Vital Earth Tea Recipe question

Brandon Nebel said:

Hi community. I have a question regarding compost teas and specifically the vital earth brand and their recipe. I ran their recipe last year with great results. But after another year under my belt i wanted to try and play around this year with adding different ingredients to create flowering teas and veg teas and to just make an overall more complete tea. As of now this is my recipe.

Baseline granular
Cal humus
Worm castings
Bu's blend compost
Vital Kelp
Vital Roots
Glacial rock dust
Insect frass
Vital fish hydrolate.

This is their compost recipe. I added molasses, bokashi, and alfalfa meal to this already. My question is can i add other ingredients without throwing off the balance in my tea. I wanted to add some of the following

Azomite
Greensand
Langbeinite
Agmino
Sea90
Soybean meal
Cottonsead meal
Kelp meal
Biochar
Brewers yeast

Is there any benefit to me adding any of these ingredients to my current vital earth recipe.

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Rasta Roy said:

You're trying too hard friend! There is no need for brand loyalty in organic growing.

The first recipe you posted is a nutrient tea, compost teas are strictly for adding microbiology.

And the list of stuff you wanna add...with the exception of the kelp meal...none of those are going to break down in a tea, they are amendments for mixing in your soil. Some of them, shouldn't be used in your garden at all imo.

If you took the soybean meal, cottonseed meal, compost, humus, langbeinite, kelp meal, biochar, worm castings, rock dust, and insect frass...you would probably have a pretty solid soil mix and wouldn't need teas at all. Maybe throw in some crab shell meal just to be on the safe side but you're probably good.

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Rasta Roy said:

You sound like I offended you a little my friend, I apologize it was not my intention! I wasn't trying to accuse you of anything, my brand loyalty comment was just cause I saw a lot of specific brand name products, and a lot of what I do involves educating people about gardening components and affordable, sustainable inputs. Basically...fish bone meal...is usually fish bone meal...fish bone meal in this scenario could be a number of different organic matter fertilizers, no matter who packages it. And I implore people to inquire about where the product is sourced, and what has the best price. My apologies that it did not come across that way. I was on vacation in London and taking a poop though when I commented...so not the most thought out comment lol. But I just got home after flying for eight hours and then driving for five so maybe this time will be better! I run a compost and horticulture consultant company in Lansing, MI. If you're thinking to yourself "why the fuck does this bastard think he knows what he's talking about?" I apologize I never knew my real father. Lol, a good dark joke to lighten the mood eh?

I'm very familiar with boogie brew! If you watch the growing your greens YouTube channel, John gives a tour of their factory where you can see the Down To Earth products they use to make their product! Very informative!

When I talk about products I wouldn't use in my garden I'm referring to the azomite and the brewer's yeast. The azomite can carry heavy metals that while not some that effects a vegetable crop...in cannabis those metals stick to trichomes and our ingested when smokes...a big no no if you're growing medical cannabis. As far as the yeast, I admit, I'm not sure why you're adding it. It seems like an unnecessary carbohydrate from my understanding of what it is. But my understanding of brewer's yeast might not be the product you're referring to.

From what I know about soil and fertilization, and have done in the grows I've consulted...his explanation of how teas work is kinda fumbly science...this is a common thing you'll witness in the cannabis and home gardening community...and by that I mean the knowledge and explanation of the science isn't wrong...but the action with which the science is implied is misunderstood and presented as fact because...frankly I don't have a good answer for that lol. Mostly it's just because gardening is pretty easy and even if you misunderstood the science you learned...that fact that you cared enough to learn it usually goes hand in hand with being caring gardeners, and it's thankfully hard for caring gardeners to fail! I'm working on a book about it with the aid of a botanist professor friend of mine from the University of Georgia... it's part gardening guide part cultural discussion on the cannabis role and challenges in going from a small illegal crop to a a legitimate big agriculture business! Compelling stuff right?! We are doing all the photography stuff for the book this spring, summer, and fall. Hoping to finish editing this winter and get it published next year. Not trying to say boogie brew guy is a bad dude...but when he's telling you what's going on in the tea he's misunderstanding the necessary environment for the relationships he's describing to take place. The complex relationships that happen in soil can be hard to make happen in teas. We can make compost teas heavy in fungal microbes or bacterial or both...to encourage these relationships to happen in the soil when those components are used..we can not create the environment to make those relationships happen in a tea by adding those components.

I mentioned the distinction between compost and nutrient teas only because a lot of components that are good for nutrient teas, can delay microbe growth and hinder the quality of a compost tea. These include kelp, liquid fish fertilizers stabilized with phosphoric acid, and salt based fertilizers.

But these products all can be used to make successful nutrient teas. Though the salt based fertilizers can discourage proper root to soil relationships and kill off microbe life.

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Brandon Nebel said:

Thank you for the long informative response. I wasnt offensed and sorry if it seemed that way. Im not an expert or biologist nor do i pretend to be one. So i appreciate your explanation. Im always trying to educate myself more and more. Its funny you mention the science the boogie brew guy uses is half ass cause i kind of noticed that myself. His explanations sometimes were not complete and sometimes wrong. And his excessive use of humic and fulvic acids is puzzling. I am omitting the brewers yeast as i see no reason to run it and i was unaware of the heavy metals in azomite. So many people recommend it in their soil that i figured it would be good to add. My fault. I havent used it yet and might be able to return it. I did just use the last batch of nutrient tea and it worked really well. Im still learning about organics, compost, soil webs etc. If you dont mind can you tell me what ingredients i should include or leave out from what i listed when brewing a fungi dominant tea, a bacterial dominant tea, a fungi and bacteria dominant tea and a nutrient tea. If you dont mind that would be awesome. I wanted to create a few different recipes to employ at different times. I would like to brew a non nutrient tea at times to replenish the soil. Any input you can give would be very helpful. Thank you

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DonTesla said:

[for bacterial dom:]
TBSP of evaporated cane juice crystals, 4 TBSP of EWC

[for fungal dom:]
TBSP of organic oats, ground up to flour, + handful of mycelium rich soil


THATS IT!

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