I wouldn't recommend giving your seedlings a compost tea until the first set of fan leaves are developed. If you do you risk killing your seedlings! Sent from my LG G4 using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Ok. My seedling is about a week old from planting seed in soil. Only has just those very first leaves. So you would suggest another week or two?
Mate can I Just say don't put compost tea on your plants at least until the first set of leaves have shrivelled up, only use water because those leaves have all the nutrients the plant needs at that first stage of life. And even after that be carful start off with half strength and make sure you have plenty of drainage, don't be fooled you can f#%k your plants up with compost teas if you hit them too young. I don't even do compost tea any more, if you're doing organic's do more sst or water with coconut water, fulfil acid, silica maybe some aloVera you can foliar spray with this too. This will feed all your microbiology in the soil that in turn will feed your plants. Hope this helps, and remember less is more. Don't love your plants to death. That is all Sent from my iPad using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Thanks man. I will def just water with water from my rain barrel until the plant is older. Thanks again for all the info.
Consider adding Cal mag to your rainwater after your seedlings have at least my Rainwater is very clean so the addition of Cal mag to about 60 ppm is beneficial to use and rain water only Be well/SpiritMtFarms
Be sure your seedlings have at least two full sets of leaves before you begin adding any type of fertilizer or Cal mag do your babies Be well/SpiritMtFarms
Do you have to add cal mag? My rain water is pretty clean. Live out in the country, so theres not much air pollution.
Adding cal/mag or any other type of man made "fertilizer" would be contradictory to organic gardening methodology...
Cal mag done correctly is organic. My Rain water needs a bump being so clean. Only 60 ppm total dilution just a bit. Be well/SpiritMtFarms
Molasses, oyster shell, dolomite lime are just a few ways to organically add magnesium and calcium. These items are usually amended into growing medium since my Rainwater is so clean I need to add a small amount with each watering.
Why do you feel the need to "bump" the soluble mineral content of your irrigation water? If you're gardening in a properly built, biologically active soil there's PLENTY of cal/mag available...
i use RO water (tap is extremely hard here) and i add nothing to it. OP, you dont need compost tea, at all. save yourself time and trouble. compost teas were a thing a couple years ago but have since been proven to be rather useless, especially in a soil rich in compost and organic matter. if there is ever a need its just better to top dress with compost then to make tea out of it.
Don't water with compost tea til they're like 4 to 6 in tall. Never fertilize seedlings, they don't need it. Go pick up True Living Organics by the Rev. And put it to use. Most of these questions asked by beginners are always easily answered in any grow book. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Scooby can you elaborate more on this or send me a couple links. I agree that compost tea is not necessary but I'd like to understand why. My view on it is more that this isn't a natural thing since it doesn't ever rain compost tea and IMO we should be trying to recreate what nature does naturally which would be letting everything compost back into the soil (mulching, top dressing) rather than adding it back artificially (compost tea). The lady I work for is all of a sudden getting on the compost tea bandwagon because another one of the farmers there uses it and grows some good stuff...but then she's like adding this and that and I'm trying to tell her that compost tea shouldn't be used as fertilizer that fertilizing and ACT have different purposes but because the other farmer does it that way she seems to think that she needs to. I got her on to nettle and comfrey tea and she liked the result but now it just seems to be all about ACT. I'd like to be able to show her why its not necessary and hopefully save ourselves a lot of time. Sent from my A460G using Grasscity Forum mobile app
in a nutshell it has no benefits over using just compost. with added risk. there is a lot to say so ill refer you to this article which words it nicely. Compost Tea provides no real benefits- Garden Myths one thing i didnt see mentioned in that article is the fact that it is the plant which manipulates the bacteria populations in the rhizosphere. by changing the ph of its exudes it controls which bacteria will thrive as different bacteria will process for the plant different nutrients and minerals. these changes in ph can happen several times a day. this is also the reason we dont adjust ph in organic soil btw, let the plant do it. now you dump a bunch of random microbes into the soil and change the balance the plant created. and another thing. even without the plant controlling things in the soil. there is a thing called equilibrium. "the condition of a system in which all competing influences are balanced" bacterial populations in the soil, in and out of the rhizosphere, are ultimately controlled by the amount of available resources. if there are a lot of resources the microbial populations will be larger then in a soil with little resources. now, unless you just mixed your soil, there is a certain equilibrium in it. even if you multiplied microbes in a tea (which, AACT doesn't actually do) it wont matter because the equilibrium will return extremely fast. bacteria multiply fast but also have short lifespans. they will enter the soil and since it still has the same amount of resources as it did before applying the act (minus the cup of compost that made the tea) they will have to fight over whats available with the existing microbes and the equilibrium will shortly return to pretty much exactly what it was before (at least it wont be more then if i took that cup of compost and tossed it on top of the soil.