How many of you use this tea and how far into flowering do you apply it?? I am using 1 cup to 5 gallons of water with maxicrop and a little mollasses. This is for OUTDOOR plants.
I topdress and feed teas u til 2-3 weeks before harvest , I'm going to be topdressing with alfafa meal , kelp meal , and high p guano and castings , watering in with mollases and water and a few EJ organic products . Ill use roughly a 1-2 cups of alfafa meal per plant as there pretty big and can take it . If you want 2 teas to make brew a simple compost / Ewc , mollases tea , and then a kelp / alfafa tea . You can increase how much alfafa you use accordingly its organics so it's fairly hard to burn but alfafa is hot so if topdressing not directly around the stem in my opinion . I sift it throu out the first inch or so and then add my other topdressings and water in .
Thanks for the response, I have been mixing the finished tea with water for a 50% tea to 50% water ratio. I like the results that I have seen and wanted to continue using it and adding some P in the form of bat poop to the mixture. I already added the amendments to the plug when I started. I dug a 15 gallon hole and while I dug I added blood,bone and alfalfa meal and phosphate rock and compost. This all gets pre mixed with a mantis tiller while I am digging the hole.So I have a pile of pre mixed soil and an open hole. I place several large fish in the bottom of the hole and backfill it. After a month goes by it's time to plant and mulch with rain spoiled alfalfa hay. This year I added the Mico's bacteria that stated it would allow the roots of the plant to access all that was available in the soil and increase the yield. So by using that stuff it should have all the nutrients it needs already in place. All slow release fertilizers . The plants are very healthy and they responded quickly when I first used the tea so I new it was working. I had a soil analysis done and everything was high in a good way and the rep told me I didn't need to add anything for a few years.PH was 6.8 and I have mounds of castings from the nightcrawlers that I introduced to my garden 30 years ago. These plants are between 7 and 8 feet tall and wide.So I suppose they can handle a little more juice before the harvest, I just read so many conflicting reports from others that say don't feed the alfalfa tea past the 3rd or 4th week of flower. Thanks Again and good luck on your grow!
3-7 days into flower, and apply the tea as a foliar, as well as soil soak. There are compounds, specifically Triacontanol, in the alfalfa that are most effective applied directly to the meristem, and right as the plant is hitting its growth spurt after being put into flower. Your 1 cup : 5 gallons water is a good ratio. Just bubble the alfalfa for 24-36 hours, strain, and spray. Water and alfalfa, possibly kelp, but nothing else. What do you mean by "with maxicrop"? Is that the brand of alfalfa, or are you adding kelp? Molasses and guano are completely unnecessary.
Pretty sure I read somewhere from Coot or LD not to go much past a couple weeks into flower. I think it had something with running the risk of throwing them back into veg.
Gandalf: Yes the maxicrop is kelp and the molasses is a very minute amount. I make the tea in a feed barrel 30 gallons at a time. I don't own a bubbler I still do it old school. I just stir it every time I am in the garden but it takes about a week at this rate to make. So what is the reason for only 3 to 7 days into flower? Please tell me?? I have already gone past that mark but not by much.
Ah, that's cool, the barrel method is fine. I still think you should cut it shorter than a week.... just 2 days should be fine. The reason for 3-7 days into flower was info given to me by a GC member who has been a part of some serious research into Triancontanol (TCN). He said the best effects are seen when you apply at the right moments in a plant's life.... generally speaking, he said you want to use TCN to "ride the wave" of growth, so to speak. So you know how a plant his a growth spurt a couple days after being put into flower? You want to foliar with alfalfa right then, in order to "ride the wave" and keep the growth coming big time. TCN promotes more lateral branching and lateral bud production, so this wouldn't be good in a SoG, for example. He said the other best time for application was right after a plant is TPed into its "forever home".... right when that growth spurt hits. But RD is right, there shouldn't be any ill effects from applying later than that.... the 3-7 days window is just an approximation of the "best" time to apply it. Although I think I've heard of growers experiencing some foxtailing from applying SSTs and alfalfa foliars late in flower.... not that that's necessarily a bad thing!
OK. I think I will continue to spin the wheel of fortune to see where it will take me. The plants are putting on masses of bud and so far I see no adverse effect from the tea. When this batch is done I will discontinue the application and see what the harvest brings. I am keeping a log book on what I have been doing. I was giving bi weekly foliar spray with fish emulsion and "Maxicrop" AKA kelp and everything is looking healthy. Thank you for your information. I wish I had 100 acres to conduct experiments with and without various components .I was really hoping to see dramatic results from the introduction of the mycorrhiza bacteria but the test plants look the same, maybe the harvest will tell another story!! Thanks again for all the replies
After reading that^, experiment if you must, but the phrase "Lipstick on a pig" comes to mind. Doesn't sound like you need anything but water till chop time. Wet
MANY Thanks Wetdog, I really didn't plan on adding anything else but a buddy turned me on to the bat crap for making tea and I thought I would try a little even though I probably don't need it. It's not like pounding them with ammonium nitrate or anything to drastic! That's one great thing about organic gardening, It's hard to over do it. Hell the weed can even take stronger doses of chicken shit like no other without adverse effects. Mind you I didn't over do it when I used bird poop either. I have seen other gardeners burn the crap out of their garden with fresh poo. Live and learn is what I have told them. I will always use the fish in the hole method, I have been sold on that for years.But don't you think the pig could use a chunk of pineapple in his mouth !!! LOL Good Luck and Good Growing