From

Location

Message

Date Posted

Atlanta, GA

How long can I aerate the tea? can i go weeks at a time? i noticed the longer it went the lighter the tea got (three days).

7/28/2014 12:50:59 PM

Central Illinois

I think its around 24 hours, done at the same temperature as the plant.

7/30/2014 7:53:38 AM

Rhode Island

most professional brewers call for the ingredience to be aerated 24 hrs, then within a couple hrs of that ? sprayed or applied to the plant.always best to use fresh not after its been sitting around a day or two.microbes will die off.
most teas are sprayed onto the leaves and some are also cut with additional water (in a 50 gal tank for instance) then drenched onto the soil under the plant.
pap

8/1/2014 4:10:05 PM

Eastern Pennsylvania

I like 16 to 24 hours. Too early the microbes havnt grown enough, too much longer they run out of food source and die off.

8/1/2014 6:15:44 PM

Seattle, WA

Fish,

Think of it this way. If your tea brewer was a giant zoo and you opened all the doors, over time all you would have left would be lions and rats. Basically, your brewer is the same thing. When you start out, you have all this biological diversity, but over time some species will be more efficient at consuming the food sources or other microbes. By 3 days, you'll start seeing the same morphology of bacteria, usually no fungal hyphae, and the same flagellates. You will have lost diversity. Sort of a Darwinian survival of the fittest. What you want with compost tea is nutrient cycling, so diversity is key. I can explain it better if this doesn't make sense.

8/5/2014 12:31:12 PM

Seattle, WA

Short answer:

Limit your brew time to 20-36 hours if you don't have a microscope or dissolved oxygen meter would be my advice.

8/5/2014 12:31:46 PM