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tutorial Beginner's guide to AACT/Compost Tea

I put together my first batch of tea the past couple days. It went for 48 hours in a 5 gallon bucket with a dual hose 80 gallon air pump. I had just dumped the stuff in the bottom of the pail and stirred it several times each day to keep it churning around. When used it tonight, it had a sickly sweet smell, and resembled muddy water. I could smell both the alfalfa and the fish fertilizer.  I strained it through cheese cloth, dumped the sludge. The remaining tea, I poured half into another 5 gallon pail and topped both pails with clean rain water. I gave around 2-2.5 cups (half 1 liter yogurt container) of the tea to each of my 73 pepper plants. There was a little bit left over so I just tossed it on my lawn. I believe I overdid it for my batch size though.  Next time I will be really cutting back on my measurements, it looked way to muddy. It didn't smell rotten or anything though so I figured it was still fine to use.
 
This is what I had in the bucket:
 
3 medium yogurt containers of worm castings (store bought bag)
3 medium yogurt containers of garden soil (off pile I just bought to fill new gardens)
a couple large handfuls of alfalfa pellets
1 cup epsom salt
a few handfuls of grass (I was picking it for the kids hamsters anyway lol)
1/3-1/2 cup molasses ( 1/4 cup 1st 24 hours added more the next day )
1 brown mushy banana with peel (peeled first)
I remembered that I had a bottle of Alaska fish fertilizer, sitting by the house, from last year, so I added about 1/2 cup of it. 
 
shaggs2riches said:
I put together my first batch of tea the past couple days. It went for 48 hours in a 5 gallon bucket with a dual hose 80 gallon air pump. I had just dumped the stuff in the bottom of the pail and stirred it several times each day to keep it churning around. When used it tonight, it had a sickly sweet smell, and resembled muddy water. I could smell both the alfalfa and the fish fertilizer.  I strained it through cheese cloth, dumped the sludge. The remaining tea, I poured half into another 5 gallon pail and topped both pails with clean rain water. I gave around 2-2.5 cups (half 1 liter yogurt container) of the tea to each of my 73 pepper plants. There was a little bit left over so I just tossed it on my lawn. I believe I overdid it for my batch size though.  Next time I will be really cutting back on my measurements, it looked way to muddy. It didn't smell rotten or anything though so I figured it was still fine to use.
 
This is what I had in the bucket:
 
3 medium yogurt containers of worm castings (store bought bag)
3 medium yogurt containers of garden soil (off pile I just bought to fill new gardens)
a couple large handfuls of alfalfa pellets
1 cup epsom salt
a few handfuls of grass (I was picking it for the kids hamsters anyway lol)
1/3-1/2 cup molasses ( 1/4 cup 1st 24 hours added more the next day )
1 brown mushy banana with peel (peeled first)
I remembered that I had a bottle of Alaska fish fertilizer, sitting by the house, from last year, so I added about 1/2 cup of it. 
 
That is A LOT of material for a five gallon batch.  I use less than a quarter of that when I do 5 gallon batches. What recipe were you modeling after?
 
Try this:
 

Compost Tea Recipe
 
 
This is a simple and standard recipe for five gallons of compost tea. The proportions can be multiplied for larger batches.
Ingredients and Supplies
  • five-gallon bucket (make sure it is clean!)
  • un-chlorinated water (either rainwater, pond or if tap)
  • 1 cup of inoculant (worm castings and/or aerobic compost)
  • 1/4 cup of food: unsulphured molasses, humic acid (1 tablespoon), fish hydrolase and kelp.
  • 1 compost tea bag/stocking
  • air pump
  • plastic watering can or backpack sprayer (one that has never been used for chemical applications)
 
I figured that it would be too much in there when I did my last churn in the bucket. I could have mixed that into more buckets and had more than enough. The question I have after this learning experience, is would it have a negative impact on anything using that much? I didn't try to follow any recipe, just threw in what I had available to me and I guess I over did it. Next time I will definitely follow a recipe. Is there any reason not to throw in a couple bananas or a little bit of the alfalfa pellets?
 
shaggs2riches said:
I figured that it would be too much in there when I did my last churn in the bucket. I could have mixed that into more buckets and had more than enough. The question I have after this learning experience, is would it have a negative impact on anything using that much? I didn't try to follow any recipe, just threw in what I had available to me and I guess I over did it. Next time I will definitely follow a recipe. Is there any reason not to throw in a couple bananas or a little bit of the alfalfa pellets?
 
I think maintaining an appropriate amount of oxygen in the water could be disrupted with all that stuff in there. There's nothing wrong with adding other stuff, just make sure the sum of what you put in is about the same as the above recipe. 
 
Question I statered a compost bin in a 5gal bucket I found. It's all food scraps and coffee grounds. This is just a temporary storage until i find $$ to buy HDs composting barrel. Well the other the monsoons hit and my bucket cover got blown away. The bin is now filled with water and the rotting goodness. Should I dump the water, sifted it and pass on to the plants or just leave in there until I get my bucket
 
People struggling to make a uniform and reliable product themselves should know that there are companies that are currently developing standardized products for both the consumer as well as large scale agriculture or even if you are just too lazy to make their own. Europe is way ahead of North America in this regard but we do have a product that is available to us in the Americas and its called Inocucor. I loved reading through this thread and when I have a yard I would love to experiment making my own compost tea but for now I have seen really amazing results using this "commercial" worm tea. I initially found out about the product from orchidboard because I have a decent sized orchid collection and was able to use it to completely rid my oncidiums of fungal leaf spot using the tea as a foliar spray (if you've grown oncidium type orchids you know that they are notorious for black fungal spots on their leaf tissues). I use it on all my houseplants and container plants and I have honestly not had a fungal or bacterial issue in 2 years since I started using it. Currently I'm fertilizing 2 habanero bushes in containers with it on a monthly basis as well as a red scotch bonnet and have had impressive growth and flowering and fruit set. I've been using it on some thai basil that my mom gave me in plugs from her greenhouse and my basil is easily 2-3x taller and fuller than her basil is. Basically compost tea is the bees knees!
 
You can read about it here:
http://firstrays.com/inocucor-garden-solution-plant-probiotic/
 
Also from their website:
https://www.inocucor.com/our-microbial-products-for-growers/field-reports-and-application-notes/
 
They are consistently getting 15-30% yield increases in vegetable and fruit crops.
 
Also check out this flyover of an avocado plantation where they have treated and untreated fields:
Anyways Inocucor is a little pricey but has been well worth it for me.
 
 
 
thefish said:
People struggling to make a uniform and reliable product themselves should know that there are companies that are currently developing standardized products for both the consumer as well as large scale agriculture or even if you are just too lazy to make their own. Europe is way ahead of North America in this regard but we do have a product that is available to us in the Americas and its called Inocucor. I loved reading through this thread and when I have a yard I would love to experiment making my own compost tea but for now I have seen really amazing results using this "commercial" worm tea. I initially found out about the product from orchidboard because I have a decent sized orchid collection and was able to use it to completely rid my oncidiums of fungal leaf spot using the tea as a foliar spray (if you've grown oncidium type orchids you know that they are notorious for black fungal spots on their leaf tissues). I use it on all my houseplants and container plants and I have honestly not had a fungal or bacterial issue in 2 years since I started using it. Currently I'm fertilizing 2 habanero bushes in containers with it on a monthly basis as well as a red scotch bonnet and have had impressive growth and flowering and fruit set. I've been using it on some thai basil that my mom gave me in plugs from her greenhouse and my basil is easily 2-3x taller and fuller than her basil is. Basically compost tea is the bees knees!
 
You can read about it here:
http://firstrays.com/inocucor-garden-solution-plant-probiotic/
 
Also from their website:
https://www.inocucor.com/our-microbial-products-for-growers/field-reports-and-application-notes/
 
They are consistently getting 15-30% yield increases in vegetable and fruit crops.
 
Also check out this flyover of an avocado plantation where they have treated and untreated fields:
Anyways Inocucor is a little pricey but has been well worth it for me.
 
 
 
I've used a similar product called Sea Green for the last three years...very similar side by side results. The stuff flat out works...unfortunately the entrepreneur passed away and his successors changed the product and now it's not near as good. 
 
​​​​Hi AACT veterans!
​
Me and my wife made our first compost tea batch and sprayed it yesterday. However, we got minimal foam and stumbled through everything. We would like to do a general sanity check of what we did with someone who has knowledge, as opposed to us who are total beginners!

It was made with components of a commercial kit from a local eco grower. This constituted of:
  • ​10 L (~2.6 gallons) water, de-chlorinated (tap water here is chlorinated with sodium hypochlorite) for 48 hours under aquarium pump with two stones
  • ​1 dL (~0.42 cups) good quality vermicompost
  • ​10 mL (~2.0 teaspoons) "microbial nutrition" sludge (probably molass based with addition of some stuff, maybe agar?)
  • ​10 mL (~2.0 teaspoons) "Chili Focus" fertilizer due to missing 5 mL (~1.0 teaspoons) "fine-powdered minerals" (probably basalt based) which should have been in the kit but was postponed
​The water was measured at a pretty consistent 22°C for 18 hours a day (due to close proximity to our grow tent) and maybe at a low of 20°C during the night. Two stones and one aquarium pump bubbled continuously and the whole bucket was covered with aluminum foil during this process (to prevent fall-in of unwanted stuff and light for growth of algae or other weirdness). Total brewing time: 40 hours.
​
Extremely subtle foam did appear and the tea had a very light color, albeit a slight brown tendency. The smell was slightly "earthy", but this was also quite subtle. Likely not as many log's in growth numbers as one can get, but still probably some. We own no required 400× microscope for actual validation.
​
​Then the pump was shut off and 5 mL (~1.0 teaspoon) of dishwashing detergent as a wetting agent added. This was a mistake since this concentration, 0.05% v/v, of the detergent was approximately what is recommended for doing dishes and dishwashing detergent is obviously slightly phytotoxic. Had no other wetting agent available but should have used lower concentration. The water NOW had a head, but of the unwanted kind! Nevertheless, it was sprayed on all the leaves with good coverage, due to the detergent, and the rest distributed throughout all the soils. Barely enough for all!
​
​Mainly I want to know if you also suspect a non-ideal growth and what to do about this for the next batch in a couple of days (already dechlorinating water as I write this)? Increase temperature? Add secondary source of nutrition (e.g. molasses)? Brew longer (seller of kit discourages >36h to not kill off aerobic growth and/or introduce unwanted growth, e.g. shift from distribution in vermicompost)? Also, would you expect a bactericidal effect from that concentration of dishwashing liquid? I've already ordered polysorbate 80 ("tween 80") as a general wetting agent for all our foliar applications which should be available, along with the powdered minerals, for the next batch.
​
​All input would be ​greatly appreciated!
​
​For my own contribution, I would like to highlight this article from 2014: Potential of compost tea for suppressing plant diseases. It contains a good and relatively recent overview of the studies which have been done on AACT & NCT to suppress pathogens. I've seen some doubt in this thread about this. Quite an interesting and promising read. The tables themselves are noteworthy since they overview studies, pathogens and main result!
​
​Oh, and as to the "why" of us stressing about AACT:
Main motivation: Suppress bacterial intruder on Padrón peppers and prevent intrusion on other plants, now isolated from the grow tent, before spread and massive damage is to occur. ​Symptoms of intrusion: Tan brown spots with dark outline, biased to leaf edges and "splattery" distribution of very small size with some older of larger size, no obvious yellow halos; possibly Xanthomonas/BLS but maybe/hopefully not. Padrón peppers have massive edema so likely water-soaked leaves (with no other permanent leaf-colonization) which attracted it. Neem oil sprayed a couple of weeks ago which also could've contributed a "nutritional base" for initial rapid colonization of "the pathogen" (remember, Neem oil has no particular general bactericidal effect but only insecticidal).
Secondary motivation: Stimulate good, lasting microbiome in soil/leafs to increase growth/nutrition uptake. Suspect it's non-ideal now due to plants only grown indoors in tent (none touches outside microbial life) and relatively frequent soap-treatments to reduce aphid/thrips load (which ​must negatively affect a standing microbiome colonization, especially foliar but maybe also in soil?).
 
I might as well post a little update on my progress. For whom it is of interest:
 
As I said in the last post, I started another AACT brewing. This time I did de-chlorination for several days since I read some actual measurement somewhere where just de-gassing (without a pump) for 24 hours only lowered the chlorine (from hypochlorite) by 10% or something. Then I started an AACT with the "minerals" (again, probably basalt based) I received, the "microbial nutrition" (molasses plus something) and the same setup as before. I did however do fully open reservoir and I aimed the exhaust of my grow tent towards the bottom side of the bucket.
 
12 hours later (when I came home from work) the temperature was 27°C (81°F) in the water with much more of a foam than after >40 hours the last time and a clear earthy smell. So I aimed the exhaust off again to not let them overcrowd before my scheduled end time of 36 hours (Dr. Ingham correlates quick growth phase with oxygen consumption and sharp decline of living microbes). The temperature slowly decreased to a stable 22°C (72°F) for the remaining duration. At 36 hours I turned the bubbler off, waited for the compost to fall for 20 minutes and filtered through a cloth with visible holes this time (since the largest nematodes are 50µm).
 
I then mixed in 3ml of Polysorbate 80 in the 10L of AACT I had made. I had to dissolve it in boiled water first, before letting it cool and mix it in the AACT slowly (hard water caused too much issues otherwise). It worked way better than dish soap. Way better. Highly recommend this non-phytotoxic proper wetting agent!
 
So I sprayed everything as before, but this time I put them in the (closed) tent again immediately to let it dry as slowly as possible. I even shut off the exhaust, closed up the vents and turned of the lights. This since Dr. Ingham speaks of fast drying as a problem for proper colonization. UV also is problematic (and drying), so I only turned on my exhaust for the night to let them colonize in peace and a light breeze.
 
The morning after the "earthy" smell was much more distinguished in my home than the last time, so I did something (very) right. Oh and progress from the last AACT spray? Extremely clear. Leaves are greener and the microbial progress seems to have completely stopped. It's even dying off! It's bizarre.
 
AACT seems amazing for me. I absolutely can recommend it based on what I've seen so far.
 
Regarding de-chlorination of tap water, I did search around some more which I'd like to share.
 
See BT_Chlorine.pdf which seems well known by home (beer!) brewers. It's pretty much exactly a first-order process (i.e. characterized by a mono-exponential decay and a well defined half-life). Actual, measured half-life of free chlorine with undisturbed water seems about 8.5 to 41 hours and about 6 times faster if it's circulated and about 7 times if it's aerated. If it's not free chlorine but chloramine, you're talking about 3-10 times longer half-life. If you want a 75% reduction you need 2 half-lifes. 3 half-lifes for a 87.5% reduction, etc.
 
With these figures in mind, I don't think letting it sit for a couple of hours undisturbed is ever sufficient. Also active aeration seems like a no brainer, speeding up the process vastly. If you're not disturbing the water at all but just letting it sit and want the chlorine down, you have to wait for a very, very long time. Maybe even weeks. Boiling is the best of all (well excluding chemical treatment such as Campden tablets: sodium/potassium metabisulfite) and can remove both free chlorine and chloramine, bringing the half-life down to minutes or an hour at least; But it's expensive in terms of energy requirement.
 
Want to be sure you get the chlorine down? Start the dechlorination process way in advance. Days in advance. A couple of hours won't do much at all and the speed of the process depends both on the source of the chlorine (e.g. free or chloramine) as well as  the temperature, air flow over the bucket, the pH and other water constituents (hardness etc.). So, you might as well overdo it.
 
For the third batch I only was able to squeeze in 24 hours of aeration so I boiled half of it for 15 minutes at the end of that period, just to compensate a little bit. It's brewing now.
 
About a gallon of rain water in a Folgers 3lb can.
6 heaping tbs of earth worm castings
Not quite a full tbs of molasses
Small handful of guinea pig food...1/4 cup+...maybe 1/3 cup
 
After 6hours on a Tetra 60gal tank pump with 2 stones it has lots of froth on top. I dont need much atm for my seedlings and i didnt want to introduce any fish into the mix. Next batch i will just add some ground dried seaweed from the market. Just regular dried kombu or wakame.
 
ColdSmoke said:
 
I've used a similar product called Sea Green for the last three years...very similar side by side results. The stuff flat out works...unfortunately the entrepreneur passed away and his successors changed the product and now it's not near as good. 
Sounds like a lot of good products that are no longer good on store shelves :-/ v8 juice comes to mind

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SwedishGhost said:
Regarding de-chlorination of tap water,
I don't dechlorinate any of my tea water. (our municipal water is chloraminated)

My unscientific suspicion, is that the microbes actually metabolize the chloramines. Especially since I get zero difference in visible results, with a side-by-side comparison of rain water vs tap water.

I had to do this experiment, as we have a 6 month dry season, where I often just don't have rainwater available to me.
 
I posted this over in grow tech but it seems more traffic exists on this side of the fence..

Hello, I am trying to make a once per week tea to flush out my nute salts after my feed feed feed water schedule and to add beneficial microbes and fungi in addition to the salts flush. I have hi-brix sugarcane hydro/soil molasses, an air pump with stones, and EWC and a few other amendments I will get my hands on today.

What is a cheap/cheaper way to add the microbial and fungal innoculants besides paying an arm and a leg for specially prepared products for canna ($$ growers), and keep things affordable? I've already spent an arm and a leg and don't have the funds nor the will to keep giving my $ away for things like fungi and bacteria! This is for my DTW coco, and my 5-1-1 plants if it matters.
492c29e7d73d8d9752ecf86acc2e2e7c.jpg


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If you're using straight coco, I'm not sure how much this routine will benefit.  If you want a good microbe culture in coco, you really want to get some compost in there, and not worry so much about nutrient schedules.  You can treat coco + compost + perlite like you would any potting mix, instead of a hydroponics setup. (every plant in a pot that you water is technically DTW)  But typically, if we're growing microbes and fungi, we're trying not to use salt-based ferts. (there are some exceptions)
.
You can ditch the hi-brix molasses, and go with an unsulphured molasses, right off the grocery store shelf.  Some farm stores sell unsulphured molasses, but you want to watch out for blackstrap.
.
Also, that first bottle shows that it's mainly phosphates.  I'd call that garbage.  You'll make better AACT from vermicompost.  Preferably, homemade. (so that it's not treated, or enzymes killed by heat in transport)
.
Canna products are formulated for people who were stoned when they should have been studying the sciences that they claim to employ.  Don't fall for it. ;)
 
Check the local Farm and Feed type stores. You might be able to get molasses cheaper there. Mine sells a horticultural grade for around $15 per gallon. NOT the feed grade. They have a dried version too that is molasses mixed with a meal like alpha meal or soy meal. Its even cheaper but probably not going to work with a coco application unless you make a tea. 50lb bags of the stuff should be well under $25.
 
solid7 said:
If you're using straight coco, I'm not sure how much this routine will benefit.  If you want a good microbe culture in coco, you really want to get some compost in there, and not worry so much about nutrient schedules.  You can treat coco + compost + perlite like you would any potting mix, instead of a hydroponics setup. (every plant in a pot that you water is technically DTW)  But typically, if we're growing microbes and fungi, we're trying not to use salt-based ferts. (there are some exceptions)
.
You can ditch the hi-brix molasses, and go with an unsulphured molasses, right off the grocery store shelf.  Some farm stores sell unsulphured molasses, but you want to watch out for blackstrap.
.
Also, that first bottle shows that it's mainly phosphates.  I'd call that garbage.  You'll make better AACT from vermicompost.  Preferably, homemade. (so that it's not treated, or enzymes killed by heat in transport)
.
Canna products are formulated for people who were stoned when they should have been studying the sciences that they claim to employ.  Don't fall for it. ;)
Yeah that first bottle is a silicon product which is watered down AGSIL16 (potassium silicate) that's used in real small doses in part because of its alkaline effect as well as the extra K, especially in coordination with a fertilizer program like I'm using. Silicon supposed to help plants with heat/drought stress etc.. I have added worm castings to all my coco containers from the get go due to the buffering effect it provides and the micro and macros, as well as a bit of moisture retention. I added 20%. I picked up some composted cow manure yesterday too :) gonna try it out.

I can't afford straight coco and coco chips for ALL my containers so I picked up bunch of pine bark fines and gypsum yesterday too so gonna try some 5-1-1 containers as well as getting stuff in the ground (as soon as I can get my ground ready! :-/). I've already spent over $200+ on media and you should see the amount of plants in my trays I still have! So-gonna be a bit of a running experiment with a few different media mixes and proportions. Really stresses and burdens one a bit when ya bite off more than ya can chew!! Feel bad cuz they all need a bigger home!

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Now you're talking.  I don't want to get too in-depth in this thread, because it's a bit off-topic.  However, since it's related to using AACT...
.
I don't like 5-1-1.  If you like watering all the time, for no real benefit, that's OK.  But you're much better off doing something on the order of 3-2-1-1 (pine bark/coco/compost/perlite).  Al's 5-1-1 absolutely SUCKS for organics, and he'll be the first to tell you that.  He's strictly ferts on that stuff.
.
Throw away the hydro stuff, and move to Fish hydrolosate and/or CNS17.  And hit it with teas often.
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For that matter, use any good organic fert (like Dr Earth tomato and veg) in dry form, and activate it with teas.  You don't need anything more complicated.
 
Ive been wanting to try a tea that isn't a bacterial boost per se. Just some alfalfa meal and molasses (maybe some kelp too). It would be more of a food source for existing soil bacteria and plant nutrients/growth hormones. Toss all the dregs after filtering into the ground plot or compost pile.
 
ShowMeDaSauce said:
Ive been wanting to try a tea that isn't a bacterial boost per se. Just some alfalfa meal and molasses (maybe some kelp too). It would be more of a food source for existing soil bacteria and plant nutrients/growth hormones. Toss all the dregs after filtering into the ground plot or compost pile.
That was my thoughts upon looking into microflora and media sciences was that molasses would help to feed the biology of the soil-but then there's also a school of thought that containers are too difficult to raise a healthy microherd due to heat drought cold wet etc cycles. Aghhhhh
Although I'm sure those 'dregs' would be killer in the compost pile :)!
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