Worm Tea

[Leisurely]

Jessica, the information that comes with HB101 says that the main ingredients is extract from Asian pine and juniper trees that gives the plant the ability to better utilize nitrogen.

[Ray]

I was given some HB101 by the US distributor, trying to get me to become a reseller. Before trying it on my orchids, I tried it on a few houseplants - aspiditra, oxalis, dracaena, and spathiphyllum - and i came close to losing them all.

I threw the sample material away.

[Leisurely]

When I first started using HB101, I used the amount recommended on the label and burned the roots pretty badly. I experimented for a while until I decided that eight drops per gallon was the amount I should use. The orchids seem to be loving it.

[bmilwaukee]

Just a quick note. Milorganite is not actually dried sewage sludge. Microbes digest the nasty stuff and then are dried, creating Milorganite. It is actually a great system that allows people to send organic materials through their in-sink disposal systems and into the wastewater treatment system. From there, these materials, instead of being wasted, are turned into fertilizer and energy. They are diverted from area landfills where they would take up space and generate methane. Also, Milorganite does not contain a ton of lead. Just google Milorganite and head to their webpage where you can find detailed information about the fertilizer's contents.

[Ray]

Without going back over this entire thread, I don't know if I was one of the naysayers about worm teas, but it's very likely. However, I am coming around, sort-of.

After doing some research, it appears that most of the benefit from such "teas" results from the colonies of microbes that grow in them, and by establishing a stable population of "good bugs" in the rhizosphere, they work to keep the "bad bugs" at bay. There is also some evidence that there may be beneficial chemical interaction between those "bugs" (or their metabolites) and the plants themselves, but very little is known about that at this point. Most of the work done has been with terrestrial plants, and it's hard to say if those benefits translate well to epiphytes.

Considering my educational and work background (science and engineering, plus 4 decades in the glass/ceramic & chemical industries), the concept of using stuff like worm teas just "bothers" me - too many unknowns to make me comfortable risking my precious plants. However, several months ago, a gentleman from a Canadian biotechnology company (also an avid paph grower and current customer) contacted me about a unique product they have developed that is made up of several "consortia" of beneficial bacteria and yeasts. His own experience with his paph collection, as well as field trials at a large sculpture garden and several farms in SC, plus research ongoing at Clemson and McGill University, shows that their plant & soil amendment product has real benefits. He sent me sample material, some of which I shared with a few of my larger-scale grower friends, and one of the first things noted was the greatly-improved survival rate of ex-flask seedlings. Then I learned that Holger Pernar (Hengduan Biotech in China) has noted significant improvement in his culturing of Paph. tigrinum, a particularly difficult plant to propagate, and now essentially extinct in its Chinese habitats, but using the stuff. If you want to read about it, the product is "Garden Solution", made by Inocucor.

I don't do a lot of de-flasking, but a regular application in my greenhouse seems to be doing a good job of keeping pathogens at bay, which is always more of a concern as the temperatures drop and we get more gray days. (It has also done a marvelous job of decreasing the "gunk" level of my artificial pond outside of the greenhouse, and the frogs and fish are apparently unfazed.)

With that level of science and effectiveness behind it, they have convinced me to work with them and be the primary retail outlet in the US (if you are near Myrtle Beach, you can buy it at Brookgreen Gardens). We are finalizing the arrangements now, and I hope to have stock, including samples, later this month.

[oscar freak]

I'v just started keeping both orchids and an earthworm farm,and my worm wee is filling up nicely.i think i'm going to give it a go as an experiment and see what happens.

[nynighthawk]

Hi folks,

Just a note or two about what is being referred to as "worm tea".

I've been keeping a worm bin for about five years, now. The little guys are great at turning my kitchen scraps into vermicompost. I've mostly been using that on my street tree bed and in my garden...haven't experimented with using a bit in my terrestrial orchid mix. But, I'm going to try a little bit when I repot my cymbidiums.

Anyhoooo, what I just want to mention is that there may be some inconsistency in what is being referred to as "worm tea". As far as I understand, the liquid material that is created by the worms in the bin is not, itself, worm tea. "Worm tea" is created by taking some of the vermicomost and putting it in a bin of water that is then aerated for a period of time to increase the population of microbes. When I took a Master Composting program, a few years ago, the instructor had a bucket set up with an aquarium bubbler in it to provide oxygen and circulation to the mix.

I've been adding a little of the untreated worm effluent to my orchid water, lately. I don't really know if it helps at all. When I get my brain in gear, I will try to do a more thorough worm tea process and see if the 'chids like it.

I suspect that items like the worm tea might be more useful for terrestrial orchid mixes and maybe even sphagnum media, where there is more retention of moisture and the media stay in more intimate contact with plant roots.

Just mho.

I'm really looking forward to any followup you all have on this.

Please keep us posted, Ray. You are always so thoughtful and thorough in your explorations.

:-)

Jess

---------- Post added at 11:09 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:06 AM ----------

Oh...I forgot to mention that the setup of the "worm tea" bucket had the vermicompost in a baggie...like a big tea bag...so that the liquid remained pretty gunk-free. I guess and alternative would be to strain the mix afterward, if you intend to use the tea as a foliar spray, etc. We were told that using it as a spray was beneficial as an anti-bacterial/fungicide, as well as a foliar feed.

[Nexogen]

How to Breed Beneficial Microbes

DWC Root Slime Cure aka How to Breed Beneficial Microbes | Rollitup

[nynighthawk]

Thanks for that link, Nexogen!

[Ray]

The primary issue with the products mentioned in that article is that they are basically not much more than blends of different cultures. If you are lucky, sufficient colonies will develop to keep pathogenic ones at bay.

What usually happens, however, is one of these scenarios:

1. By "bombarding" the rhizosphere with the "good bugs", you may knock back the bad ones, but it is only temporary, and eventually the good ones die off and native cultures retake the lead. Don't forget that the bad bugs were happy growing in that environment, while to additives are foreign, so may not be well-suited for that same environment.
2. The individual strains do different things to the plant and root environment, and they compete with each other for survival, so often - if you're lucky enough to avoid the prior scenario - only one strain "takes over", and you don't get the full benefit.

That is where the Inocucor technology comes in - they have developed consortia of good bugs that play well together, so are able to build and sustain stable colonies that support each other while providing a broad range of benefits.