Compost Tea Recipe For Veg

Other good options are: organic alfalfa meal, fish hydrolysate, kelp meal, oat flour…pretty much any organic fertilizer or nutrient will feed microbes, though the more complicated and diverse recipes you see are not necessarily better than simple ones. If I'm not using our Microbe Catalyst, then I just use molasses and alfalfa meal, with maybe a touch of fish hydrolysate.

Tim Wilson, of Microbe Organics, recommends the following ratios when making ACT.

When brewing aerated compost teas, there are many other variables to consider besides just your brewer, compost, and food source. Water quality, temperature, brewing length, and elevation can all effect microbial growth.

Water Quality

To read an article on water quality and compost teas by my father, Leon Hussey, click here.

To summarize the article though, different sources of water can produce different levels of microorganisms. In general, I like to use rainwater or we even pull water out of our local stream when making ACT. For those using municipal water, you'll want to remove any chlorine or chloramine from the water prior to brewing.

Chlorine can be removed by letting it off-gas or bubbling the water for 24 hours or until the smell is gone. You can also add some form of organic matter, that can be as simple as a handful of garden soil. Charcoal water filters will also remove chlorine. If you want to take a more scientific approach to chlorine removal, you can use ascorbic acid. Two grams of ascorbic acid will neutralize 2 ppm (typical tap water levels) of chlorine in 100 gallons of water.

Chloramine is much more stable and will not off-gas. You can use any of the other methods though to complex the chloramine or remove it from the water.

Temperature

Lower temperatures can cause microbial growth to slow down in ACT. Higher temperatures can have the opposite effect. I like to let the water adjust to the ambient temperature before adding my other ingredients. If I want to speed this up, I will run the brewer with just the water until the temperature stabilizes. My preference is to brew at ambient air temperature, as we are then selecting for the microorganisms that will be most successful at the temperature at which we are applying them.

In general, I like the air temperature to be above 55F and below 85F. That being said, you can brew at temperatures outside this range but then it's nice to have a microscope to monitor the results. The optimal range would be 65F to 75F.

Brewing length

As a general rule, 18-36 hours is a good range to stay within when making ACT.

How To Apply Aerated Compost Teas

ACT can be applied both as a foliar application to the leaf surface of the plant or as a soil drench. When we go out to spray a property we will typically do a combination of both by soaking everything.

The simplest way to apply the tea is to use a watering can or just dump the tea right at the base of the plant. If you have a larger area to cover you can use a sump pump with a hose attached. While you shouldn't brew with an impeller pump (sump pump), Tim Wilson has shown with his microscope work, that one pass through the pump does minimal damage when used to apply ACT.

One important consideration when looking to spray ACT is to remember that the tea is alive. That means we want a larger droplet size and lower pressure, sort of a "rainbow" effect when spraying the tea.

Also, the nozzle tip you choose is a consideration.

Recommended Tip

Not Recommended Tip

These handheld sprayers below don't work well for applying compost teas and will damage many of the microbes in the ACT.

Concrete sprayers work well for applying tea. My favorite small sprayer is the Chapin 1949. They have multiple nozzle tips, and I just chose one that allows for larger droplet size and more volume.

However, even the cheaper 1-gallon pump sprayers that you find at Home Depot typically work just fine.

For larger commercial applications, you may want to consider a setup like ours. We use an orchard gun with this setup and use the motor to both continue aerating the tea while driving and also apply the tea.

Application Rates and Frequency

The nice thing is you can't over apply ACT, the only issue would be overwatering. Generally accepted application rates are 20 gallons per acre for soil drench or foliar applications. For small scale applications, I like to just apply a pint or two at the base of a plant and then come back over the top with my regular watering.

Application frequency will vary based on your soil health, microclimate, watering habits, and goals.

For first time users in a garden, outdoor landscape, or farm, I like to do 5 applications throughout the growing season. I see gardeners and growers applying teas at rates ranging from once per week to 3x for the entire year. You'll need to determine what works best for your garden based on plant response, labor, and cost.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: I'm growing an annual plant and it looks like annual plants prefer bacterial soil so should I make a bacterial dominant tea?

A: You want a "balanced" tea when making ACT. I see recipes all over the internet for a fungal tea or a bacterial tea or a vegetative tea or flower tea. The main benefit of ACT is nutrient cycling. It's a shotgun approach. That means you're putting out all the beneficial microbes you can and letting the plant determine what it wants in the rhizosphere basses on its exudates. The plant is in control. If the plant wants more bacteria in the root zone it will put out more bacterial exudates. People get confused when they see the plant succession table and see that annuals prefer a bacterial soil so they think they want a bacterial tea. I contend that having the fungal spores/hyphae in the tea will serve to improve the quality of the tea and overall soil health. And in general, if you have good fungal activity and biomass in your soil, you'll still have all the bacteria/archaea as well.

Q: Is it possible to brew perpetually? Can I just keep adding new ingredients to keep the tea going?

A: This is one of the most damaging claims I've heard from other brewer makers. The short answer is "no" and I'll explain why. When ACT is brewed for 24-36 hours (approximate times based on multiple variables), you're creating an unsustainable amount of aerobic microbial activity and diversity. At some point your tea "peaks." There's no way to tell for sure without a microscope but hopefully, if you bought a brewer the manufacturer can give you guidelines based on your ambient air temp, compost/food inputs, elevation, etc..). Regardless, after this "peak" point the microbes will have eaten most of the food sources you added at the beginning of the brew cycle (molasses, microbe catalyst, kelp meal, alfalfa meal, etc...). When this occurs you will start to see monocultures over time, meaning one morphology (shape) of bacteria will dominate the tea, which will then be consumed by one type of flagellate. Your tea will fluctuate back and forth between bacteria and flagellates. The flagellates will eat all the bacteria until there's not enough food left and then die off, only for the bacteria to bloom again and repeat the cycle. Think of it as a Darwinian experiment inside your brewer where "survival of the fittest" dominates. Remember that ACT is a "shotgun approach" to increase nutrient cycling. Well over time that diversity completely disappears and you lose much of the benefit of ACT. Of course, the first thought then is "why can't I just add more compost or food sources to the brew after a certain time period?" This sounds like a great idea but in reality, it just doesn't work. I've tried brewing over the period of a week on multiple occasions where I took a brewer to trade shows and pulled samples every 10 minutes throughout the day. I found it very difficult to manage the tea and the quality of the brew would vary wildly from hour to hour. I'm not saying it can't be done but I found even with intense monitoring with the microscope it was very challenging and I would have been much better off just throwing out the tea and starting over. Of course, these brews were just for demonstration purposes and not for actual plant or soil applications.

Q: My tea didn't foam this time but last time it had a bunch of foam. Does that mean it's no good?

A: Foaming is not a good indicator of microbial activity or growth*. This myth has been around for years and is simply not accurate.

Q: Are vortex brewers are better than other designs?

A: I hear this argument a lot but it doesn't hold water from a scientific perspective or in my own experience with direct microscopy. Yes, they look cool and it is possible to make good tea using a vortex design. What ultimately affects the quality of your tea is the ability of your brewer to maintain appropriate levels of dissolved oxygen throughout the entire brew cycle. An airlift, whether a vortex is formed or not, is the most efficient way of raising dissolved oxygen, however many other designs are possible. The important thing is that the microbes are extracted from the compost/soil particulate and that there are no "dead zones" in the brewer where dissolved oxygen levels can drop or material can settle.

Q: How do I judge a compost tea or compost tea brewer or product?

A: This is a tough question and frankly the answer isn't what you'll want to hear. The only way to evaluate ACT is with direct microscopy. I've seen some companies that will show you some great before and after pictures, but these are typically done without any controls to determine efficacy. If they can't show you any real data or microscope work, then I wouldn't waste my time with what they have to say. There is a lot of snake oil salesmen in the ACT and organic gardening industry who can make any product sound amazing. The factors I look for are the following: Do they have microscope work and lab tests to support their brewer? What sort of DO levels and air pump are they using? Are there any "dead zones" or are you getting good agitation? Is the brewer itself easy to clean?

Q: I see a lot of recipes on the internet with mycorrhizal fungi in them. Is this a good thing to add to my tea?

A: Mycorrhizal fungi is a root symbiont. That means it needs to come into direct contact with plant roots in order to become active and grow. Adding it to an aerated compost tea certainly isn't going to hurt anything, but it may just become an expensive food source for other organisms in the tea. Also, ACT is typically applied as a soil drench, which is not the best method for applying mycorrhizal fungi. Save your money and keep it out of your teas. You can read more about mycorrhizal fungi on our blog by clicking here.

Q: How do I make a nematode tea?

A: You don't. Nematodes don't like a liquid medium and you may get some in your ACT but they aren't going to increase in numbers or be very happy in your tea. The best way of increasing bacterial feeding nematodes in teas that I'm aware of is to add oat flour or "baby" oatmeal to your soil or inoculate compost. This will create a mycelium mat and increase your nematode population.

Q: I want to do my own testing? Do you have any microscope recommendations?

A: Tim Wilson has done an excellent write up regarding microscopes which you can read here. He also sells a DVD on his website that is very helpful in identifying these sets of microorganisms under the microscope. It is available for download for $28 by clicking here.

Q: Do I need to worry about e. Coli or salmonella or other pathogens in my ACT?

A: By keeping the tea aerobic for the entire brew cycle we reduce the possibility of any pathogens growing in the tea. And if you use compost material that is free of pathogens and has been composted properly then there's really no concern.

Q: Can I put the tea through my irrigation, hydro system, or use them with Blumats?

A: The big concern in these situations is biofilm buildup in the tubing or reservoir. Some people have reported success when flushing the systems after applying, but my choice is usually to avoid this altogether and apply the tea separately using one of the methods described in the "application" section.