Aerated Compost Tea

[garden5]

To confirm: The CEC (cation exchange capacity) is a measurement of how much of a negative charge the soil contains (which is influenced by the make-up of the soil). This negative charge influences how many positively charged nutrient (element) ions the soil can attract, hold, and exchange. Nutrients are usable by plants when they are in their ionic form. Negatively charged soil elements will also repel negative nutrient ions (anions).

I think I'm two for two so far .

What happens to the anions and cations after they are repelled by or attracted to the soil. I'm thinking that both the anions and cations can be used by the plants, but that the anions that are repelled by the soil have a chance at being washed out, as opposed to the cations which are held.

Are the ionic nutrients ready to be used by the plants or do they still need to interact with the microbiological life forms? Maybe it is the interaction with the microbes that makes the nutrients ionic, I'm not sure on this one.

Toil, great information, especially about the small batches of compost tea. That will come in handy for when the seedlings start growing.

One thing I wonder about is the statement that an aquarium pump is only good for a gallon or two of tea. I find that hard to believe since that is what most people seem to use for a 5 gal. batch of tea, and the math that HG and I did a few posts (page or two) ago, seems to support this.

What's your opinion on this?

[Toil]

Ouf, I have nothing to back up my hearsay.

Let me work on it. It's about dissolved oxygen, and the guy's point to me was that I was "doing it wrong". I kinda just believed him. Maybe i should not have spoken, but I wanted to give the context of the conversation.

Be patient, I gotta go sing a concert and tomorrow I travel. I should be warming up right now.

Damn HG! It's like crack!

[gixxerific]

Good information, everyone!

Thanks HG, for letting me know that it's the subject that's difficult and it's not just me.

Don't feel bad I'm still trying to figure it out some 17 or so pages later.

What really gets me is why I'm not getting emails of updates to this most awesome thread.

:edit: I posted this a page or so ago, it seems like you got it. I'm pretty much there. It's hard to keep up though after reading the 3 pages I missed. Still computing it all

[The Helpful Gardener]

Hang ten Gixx, good to see you on the book club forum too. You're doin' fine...

10-4, G5, the training wheels are officially gone. You're getting the hang of this...

To come back to thread, when we add tea to soil, we are adding biology above all other things. This biology becomes the innoculant for a larger colony that becomes a nutrient sink BEYOND the CEC, AND our soil "coagulant" (increasing tilth and field capacity), AND one of the key forces that helps bring nutrients out of the CEC and make it plant available (ionic forms are plant available forms). My position is that THIS is the key focus to soil health going far on beyond ANYTHING you can do with chemicals. THAT'S why we love this thread as we do...

HG

[garden5]

Hang ten Gixx, good to see you on the book club forum too. You're doin' fine...

10-4, G5, the training wheels are officially gone. You're getting the hang of this...

To come back to thread, when we add tea to soil, we are adding biology above all other things. This biology becomes the innoculant for a larger colony that becomes a nutrient sink BEYOND the CEC, AND our soil "coagulant" (increasing tilth and field capacity), AND one of the key forces that helps bring nutrients out of the CEC and make it plant available (ionic forms are plant available forms). My position is that THIS is the key focus to soil health going far on beyond ANYTHING you can do with chemicals. THAT'S why we love this thread as we do...

HG

Hmm, so the the microbes store up all the cationic nutrients that the soil can't handle and the anionic ones the soil repels. That makes perfect sense. Not only do they store it, they also move it into the plant's root zone since they are attracted there by the polysaccharides (?) (remembered the concept, forgot the term) that the plants exude through the roots. If you think about it, having microbes is like having a 100% organic fertilization system built right into the soil .

OK, HG, here is something that intrigues me. A few pages ago, we spoke about the benefits of adding ACT to little seedlings since the microbes not only add some nutrients, they also help in the development of the seedlings roots. However, I recently read that you want to plant seeds in soil-less, or at least sterile, planting medium and not compost because the microorganisms in compost that help large plants grow well are actually detrimental to seedling and can kill them . Could these be the anaerobic microbes that are killed in the aeration process of the tea that are harmful to seedlings?

What are your insights on this subject?

Toil, it looks like you might be in the right with your statement. At the very least, my math a few pages ago does not pertain to it . You are speaking about disolved oxygen (something I don't fully understan...yet ); my calculations were referring to how many times the pump turns the water in the bucket.

[The Helpful Gardener]

The microbes don't store as much as they just ARE nutrients that plants can use; they need to be eaten to release said nutrient. But that more N, more P, more traces than we can store in CEC, right? And these won't wash away like free phosphorus... so it not like, it IS like having a fert factory in the soil. Exactly so...

The reason so many places are keen on sterile for seedling mix is the fact that they are about to hit these lil fellers with the chemical nasty, and as we've discussed elswhere, doing that is going to whack good guys before bad guys. Sterility is a false attempt to stack the biological deck or at least get the plant a little start before pathological organisms start. Organically we are not allowing any particular organism dominance, so the seedlings choose who to provide with cake and cookies (we are not so much establishing real roots at this stage as we are developing symbiot mycorhizal colonies that work with the seedlings, and the plant does a pretty good job of that. Or it should, anyway).

If I am developing a forum, I can just invite people I know to the forum, and it becomes a pretty sterile place, limited by what and who I know. If I invite the world, it gets filled fast with a crazy patchwork of personalities and characters, and takes on a life of it's own, but in so doing becomes SO much more than my pick and choose forum ever could. Kind of like this nuttiness .

Soil is NO different... only if you are ready to work in dead soil by feeding ammonia salt is sterility important. Just tried to explain to wife why sourdough starter is not "rotting" on top of refrigerator. Same thing. Good healthy cultures support health, not endanger it

HG

[Toil]

I have to add: seeds that get into my wormbins sprout like editeds. They never damp off, they just blanch and die from dark.

Sterile schmerile.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Nice technical terms, toil...



HG

[Toil]

Lol. You know the kitty cations and anions and polysaccharides made my head spin. I was too dizzy to sound smart.


I caught myself using the curse "edited" to myself today. As in edited, not a cursed word edited to read edited.

[garden5]

Thanks for reminding me about the bacteria being the nutrients, I knew that they were and can't believe that I almost regressed back to our former discussion.

I think that I should be alright starting/growing my seeds in my sifted compost, which is mostly dirt, anyway. I don't plan on adding any inorganic fertilizers, but will probably do some compost tea with the extraction-method that Toil mentioned.

Also, I now want to get some worm castings and add them to the soil and make some tea with them. Are most all kinds sold in the store organic, or are there certain things I should look out for when buying WC?

Well, I guess that since we discussed nitrogen, and phosphorous, let's round out the "big three" with potassium. What are your insights on how the microbes relate to the K levels in the soil?

[Toil]

At the risk of sounding elitist, commercial worm castings are not a great way to go unless you are very near the source and they feed good stuff.

Maybe do it this once, but composting or worm binning is the way to go.

There are a bunch of ideas in the vermiculture threads. Check em out. I got my favorite up there. Easy as pie but you need a sowing machine.

[soil]

or are there certain things I should look out for when buying WC?

if you can biological and nutrient analysis is best. or know the source and call and ask how they run things. how they ship and store, things like that.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Even the really big boys in this game still rely on worms to get the job done. As noted, natural systems tend towards stability and fertility. I don't find any reason to dis the commercial guys at all; I was making VERY nice castings in a commercial unit and harvesting a LOT of casts fast...

That said, I do ok in my veggie garden too; probably took a five gallon bucket for other projects and still tons left. Nature just does... but I was harvesting ten times that weekly without even trying in a 16 by 4 by 4 commercial bottom drop type bin,if we'd of pushed it we could have done five times that easy... and no different than what you get from a homestyle unit, not one bit...

HG

[Toil]

HG check out the design I use. Worm bin bag. It's a diy flow thru. Makes castings fast. Just like you describe. Only smaller.

It's very easy to manage moisture, as it breathes. The material is polyester felt. Instructables dot com.

[garden5]

I wouldn't call you an elitist, Toil, I call you a purist!

I'd love to have my own worm bin, but I don't have an idea about them. I don't even have my tea brewer up and running yet, one thing at a time .

You have an interesting setup, Toil, how's it work? On second thought, let's not take this thread any more off topic than it already has been . After I get this soil biology thing down, I'll post another thread on vermicomposting. I definitely want to learn about that, too.

First, the tea; second, the worms .