Anaerobic compost Tea or Aerobic Compost Tea?
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- Опубликовано: 26 авг 2023
- Historically, a variety of different forms of anaerobic compost teas were common soil amendments for old-time gardeners. In recent years, however, much has been made about aerobic compost teas. In this video I explain the basics of what both types of compost teas are, along with some pros and cons for both. I then show how I make an anaerobic compost tea preparation.
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This is ridiculously helpful! I searched for a video like this a while ago and there wasn't one, so glad you shared your knowledge! 😊
Thank you! I wanted to give a different perspective, as both aerobic and anaerobic environments and organisms have different, but important roles to play in the ecosystem.
Can’t wait to see your TNB Naturals video!🎉🎉🎉❤❤ we will share it across all platforms reaching millions
Thanks, I can look into it.
Very informative. Thank you
Glad it was helpful!
This is a more balanced approach than most. I don't particularly have the set up to add bubblers right now so this does make me feel a bit better about not doing aerobic compost tea.
Thank you! Balance was what I was going for. My experience with anaerobic compost teas is that when done responsibly they definitely seem to do some good as well. Glad you found it useful!
Aerobic tea is way more healthy. If you are aware of OSSFs then you'd know modern home septic systems have aerobic-digesters b/c they are 97% effective at treating the water for parasites & pathogens, where the last 3% is treated with liquid-bleach or chlorine tablets before it is sprayed on the lawn to be treated with UV from the sun. In 2020 my State no longer allows people to repair old OSSF where they must add aerobic-digesters in most neighborhoods with small acreage.
Our grandparents used drained-acidic-wetlands, our parents used backyard cesspits & sulfur-air-pollution, where now we treat our sewage effluent & buy our elemental-sulfur in bags to put in our high-PH-compost. Now that refineries are legally required to remove sulfur & bag it, plus we are banned from draining wetlands, & it is now illegal to have edibles in the septic-field... we just are forced to garden different.
Aerobic decomposition certainly has some really great applications, for sure; as you pointed out, aerobic decomposition can help in that instance to dramatically decrease problems with known pathogens in that context.
Pertaining to gardening specifically, context is also important. Here are my current thoughts. If soil structure is very loose creating conditions that are too aerobic for the microbial balance in the soil, could that change the the emphasis on whether to use aerobic or anaerobic compost tea, or one more often than the other? In classic soil life constituents, we talk about obligate aerobes, facultative aerobes, facultative anaerobes, and obligate anaerobes. Usually for most crops specifically, we aim for somewhere in the middle, to have a soil that is near the facultative aerobe to facultative anaerobe range. Maintaining that balance is key for healthy crops. Additionally, many nutrients in anaerobic teas are chelated to organic acids and are thus in a reduced form, being more easily bioavailable for plants' use in most cases. Of course, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing, and it can be important to not over-apply. I also like how you pointed out UV rays as a sterilization treatment; anaerobic compost tea residues that contact with above-ground surfaces will likely be treated by the UV of the Sun and or wash into the soil by the next rain as time moves forward. Underground, provided there good soil health, with both aerobic and anaerobic conditions, balance will be asserted and maintained. In intensely anaerobic, compacted soils it may be that anaerobic compost tea application would likely not be a good idea, as 1. the nutrients in the reduced form would likely be less useful in that context due to the anaerobic conditions already present, thus decreasing the benefit, 2. the poor health of the soil would likely not be able to accommodate for the anaerobic tea addition as there would be no meaningful aerobic conditions to buffer potential negative or pathogenic impacts.
Fantastic video on tea . I appreciate it
Thank you, and I appreciate your comment!
@@terra-blegardeningvideos you’re very welcome and I appreciate you making this video.
This topic is hot on my list of things to comprehend. My State Permitted OSSF makes compost-tea but the reclaimed water can't be used on edibles. I think the most important part of aerobic-tea is the carbonic-acid form it is in. With enough rain-water you could dissolve the planet b/c it is carbonic-acid(water surrounded by carbon dioxide). Ocean water & finished compost have a PH of 8.1 but carbonic-acid has a PH of 5.6.
You should note that flipping a compost pile only adds additional oxygen for about 20 minutes max, so stirring an anaerobic-digester is more of a storm to move the slow-moving bacteria to new locations for more diversity in populations or food for them to eat. Also anaerobic-digesters are used on OSSFs b/c those bacteria literally eat each other into a gas so at the end of the process there is less biosolids to remove.
The main issue my brain can't grab is the 16 weeks or more of smelly hydrogen-sulfide produced by an aerobic-digester as the bacteria-populations grow. Law literally requires me to not have my aerator off for longer than a 24 hour period unless the system is put out-of-use, that's how difficult it is to create, maintain, & keep aerobic-population high.
Basically what I'm saying is nobody on YT is doing like the State's OSSFs & it is kinda silly that the science exists but nobody is paying attention to what is already written, in terms of aerobic vs anaerobic digesters. The problem currently is that we have lots of people who still think cesspit-OSSFs are so much cheaper that they're useful but I know they just make us all sick, I'm out of 1970 & want everyone past a 2020 mindset.
10/10 on the video as it is going to be a topic that adjusts/grows in the next decade, b/c the science is there but nobody read all of it yet to put it on film.
Awesome, thank you for the info! Yes, they're two different types of fermentation with different attributes. It does seem like there is a bit of room for adjustment as we move forward, a pretty exciting topic to explore for sure. A lot of fermented foods humans may consume ie sauerkraut, kimchi, yogurt, etc. are anaerobically fermented, which can make certain nutrients more available, or in some cases more abundant, for digestion, complete with more enzymes. certain types of plants ie reeds, cattails, wild rice etc may thrive in more of an anaerobic environment, and so maybe an anaerobic fertilizer could possibly have an interesting impact on the growth of those plants as well. The soil outside is made of aggregates and air pockets (creating a relatively aerobic climate), and each aggregate contains within it an anaerobic environment where certain microbial populations thrive and make nutrients available to plants, - chelating and reducing various minerals to make them more bio-available. However, if an agricultural field gets flooded over a long enough time (becomes basically anaerobic), many of those crops will become less healthy and may even succumb to the new environment. Thus, there is definitely a necessary balance. So, I am sure both aerobic and anaerobic aspects are important for growing plants, with the ideal balance being different for different types of plants. Which is better is probably, admittedly, the wrong way to look at it. The way I see it, both serve important functions, and the ideal balance is likely context-dependent. Thank you for the comment, I appreciate it!
@@terra-blegardeningvideos Autothermal Thermophilic Aerobic Digestion, it's too cold outdoors now but I wish I knew how small they could be built. It's easy to get my 5ft tall pile of yard-clippings to reach 164f but I have no idea how difficult it would be to get 131f in an aerobic digester. Next summer I'll have to drop a thermometer into my State-permitted OSSF.
@@SlackerU Yes, some of the aerobic digester vessels out on the market, with a 5000-7000 lbs cap can easily reach 170-180 F, a point at which the internal environment will be dominated by microbial thermophiles. I used to think that getting it that hot was a bad thing, but it really comes down to management and understanding of the system. The next step would be to heat a house with that lol.
as for aerating the tea, a bin with your tea mixture and screen keeping solid mater above the bottom of your container, couldn't you start a syphon from the bottom feeding back into the same container to aerate instead of relying on a pump ?
Would you mind elaborating on that idea?
@@terra-blegardeningvideos yeah I looked more into that and I guess it's called "boyle's flask " which doesn't actually work similarly the "heron's fountain " tries to apply a similar effect but also fails, cause yeah thermo dynamics are a thing 😅😅
Tldr: I was basically saying" make perpetual motion" and didn't realize I was saying that.
No worries! Yeah, I read your comment yesterday, and I was like that sounds a lot like perpetual motion lol. It is a genuine shame that stuff doesn't work!
How can I incorporate both in one batch? Can I start one way then finish another?
That is a really great question that I have not considered. And I do not believe I have a complete answer, but I would figure you would have to have two separate buckets (one anaerobic, the other aerobic), then combine once finished decomposing/digesting and immediately apply. Otherwise, if you start one one way (aerobically for example) then finish it anaerobically, the entire properties and environment will likely shift substantially. Unless of course, if there is a specific time in which you take an aerobic tea, and let it sit anaerobically for a certain time (probably not relatively long maybe a few hours or a day...I'm guessing here) then apply. But if you want the best benefits of both, it'd probably be good to brew each separately then combine and apply.
I make a couple batches of comfrey tea in the fall and use in the soil after terminating the cover crop and before planting in the spring. I have been told the longer it ferments the more plant available the nutrients are, is that correct?
Stay Well!!!
Thank you! You bring up an excellent question, and I do not know the complete answer. However, here are my current thoughts. The longer it ferments, many of the minerals will likely become more bioavailable yes. It is also possible, depending on how it is set up, some nitrogen may be lost, or at least reduced in quantity (the rest is probably tied up in microbial proteins), over time due to volatization. Also, if a batch sits for too long, certain types of alcohols may, at least in theory, accumulate in the tea as the material breaks down. In large enough quantities, these may disrupt soil life and or become toxic to the plant. Thus, I try to maintain the balance of the soil biology as it is emphasizing only marginal changes, by letting my teas sit for only a few days or so, that way the biology in the tea does not have such an extended amount of time to adapt to an environment that is much unlike that of the soil. One way around this, at least to an extent, would probably be to dilute a batch that has sat for a while before application if it is deemed to be a concern. Too concentrated a dose (i.e., if it has sat for too long) may create a more extreme change, resulting in more stress on the whole system to which it is being applied, potentially resulting in negative consequences. Hope this helps. Also it can vary depending on the needs of the crop. Plants that grow better in anaerobic environments will be naturally adapted to thrive on higher concentrations of the anaerobic metabolites found in the tea, much more so than other plants.
@@terra-blegardeningvideos Thank you for your thoughtful reply.
In years past I would aerate the comfrey ferment after a few months of brewing, but the garage would smell like a sewage treatment plant. The ferment that sits for in my case, about 7 months had a slight odor, but nothing drastic. I do dilute the tea around 50% to cover all my beds.
Another question if I may?
This year I have been mulching some of my beds with comfrey I pull from other areas in the garden. How much of the nutrients are being returned to the soils? I also raise worms, and do hot composts. Zero input for outside nutrients last 2 years, so far so good.
I was unlucky enough to have Asian jumping worms invade my Ruth Stout potato/onion bed 3 years ago, mulched with shredded leaves and compost, completely ruined the texture of my soils.
Stay Well!!
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Mulching with fresh comfrey could probably boost soil nitrogen, especially if mulched right before a rain. This effect may be intensified if the leaves are crushed before application. Most all other nutrients would likely be slow released, being released from the plant material as it breaks down. Comfrey can also be a really good plant as a dynamic accumulator as it has an extensive root system that can reach deep into lower soil layers, making those nutrients accessible to other plant life as the comfrey is "chopped and dropped" or otherwise mulched. Thank you for the question! Asian Jumping worms are tricky!
@@terra-blegardeningvideos The comfrey applied to my beds seem to be doing just fine. Very hard to find real data on how effective it really is.
Just harvested some potatoes mulched with straw, pulled out several dozen mature jumping worms. Straw is not an option for a mulch to deter JW's.
The worst part of the JW's is they remove all the soil aggregates, leaving behind a granular soil that will not hold moisture. I looked at soil samples under the microscope from my beds 2 years ago, very little aggregates when the JW's were done.
So far, the best mulch is a living mulch, kinda hard to do with onions and potatoes. I know I have to do something different again next year.
Thanks for your reply, Stay Well!!!
You mentioned how JW can destroy/alter soil aggregate structure...and you got me thinking!! This probably not only creates a physical change in the soil profile, but I bet it drastically alters the soil microbiome! Those aggregate structures house various species of anaerobic/facultative anaerobic life that can play important roles in plant health. If those aggregates are destroyed or reduced, then different types of microbes (i.e., aerobic) would predominate the soil profile. I could see this creating an imbalance having negative implications for plant health and nutrient access/utility in plants.
Whats the point of aerobic if the microbes go back to normal levels in the soil once they dont get air anymore? Do the microbes you cultivated survive in the soil? Thanks.
Exactly!! Aerobic is probably more beneficial for foliar surfaces specifically. However, in shallower soil levels there can be air pockets between soil aggregates of healthy soil. Certain types of microbes may survive in those areas while many others probably won't last very long. Facultative aerobes will probably hold a better chance than obligate aerobes I would suspect. And of course, soil aggregates themselves are largely anaerobic, and house
certain anaerobic microorganisms that reduce/chelate certain minerals making them more plant available. So the soil needs some balance of both, and that balance is different in different areas of land that support unique plant communities etc. In the final analysis I see soil microbial health as more of a delicate balance of aerobic and anaerobic, an imbalance of either one could disrupt the system. What might be more useful is to study the plants one is trying to grow and research their native environments and regional contexts. Certain plants grow best in swampy context (anaerobic), while others grow in well-drained soil, and yet others grow in near desert sand.
@@terra-blegardeningvideos thank you for the clearance. Surely anaerobic is also needed as you have mentioned as it exists in nature as well as been proven ok with steep tea or manure tea. It seems people just repeat what they hear.
Aerobic tea is foliar and infrequent with the proper type of microbials. Anaerobic criters are not good in large quantities so just keep the soil optimal for aerobic critters and use good gardening habits.
That sounds like a pretty cool path to take. It especially seems to me that it makes sense to use an aerobic tea as a foliar fertilizer, as the leaf surface and accompanying phylosphere are in an aerobic environment. Thank you for your input!
It’s much more complicated than “keep the soil optimal for aerobic critters.” Below the few inches of top soil, where the majority of plant root growth actually occurs, the conditions are primarily anaerobic. And while it can be necessary to use practices (broad forking, plugging, plow ripping, use of large taprooted cover crops) to increase aeration in highly compacted soils that have become overly acidic/bacterial, adding more oxygen to the subsoil is not necessarily always a good thing. Over-aerating leads to oxidation which leads to highly alkaline soils which leads to loss of nutrients and the degradation of the soil microbiome over time (e.g. modern commercial ag that tills soils at least once, if not multiple times, per year.
Matt Powers talks about this a lot in his Regenerative Soil book and on his YT channel…and he provides the scientific evidence and data to support. We don’t want oxidized soils. So, yes, aerobic conditions and amendments are best practices for foliar feeding and top dressing, but the use of anaerobic amendments (particularly during off-season or for soil/bed prep) can be immensely beneficial. Look at something like JADAM that exclusively uses anaerobic ferments and produces fantastic results.
Thank you for the insight! It seems as well that, specifically, minerals such as Iron (an important mineral for photosynthesis in plants) can be very easily tied up in oxidized soils, but it needs to be in the reduced form (i.e., through anaerobic processes in soil microbiology) in order to be meaningfully plant bioavailable and useful. Thus, it stands to reason that there is an ideal balance between the two opposing ends of the spectrum - aerobic and anaerobic. Its not that one is good and the other bad, but both function to carry out different and important biochemical processes.
@tcoxor52 You are sounding rather confused. I want you to think about something VERY simple which pretty much refutes the majority of what you've just said.
You claim that under the top soil, in the rhizosphere, the conditions are primarily anaerobic. You literally mentioned where the majority of the roots are. So, that must then mean that plant roots favor or even require anaerobic conditions?? Now, basic science will tell you that that isn't true. Go try to grow some tomatoes in a wetland or bog (which are actually anaerobic soils).
Most soil bacteria and microflora are aerobic and live in the rhizosphere forming a beneficial relationship with plant roots, which REQUIRE aerobic conditions to grow.
JADAM is a method of extraction, it has literally nothing to do soil conditions and it isn't even designed to improve the microbes in the soil. It is a fertilizer
Repel mosquitoes?
Put the lid on.
Yes, that could be a viable option; however, I might think that it may also be good for the tea to get at least some exposure to the outside air as well as access to sunlight. Maybe a lid with space for mesh screening in the top....seems like some experimentation may be in order!
@@terra-blegardeningvideos JADAM anaerobic ferments are all done in closed-lid vessels. And they are doing long term ferments (1-12+ months depending on the input), but you are also using the addition of locally wild, leaf mold soil to kickstart the fermentation.
Very nice! Yes, that is quite the long term!
Mosquitos' role in the environment is to ruin my life and you know it
yes, and there are other critters out there whose job it is to ruin mosquitos' lives as well ;)
very mentally stimulating, a bit too much for my taste...
have you actually tried each?
have you done side by side?
that's the only think interesting to me... all the rest is just speculation, like most of the videos and articles i've seen...
the only clear sentence on results i catched is: "anaerobic is good, better than just water"
could you elaborate a bit further on the difference between aerobic please?
Personally, I have only worked with the anaerobic compost teas. Maybe down the line I'll try some aerobic teas, but no guarantees.
I can certainly elaborate. Basically, anaerobic means without oxygen so there is no air pump while making this type of compost tea. Aerobic is with oxygen, so ambient air will be introduced into the decomposition process commonly via a pump. Both tea types produce different communities of microorganisms, and may therefore have different properties and applications.
Yes, speculation is what I'm all about, its a big part of what I do ;)
@@terra-blegardeningvideos thanks for the reply mate! i'll try doing a side by side for myself, just don't have the time and space right now... i'm also curious if you notice the nitrogen running out if you leave it too long? have you found any particular fermentation time the best? i hear this is even more of an issue with the aerated teas, i guess those bugs are really consuming it fast...
@@ddreamer00 That is a good question about the nitrogen running out if left too long. Regarding that, I do not know, but I usually only leave mine to sit about three days. I do not like to leave it longer than that, I don't want it to get too strong, nor do I want to breed a bunch of mosquitoes. Overtime, it may be possible I suppose that some nitrogen may also be volatized into the air but I do not know how that would depend on environmental conditions (ie temperature, anaerobic/aerobic, atmospheric pressure, microbial metabolization etc)
Nitrogen that is consumed by microbes is probably largely still there in the tea, its just in a different form. That is, bound in organic substances such as amino acids etc.