I'm bumping this because of a vid YT interview of fellow YT Photosyntech I watched this morning. My post is in response to Photosyntech comment that he doesn't use compost tea any longer.
I knew when Photosyntech mentioned the Doc Lady, he was going to say no to compost teas. And I do think people are taking the info and are drawing the wrong conclusion from what her study showed.
I'm sure what the conclusion was that compost teas are not "Cost Effective" large scale when you take into account the labor. The two key terms are "large scale" and "cost-effective". There is a lot of labor to take in consideration when making, collecting and applying compost tea large scale. This study wasn't small scale. In this one aspect of the study, using compost tea doesn't really apply well to the home grower.
I used to organic farm, not gardening. I made compost piles a hundred feet long and turned it with a front loader on my tractor. My compost tea tanks were 500 gallons. I bought Medina Horticulture molasses by 50 gal drums.
I also applied my compost to my hay fields at the first of the season and after the second cutting. I also applied compost tea every two weeks, more often under dry conditions.
Even though I had applied a layer of compost, there would be a boost in greenness and growth after an application. Even in very heavily composted areas, the turn around areas in the field, there would be a difference.
Here's a point Photosyntech might want to consider. Yeah, we make tea from compost to extract the available nutes from the composting process. The other valuable asset we’re getting from the tea is the microbes. Well, we're farming them by adding molasses and brewing them! Why do guys add Recharge? Duh! Bacteria! Isn't making compost teas really really similar to using Recharge? LOL!
Guess what? Using top dressed compost AND brewing compost teas WILL get you better results! Why in the hell would someone remove a valuable tool from a home grow? With Photosyntech trending to larger and larger pots, it SHOULD be a no-brainer to have a layer of compost in those huge pots and keep up with the compost teas.