Cant stay - its kinda late, but just wanted to let y'all know that the brewer is up & running. Will get some good pics, flow rates, etc., hopefully tomorrow, but when we got home from our trip this afternoon, first thing I went for was the new pump that came while we were gone *lol* Anyhow - worm castings, some alaska humus, a little fish and some agave nectar. Basic, but with as hard and fast as the new machine is running, I have no doubt that it is breeding up all sorts of good critters in there right now! More to follow - g'nite. jerry.
The Mother of All Air Stones - 7" x 1.5" and hooked up to an Alita-60 would produce levels of air bubbles and turbulence in a 15 gallon cone-bottom tank that would stun you. I use one of these in a 5-gallon brewer mainly for de-chlorinating water. It takes less than 5 minutes with this air stone hooked up to an 80 LPM air pump. These are designed for aerating ponds, large aquariums (2,000+ gallons), fountains meaning that the actual holes are 20x larger than the type used in small(er) aquariums. This allows for complete and total cleaning to remove the biofilm though I haven't made an AACT for several months and probably won't. My brewing system is used mainly for alfalfa, kelp, neem, etc. teas or combinations of these used with Comfrey & Yarrow teas.
Since this is the currently active tea thread, I was wondering if I could get your opinion on something again LD. Can powdery mildew germinate, live, and spore out on soil alone or does it need to be attached to living above ground tissue to do that? I used some 'questionable' compost in a tea and now am getting some interesting growth on my smart pot material. I have looked around and everything seems to state that PM can only live and grow on living above ground tissue. It only germinates when it gets knocked up off the soil surface onto some living tissue.
Right now, at least (boy do I wish I could look at the tea through a scope!) I am going to make a few runs using the air lift setup and (I guess) just check out the results by looking at plant growth and health. After I make some runs with the air lift I am going to then try going thru the top with a stone hooked directly to the pump - like you are suggesting here. It will be very easy to switch back and forth a few times, and just remove and then cap off the bottom return that goes to the air lift pipe. When I do switch to "direct to airstone", Im just going to go thru the top with the stone,letting it sit on the bottom and aerate. I figure I can just stick a bathtub plug into the bottom on a string, brew the tea, and then pull the plug when I wanna use the ball valve - just to avoid dead spots in the valve and little bit of lower pvc. That looks like a hell of a stone. Anyhow, I'm going to try both ways and see which I like better. I was able to put a homemade aerator right into the lowest part of the airlift, and with this pump it is working great, and with the angle of the return pvc going into the cone shape, it automatically gets the tornado/vortex thing going too. Pretty cool, It would also be super beneficial to have some way to check the dissolved? oxygen levels going both ways - airlift or stone! I'll tell ya what - that airlift/vortex action keeps the humus/castings ingredients moving and mixing fast! I'll try and get some pics soon of it cranking along. I unfortunately dont have the time today but midweek I'll get to it. jerry.
Stankie Spider mites and those anaerobic fungi strains identified as 'powdery mildew' (both correctly and otherwise) are the most studied of all plant-related issues around the world. There are over 3,500 strains around the world. The agriculture school at OSU (Go Beavers!) have identified 350 strains west of the Cascade Mountains. Fortunately a single strain may only infect a small range of plants and usually they are in the same family. Try growing squash and melons around here and you'll levels of mildew/mold that will have you shaking your head. Whether or not these spores can live in a soil is open to debate among soil biologists and in my opinion it's not all that much of a question because these spores are airborne and can be carried by water, i.e. they're everywhere. Your hands, clothing, hair, your pets, etc. Whether or not an invasion takes hold on your plants is up to the gardener. Healthy plants have the highest resistance with vermicompost leading the pact for disease suppression. Agents which trigger a plant's defense system (SAR) need to be considered and used, IMHO. As to the molds you've seen growing on the outside of your SmartPots is a fact whether I'm using 'primo' compost or EWC or poorly made humus sources - I don't give it much thought as it's never effected plant health and growth in my gardens. HTH LD
Hey Jerry - great brewer ~ i am envious _ lOl ... i sorely need to make a large one as well and am hoping since you just succeeded i might get a bit of helpful info to pave the way ! did you go with your 1st or 2nd design >? could you possibly post a plan of what you ended up with ? at this point for me its a joke that i am still in 5 gal buckets - i never can make enough for my needs .... so any help very appreciated - thanks bro and hope all is well .
Falcon, of course. I'm on my phone right now - might be tomorrow before I can get to this but in the meantime do a search for a thread that Stankie did when he built his brewer - I think it was called "New Compost Tea Brewer"? Try and find that thread. There's a lot of great info in there, which helped me considerably when I was building mine. Jerry.
Falcon - I found the other thread. You'll want to read both of these threads. This one actually has more useful info in it than the one we're on now. Stankie and MIW both built fantastic brewers and there is great, useful info that will serve you well for building your own, and of course I will help with any questions you might have as you proceed. http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/740752-new-compost-tea-brewer.html I love my brewer and use it all the time. It works well, and thats what matters. It was a little expensive to build, but as far as I'm concerned with this unit, over the rest of my life of assorted tea brewing it was a wise investment that can be used in many circumstances. See this brief post from Lumper regarding the brewer - That set-up will do far, far more for your garden(s) than just AACT mixes. Botanicals teas like a neem & kelp meals brewed for 36 hours for a wide range of benefits as a fungicide, insecticide along with the PGRs contained in the kelp meal that limits internode distances on flowering plants. Toss in some Aloe Vera exact and you've moved it into an entirely higher level with the phytohormones, SARs, auxins, minerals, enzymes, amino acids from this plant to marry up with similar (but different) compounds in the neem and kelp meal. And I don't mean seaweed extract - kelp meal. Then you can play around with alfalfa & kelp meal for a similar (but different) set of benefits. And on and on. You'll be paid back in spades, IMHO See what I mean? jerry.
thanks Jerry - that thread has given me the info i feel i need to do it . i cant wait to have a hi volume brewer up and going ! our gardens will be popping and i bet any xtra will make my fruit trees pop!
And dont forget your buddys that wanna buy it from you cuz theyre too lazy to go thru the work of building the brewer! *laughing* SuperFalcon, the Organic Superhero! keep us posted bro. jerry.
MM, it was just more of a joke - friends that just didnt want to go thru the trouble of the brew. You know that we all appreciate your hard work, advice and research. I'll say it again - and again - Thank you very much! jerry.
No worries, I just don't like a lot of the greed which many of the 'brewer' manufacturers disaplay so put out the info for folks to build their own for home or farm use. Those lazy people have the option of purchase.
Hi Guys ~ dont worry we arent going to sell any brewers - just the tea - its not worth our time to try to sell the brewers - like you said MM , they can easily purchase one. i do direct people to your website and books so i am trying to give credit where due. but alot of these guys just would rather pay for tea than make it ...go figure the "shops" sell it for $10.95 1/2 gal. + tax! we are going to "donate" it for $10- 1 gal . still a good margin for us and worth the effort of bottling it and keeping it good. any ideas how long it will stay good if we put it in a fridge in bottles? i honestly give people all the info they need to do it themselves ( i.e. links to these threads! ) but they would rather pay xtra to have it done ... i also feel i am helping people get on the "organic" growing path so it needs to be done. thanks MM (and all the rest of u OG Gurus! )for all the info and advice to us all . i really appreciate the sharing of info to further our gardening skills. it provides us with higher quality meds & veggies/fruit . and we dont support big business as much in the process. Worth more than Gold in my book!
ACT should not be refrigerated at all. All this accomplishes is causes many of the organisms to encyst. Don't you think $10 per gallon is steep, especially 'if' (and I don't know your equipment nor experience) you happen to be new at the game? I believe it costs 50 cents to $1 to produce a gallon of compost tea depending on size and origin of inputs. If I sold 'tea' I'd have it pre-ordered so it would be fresh and I'd scope it to be sure it was appropriately active. Please look at post #17 http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1014465-tea-box-2.html#post14064708 and post #29 (read the pdf ad about price gouging customers) http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/997739-magical-effects-vortex-2.html
i haven't run a search about this and was just curious how may the ACT be applied after the brew cycle is complete? so as not to disturb the microbes? I am making lots of garbage and donations in the basement! feeling generous, after watching the show "hoarder" and noticing how many stacks of boxes are labelled "keepsakes"
Hot tub blowers may work rather well (I used to repair hot tubs when I was younger). There are also check valves to prevent water from entering the blower motors. Just a thought. They're rather cheap, too.
nice idea... are any of them suitable for home-brewing? I mean will it make the house sound like a propellor airplane landing?