This is quite an interesting subject.There will always be yea and nay sayers for everything, but as long as we all stay polite, hopefully from debate, consensus and learning will result.
The interest in worm tea and so on isn't to do with the basic nutrients. Commercial fertilisers do that way better. What is interesting is the tag alongs, the congeners, if you like. Congeners are what turn boring vodka into whiskey or rum.
Worm teas and other brews contain additional nutrients, and also a whole slew of fungi and microorganisms. The basic science seems to be that if you try and keep a sterile environment for plants, not only will they be lacking, but the harmful bugs will gain ascendance.
Here's a couple of interesting references to brewing various cultures.
Making your own Plant Probiotic Brew | Rollitup
probiotic brewing
So who here is growing in true organic living soil? | Rollitup
discussion board follow on.
There's also lots of pages on compost tea. The probiotic brews get round the risk of virus transmission, but even if you don't like the idea of compost tea near orchids, it is very good for plants in pots.
Ultimate Compost Tea Recipe For Boosting Plant Growth compost tea
How to Make Compost Tea C. tea made easy
Beginner's guide to AACT/Compost Tea - Growing Hot Peppers - The Hot Pepper
Ultimate Compost Tea Recipe For Boosting Plant Growth
---------- Post added at 02:31 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:18 PM ----------
In one of the links I added, one of the people gets quite narky about commercial brews, and waxes lyrical on the joys of cultivating local strains of fungi and bacteria, suggesting that the ones you get for free in the area are best suited to living where you are.
He makes cultures from soil samples especially samples taken from forests and woodland, as these have the widest range of fungi.
What I learned when I was in the UK that bad fungi can be displaced and eliminated by overwhelming them with competition. Honey fungus was a tree killer, and we had an outbreak. Normally the reponse was to remove all potential fungi food from the area. However, once there that did nothing against the honey fungus. I happened to read about the idea of competition controlling it, and we mulched with shredded garden waste of every type 6 inches deep all over. The honey fungus just gave up and never came back.
One experiment to cultivate fungi. on a programme someone was illustrating the worth of putting cardboard into compost heaps. He put corrugated cardboard into a container with drain holes, and peed on it every day. The local fungal spores germinated, and helped by the nitrogen, turned the cardboard into a mass of fungal hyphae.
I'd quite like to try mixing bark chunks with some paper machee and then giving it some nitrogen to get it going. Then, when some orchids need repotting, I'd like to include some of the fungal innoculated bark chunks into the mix and see how they do. Normal plants depend heavily on a sybbiotic relationship with fungi and bacteria, and there are suggestions that this is far more complex than we thought.
If you google probiotics for plants, a lot of the references will be from Marijuanna boards. Those people take soil health VERY seriously.
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