Wrenwood, I don't think there's any question that alfalfa tea stimulates plant growth and that one major factor is triacontanol. The question paul raises is how does triacontanol manage to get inside the plant to do its job when it's almost totally insoluble in pure water. This assumes, I think correctly, that the only way anything gets inside a plant is by water transport. There are at least two possible answers to Paul's question: 1)The liquid part of alfalfa tea is, of course, not pure water, and it may contain lots of things, ordinary alcohol for example, which increase the solubility of triacontanol. 2)The liquid part of alfalfa tea may contain natural emulsifiers which promote the formation of triacontanol emulsions. Emulsions have been shown in laboratory studies to be an effective way to transport triacontanol into plants. My thought was that perhaps adding a tsp or so of soap per gallon of alfalfa tea might result in the transport of more triacontanol into the plant and produce larger effects with less tea. Anyone who tries this should be aware that large amounts of soap can be harmful to a plant. There are lots of emulsifiers othere than soap which might be interesting to try.

I started using compost tea this year on lawn and flower garden after reading about it in the book, "Teaming With Microbes." The book tries to show how compost tea is the best practice in organic gardening. Yes, you should head over to the compost and/or organic gardening forums in order to get expert advice. My notes on a few comments people have added here (caveat: I am a compost tea newbie): (1) I suspect that brewing without forced aeration (e.g., air pump like that in fish tanks) is inefficient and may not result in compost tea with full effectiveness. (2) Only used AGED compost (or manure). (3) You should aerate the water BEFORE adding the (aged) compost, in order to remove chlorine. Using the bubble aerator for an hour in the bucket of water should work, then you can add the compost. (4) I use around 4 cups of aged compost in pantyhose in a 5-gallon bucket of water, and brew for 12-24 hours. It's a very efficient use of limited quantities of compost, since the brewing process multiplies the microbes many times over. At the end, you'll see lots of frothy bubbles on the top, and the stuff should smell earthy, not rotten. (5) Advanced brewers: look up how to pre-treat your compost (prior to brewing tea) to increase the fungal content. (6) Do it every couple of weeks early on; slowly migrate to every month or two. (7) The claimed advantages of this organic gardening practice are significantly decreased water usage by the plants (by improved root systems, particularly due to mychorrizal fungi), improved balance in microbial content of the soil, and better pH for the soil. (8) A complete brewing system can be bought online for $100 or so, or put together yourself for much less.

Sounds a lot like voodoo... The E. coli in our guts are not "overwhelmed" by the "good" bacteria. E. coli are not "bad" in the proper - our intestine - environment. (Qualified by stating that nowadays, thanks to bacteriologists and geneticists, there are strains of E. coli that are harmful where ever they inhabit the gut.) There's no big deal about how to move water across the surface. Also, "fish" water pumps are not much more expensive than air pumps these days, and use energy for the purpose of "aeration" MUCH more efficiently than air pumps. Furthermore, "there ain't no sech thang as a free lunch". Ganging bubbling tubes isn't simply a matter of adding a manifold and more air stones. CHEAP air pumps barely pump enough air to make a SMALL air-stone work at anything deeper than 6". A small water pump that draws the same amperage as a cheap air pump can EASILY move more water than necessary to maximize oxygen partial pressure at any given ambient temperature suitable for raising worms (50 to 80 degrees F). I THINK the reason everyone talks about "oxygen" so much is not because oxygen is "good", but rather than NO oxygen - "anaerobic" - is usually "bad" not only because it promotes growth of "bad" bacteria, but even some common, and non-poisonous bacteria produce toxins in an anaerobic environment. The best way to minimize the possibility of "going anaerobic" is to aerate. All of this has piqued my interest. I think some personal experimentation and research are necessary for me to 'let this go'. At this point in time, I'd be inclined to mix up the "wort", stir occasionally for two to three days, and "call it good". I have available some pre-agared Petri dishes. I may see what 'grows' in "sugared" vs non-sugared and aerated and non-aerated "brews". I do not have the ability to determine exactly what the 'critters' that grow are, but I do have the ability to determine densities and gram-negative vs gram positive. Paul PS - The reason I put quotation marks around "aerobic" and "anaerobic" is becauseI never really cared for those terms to be used in the context of presence or absence of oxygen. "Aerobic" means "air", not oxygen. The more informative terms are oxygenated and anoxic. I'm not trying to be stuffy, but written communications are difficult enough without introducing confusion by way of casual use of technical terms. I fully acknowledge that "aerobic" and "anaerobic" are completely ensconced in the vernacular as meaning "with" oxygen and without" it. That acknowledgement only slightly mitigates the potential for confusion. Another of my pet peeves is the misuse of "accuracy" and "precision". I have given up spitting into that wind. I just get spit in my eye... I promise not to mention this again unless some confusion arises. :) Paul

I started gardening by following GrowingYourGreen method, John Kohlar is the most popular organic gardener on Youtube. He does a great service in getting people into gardening, including me, but overtime I shy away from his method. I spent a lot of money on that boogiebrew website. I bought rockdust, wormcasting, biochar, compost tea brew, sea90, and insect frass. The problem I see with this method is you ended up spending all your paychecks on organic products and go broke (and, imo, the result is no better than simply using good compost and mulching). The one thing I see with some successful organic gardeners on YouTube is that they stopped making compost tea. The problem with compost tea is that the nutrients are dilutes, and it takes a lot of work, especially cleaning up. For all the microbes you created from aerating the water, there are much more microbes occurs naturally in the soil that have good organic matters, compost and mulch added. Bacteria alone is just part of the equation, you need good fungi activity in the soil as well which I don't think you can brew (unsure on that). One can speculated that the benefit from the boogiebrew formula are due to the organic fertilizers used in the tea, not from the actual result of brewing it. I do believe in compost tea in the idea that it helps to disperse nutrients to a wider area if you are lacking solid compost to cover the area. If you make a thick tea out of rich compost, where the level of nutrient is more dense, though this is not ideal for indoor. Sorry I'm don't know much about apartment growing, I do grow indoor but using hydroponic to keep things clean, I do organic for everything outdoor. The only fertilizer I buy now is MiGardener's Trifecta+ and it basically include all the essential organic fertilizer ingrediants in one bag so I don't have to buy them individually, I would simply brew that along with wormcasting and unsulphured molasses, the latter is a food for the microbes. Trifecta+ is not 'vegan' however, but you may be able to find similar all purposes fertilizers that are. There are lots of debate about the ineffectiveness of adding rockdust to the soil, a product that I no longer buy because the minerals in it takes a long time to breakdown to be readily available for plants, but it's also debated that by feeding the rockdust to earthworms or brewing may release the minerals in the process, but that would need some scientific trials to confirm. I'm sure there are many DIY compost tea formulas on the internet you can find. I'm no scientist, but my opinion is I feel microbes proliferates better in rich organic soil and compost than in water, hence I would just add wormcasting directly to the container mix and water with molasses.