Worm Tea as foliar spray to combat diseases, truth/myth? help.

[Gerardo]

Hello Everyone:

I’ve been trekking to the gardening store to get worm tea, but have since decided to scrounge a few things together and make my own juice. Last year I had some trouble with EB, and pretty much all the other players included in the differential diagnosis of foliar diseases made an appearance as well. I've improved my cultural practices but have also decided to attack the problem in a three pronged approach. 1) copper, 2) as little daconil as possible, and 3) worm tea as a foliar spray.
Full disclosure: I’ve worked in a biotech lab, so putting together aerobic conditions and the proper amounts of sugars, micronutrients, ions, et al, needed for optimal growth isn’t that big a deal for me. Most of the ingredients I already had in hand, and only had to invest in a small batch of Oregonism XL for the proper makeup of endo/ecto micos, and the trichoderma. In short, I think I can get a pretty decent culture going with a balanced microbiological profile.
I plan on filtering it (in reality just pushing it through cheesecloth), and then dousing my peppers and tomatoes on a twice weekly basis with a fine mist.
I’m posting to consult tomatovilleians’ experience with vermiculture worm tea as a foliar spray to prevent/reduce/better manage things like Early B, spotty mildew, etc. Has anyone tried this? My first batch of tea went a full 26 hrs and turned out great--plants perked up in less than an hour at a 1:2 dilution directly into the soil.
The next batch will be used as a foliar spray.

Any wisdom is much appreciated. Thanks!!!

PS. Witches brew ingredients: Worm Castings, Humic Acids, Alfalfa Meal, Indonesian Bat Guano, Happy Frog Fruit & Flower, Sugars (muscovado, high fructose corn syrup, white sugar, whatever’s around really), oregonism xl, a little VermaPlex Soil Innoculant (got a couple of free samples!!!), small shot of Fish Emulsion.

[RayR]

Sounds like a good plan.
There are a few studies out there that have shown that mycorrhizae induce resistance to Early Blight in Tomato plants. I'll vouch for that, I've had a dramatic reduction in Early Blight infections since I've been inoculating my seedlings the last three years. Unfortunately it doesn't work for Septoria that way.
Last year was really bad for Septoria, it showed up earlier than usual and very aggressive. In the previous few years I had very good results at control with just teas and Actinovate. This year I'm going to be more aggressive myself and alternate with a copper soap fungicide, Actinovate, Compost and Vermicompost Teas.

[Gerardo]

Thanks for the great reply RayR. I'll post some pics to show the progression or lack of disease. Let's hope for minimal gifts in the air on both coasts this year.

[Tomato Beth]

My son started a worm farm last fall, and we have quite a few castings right now. The worm tea we're going to make will have worm castings, a little bit of unsulphured molasses, a little sea kelp, and a little fish emulsion. I hope it'll help with blight, too.

[Gerardo]

Tomato Beth: Sounds like your tea will be right on the money. Today I started a fresh batch with all the usual suspects and added a couple of leaves of brown kelp. I'm curious to see what happens, I'll report on the result.
I also mashed about 1/2 full of a 5 gallon bucket with nothing but leaves from all the species i was able to harvest (about 6-8 total), added some sugar, and put a loose lid on it. I figure it'll take a couple of days before the slimy kelp goodness goes into solution.

[Redbaron]

Worm Tea as foliar spray to combat diseases, truth/myth? help.

It's truth that it can help. It is a myth that it always works. Basically it helps as a preventative for some diseases. But it isn't the same as a fungicide or something like that for diseases already present. Certainly beneficial, but not even close to preventing/curing diseases 100%.

[Tracydr]

How much vermicompost needs to be added to how much water? Does it need to be aerated? How long?

[Sydney Grower]

Originally Posted by RayR

Sounds like a good plan.
There are a few studies out there that have shown that mycorrhizae induce resistance to Early Blight in Tomato plants. I'll vouch for that, I've had a dramatic reduction in Early Blight infections since I've been inoculating my seedlings the last three years. Unfortunately it doesn't work for Septoria that way.

I add a half teaspoon of mycorrhizae into my worm tea to brew with it. And I agree with RedBaron that the aerated brew really helps in many ways but is not a panacea to cure all ills.

[Sydney Grower]

Originally Posted by Tracydr

How much vermicompost needs to be added to how much water? Does it need to be aerated? How long?

Because the brewing process is about multiplying the beneficial organisms through division, growth, more division etc, I assume that you can start with almost any amount and start multiplying. I recently left my brew beyond 36 hours and noticed that the good organisms seemed to have “died” and the mix was clearly limp and smelly. I assume they actually ran out of food (molasses) or space to multiply.

I aerate because I want to make sure I am breeding aerobic organisms. You may be able to do that without an aerator but I want to err on the safe side.

I generally start with 1-3 handfuls of castings and brew for about 24 hours. The key for determining whether it has “worked” is either to get a microscope (too much effort for me) or to check the smell of the brew. It should smell somewhere between earthy and sweet.

[RayR]

Probably a good idea to keep the brewing too a maximum of 24 hours.
Another thing that can happen is adding too much sugars to the brew can cause the bacteria to multiply faster than what dissolved oxygen can being added to the water with the pump and air stones to support aerobic conditions. For the lack of dissolved oxygen to support the population the brew can go anaerobic. Water can only hold so much dissolved oxygen at a specific temperature and the higher the temperature the less oxygen water can hold.

[Lindalana]

Originally Posted by Gerardo

Hello Everyone:

I’ve been trekking to the gardening store to get worm tea, but have since decided to scrounge a few things together and make my own juice. Last year I had some trouble with EB, and pretty much all the other players included in the differential diagnosis of foliar diseases made an appearance as well. I've improved my cultural practices but have also decided to attack the problem in a three pronged approach. 1) copper, 2) as little daconil as possible, and 3) worm tea as a foliar spray.
Full disclosure: I’ve worked in a biotech lab, so putting together aerobic conditions and the proper amounts of sugars, micronutrients, ions, et al, needed for optimal growth isn’t that big a deal for me. Most of the ingredients I already had in hand, and only had to invest in a small batch of Oregonism XL for the proper makeup of endo/ecto micos, and the trichoderma. In short, I think I can get a pretty decent culture going with a balanced microbiological profile.
I plan on filtering it (in reality just pushing it through cheesecloth), and then dousing my peppers and tomatoes on a twice weekly basis with a fine mist.
I’m posting to consult tomatovilleians’ experience with vermiculture worm tea as a foliar spray to prevent/reduce/better manage things like Early B, spotty mildew, etc. Has anyone tried this? My first batch of tea went a full 26 hrs and turned out great--plants perked up in less than an hour at a 1:2 dilution directly into the soil.
The next batch will be used as a foliar spray.

Any wisdom is much appreciated. Thanks!!!

PS. Witches brew ingredients: Worm Castings, Humic Acids, Alfalfa Meal, Indonesian Bat Guano, Happy Frog Fruit & Flower, Sugars (muscovado, high fructose corn syrup, white sugar, whatever’s around really), oregonism xl, a little VermaPlex Soil Innoculant (got a couple of free samples!!!), small shot of Fish Emulsion.

Compost tea is the route I follow as well, started last year. I think investing in microscope and actually seeing what is being brewed is most recommended route. I have mostly done already researched established ingredients so have little experience on making your own fix, I do have vermicompost factory so will be adding that to works.
I have found that adding fish emulsion after the brewing does better job for me.
It is helpful to prevent diseases coming but is only small part of bigger picture- what is in your soil, what is avail to the plants, how healthy crops to begin with... fun road to follow
Also would be very careful with trichoderma- many unfavorable reports about adding it to the mix. For veggies you mostly need endo part of it. Also adding it prior to the brewing process will probably destroy mycorrhizae.

[Sydney Grower]

Originally Posted by Lindalana

Also would be very careful with trichoderma- many unfavorable reports about adding it to the mix. For veggies you mostly need endo part of it. Also adding it prior to the brewing process will probably destroy mycorrhizae.

Hi Lindalana,

Could you please expand a little more about the logic behind this? I am keen to learn better practice.

Thanks
Carl

[Lindalana]

If you sign up with soil food web, they have some intro courses and if you google compost tea brewing manual it comes as pdf format with plenty of good info. I am fairly sure Dr Elaine Ingham mentions in one of those presentation about trichoderma.
I guess that thing is pretty hungry and after eating bad guys will munch on good microbes with same gusto, so there is potential of introducing trichoderma with damaging results...
thinking it is it glomus that we need most for garden veggies. I follow smiling gardener teaching http://www.smilinggardener.com/sale/...hizae-for-sale

[RayR]

Originally Posted by Lindalana

If you sign up with soil food web, they have some intro courses and if you google compost tea brewing manual it comes as pdf format with plenty of good info. I am fairly sure Dr Elaine Ingham mentions in one of those presentation about trichoderma.
I guess that thing is pretty hungry and after eating bad guys will munch on good microbes with same gusto, so there is potential of introducing trichoderma with damaging results...
thinking it is it glomus that we need most for garden veggies. I follow smiling gardener teaching http://www.smilinggardener.com/sale/...hizae-for-sale

You're right about Dr Elaine Ingham's concerns with adding Trichoderma to compost teas. Trichoderma are known to exist naturally in composts but when adding inoculants with Trichoderma you are adding a whole bunch of spores that when activated are going to be looking for any food sources they can find including mycorrhizal spores. There's really no benefit to adding mycorrhizae to teas and the addition of Trichoderma to teas may likely lead to the mycorrhizae spores being killed off.Trichoderma and mycorrhizal spores are best added directly to the soil/roots where negative interactions are much less likely to occur. I guess that if you want to add inoculants and teas together it's best to add inoculants at the very end just before application to the soil.

[Tomato Beth]

Well, it'll definitely be fun to see how the worm tea works. I've seen recommended dilutions of anywhere from 1:2 to 1:5 for a foliar spray. How often and what dilution do you all recommend spraying to help minimize blight?

@Gerardo--if we went to the ocean and just picked up kelp off the beach, is that just as good as the stuff I bought for a crazy price in a bag?