Compost Tea Sprayers and Soaking Seeds

Hi there,

I'll be planting cover crops across 7 acres this Fall and am planning on brewing compost tea from my compost pile. I've watched quite a bit (especially from Dr. Ingham) but am struggling to find details on a few steps and how best to apply.

I'd like to better understand best practices on spraying the compost tea. What sort of sprayer for an ATV? What to look out for and lessons learned to avoid when taking the compost tea from the brewer to the sprayer and spraying it directly on the soil.  Best method to transfer the tea to the sprayer, etc. The more details the better!

Additionally, any recommendations on soaking the cover crop seeds prior to no till drilling them into the field.

Let me know if I can provide any details to help answer my questions. Appreciate any recommendations or resources you can provide me.

Thanks in advance.

Hi, Jay

Welcome to the forum.

Jay said, "What sort of sprayer for an ATV?

We have a sprayer that we use with our mule. We have a rack that is like the rack that goes into the trailer hitch fitting.

Ours is like these, several say for ATV:

https://www.northerntool.com/categories/broadcast-spot-sprayers

Or these are Trailer Sprayers:

https://www.northerntool.com/categories/trailer-sprayers

I am sorry that this is all I can offer while giving your topic a little bump.

Hi, I spray compost extracts (no brew time, just extracted via mixing in a concrete mixer and good water, then strained through similar equipment to gold sluicing into a big tub). Then I use a submersible pump to transfer into a tank with a recirculating motor and spray kit.

The main thing Elaine teaches is that you don’t want ‘walls’ in the design that the bugs will hit at pace and burst open. This will mean you’ve both lost viability in the organisms you are applying and changed the C:N ratios towards more free nitrogen.

I use the static aerobic composting system Johnson-Su to make our compost as we are working on grapevines and orchards mostly and want high fungal content. Here’s a recipe for a seed slurry using that compost method. https://youtu.be/tunH4ETViQo?si=zamlRMLx-lG7xGSC