Damn, I'm gone for a weekend and miss all the fun! It's time for someone to bring you all back toward earth. Who here is using malted barley for their enzyme teas? I've used it a few times so far. I just took the malt and put it in my blender with a cup or two of water (one ounce of seed per gallon of finished tea). Then I ran the blender until the seed was pulpy, strained out the seed material and diluted that water into a bucket of my final amount of water. I haven't brewed it yet, is anybody brewing their malted barley tea? If so, what process are you using? Uploader is working for me again, here's a baby ECSD in a 1 gal bag of build-a-soil. Here's my master in a 30g of build-a-soil right after I put it into it's spot in the flower room. This was about a week ago now, I've since staked it and it's really taken to it's new spot. I'll get some more pics of this the next couple of days. This is a shot of my flower room while I was moving everything into place. Kind of gives you a better idea of how it's set up.
InlineMax Weigh out 1 oz. of malted barley grain and grind that in a coffee grinder to a powder. Add this to 1 gallon of water and let that steep for 4 hours and apply to the soil. If you 'brew' this as I think I understand the term as you're using it then you will be dealing with Acetic acid which will cause huge problems in you soil. VOE
Thanks for clarifying the difference between 'brew' and 'bubble', Coot. More is not always better.... TwB
I guess I should have clarified. By brew, I meant to bubble with an airstone in water. Do you strain out the seed material after steeping for 4 hours or do you water that into the soil? Do you dilute the enzyme water after steeping or do you use at full strength (1oz per gallon for the total amount of water you're watering with)?
InlineMax Even with an airstone to error on the side of caution limit that to 4 hours. One thing that I learned when I switched from malting grains myself vs. using professional malted grains is that the pros know what they're doing meaning that the enzyme levels are off the chart. We can never duplicate that at home because we lack the skills, the equipment and science used at malting houses. I don't strain the teas at all - just apply full-strength to the soil. There is absolutely no benefit from applying as a foliar spray - soil enzymes belong in the soil and not on the biomass. I wouldn't even want to try and guess what the results would be but with a couple of specific enzymes I could see the possibility of causing major problems - Urease and phosphatase in particular. CC
Coot What would you say the shelf life on malted grains is? I know we want to grind them fresh but could they be stored for a while in the malted state? I was thinking about getting a 5 gallon homer bucket from HD and the screw on lid for it to store my 50 lb sack. Is that necessary?
SoloToker Thank you for your question! I decided to get the best information that I have immediate access to - F.B. Steinbart Co. (est. 1918) in Portland, Oregon which is the oldest homebrew store in America. Verbatim: Malted grains will keep for up to 2 years without a problem. You need to store it in a cool dry place and away from moisture. A lot of our customers store them in buckets with lids. We store some of our specialty malted grains like this. That's what I learned about 5 minutes ago which I did not know about the shelf life. That changes things for me personally as far as buying and using some 'exotic' malted grains that I can buy - amaranth, sunflower seeds, quinoa and a couple of others. Good news for a lot of folks perhaps! Thank you again! CC
I've got a question for you, blue. (Or anyone else...) I have a miserable time cloning... maybe 5-10% success rate... How do you clone with best results? Im growing in no till organic soil. Once i get a clone to root, it usually does well. I just have a heck of a time cloning. I'm even trying some comfrey right now. Lol Thanks all! Sent from my SGH-I317M using Grasscity Forum mobile app
mr_goodwrench What specific materials are you using now - I'd rather craft an answer that would sound foreign or require you to buy more things. I've done them all for good, bad and indifferent... CC
Ok, I've got fresh organic non pastured honey, a pink powdered rooting compound, an aloe plant, kelp meal, worm bin, recycled soil, unused aged soil, my window sill and my 24/0 1000w mh veg room. .. I also have 2 aquarium air pumps and the ability to make a coffee can cloner. I had decent success getting roots with the bubble cloner, but when I'd put them in soil, they'd sometimes die... Sent from my SGH-I317M using Grasscity Forum mobile app
mr_goodwrench If you're not opposed to using RapidRooters this will give you at least 90% success rate. Adjust the quantities for your situation. Add 5 tsps. of kelp meal to 1 gallon of water. Let that sit for 24 hours and shake and strain & drain. This will be your base and you want to add 1/4 cup of aloe vera juice, gel, whatever term you use. Soak the plugs for a few minutes in this tea and you won't be wasting anything because you can apply the excess to your mature plants. Take the plugs and gently squeeze them - not to get them dry but to remove the excess water. You want damp but not like mud as far as water. Put these in seedling trays that fit in a standard domed seedling tray. The goal is to avoid the leaves of one plant touching another and you want to avoid touching the inside of the dome. When you take your cuts use a fresh single-edge razor blade. At the very least if you're using a used one then wipe it off with alcohol before taking your cuts. Take your cuttings and soak them in the tea that you made for the plugs. Take a bamboo kabob stick and on the flat-end and not the point, turn your plugs upside down and make a new hole which will insure that the tea in the plug makes good contact with the cutting's shaft. After you place the cuttings in the plugs then you want to spray the inside of the dome until you see the water beading-up. To the extent possible you want to maintain that moisture level. Don't spray the cuttings because it's a good way to introduce mold and other problems. Put them under a shop-light if nothing else, The inexpensive T5 lights at Home Depot (around $50.00) are better but you'll do fine with shop-lights. Both kelp meal and aloe vera juice contain the 3 main rooting compounds found in retail products but of course they're synthetic versions and this will be straight from the plant - salicylic acid (SA), indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) and indole-3-butyric acid (IBA) which are probably in the rooting compound you have. The one that you will find in retail products that is not part of this is Naphthalene Acetic Acid (NAA) which is also used as a pesticide approved by EPA, i.e. it's a registered agricultural-grade pesticide. HTH
Tree dogg Use a plastic jug (vs. glass) and freeze it. Or you can pour it into an ice cube tray and when they're frozen you can store them in a heavy-duty Ziplock freezer bag. I do that a lot with botanical insecticide and fungicide teas. Sound corny but it works - LOL!
Mr good wrench If you can do exactly what CC described you will be golden - emphasis on rapid rooter style plugs with a seedling tray / dome - that combo and a good rooting solution as CC described will get you to the 90%+ range no problem. My 'cloning' routine varies slightly but stems from a similar suggestion from CC a couple years ago - the rooting medium may differ but the process is always the same. Before the fresh cuttings are inserted into the plugs I like to have a section of fresh aloe fillet on hand and dip the tip into the gel so its nice and gooey - good to go!