Picture taken on March 30th

First spray on March 30th

 

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Following. Please post your experiences

 

Following here too.

 

Compost tea mentioned at 1:05:31.

He sounded skeptical. Good to see an experiment here on TLF.

https://youtu.be/IaYFW1u5Jfo

 

Compost tea mentioned at 1:05:31.

He sounded skeptical. Good to see an experiment here on TLF.

great video/info, thank you!

 

Some photos of the VERY cheap and basic setup.

 

Compost tea mentioned at 1:05:31.

He sounded skeptical. Good to see an experiment here on TLF.

I agree he sounds skeptical, but I believe he is skeptical of the commercial viability of it, not the turf benefit of it.
For someone who makes a couple yards of compost a year, it is relatively abundant and I can still use the byproduct after it is "steeped".

Still, seems to be a general lack of information available or case studies proving or disproving its usefulness.

 

Tea after brewing for 24 hours.

 

I made a bunch 2 summers ago, used it on some new seedings and raspberries that I planted, but my mesh bag got a couple tears in it and, well I never replaced it so I didn't make anymore. I make it in a large 33gal trash bin. Where I pumped it out on my lawn I don't think is very good soil so not much OM to work with. I just took a bunch of samples yesterday to send off for a test to a local place (VAS/AgSource)

If I do it again this year I should do a test like you're doing

 

Compost tea mentioned at 1:05:31.

He sounded skeptical. Good to see an experiment here on TLF.

I agree he sounds skeptical, but I believe he is skeptical of the commercial viability of it, not the turf benefit of it.
For someone who makes a couple yards of compost a year, it is relatively abundant and I can still use the byproduct after it is "steeped".

Still, seems to be a general lack of information available or case studies proving or disproving its usefulness.

We'll let's use logic.

What would happen if Compost Tea eliminates the need for Fertilizer?

Fert. Business goes down the crap shoot.

 

Picture taken 4/13 before second spray.

Green up has definitely occurred, but it is across the entire lawn with no noticeable difference between the treated and non-treated sections

 

We'll let's use logic.

What would happen if Compost Tea eliminates the need for Fertilizer?

Fert. Business goes down the crap shoot.

I doubt that will happen anytime soon. Synthetic fertilizer is cheap and requires little work at the user end other than bringing the bags home, dumping them in the spreader and walking around the lawn.

Making compost tea is more effort than most busy homeowners want to get into. Not to mention in order to make enough compost tea for more than a half acre of lawn, you would need to make quite a lot of compost or buy it in bulk which is more expensive than buying bags of synth fertilizer.

Those of us who use compost do it for a number of reasons, but cost and convenience aren't the reasons.

 

I use the stuff around on all the badly battered (thank you builder) old oak trees we have on are new built house/property. My process is very simple. I purchase 40# bags of compost/manure that comes in plastic bags. Using a knife I quickly slash the bag with many 1" long cuts. I place the slashed bag in a 40 gallon (?) plastic (covered) container and fill the container with well water.

Leaving mixture "brew" for 2-3 days I end up with a dark "brew" that I pour around the many trees we were left. Been doing this since we moved in last April although I stopped during the winter months.

I spread the used compost around the various trees.

No idea if its doing any good although the grass/weeds around the trees really thrive.

 

I have an Aerobin for composting, they state: The Aerobin 400 comes with a reservoir at the bottom to collect the leachate, which when diluted makes for great "compost-tea" liquid fertilizer.

I've never used the "tea", but I'm following along to see if I maybe should be...

 

We'll let's use logic.

What would happen if Compost Tea eliminates the need for Fertilizer?

Fert. Business goes down the crap shoot.

I feel like the continued existence of chopsticks disproves this argument. But in any case, the researcher is advocating for the use of compost as a soil amendment not as a fertilizer.

 

I haven't studied all this in great detail, but just thinking about it. I'm sure the tea is beneficial in that it adds more microbes that are good for soil. But if there isn't sufficient organic matter in the soil to be broken down much of it will die off quickly. and once you establish a good balance of nutrients in the soil existing OM I have a feeling the need to spray any tea becomes unnecessary your soil food web should be cycling itself just fine.

But in getting an area to that stage i have to believe it would be beneficial if you're adding OM to bring the soil to a balance. Or adding compost to food plots I bet the tea is very beneficial. But tea over a lawn not in balance and without enough OM like many have, I can't imagine it has much for measurable benefits.

 

I don't know anything out this. But just looked up the instructions on my Aerobin, they state to dilute the tea 20:1. And that's just from the extra water that comes down the bottom. Your tea should be extra strong I'd guess.

 

I haven't studied all this in great detail, but just thinking about it. I'm sure the tea is beneficial in that it adds more microbes that are good for soil. But if there isn't sufficient organic matter in the soil to be broken down much of it will die off quickly. and once you establish a good balance of nutrients in the soil existing OM I have a feeling the need to spray any tea becomes unnecessary your soil food web should be cycling itself just fine.

But in getting an area to that stage i have to believe it would be beneficial if you're adding OM to bring the soil to a balance. Or adding compost to food plots I bet the tea is very beneficial. But tea over a lawn not in balance and without enough OM like many have, I can't imagine it has much for measurable benefits.

I'm inclined to agree with this. Comparing compost tea to compost is like comparing fruit juice to actual fruit. You are getting fast release sugar and some nutrients in fruit juice, but it is nowhere near as beneficial long term and as nutritionally complete as eating whole fruit.

 

We'll let's use logic.

What would happen if Compost Tea eliminates the need for Fertilizer?

Fert. Business goes down the crap shoot.

I doubt that will happen anytime soon. Synthetic fertilizer is cheap and requires little work at the user end other than bringing the bags home, dumping them in the spreader and walking around the lawn.

Making compost tea is more effort than most busy homeowners want to get into. Not to mention in order to make enough compost tea for more than a half acre of lawn, you would need to make quite a lot of compost or buy it in bulk which is more expensive than buying bags of synth fertilizer.

Those of us who use compost do it for a number of reasons, but cost and convenience aren't the reasons.

Well Its more of the deeply ingrained human programming where if I can't make money on it then I don't support.
Not that it will actually happen.

Making compost is super easy and actually doesnt require all the work thats shown in videos.

Some people will always choose to pay conveniance.

I dont want to get to woo woo on everyone but I think there's some magic with the microbes rhat modern science doesnt understand. Like the experiments where you tell plants you love it and they grow better.
Look up orgone energy.

The video I watched mentioned that they measure the amount of microbes in the tea. So dillution isnt a set ratio, its depenant on how well populated the compost is.
I'd think that at least in the midwest, its not hot enough to get the microbes thriving yet...

 

some buddies of mine down south have been doing comparison of compost tea use vs non use in garden. They're not using syn ferts to compare, but difference between tea and no tea are pretty stark, but non are using on grass

 

Intrigued by compost tea as a cost effective amendment for a large lawn, but skeptical for many of the same reasons expressed in this thread, I arranged for an online consultation with Todd Harringtonhttps://harringtonsorganic.com/about-us/

You can read up on him and Dr. Elaine Ingham but the upshot is these folks have applied the scientific method and documented significant results from application of actively aerated compost tea in conjunction with other organic best practices (some of which are farming/ranching specific and won't apply to us).

The key is quality compost inputs. To be certain you have to test the biology under a microscope then monitor the brew to ensure proper conditions throughout the cycle. Without testing there is a risk you could be brewing useless brown water, or worse, brewing harmful bacteria that are bad for plants and could be unsafe for humans.

This hobby has made me do crazy things but inspecting compost under a microscope is too much for me. So I just bought worm castings and food inputs from Harrington. Ive done a couple brews/applications but consider them mostly test runs, as the air and water temps were probably too cold for the microherd to thrive. So time will tell. I'm expecting it to take multiple seasons of consistent tea and OM amendments to see results.

He strongly advocated for transition to complete organic, stressing that herbicides and inorganic ferts are harmful to the soil biology. I have mostly adopted that but with horrendous poa a pressure and moderate poa T, I most likely will always use a fall preM.

Good luck to others who choose to go down this rabbit hole. It is quite an interesting ride…

 

Apologies for not making my bi-weekly update with photos last week. I did spray another round using the same steps and take additional photos. So far, still no visual differences at all.

 

https://thelawnforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=35071

I just bought an ounce of this stuff, looking forward to trying it out

 

Apologies for not making my bi-weekly update with photos last week. I did spray another round using the same steps and take additional photos. So far, still no visual differences at all.

I'm glad you posted. It reminded me that I recently read that it can take 2 years for the benefits of compost tea to kick in. I also read that the variety/population of particular microbes make a difference, so experimental results may not be reproducible without careful controls.