Yeast water in the garden

Hi all;
Normally, you would find my posts in the energy or piggie forums.
This could be my very first post in the gardening forum!
Being home all the time now, I find I have more time on the computer... who would have guessed!

I watched a fascinating video with a totally crappy AI voice-over.
The gist of it was 2 tablespoons of yeast and one tablespoon of sugar, mixed in one quart of water.
After activating, this is diluted with 10 parts water, and the resulting mix is applied three times.
When first planting, when the foliage is greening, and lastly when fruiting.
They claimed this mixture introduced biodiversity in the soil, promoting strong root growth, with corresponding plant size and fruit quantity.

Is this true? It seems too easy...
Gerry thought it sounded like what biochar does to the soil.
Any expert gardeners here at Permies???

I mixed up a batch, and I gave my seaberries a nice yeast watering!
They were already growing like crazy. I am very pleased with the nursery that I purchased them from.
I'm hoping to see even more new growth now that I have set them to "rise"!

It is a natural fertilizer, inoculates the soil, adds microbes, builds fertility, etc.

I'm sure I posted it in another thread some years back....  Not for improved growth, but as a slug bait.  Yeast + sugar + water, mixed, poured into empty cat-food cans that are sunk into the ground so that the can lip is at ground level.  Slugs are very attracted to the 'bouquet' and crawl in and drown.  

....only we had one more variable.  After the concoction had fermented, our pot-bellied pig got into the garden and drank all of the brew.  In the aftermath, wife and I concluded that the pig leaned more towards the 'mean drunk' side of inebriation.   We switched to diatomaceous earth for slug control after that episode.... ;-/

OK... "Yeast is a single-celled living organism that transforms sugar and starch into carbon dioxide and alcohol through fermentation."
From Wiki "A yeast is any species of fungus that grows primarily in a unicellular form and reproduces via budding or fission. Yeasts are eukaryotic microorganisms that originated hundreds of millions of years ago, with at least 1,500 species currently recognized."

The two yeasts I have happily interacted with are bread yeast and brewers yeast (the wine version). Beer yeast is better at attracting slugs than bread yeast, although the two are more similar than some other yeasts. Wine vs cider yeasts can be quite different.

There are also nasty yeasts out there - ones most humans would prefer not to interact with. I've never had a "yeast infection" but I've definitely heard of them.

So if you're dealing with really dead soil, and don't have access to some quality compost to make compost tea, any sort of yeast for making bread, beer or wine, would probably be better than nothing. However, you might do the soil more good by finding some good local dirt, digging up some worms, and introducing those to either some near finished compost, or your plants with some compost spread around them.  I've been told that worm guts have lots of microbes of all types in them (sort of like human guts, but we've got a few dangerous ones like e-coli) and that as the worm poops, those microbes will inoculate the soil.

So I don't think the idea isn't helpful - I'm just suspicious that there might be better ways.

My understanding of utilizing a yeast 'slurry' is to act as a biostimulant for the existing microbe populations. This helps balloon the populations in the soils which then assists with nutrient cycling in the soil for the existing plants.

Personally, I have not tried it but it makes some sense to me. When I finish my experiments with brewing, I will add the lees (leftover settled yeast and solids) to my compost. This acts as a shot of nitrogen and tends to get the compost temperatures to rise.

John's slug trap use is the one I've actually tried. Works pretty well, the slugs are definitely attracted to it. Lost a batch to my dog once though, which was an experience. The biostimulant angle is interesting, hadn't thought about it that way — makes sense that feeding the soil microbes would have a knock-on effect on nutrient availability.

I tried it with cucumbers, and it actually works. But then, I had no control group. I'm not a scientist and don't want that many cucumbers... But apparently it does work with some plants, cucumbers, and I think tomatoes but apparently not with potatoes.

I think most of the yeast will die.
Domesticated yeasts are probably maladapted to the garden.
That said, I'd imagine their dead bodies and bodily wastes would feed the native microherd quite well.
It's kinda like watering plants with pond water.
Being obligated anaerobes, much of the life in the water is likely to die, but their bodies and excrement can feed the nate soil life.

Just a theory.

I suppose you may be technically introducing biodiversity, but you're adding *one* species to a community of *thousands*. Given the ease of starting a sourdough culture from scratch, yeast are everywhere. If your soil can support them, they are already there.

Every time I see one of these magical recipes for instant fertility, I remind myself that the reason plants are green is to make sugar out of carbon dioxide. If you add sugar to a garden, you're feeding the plants plant food, and the spillover feeds the microbes. The same thing happens when you start a cover crop, or add green mulch. Or water and sunshine, if there is any nutrition in your soil at all. If there isn't, add compost, or green mulch, or plant a cover crop. (Roadkill works, too.)

The purpose of gardening is to encourage creatures that make sugar to produce more than they need. Then we steal it from them. If feeding them a little sugar up front primes the pump, go for it.

For my part, I'm tempted to buy some cheap waffle syrup in bulk, dilute it ten to one with water, then slap a label on it and sell it for five bucks a bottle. Any takers?

I did learn, a few years ago that to increase biodiversity, get some unsprayed dried alfalfa, and submerge it in water, let it sit in water for a day.  The theory is that multitudes of microbiota live on the surface of the leaves.  Water brings them back to life from the dormant state they took when desiccated.  And what’s in the leaves acts as nutrients for the organisms.  For this reason, you shouldn’t leave the bucket too long, a day might be about right.  And you shouldn’t stuff the bucket full of alfalfa, just a handful in 5 gallons of water.  The object is to have everything in an aerobic state, not an anaerobic putrid stinking mass ( though I understand many people utilize the anaerobic thing … maybe for the minerals?), so I guess either one has benefits.  

Taking the idea of microbiota on leaf surfaces just a little further, you could ask for some leaves or branches off trees and shrubs growing in very healthy soil, and do the same process.

I had a friend who studied longer with Elain Ingham than I did.  I don’t know if it was her idea, but my friend recommended gathering a little soil (a tablespoon, not a shovel), here and a little there wherever plants seem to be thriving.. under the shrubs, along the creek bank, understory of a forest.

Those soils will be rife with soil life and you can inoculate your soil or mulch pile or compost with that.

John Weiland wrote:I'm sure I posted it in another thread some years back....  Not for improved growth, but as a slug bait.  Yeast + sugar + water, mixed, poured into empty cat-food cans that are sunk into the ground so that the can lip is at ground level.  Slugs are very attracted to the 'bouquet' and crawl in and drown.  

....only we had one more variable.  After the concoction had fermented, our pot-bellied pig got into the garden and drank all of the brew.  In the aftermath, wife and I concluded that the pig leaned more towards the 'mean drunk' side of inebriation.   We switched to diatomaceous earth for slug control after that episode.... ;-/

This is a trick i use regularly. It works great to bait the slugs and snails, but they often do not drown. It does give them something to aim for other than my plants though! I use a slightly different method though, but i will adapt it now and make my traps deeper if i can find something to use (I don't get many cans).

My variable was a crow. It came and took one of my traps away and carried it off to a neighbors roof, where it left the unwanted tray full of liquid cake mix, which then started to dribble down the roof.
I had to knock on the neighbors door and explain what happened and volunteer to come clean the mess up when it finally falls off. Luckily she found it funny and there were no upsets.