[greentiger87]

I don't understand why you'd still go with the kitchen sink method? Even if you get what you think are good results, having that many variables involved makes it unlikely you'll be able to reproduce your success.

The crab shell product I used is a local one, made by rabbit hill farm. The cornmeal was from a feed store, meant to be fed to livestock - don't have the bag anymore. The brewers yeast was Solgar brand, labeled as a nutritional supplement (for humans).

The 50/50 recipe Dr. Ingham gives does not mean that the tea will end up being half fungi and half bacterial. Even fungal dominant tea will end up having more bacterial biomass than fungal biomass.. usually by 5 or 10 times. Take a look at the numbers in the analysis of different brewing machines she provides. The name "fungal" is in context. If I'm mistaken on this, please let me know (it would change my strategies significantly).

When she talks about fungi, she is not talking about mycorrhizal fungi. That's why she talks about adding them to the tea just before applying it. You cannot grow most mycorrhizal fungi in compost tea. There are exceptions, but few and far between.

Dr. Ingham also implies that you can't make a disease suppressive tea using the "bubbler" method.. that you need a brewing machine. Her tests with a bubbler yielded no active bacteria or fungi at all.

Of the relevant peer reviewed research, only anaerobic manure tea has been shown to provide foliar disease suppression.

As for my results, I honestly can't say much. My plants have been doing really well, and all my applications have been to the soil. I'm not currently having any disease problems that I could test foliar spraying on. My applications have been to control nematodes, which appears to be working great - but I won't really know till the end of the season when I pull up the roots.