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Pinedale, WY

I am wanting to know what it cost to make a batch of Compost Tea. Not counting the brewer and set-up, just the ingrediants. I know there are different reciepes and different amounts, but just give me a ballpark idea per gallon. I have found a company that makes it and is giving me a deal on it by volume, so I want to see how much I would save by making it myself.

12/14/2008 12:30:01 PM

Www.extremepumpkinstore.com

The biggest issue isnt the cost, it's getting it from the "company" to your patch in time before the beneficial bacteria and fungus starts to die off, not to mention that you wouldnt know what they are brewing or how they are brewing it.
I don't mean to sound negetive about this, but...If you can't brew it yourself (or get it from a friendly grower that knows what they are doing), I wouldnt bother.
Take the time and effort and do it right.
Just my opinion.
Tom

12/14/2008 12:41:01 PM

Santa Rosa, CA

Pumpkin Pastor,

The ingredients cost me next to nothing. I brew in 5-gallon pails with fish pump motors. (Thank you Patchmaster for one of your old pumps!) My ratio is one gallon of ingredients into the 5-gallon pail.

I use compost and worm castings that are free as I make my own. I add a handfull of alfalfa pellets ($10.50 for 50# bag) I keep some of the bag after putting the majority on the patch.

I throw in a small hanfull of kelp and pour in a little black molassas. The bottle lasts me the whole season.

I can't see the ingredients cost being more than pennies per gallon this way.

Tom brings up a good point. After I pull the air-stones out that are attached to the pump, the tea goes right onto the patch. You will lose the benefits if you wait too long.

Good luck with whatever method you use.

Chuck

12/14/2008 1:36:53 PM

Pleasant Hill, Or

I have seen nurseries around my area charging anywhere from $1.00-1.50/GAL. Seemed like way too much money to me, especially since you don't even know how old it is. I asked at one upper scale nursery just how they did it, and she said they never dump out a batch, but just continually add to it. I don't know if that is a good thing or bad, but my gut tells me it's not good.

I made "Soil Soup" for one season, and figured the cost/GAL was approx. $.35/GAL. That was using their base solution and worm castings.

I have since made my own brewer and formulated my own recipe, and have figured my cost/GAL to be about $.04/GAL.

I have not had my tea tested, or Soil Soup's for that matter, but have found the results to be similar.

At $.04/GAL, I am applying the tea to my entire property, and have really seen and improvement, especially the lawn. I don't think I would be applying the other more expensive recipes to my yard, or in the higher quantities I do to the pumpkin patch. Even though $.35/gal sounds pretty reasonable, it really adds up.

Thad

12/14/2008 2:54:46 PM

Pinedale, WY

Wow, thanks. I am not sure on the price of the stuff they have. They are giving me 5 gallons to try. They told me that their compost tea will keep, even if it freezes it is still ok. It didn't make sense to me, but I am not an expert, so that is why I ask here. I will have to look into getting my own ingrediants and making my own. Even at $.35 a gallon, it comes out to about $40 a year, so that is reasonable. I will check to other post to find reciepes and resources to get them.

Thanks again

12/14/2008 4:00:09 PM

Www.extremepumpkinstore.com

If the tea freezes I would think that the bacteria and fungus would die, it needs a certian temp to thrive as well as oxygen and food.
It sounds to me that they are using tea as a fertilizer, my guess would be probably loading it with nitro so you see the immediate "green" effect, but remember we apply tea to add beneficial bacteria and fungus to our soil and plants.
I've been using Thads brewer and a real simple recipe, do some research and you will find that you need oxygen, bacteria (manure, castings, compost)a food source (molasses, kelp, fish ect)and obviously water to make a good tea, certian teas will brewed for fungus, others for bacteria,some with both, all depending on what you add and how you brew.
The ingredients I use are:
Castings
Molasses
Soluble Kelp
Soluble Humic
Fish Emulsion

12/14/2008 6:59:54 PM

Pinedale, WY

www.humalfa.com
This is the place that I have been in contact with.

What is Thads website

12/14/2008 7:59:06 PM

Pleasant Hill, Or

Hey Pumpkin Pastor, I don't have a web site, but a few growers here have built it and posted it on their web sites. Dale Fisher has a great how-to here--- http://www.fisher5.org/brewer.htm.

This is a very simple and effective brewer

Thad

12/14/2008 10:48:49 PM

Pinedale, WY

I appreciate it, thanks again

12/15/2008 12:32:57 AM

Pinedale, WY

So is it beneficial to have a fish tank heater in it?

12/15/2008 12:38:52 AM

Seattle, WA

Pumpkin Pastor,

Just to be clear, the Hu-More Liquid Concentrate is NOT compost tea. It appears to be a fertilizer product, rather than a microbial product.

I agree that fresh is best. From the testing we've done Soil Food Web, Inc., we found that compost tea needs to be applied within 4 hours of stopping the aeration in order to receive the full benefit. When we go out to spray

As for pricing, typical rates I see in the Seattle area is 2-5 dollars/gal. I know of some hydroponic shops that charge as much as $20/gal. for our tea. In our 5 gal. brewer, we charge $6.99/brew for the ingredients our food kit. That comes out to 1.40/gal. Keep in mind that 5 gallons will cover 1/4 acre for a soil drench and a full acre for foliar applications up to 5 ft. in height. Of course, these rates are based upon using a compost tea that is high in both bacteria and fungi, and meets all the minimum requirements for a compost tea through Soil Food Web.

If you make your own brewer or use your own recipe, it can be done cheaper, as Thadd has explained in his post. I strongly recommend doing some sort of testing of your brewer or recipe, at least once to make sure that you have your brewer configured correctly and that you're adding the proper amounts of foods and compost. Ideal situation would be to get a microscope and look at the critters yourself. Then you can make adjustments based on what you see under the microscope. If you go with a commercial company, please make sure that they've done BIOLOGICAL testing of their teas or brewer, or microscope work, as nutrient or chemical testing isn't really applicable in this regard. When you're buying from a commercial company, what you're paying for is that they've done the testing for you. Otherwise, you're just as well off making your own.

Cheers,
Tad

12/15/2008 2:09:03 PM

Lexington, Ky

Has anyone factored in the cost of electricity used to make compost tea? 12+ hours of pump time certainly has an impact on the cost per gallon.

12/15/2008 2:46:41 PM

are we really talking $$ here?

Price of brewer = $35 - a few hundred $$
Price of tea = .04-$2.00/gallon
Price of electricity = ?
Price of testing because someone said you should = ?

growing healthy plants and weekly food input to your soil biology and getting a new PB =PRICELESS

12/15/2008 3:45:44 PM

Pinedale, WY

So who can test my compost tea? The place that I send soil samples in, do most of them test the tea also?

12/15/2008 8:04:48 PM

Pinedale, WY

Another question for Tad, how to you get 5 gallons to cover 1/4 of an acre? My patch and garden is 3,500 sq ft, which (if my math is correct) 1/12 of an acre. I just don't see how you drench that much space. I can see foilar spraying that much.

12/15/2008 8:11:53 PM

Seattle, WA

Anyone with a microscope who knows how to identify the organisms can do basic testing for you. Soil Food Web, Inc. is who we've used for quantitative test results. You can view their website at www.soilfoodweb.com

In fact, one of the best sites for free info. on the web is http://www.soilfoodweb.com/03_about_us/approach_pgs/c_03a_aerated_tea.html

The way you get 5 gallons of tea to cover 1/4 acre is by adding water. Don't think of it as a dilution, but rather a way to evenly apply the organisms in the tea. If the tea is made correctly it's highly concentrated, and many people use rates of 5:1 or higher of water:tea. I typically recommend 4:1 or 5:1. When we spray we go 3:1 because we have access to all the ingredients so readily. One nice thing about it is that you can't over apply.

12/15/2008 10:24:42 PM

Seattle, WA

On a side note, just wanted to point out that you don't have to buy a commercial machine or even do testing on your own machine. There's many people that give it their best guess in terms of design and inputs and are perfectly happy with the results they get. I come from the perspective of a commercial tea maker, where I feel that if we're going to sell a product, it needs to be scientifically tested and supported. If you're making your own, this is obviously not the case. The most important thing is that you're getting away from harmful chemical use.

I'd be happy to help you out with a design (Thadd has already posted a link to one), and there's a bunch of recipes that have been posted in prior threads (I know I've posted one from Dr. Ingham in there).

Good luck, and welcome to the world of compost teas!

~Tad

12/15/2008 10:28:16 PM

Seattle, WA

In regards to the electrical costs, I would think these would be rather small, depending on the size of the motor you're using. We have customers in Hawaii that ran it off of a solar grid that they had established on their property, so I don't think the costs would run too high...

12/15/2008 10:29:49 PM

Gold Hill, Oregon

what is the difference between a fungi tea and a bacterial tea? is one better to use at different stages of growth or maybe a drench?

12/16/2008 12:40:09 AM

Seattle, WA

Technically, if we're talking about AACT or actively aerated compost tea, it should have a good diversity and quantity of bacteria and fungi (along with various protozoa). After all, what we're looking for is nutrient cycling, this is what ultimately feeds the plant. In some instances, you may wish to alter the balance in your soil, or select for a particular plant (one that prefers bacterial soil vs one that prefers fungal soil). However, the plant will slowly change the dominance in the soil based on the exudates (sugars, carbons, carbohydrates) that it's releasing through it's root system. I'm pretty sure that pumpkins would favor a bacterially dominant soil, based on the fact that they have a shorter life cycle and Joe got such good results using the Soil Soup machine (which produces a bacterial tea). That being said, most soils are lacking in fungi, and fungi has also been attributed with suppressing disease and certain fungi like mycorrhizal fungi have been further documented to bring phosphorus back to the plant and actually strangle root-feeding nematodes.

My personal opinion is that if you're applying compost tea, I would want it to have the full consortium of microbes. Think of the shotgun effect here. Let nature sort it out and the plant to select for the organisms it wants to be most successful around it's roots. Good diversity of beneficial organisms certainly isn't going to hurt anything!

~Tad

12/16/2008 2:49:58 PM