Dewy Misters before you go selling off that pump. I know you already aero clone and those I guess allow for organic teas (strained of course) to be used also. DoNothing brought them up too me still waiting for mine to get off back order!
Can I use them with my 24 Part Advanced lineup? J You gonna build a Cloner Haggard? It *would* be cool to spray an EWC & kelp tea at cuttings...
Interesting. So then what's all the hype about ACT then? If it's not all that then is it just one of those things that people overthink and over-do to make themselves feel like they're doing something useful?....
Its exactly that hype. @Jerry I believe DoNothing and Jackolope already have I'm still waiting on mine. I made an aero cloner I've been using with varied succes. I also need to take large amounts in a single wack though
1. there is no scientific proof that ACTs work. 2. to properly make a good ACT you need a microscope which most people don't even have. 3. the microbes are in the soil (or should be) anyway, so whats the point of brewing an ACT to multiply them even more? they will go back to their regular populations anyway since the plant is going to regulate it. there are and always will be some hype about something, especially if there is a market of people willing to spend money on it. remember the biozome hype? well no one bothered to mention arcae are everywhere and you don't need to buy them. insect frass? IMO same thing, if you got any kind of insects/mites w/e in your soil you already have insect frass. also there is the hydro mentality of more is more. people feel the need to 'feed' the plant or whatever. but when you look at the most successful organic gardeners and ask them their secret they will tell you two things: quality EWC and LITFA.
Awesome, that's one less thing to I have to worry about and deal with. Now if only I had a mountain of EWC to work with.
Perhaps an ACT would help if one was growing in sand... Like Scooby said, in a well made soil based on microbes; ie: quality viable compost/vermicompost it becomes redundant... And silly. And unnecessary. We learn as we go. I learned years ago that I needed an expensive ACT brewer. I have since learned that I don't... Lol J Edit: "is it just one of those things that people overthink and over-do to make themselves feel like they're doing something useful?" Yes!
Anyone tried composting seaweed or feeding it to worms? I have an endless supply of it so I'm wondering if worms would eat it, seems like it would make the best EWC ever. Right now I just wash it, throw a handful in a blender and puree it, then water it down until it's not too slimy to get through a sprayer and use it as a foliar, I also add it to my waterings sometimes.
Your worms will love composted seaweed. If I had access to lots like you're saying I'd be making giant heaps of it in my backyard for all kinds of uses. Once well composted I've no doubt it would make an excellent part of your soil mixes, too. Time to start filing pickup trucks with it... J
Very true that -- but I have to disagree with #1 - maybe just because I'm listening to lots of talks by Elain Ingham at the mo As far as I understand it, AACT is useful especially when we don't have enough EWC / compost to ameliorate all the soil we want improved. Or for example if we gather humus from the forest and want to disturb the ecology as little as possible, we can multiply those microorganisms quickly with just a handful of it. That it gets taken up by people as THE thing that has to go in by all means and in any situation is no fault of the AACT haha
yes perhaps i miss phrased that. i know ACT has its uses, especially in soils that are lacking life. what i was referring to is the supposed use of ACT to feed a soil/plant. seems to me some growers think of ACT as a nutrient boost or something. i think there is just a lot of misinformation regarding its uses.
So true, and the madness has method too. Can't fault anyone for it though, I am only just discovering this new perspective myself
I use a bicycle cart that carries about 35 gallons at a time, but I'm thinking of filling a truck with it. I just have to pay attention to the tides so that I get the stuff that's been there for a long time and has been rained on a lot to wash out most of the salt. People around here commonly use it as a mulch for outdoor beds.
When I asked chunk about this a while back when he shared an article of lazy microbes in the lounge, he explained that you're not growing or multiplying the microbes from the compost you added to the tea. Tea is a vehicle or a way to simply transfer the existing microbes into water so it can be broadcast farther than the same amount top dressed. So it is actually better to use compost because you will receive a higher rate of organisms and the tea will only have the organisms that is in the compost so if you're using poor compost, you will have an incomplete tea. That is why you need the microscope to check for ciliates anaerobic bacteria. Like Jerry mentions, maybe it's beneficial to poor soils like sand but for most people, it's better to top dress over making teas. What many universities are saying now is that they're not needed and adding organic matter is far more effective.
From what I understand the process of brewing does actually multiply the microbes, by feeding them carbs like molasses and giving them an environment conducive to growth, like highly aerated water, the little bugs reproduce to many times their original numbers. It's the same idea as making a liquid culture of a mushroom mycelium, which is far more effective at inoculating a medium than just mixing chunks of mycelium into it. Because it is in a liquid form and the microbes or mycelial strands are actively growing at the time of inoculation (pouring it into the soil) the rate of colonization and growth is much faster. Whether ACT is always a good thing for soil, I don't know, but in theory it should provide many more times the microbes than just top dressing with compost.
actually the opposite is true. also take into consideration that most home brewers cannot even control what they are brewing without sophisticated lab equipment. you could be brewing pathogens that can kill your soil microbes and not even know it.
that's why I ended up pouring the forest tea into my compost Who knows what lurks in there that could be woken up in a liquid culture and propagated....
dingdong... re:ACT, it can be a lot of fun collecting the materials, building the brewer, brewing the concoction, and when doing it "right", getting really, really excited with all the frothy head on top of the morass because if it's got a real heavy foamy head on top of the liquid that means it's good, good, good - or at least that's what's published on the internet. . Kind sir, the ACT is best left for outdoor uses. It's use does not belong in container gardening and it is absolutely unnecessary for growing healthy cannabis. That said, folks have had some great results as measured by anecdotal analysis from using the SST process. .. Happy highs but forget ACT as a tool for its utility with indoor container gardening<span class="redactor-invisible-space">. There are much better ways to improve the yield of your efforts.</span>.... .
If you think that liquid cultures of microbes are far superior to compost, why are you not doing some sort of hydroponic tea grow instead of soil? What happens during the composting process will in now way be enhanced or superior by adding fungal teas. AACT is agitating fungi literally off of the compost and is extracting them into water. Most teas are bacteria dominated because getting fungi off of compost is very hard to do and it does not grow like bacteria does. Predation typically stops there and not go past bacteria, the first level of the soil food web. Should we rename that now to the tea food web?! Lol http://www.gardenmyths.com/compost-tea/