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BioFerments, BioStimulants, & BioFertilizers – The Soil Food Web

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I have put an article below on the home production of bioferments, biostimulants, and biofertilizers.

These products are gaining a lot of attention lately and rightly so.

Bioferments and biofertilizers provide the soil microbiome with the proper constituents for health.

Healthy soil is known to promote more growth and healthier plants. It is also known to help plants resist disease and pests.

There are other articles that can get more detailed into the how and why of these products.  Suffice it to say, they do work.

They feed the soil food web which in turn feeds the plants.  If your soil doesn’t have it in it, the food won’t have it in it.

Chemical fertilizers do not and cannot provide the proper nutrition to plants for them to be healthy.

All of these recipes can be scaled according to your site. Everything from a few flower pots to acres of land.

Quick and Easy Soil Microbe Tea Recipe

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This is from a Mother Earth News article I found.  Creating Soil Microbe Tea is a great way to give your plants a quick start.

It is essential when planting trees that are not native to your area.  Especially bare root trees.  They do not carry the proper soil microbes with them on the root system.

I highly recommend using this formula to increase the survivability of new trees.

Ingredients:

Molasses – unsulphered – (Our tests of every brand we could get our hands on found that Plantation Blackstrap brand produced the most active cultures) For bulk orders contact GloryBee

Water – filtered or distilled

Dirt from undisturbed pasture, bottomland, or prairie, Harvested every six inches from a 3-foot deep hole.

Soil Microbe Tea Recipe:

When soil temperature reaches 60 degrees or more, using post a hole digger make a hole 3 feet deep, taking a dirt sample every six inches.

Clean Gallon Jug with Hot Water and Soap, Rinse well.

Add 2 cups hot to the touch water.

Add 2-1/2 oz molasses = 2-1/2 shot glasses – this yields an approximate 2% solution.

Fill the bottle ½ full with cool non-chlorinated water.

Mix the soil samples, add 1 cup dirt to the bottle, shake, then fill bottle with water 2 inch below neck.

Wait until foaming stops – about 2 weeks at 90 F, or pH = 3.5 – 4.0 (pH test papers widely available)

Using Homemade Soil Microbe Mix

One part Microbe Mix to 20 parts water. Use as foliar spray, on new and established seedbeds

The photo shows typical leaf sizes from our test of local, indigenous microbes on a 100-foot row of sweet potatoes. After brewing as described, the microbe mix was applied without dilution using 4 gallons on half the row. The other half of the row was not treated. No other fertilizers or soil amendments were applied.   The treated side of the row produced larger leaves.

Notes: Source for Molasses updated, old link no longer worked.

The aerated compost tea recipe that I use can be found here. I find this works better than plain compost tea for gardens and rejuvenating worn-out soil.

Source:
https://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/probioticsfor-the-soilbrew-your-own-local-indigenous-microbes-zbcz1402