compost tea vs compost

[timingchainslipped]

i don't have a truck anymore and even if i did i'm not looking forward to spreading 15Kft**2 worth of compost. i'm young, in shape, but lazy so i'd rather just brew some compost tea and spray it on then spend money on compost, delivery and then burn a day throwing compost around.

i heard about tea on this forum, but reading elsewhere i've seen claims that it's not nearly as good as regular compost, and some say useless. so what should i do?

[andy10917]

What is it that you're applying the compost to accomplish?

[timingchainslipped]

good question. i hadn't really considered that.

my entire property has an OM of 2%. been mulching like you suggested. so i guess foremost goal for compost should is to improve om. i haven't read anything that would indicate whether tea would help with that.

my front yard is pitched downward. that coupled with the compaction from the trucks that came to install the pool. i have some water retension issues. so in that part, i do plan to put down regular ol' compost in addition to the tea. in addition, i've been hitting this area pretty hard with BLSC/KH.

for the rest of the yard that wasn't compacted or has trouble with pooling water, i was just gonna spray the tea to do whatever compost does to nurture the soil without all the effort. i know, i'm begging to get hit over the head with the no free lunch bat, but i'm lazy lol.

[andy10917]

Look, I can read between the lines and tell you know the answer here, so the baseball bat isn't needed.

There is no way that you can raise OM with a bucket of water and a few lbs of compost. That has limited value as an innoculant of bacteria or maybe a little fungi, but dude -- it is exactly what it looks like - a bucket of water and a few lbs of compost.

i was just gonna spray the tea to do whatever compost does to nurture the soil without all the effort.

Not much. You'd have to believe that every member on the site is so stupid that they put down thousands of lbs of compost when they didn't have to. I don't think you believe that, so connect the dots...

[timingchainslipped]

:) thanks

[LoneRanger]

^ Also, milo isn't going to raise your om either. Have ~20cuyds of compost delivered and start tossin' n rakin'.

[cnbart]

Just adding a good resource for compost tea I have read previously. Regarding why you would use ACT, it states:

The main reasons for using compost tea are;

1/ to provide a quick nutrient kick to the rhizosphere. This works mainly because as the flagellates (protozoa) consume the *bacteria/archaea they utilize only 10 to 40% of the energy intake for their sustenance and the remaining 60 to 90% is expelled as ionic form nutrient which is directly bio-available to the roots of the plants. This is known as ‘the microbial nutrient loop (cycle)’.

2/ to begin or continue an inoculation of the soil with a microbial population. Many of these microorganisms will go dormant until called upon later to fulfill their purpose but many of them will grow and flourish, finding their station in the hierarchical positioning of microbes in a living soil. Some, like the fungi will grow out through the soil binding aggregates together, assisting with air and moisture retention, providing pathways for bacteria/archaea, providing a food source for various microorganisms and degrading organic matter to a point where it is available for other organisms.

Within a very diverse ACT there will be free living nitrogen fixers, anti-pathogens and yes a few of the anaerobic and facultative anaerobes which serve their positive role in a living soil.

3/ to potentially provide the microorganisms which may assist in protecting plants from pathogens.

4/ because it allows the use of less [vermi]compost over a given area. There is nothing wrong with using only [vermi]compost instead of ACT if you have that much. ACT just allows you to use less [vermi]compost and it accelerates the microbial process.

(Full site and reference: http://www.microbeorganics.com/)

If you are looking to increase your soil OM quickly, I really enjoyed reading Morph's early blog posts here:
http://thegreengreengrassofhome.blogspot.com/

The benefit of using primarily seed sources for OM is that they are (imo) easier to spread than straight compost.

[andy10917]

That is why I asked the OP what the goal was - he had a very low OM percentage and was looking to boost that. There is very little impact from compost tea that increases the soil's organic matter component, and without organic matter the microbial life is going to have a tough time even finding a home in the very-low OM soil.

[STL]

Wow. Morph doesn't mess around when it comes to OM! Interesting blog indeed.