

Stickied. Great thread:D

Hey there fellow Organic Growers here is my recipe for brewing a bacterial/fungi organic tea. Post yours and discuss!

Seedling Brew (less than 4 weeks old):
5 TBS Black Strap Molasses
1 cup Earth Worm Castings
5 tsp. Liquid Kelp Extract
5 Gallons of Water

Feed every 3rd watering with no dilution needed.

Vegetative Brew:
1/3 cup Peruvian Seabird Guano (careful, this stuff burns easily!)
1/3 cup Mexican Bat Guano
1/3 cup Earth Worm Castings
1/2 cup alfalfa meal
5 TBS Black Strap Molasses
5 TBS Liquid Kelp Extract
Optional: 2-5 TBS Fish Emulsion (depending on how strong you want it)

Feed every 3rd watering at 2 cups per 5 gallons water

Flowering Brew:
2/3 cup Peruvian Seabird Guano
1 cup Earth Worm Castings
2/3 cup Indonesian Bat Guano (High P)
1/2 cup alfalfa meal
5 TBS Black Strap Molasses
5 TBS Liquid Kelp Extract

Feed Every 3rd watering 3 cups per 5 gallons water.


Thanks for reading. Anyone want to share their recipe along with their dilution ratios? Im still trying to figure out mine.

Doesn't BlackStrap Molasses contain sulphur?

Anyways here are my teas

Seedling (transplanted at 3rd leaf set to 3 gallon pot):
Distilled/tap water - no added ingredients besides maybe some ph up/down

Vegetative: I am going to swap these 2 teas every 3rd watering during veg. Note: epsom salt and other things may be added to help curtail any deficiences that arise during this stage, hopefully the Superthrive will keep all the trace elements abundant.

Tea #1 Fish-y Tea
2 tbsp Alaska Fish Emulsion (5-1-1)
1 cup worm castings
5 gallons of water

Tea #2 Super Poop Tea
3 3/4 tbsp Super Tea (5-5-1) Mexican bat guano, sea bird guano, worm castings, soluble seaweed extract
2 drops Superthrive
5 gallons of water

Plants go from 3 gallon pots to the ground once they reach 2.5-3ft in height.

Flowering: Flower Power! Hopefully this tea will lead you to some good bud porn!!

Tea #1 Flower Power Tea
2.5 tbsp Budswel (0-7-0) High Phosphorus Bat Guano, seabird guano, worm castings
1.25 tbsp Earth Juice Meta-K Organic Fertilizer (0-0-10)
1 cup worm castings
2 drops Superthrive (every other watering)

Tea #2 Draino Tea (for flushing out any left over nutes!) - last 3 weeks of flowering b4 first harvest
5 tbsp of Unsulphured Molasses
5 gallons of water

Always good to note that some of these will increase in strength, all these are measured out at a 25% strength so at some point these recipes may be multipled by 3 or 4x the ingredients listed.

Cheers!

Edited by firstimah, 07 February 2009 - 07:19 AM.

i like that recipe. it seems that 2 tbs of fish emulsion is very light on the plants. i start off with 2 tbs of fish emulsion per gallon even sometimes. this is only if a tea is not brewed fresh.

Doesn't BlackStrap Molasses contain sulphur?

Yes, Molasses contains Sulphur. That is, unless you buy some Unsulphured Blackstrap
Molasses. It's on the shelf in any grocery store. I buy "Brier Rabbits" blackstrap and its
fantastic!

Hope that help!

~Experimentalist

A recipe for a cheap homemade organic tea I "borrowed" from the web. According to this dude, this will give you all the bacteria, mushrooms and trace elements your mj plants will ever need. This works better if your soil mix and ferts are organic. Use this recipe both for vegetaion (N in the fish) and flowering (P and K in seaweed and molasses), Mg in epsom salts.

Fill a 20 liter (5 gallons) pot half way with, in same proportions, unless indicated:

-fresh or canned fish (sardines etc...:keep juice). If you use fresh fish, let it decompose alone with sawdust, not with the seaweed that would be decomposing separately with saw dust in that case. With canned fish mix everything together.
-sea weed: rince to take out salt if it's fresh, chop or liquify by placing in water before (better solubility). (or buy some in powder)
-saw dust: bacteria eat the saw dust and thus are able to capture and use the Nitrogen gas coming from the decomposition to break things down. The saw dust holds likquids and prevents rotting. Saw dust is also used in compost heaps.
- 2Tbs Unsulphured molasses: sugars help bacteria + no smell
-2 Tbs epsom salts (to add Sulphur and Magnesium): epsom salts add sulphur that are already in the store bought fish emulsions. Add when the tea is ready.

Mix well every day to let in O2 for the bacteria to live, or use a stone bubbler to put O2. The guy doesn't mention a cover (?) but I'd put a screen against bugs. After 1-2 weeks, when it smells like yeast ,and is foamy, add the epsom salts. It's ready. Strain the mixture. Dilute 1l of this liquid to 1L - 3l- 5 liters of water (dilute well first). For foliar feeding, dilute more, add a a few drops of liquid soap for better absorption (the soap sticks to the leaf).

Edited by Corto Malteze, 09 February 2009 - 10:37 AM.

1 cup organic seed meal (equal parts of organic cottonseed meal, flaxseed meal, alfalfa meal & canola meal)
1/2 cup Alaska humus (Denali Gold brand)
1 cup homemade worm castings
2 tbls. kelp meal
1/2 cup fish enzyme (fungai development)
1/2 tsp. BioAg Pure Humic Acid (fungai development)
1 or 2 tsp. molasses (not necessary but I use it when I need higher bacteria counts).

6 gallons bubbled water

Run it at 75F for 18 hours to achieve a high fungai tea and 24 hours for a higher bacteria profile.

Spray on all branches, stems, leaves, everything to destroy powdery mildew and maintain that with 2x per week of neem seed oil application.

Use as an inoculant for the soil after clones are set in veg and again at the beginning of the flower cycle. Maintain with weekly waterings of fish enzyme and seaweed extract.

Works for me.

LumperDawgz

Edited by LumperDawgz, 10 February 2009 - 03:50 PM.

ah very nice, ive been looking around for humic acid but i cant find any in my local stores.

do you by chance know the benefits of having a fungal tea vs. a bacterial tea? i cant seem to tell when my teas are fungal.

in

ah very nice, ive been looking around for humic acid but i cant find any in my local stores.

do you by chance know the benefits of having a fungal tea vs. a bacterial tea? i cant seem to tell when my teas are fungal.

cannabisblunt

Without a $1,500.00 microscope you can't tell. If you're using earthworm castings then you're good to go and your compost teas will be balanced across the entire micro-herd - bacteria, fungai, nematodes, protozoa, et al.

Bacteria is very easy to grow in a compost tea. Fungai don't increase in numbers but what they can do is to increase in length. It's no uncommon to have 100,000 fungai strands up to 6' in length in 1/4 tsp. of the tea.

The best way to get the fungai up and running is the addition of kelp meal, (Maxicrop works well too) and most importantly the liquid fish products that are produced by enzymes (fish hydrosylate). You do not want to us the standard 'Alaska Fish Emulsion' or related products. You won't have any problem finding it - look for the words 'enzyme' and/or 'hydrosylate'

If you're trying to push out fungai then leave the molasses out of the mix. The carbohydrates feed the bacteria which consume the food and explode by reproducing and limiting the foods needed by the fungai. Even when you do use molasses you only want to add 1 tsp. per 5 gallons of water

Here's a 'kind of' or maybe it's a 'sort of' guide for brewing for specific microbial goals. Assuming that you're using an aquarium heater in your tank and you're running the tea at 70F, then a high(er)-fungal tea will be ready in about 12 hours. That is when the fungai have increased in length by huge numbers.

At 18 hours the bacteria are definitely dominating the culture in the tank. Bacteria will dominate until you hit about 36 hours and then the protozoa are up and running and the bacteria have faded substantially for lack of food.

If you're batching out a tea for use as a soil drench then you're probably best to use it around 15 hours - again assuming that you have the water temperature under control. Aquarium heaters are chump-change.

If you're wanting to brew a batch of compost tea to use to wipe out (once and for all) powdery mildew then I would be spraying the tea after 12-14 hours.

With the addition of the fish enzyme product, kelp (or some kind of seaweed product) and pure humic acid you'll end up with some major levels of fungai from the earthworm castings.

The pure humic acid at BioAg.com is NOT derived from Leonardite - thankfully. Their product is so concentrated that you only use 1/8 tsp. per gallon as a foliar spray. Double that amount for brewing tea.

HTH

LumperDawgz

Edited by LumperDawgz, 11 February 2009 - 11:38 PM.

in
cannabisblunt

Without a $1,500.00 microscope you can't tell. If you're using earthworm castings then you're good to go and your compost teas will be balanced across the entire micro-herd - bacteria, fungai, nematodes, protozoa, et al.

Bacteria is very easy to grow in a compost tea. Fungai don't increase in numbers but what they can do is to increase in length. It's no uncommon to have 100,000 fungai strands up to 6' in length in 1/4 tsp. of the tea.

The best way to get the fungai up and running is the addition of kelp meal, (Maxicrop works well too) and most importantly the liquid fish products that are produced by enzymes (fish hydrosylate). You do not want to us the standard 'Alaska Fish Emulsion' or related products. You won't have any problem finding it - look for the words 'enzyme' and/or 'hydrosylate'

If you're trying to push out fungai then leave the molasses out of the mix. The carbohydrates feed the bacteria which consume the food and explode by reproducing and limiting the foods needed by the fungai. Even when you do use molasses you only want to add 1 tsp. per 5 gallons of water

Here's a 'kind of' or maybe it's a 'sort of' guide for brewing for specific microbial goals. Assuming that you're using an aquarium heater in your tank and you're running the tea at 70F, then a high(er)-fungal tea will be ready in about 12 hours. That is when the fungai have increased in length by huge numbers.

At 18 hours the bacteria are definitely dominating the culture in the tank. Bacteria will dominate until you hit about 36 hours and then the protozoa are up and running and the bacteria have faded substantially for lack of food.

If you're batching out a tea for use as a soil drench then you're probably best to use it around 15 hours - again assuming that you have the water temperature under control. Aquarium heaters are chump-change.

If you're wanting to brew a batch of compost tea to use to wipe out (once and for all) powdery mildew then I would be spraying the tea after 12-14 hours.

With the addition of the fish enzyme product, kelp (or some kind of seaweed product) and pure humic acid you'll end up with some major levels of fungai from the earthworm castings.

The pure humic acid at BioAg.com is NOT derived from Leonardite - thankfully. Their product is so concentrated that you only use 1/8 tsp. per gallon as a foliar spray. Double that amount for brewing tea.

HTH

LumperDawgz

Very interesting. i have a small bottle of fish emulsion (the Alaskan kind) but i will stop using it. Also, I recently brewed my last batch outside (only place i can) where temperatures are in the 50s, so it takes extra long. I decided to even let it go for 2 full days because of such a low temperature.

Also, I use 1 TBS of molasses per gallon. Apparently this is too much?

Very interesting. i have a small bottle of fish emulsion (the Alaskan kind) but i will stop using it. Also, I recently brewed my last batch outside (only place i can) where temperatures are in the 50s, so it takes extra long. I decided to even let it go for 2 full days because of such a low temperature.

Also, I use 1 TBS of molasses per gallon. Apparently this is too much?

A tablespoon is okay. Some people starting out start pumping in 1/2 cup which is great for the bacteria - those populations explode and do so at the expense of the other microbes.

2 days at the lower temperatures you are dealing with is right on target. Just a drop of 10F from the optimum 70F will almost double the time needed to brew.

If I could recommend a single book about soil and the use of ACT (aerated compost teas) - [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Teaming-Microbes-Gardeners-Guide-Soil/dp/0881927775/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234404179&sr=1-1"]Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web[/ame]

The chapter on brewing and applying compost teas is worth the cost of the book alone.

LumperDawgz

Edited by LumperDawgz, 12 February 2009 - 02:06 AM.

just placed an order, thanks.

What do these teas do to pH and ppm?

Nice to see those results too.

In the mid-90's Dr. Elaine Ingham began investigating the use of ACT (aerated compost teas) at Oregon State University in conjunction with a group of researchers at University of Washington - Pullman.

Dr. Ingham later went on and founded the Soil Food Web which has branches in Europe, Asia, South America, et al. This group tests soils, processes, methods and assists farmers and governments in learning how to maximize crops around the world.

Here's a very good article on the "ins and outs" of brewing these teas - link

There's a ton of information at this site on any number of organic farming issues and related topics.

HTH

LumperDawgz

Edited by LumperDawgz, 12 February 2009 - 01:36 PM.

What do these teas do to pH and ppm?

ocitown

Oh dear! The dreaded 'PH' discussion relative to organic growing!

Here goes - many organic growers start either building their own soil from the ground up, i.e. buying peat or coir, one, all or any of the following: perlite, pumice and vermiculite. Some dolomite lime (to neutralize the peat moss PH) and some kind of a wetting agent. From there you add your compost or earthworm castings which will be PH neutral (assuming that you're using compost which has been correctly made), seed meals or bloodmeal for the 'N' deal and bonemeal or fish bone meal for the 'P' deal. And some type of rock dust.

None of these soil amendments will cause a change in the potting soil's PH.

If you start out with a professional soilless mix like ProMix or Sunshine Mix, these products are made for the nursery industry. Their mixes are adjusted for a neutral PH at the packing shed.

The humic acids in compost (and earthworm castings) neutralize the PH in the soil meaning that even if you add a tea in the PH range of 4-9, these acids keep things in check.

I know that this flies in the face of conventional cannabis growing because much of the information comes from the hydroponic side of things that got transferred over to soil growers.

There's a plethora of information about PH and organic farming so that you can make up your own mind.

One of these days I'll have to pick up a PH meter and see what's going on around here! Or perhaps I can borrow one from another Oregon MMJ grower.

Cheers!

LumperDawgz

ocitown

Oh dear! The dreaded 'PH' discussion relative to organic growing!

Here goes - many organic growers start either building their own soil from the ground up, i.e. buying peat or coir, one, all or any of the following: perlite, pumice and vermiculite. Some dolomite lime (to neutralize the peat moss PH) and some kind of a wetting agent. From there you add your compost or earthworm castings which will be PH neutral (assuming that you're using compost which has been correctly made), seed meals or bloodmeal for the 'N' deal and bonemeal or fish bone meal for the 'P' deal. And some type of rock dust.

None of these soil amendments will cause a change in the potting soil's PH.

If you start out with a professional soilless mix like ProMix or Sunshine Mix, these products are made for the nursery industry. Their mixes are adjusted for a neutral PH at the packing shed.

The humic acids in compost (and earthworm castings) neutralize the PH in the soil meaning that even if you add a tea in the PH range of 4-9, these acids keep things in check.

I know that this flies in the face of conventional cannabis growing because much of the information comes from the hydroponic side of things that got transferred over to soil growers.

There's a plethora of information about PH and organic farming so that you can make up your own mind.

One of these days I'll have to pick up a PH meter and see what's going on around here! Or perhaps I can borrow one from another Oregon MMJ grower.

Cheers!

LumperDawgz

Great explanation indeed!! +rep

Learning organic is very new to me but also very interesting,any info on these teas and ppm?

Seems these teas are only added every few waterings,whats given between the tea feeds?