applying compost tea

For those of you who apply compost tea with a pump/back-pack sprayer, have you had any issues with compost sediment clogging the tubing? How have you dealt with it?

Thanks.

I strain it through a towel before it goes into the sprayer-works like a charm. Your sprayer may have a screen through which you pour fluid. This would filter out large debris. What debris does get through tends to get stuck in the spray tip. See if your spray tip will unscrew for cleaning.

When done using the sprayer for the day, be sure to wash it out, including the spray wand. The microbes are alive and can grow to clog the thing up overnight.

A coffee filter for a Mr Coffee type machine works very well for filtering fine materials.
Stick it in a funnel and pour. Cheap and easy. When done, just throw the filter on the compost heap.

I've also used a china cap strainer
nothing to throw out

Thanks, these are helpful, and sensible, ideas -- I think an old towel may be the best, cheapest bet for me.

a towel is quite possibly too tight to allow fungal hyphae to pass, which are critically important for perennials. Tim Wilson @ microbeorganics.com has done studies on this, his webpage will probably have the minimum micron measure needed to allow the fungii to pass.

Personally I have given up on the sprayer for applying compost tea to my apples. I just use a small bucket and throw on one bucket per tree in a careful sweeping motion. I can throw the water a lot higher than my sprayer can spray. Just practice with regular water for a while to refine your technique.

I would be worried that your killing your microbes through the pump nozzle. As most nozzles like that with too
High pressure will destroy the micro-organisms.

Andrew Kay is absolutely right.

Using towels is ok for bacterial compost tea. It will kill bacterial diseases and promote positive bacterial microbes.

I was wondering why I kept getting rust on my quince, shipova, loquat and serviceberries even after spraying compost tea.

Towels, socks, rags ARE too tight for fungal microbes.

Elaine Ingham, the queen of compost tea and soil food web, came to Portland and did a talk about it. The best thing to use is a paint strainer from a paint store.

After I used the paint strainer, all the fungal diseases were suddenly gone as well as the bacterial.

Compost tea is amazing stuff, but it does need to be done right.

John S
PDX OR