Hi, I am thinking of trying to spray my orchard with aerated compost tea. It is supposed to offer some anti-fungal properties?, and establish a colony of beneficial microbes that may out-compete some of the bad microbes. I have read that you put a shovelful of compost into a 5 gal bucket, attach an aerator and leave to bubble overnight, then strain and spray on the trees.
Has anyone tried this? WHEN is the best time to spray with the tea? and how often?
I have made and applied compost tea to my apple trees. It does seem to make them a little happier, but I wasn't being scientific about it so I cannot say how much happier.
I mix in a bit of molasses or unprocessed sugar when making the tea. Supposedly this is food for the microbes.
I found it too cumbersome and time consuming to filter the tea enough to work in my sprayer. Also some of my trees are seedlings (big) and my sprayer couldn't reach the upper parts of the tree. So I put a small amount of unfiltered tea in the right sized bucket, and fling it with a lot of force up onto/in the tree. Seems to work well for me. By using a lot of force, most of the tea is atomized into a fine mist. Also I can easily reach the top of my trees.
Michael Phillips (Holistic orchardist) calls compost teas' mode of action Competitive Colonization and his general rule of thumb is that little things like Compost tea, and ramial-adding wood chips to improve the soil bios- each improve the crop say 20%. Apple scab and mildew on leaf and fruit epidermis is relative to the resistance genetically and physically over time. As I understand the cuticle (waxy protective layer), is thick from the early days in a genetically resistant variety like Liberty. So early sprays is the only time you'll get effectiveness. over time the cuticle thickens and resistance is built-in. Now sooty blotch and fly speck are another late season fungus that can be competed with (compost tea)-and the timing i've found most effective is the arrival of dewpoint.
\
DaveM's point is important. Early on I tried to use a fungal compost tea. I used a filter that was too tight, which trapped the long fungal threads. I was spraying brown water on my trees. You can use a paint strainer (found at paint stores). After I figured that out, the compost tea was effective, but not before.
Before it was effective on bacterial diseases.
I make one tea for fungal and one for bacterial.
John S
PDX OR
My quick $0.2c on this, having gone through a little too much trial and error (this stuff has been the bane of my existence, I swear...).
The major one is to make sure that the aerator is properly agitating the material. Light bubbling just won't cut it. You need to get that organic material moving enough to really absorb into the solution. Following that, a few other tips:
- Use the solution within 4 hours of turning off the bubble, at most. The aerobic microorganisms start to die off after that, and kinda defeats the point.
- Apply the solution to damp / moist soil.
- Be gentle! Or, relatively so. Microbes are finnicky at best.
Other than that, the replies before me have a bunch of great, likely far more intuitive info. Best of luck! Let us know how you get on 🙂
Kat
Mode of action found in plums to combat brown rot
It looks like science is starting to figure how beneficial organisms and compost tea applied to the leaves of fruit trees work to enhance tree health issues.
Here is another thread of a publication made by our own John S. concerning the better use of compost to leaves:
Idyllwild
simplepress
jafar
Marsha H
Viron
1 Guest(s)