Compost Tea?

I’m looking for a recipe for compost tea; moreover, I’m looking for a tea that is a foliage spray, which will help me combat bacterial infections on my fruit trees: mainly, bacterial spot on Peach and Plum trees, or any stone fruit trees for that matter; it would be a plus if it fought off bacterial canker (black knot) on Plum trees, and fire blight on Apple and Pear as well!!!

If any of you expert growers have a good recipe, could you Please post it here?

Thanks in advance,
Your fruit tree friend from Western New York:

=M=

Hi Mark,

Do you have a proper brewing set up, with adequate aeration?  How much tea do you need? To my recollection, for a five gallon bucket of tea, I would use about 2 cups fresh bioactive worm castings, 2 cups of quality aerobic bioactive finished compst, and about 1/4 cup organic unsulfured black strap molasses. I would add a few gallon size doses of  liquid kelp, according to the mixing instructions of the jug, and the same with quality fish hydrolyze to foiler feed. They help maximize nutrition boosting immunity. It has to be hydrolyze though. Start by adding your unchlorinated water, let it aerate for an hour, add the tea bag of compost, then molasses and other ingredients, except the fish hydrolyze. Brew under aeration at room temperature for 18 hours; then add the fish hydrolize, brewing for another 6 hours, then strain and dillute by at least 5 parts water to spray leaves.

Using the fish hydrolyze, I never had problems with foiler feeding, but for your application its probably not necessary. Fish emulsion will cause problems and disease in foiler feeding, never use it for that.

Hope that helps.

Five gallons would cover it, I have just under a hundred different fruit varieties; and, I can usually spray the whole orchard with 4 gallons in a spray pack.

Thank you for the recipe, and advice; I’m going to get a fish tank air pump from Walmart and try this out. Have you had a good outcome fighting bacterial infections on your trees with this method? What kind of problems were you having before, that you cured with this tea; and, how often do you spray? Do you have to soak the trees, because then I may need to make like two 5 gal buckets each application...?

=M=

Mark,

I never had any problems I could compare: as I always foiler feed with properly aerated quality compost tea. So no issues when doing it properly. My recommendation on the fish pump, get a industrial sized one, thats tough. Also get a good air diffuser that will eliminate uncirculated spots. There are a few companies that specialize in compost tea brewing, and should have good options available. Tea lab is one sellers set up I've tried and been satisfied with, but I didn't shop around to compare options either. They have a complete kit, and may offer individual items for sale as well. It will at least give you an idea what your looking for in a decent set up.

Hope that helps.

P.S. a five gallon bucket make around 4 gallons of tea, then 4 gallons dilluted 5 to one, means you have over 20 gallons of tea to spray. Just remember once the tea goes off the air, you have a limited time to spray it before the oxygen gets used up in the water and the aerobic biome dies off, less then 45 minuts. So keep the bucket brewing while your spraying each tank, and use it up before it hits 28 hours. If it smells sour, its done, as in not good for foiler feeding. If you don't need that much foiler feed, water the rest into the roots.

R. Steele wrote:P.S. a five gallon bucket make around 4 gallons of tea, then 4 gallons dilluted 5 to one, means you have over 20 gallons of tea to spray. Just remember once the tea goes off the air, you have a limited time to spray it before the oxygen gets used up in the water and the aerobic biome dies off, less then 45 minuts. So keep the bucket brewing while your spraying each tank, and use it up before it hits 28 hours. If it smells sour, its done, as in not good for foiler feeding. If you don't need that much foiler feed, water the rest into the roots.

You gave me exactly the information I was looking for, thank you muchly!

How often do you recommend I spray the tea?

=M=

I would do compost tea once per week, just for nutritional reasons, but it really depends on your situation. If they benefit from the foiler feeding, it will help to do weekly. If you have certian frequent events like spring rain that can spread or activate pathogens, definitely once per week; however, if the nutrient health is great, and their are no causes for pathogen concern, like durning long spells of dry summer weather. You could reduce treatments to as needed: like to boost nutrition, treat a day before rainfall events, or right after every rainfall event, to keep that biofilm working its anti-pathogenic properties, during the critical times of moisture or high humidity. Also dont be afraid to treat surrounding areas where pathogens may be prevalent, to reduce generation of spores. So if you got extra, just spray it around everywhere, it won't hurt if its plants or the ground!

I live in western New York, and we definitely get spring rain very frequently; I imagine that is the reason I’ve had so much trouble with bacterial diseases on my fruit trees.

I got a good air pump, and an air stone.
I’m only making one gallon. Got some kelp, nonsulfered molasses, and worm castings.

I couldn’t find quality aerobic bioactive finished compost, or quality fish hydrolyze...

Will it still fight bacteria without the finished compost, and fish hydrolyze for a foliar spray?

Brewing one gallon right now; gonna let it brew through the night into tomorrow afternoon.

Used 1 gallon of un-chlorinated well water, 1/2 cup of worm castings in a tea bag, and just 1/4 tsp of raw kelp added directly to the water.

=M=

Hi Mark,

Yes the worm castings will still fight off pathogens, and your set up should work fine for one gallon. The other compost is just to add more diversity of aerobic bacteria, to create a more broad spectrum probiotic anti-pathogenic effect. Different bacterium have different abilities regarding what pathogens they can effectively neutralize, so having more probiotic diversity available, helps to insure a broader range of destructive pathogens can be effectively nutralized. The additional compost also helps provide better chances of diverse nutrition, which helps boost the plants/trees immune system. Since its hard to know the exact nutritional quality were fed to the worms, or the exact ingredients that were used in a purchased compost, combining them helps insure more balanced nutrition in your foiler spray: since it will also be a foiler feed, which is also why you should spray it in the cool mornings, while the leaf stomata are all open.

Hope that helps!

It does help.
Thanks again for all the priceless information: I appreciate you.

=M=