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Teas, Teas, Teas!!!


CreX

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I made such a nice tea over the weekend, but forgot to take any pics!! 

I used my normal shit... 

Stood water, 

Humic acids

Molasses - I ran out and didn't have enooooough, so I added some brown sugar just to get it to the end of the brew. 

Small handful of oats - love it

Mycorrhizal fungi

Off milk

And a sample of soil from an old pile of soil... Smelled earthier than most soils I smell... And boy I was not disappointed!! 

Every tea I make seems to be just so much better than the last haha. 

The ladies loved it and showed me by praying. 

I'll take pics next time guys!! 

Ps- I dump the solid bits from the tea, left over soil from the tea bag, and some tea.... To my cacti and pineapple plant... So much goodness right there

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I made such a nice tea over the weekend, but forgot to take any pics!! 
I used my normal shit... 
Stood water, 
Humic acids
Molasses - I ran out and didn't have enooooough, so I added some brown sugar just to get it to the end of the brew. 
Small handful of oats - love it
Mycorrhizal fungi
Off milk
And a sample of soil from an old pile of soil... Smelled earthier than most soils I smell... And boy I was not disappointed!! 
Every tea I make seems to be just so much better than the last haha. 
The ladies loved it and showed me by praying. 
I'll take pics next time guys!! 
Ps- I dump the solid bits from the tea, left over soil from the tea bag, and some tea.... To my cacti and pineapple plant... So much goodness right there
Lekker, if the ladies are praying thats awesome.....have used brown sugar and oats in teas before, just make sure the brew doesn't warm up- cause the oats can start a fermentation process with the sugars=turn into a bad brew with alcohols.
Adding some diy seaweed FPJ to my latest brew - fyi....the stuff still smells awfull but the ladies love it.


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Do you guys like to use a bacterial dominant tea during veg and early flower, then a more fungal dominated tea for mid and later flowering?

A bacterial rich tea late in flowering could keep plants pretty green with nitrogen fixing bacteria, where the fungal dominant teas will allow plants to color better and help with ripening. Thoughts on this?

What step do brewers take to ensure its a bacterial dom or fungal dom tea?

Awesome thread :-rolled

Edited by Dank
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26 minutes ago, Dank said:

Do you guys like to use a bacterial dominant tea during veg and early flower, then a more fungal dominated tea for mid and later flowering?

A bacterial rich tea late in flowering could keep plants pretty green with nitrogen fixing bacteria, where the fungal dominant teas will allow plants to color better and help with ripening. Thoughts on this?

What step do brewers take to ensure its a bacterial dom or fungal dom tea?

Awesome thread :-rolled

Very cool, I haven't really thought about this much... But I can see it's value. 

I will go back to the the key, which is diversity. 

If you have established a strong microbial colony in your medium with teas, you will only be adding to the diversity with new tea recipes, bacteria /fungi dominant teas... 

The new tea doesn't replace, or deminish the current microbial life In the medium. If the good bacteria has colonized the roots properly, and the mycorrhizal fungi has established a good food web... Changing the type of tea you make, really won't make a massive difference. 

As for the nitrogen fixing bacteria, you shouldn't be feeding the plants much nitrogen in flower anyways... And adding a fungi Dom tea won't lessen the work the existing microbes are doing. 

Remember, all we are doing is innoculating the medium, and making sure we keep a good amount, by more teas. 

So if you were to only start with teas in flower, I'd make a more fungi leaning tea like you mentioned, and if I started in veg, I would make a bacteria Dom tea. 

Or stick to my 5050 mix vibes

DIVERSITY IS THE KEY😂✌️😉😏

 

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54 minutes ago, Dank said:

What step do brewers take to ensure its a bacterial dom or fungal dom tea?

I started reading up on this over the weekend seeing as flowering time is upon us.  This is what Tim Wilson of Microbe Organics had to say:

"

People talk about different recipes and making a fungal tea opposed to a bacterial tea anyway it doesn't really work that way as far as recipe goes. Although you can have some influence with the recipe it's more the timing. So obviously if you want to have straight bacteria in a tea it's going to be in the first probably twelve hours that you want to use it. However if you do have fungi in your compost it's going to be growing at that time as well

...

"

He also compared various brews under the microscope and found that there is not really a noticeable difference in microbial count and diversity when using just compost/worm castings and molasses vs compost/worm castings, molasses, kelp meal, bran, oats, rock phosphate etc, etc.

The above came from Episode 5 of the below podcast. 

https://www.kisorganics.com/pages/podcast

 

Also going to start reading through the following threads which looks promising, all about teas

https://logicalgardener.org/viewforum.php?f=22&sid=54702d6a37de9ba55a9c6a740f1b45f7

 

 

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Your soil and plants need both fungal and bacterial populations and the diversity is very important. You need enough of the good guys to keep the bad guys in check. They all have different functions relating to different nutrients/elements and the plants need them all.
Keep in mind that it could take about 3-4weeks to establish the necessary populations, they in turn populate and ''grow'' within the medium, then the ''foodweb'' starts to work for you.

Organically speaking ''No Till'' would be best (no disturbance), because the micro organisms can establish their populations and grow without interference and when you plant, the foodweb is allready well established and you tap into that and reap the benefits from the start.

It would be very difficult to brew a specific tea either fungal or bacterial as they are some of the most abundant life forms on the planet. Literally everywhere and on everything. Only way to check would be through a microscope and I'm pretty sure you're going to find both fungi and bacteria most of the time.

I believe the important points are, diversity and keeping it aerobic.


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I forgot to mention some important details, but didn't include it as I am lately just inoculating my soils at different stages with different mixes. Didn't think its relevant but let me explain, seeing a lot of you guys are doing this with DWC it might be applicable, at the very least quite interesting.

The trick in soil after inoculations to control a fungi or bacterial dominate soil life is simply to control the ph of the medium. Also bear in mind like mentioned above when looked under a microscope you will find both fungi and bacteria, however with PH adjustments, you can let one thrive and the other struggle a little bit.

What PH does bacteria prefer?

Most bacteria grow best around neutral pH values (6.5 - 7.0), but some thrive in very acid conditions and some can even tolerate a pH as low as 1.0. Such acid loving microbes are called acidophiles. Even though they can live in very acid environments, their internal pH is much closer to neutral values.
 
What PH does fungi prefer?
In comparison, fungi thrive at slightly acidic pH values of 5.0–6.0. Microorganisms that grow optimally at pH less than 5.55 are called acidophiles.
 
So in a nutshell soil gets inoculated (need to setup for brewing again) and then I try keep PH at around 6.5 - 7.0 for veg, then drop it down to about 5.8 - 6.0 for flowering. I do this mostly with the water/water+feed that the plants receive.
 
Maybe the same is possible in DWC, however I do know with brewing teas sometimes PH goes all over the place. 
Edited by Dank
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While you may be right, I feel the need to say that we are growing Marijuana... And they need quite a tight pH range. 

Adjusting pH to accommodate the microbes, while potentially putting the medium out of an acceptable range might not provide the right growing conditions for cannabis to thrive. 

I have found that the microbes and fungi regulate pH by themselves and adjustments aren't really needed. 

I have also found that fungi and bacteria thrive if they have access to food, and while adjusting pH might improve their growth... It's really not needed. 

Plant roots feed carbohydrates to the microbes and fungi and keep the population growing and or adequate. 

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25 minutes ago, CreX said:

While you may be right, I feel the need to say that we are growing Marijuana... And they need quite a tight pH range. 

Adjusting pH to accommodate the microbes, while potentially putting the medium out of an acceptable range might not provide the right growing conditions for cannabis to thrive. 

I have found that the microbes and fungi regulate pH by themselves and adjustments aren't really needed. 

I have also found that fungi and bacteria thrive if they have access to food, and while adjusting pH might improve their growth... It's really not needed. 

Plant roots feed carbohydrates to the microbes and fungi and keep the population growing and or adequate. 

The PH range that needs to be tweaked is pretty tight, 5.8 - 6.5 (ignore the bits about the extremes), weed should be aight, but again im on about soil and not even brewing, derailing the thread a bit.

Proof is in the puddin always :-thumbsup

Edited by Dank
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  • 2 weeks later...

Some more updates:

Going strong with the teas,  brewing one every 4 days or so,  really happy with the effects in DWC and have been sharing the reaming teas with the neighbors and their plants are all very happy.  

Well here is some photos, 

IMG_20200214_124505_671.thumb.jpg.b5007737993ccbff8c0b6b7219207b38.jpg

This was about two weeks agoand now we have this 

IMG_20200212_212831_446.thumb.jpg.0ac2462414f66e417d085a926c76f99c.jpg

IMG_20200212_212829_191.thumb.jpg.102d2c48912e793743cc7716f8293f7d.jpg

The new roots are white and super healthy, I have not changed the RES, only added tea twice, and Booom!!

IMG_20200212_212842_612.thumb.jpg.5eeeffb2422730d65385c6664588bcff.jpg

It's amazing how the new roots go crazy after the tea!  

@CreX thanks for all the advice and your time to share your knowledge and really help people, this thread saved me from dumping my whole DWC system. 

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12 minutes ago, SmokeyZero said:

Some more updates:

Going strong with the teas,  brewing one every 4 days or so,  really happy with the effects in DWC and have been sharing the reaming teas with the neighbors and their plants are all very happy.  

Well here is some photos, 

IMG_20200214_124505_671.thumb.jpg.b5007737993ccbff8c0b6b7219207b38.jpg

This was about two weeks agoand now we have this 

IMG_20200212_212831_446.thumb.jpg.0ac2462414f66e417d085a926c76f99c.jpg

IMG_20200212_212829_191.thumb.jpg.102d2c48912e793743cc7716f8293f7d.jpg

The new roots are white and super healthy, I have not changed the RES, only added tea twice, and Booom!!

IMG_20200212_212842_612.thumb.jpg.5eeeffb2422730d65385c6664588bcff.jpg

It's amazing how the new roots go crazy after the tea!  

@CreX thanks for all the advice and your time to share your knowledge and really help people, this thread saved me from dumping my whole DWC system. 

Thank you and well done!! It takes a leap of faith to trust this method, but boy you don't regret it!! 

Now that you have an established root system, I would go ahead and chop all the dead brown yuck looking roots off and let the new roots explode even more! 

I have found that I use less nutrients when I incorporate teas in my regime

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  • 2 months later...

Any good substitutes for black strap molasses?

Saw @CreX mention the sugar, could sugar cane work? 

I have some caramel sugar and normal sugar, no molasses, and can get a bit of sugarcane from the garden.

Any thoughts on this?

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Sounds interesting, keen to read the opinions on this.

 

Have used caramel/brown sugar, with decent results. Have blitzed cooked rice into a slurry and used that as carb source or just the water from cooking rice or pasta.

Don't see why sugar cane/juice wouldn't work, its a source of carbohydrates for the microbes. The preparation could be labour intense.

Obviously Blackstrap has a few extra beneficial micro elements ect. that a processed sugar won't have.

 

 

 

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Blackstrap mollasses is the crude extract of cane sugar. 

In a pinch, I have found the rice water is good, oats is good, brown sugar works but you need a lot and I wouldn't say it's a 'good' substitute. 

Black strap is fairly easy to find - dischem have... And they are open for business... Otherwise any shop with a 'health' vibe section should stock blackstrap... It's very healthy for us hoomans too... And it's very cheap

If you only have white sugar, don't use it, and I'm not sure about the Caramel sugar... I think the Caramel flavor is just a flavour... Check the ingredients to the sugar... If it mentions mollasses then you should be fine to use that... If it doesn't mention mollasses then don't use it... If it has Sulphur in it, don't use it. 

I'd go with some cane sugar juice... But you might need a fair amount as it's not concentrated... 250ml per 10l  or more

I remember gnawing cane sugar when I was a lighty.... You gonna need a ton of cane sugar for half a litre of juice... 

I know it might be a schlep... But see if you can't source some unsulphated blackstrap... It really is head and shoulders and nipples above any other microbe foods

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Thanks a lot guys that really helps a lot! 

Will check the ingredients of this caramel sugar, got quite a bit of sugarcane I can experiment with, but jis gonna be tuff juicing it, thought to just chop it up and gooi in.

Will get some blackstrap when go on a shop run, sound advice brus! :-thumbsup

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