L
Luther Burbank
Let's talk about foliars: what's in your arsenal, what works for you, and helping others find what works for them. I've put this thread here in organics because most foliar sprayers I meet on ic are organic users, but I'd like to keep the discussion open to synthetic fertilizers that are used in organic gardening such as potassium silicate(many of you use this as pro-tekt or Ag-Sil). Let's keep things friendly and keep our dogma and ideology to a minimum. Which is to say no immediate jihads against bottled products, and an open mind to the place of synthetics in organic gardening. There are many ways to skin a cat.
I'd urge all of you who haven't to read Donald Hopkins "Chemicals, Humus, and the Soil" which examines without ideological blindness the interaction between chemical fertilizers and the soil. His views were a level-headed refutation of much of Albert Howard and Rodale's extremism as well as a refutation of the growing use of chemical fertilizers. It's a shame he's been mostly forgotten as people take hardline sides in the Organic v. Synthetic war. For the record I'm almost entirely organic, but I've been known to make use of ingredients like Potassium Silicate, and rarely, synthetic urea to speed up extremely high-carbon compost heaps.
All caveats, disclaimers and intros out of the way, let's get to business. I'd like to start off with the recipe for the old Brix Mix, which used to be a standard for many of us in the Big Plants thread, and which Happy Valley shared once they realized their product was too "alive" to ship. This is posted multiple places here on ic, and came directly from Happy Valley:
"The following are the proportions of ingredients we used in our Brix Mixes. Feel free to change the blend to suit your needs and the availability of the ingredients. You do not have to use every ingredient for the mix to be beneficial. For example: if you don’t have Phytamin 4-3-4, you could sub a liquid fish or a dry fish powder, like HFPC hydrolyzed fish. If you prefer, you can use a liquid kelp extract in place of maxicrop. If you don’t have a trace mineral deficiency, you can do without the MB powdered chelates. Keep in mind that kelps, such as maxicrop, do provide some trace minerals. If you don’t have access to a liquid sulfur, just leave it out of the blend.
Liquid Brix Mix:
16.5% Molasses
16.5% non GMO pure Malt
25% Phytamin 4-3-4
24% Humax
16.5% liquid sulfur
1.5% Therm-X 70
Dry Brix Mix:
13% Maxicrop
19% Fertall MB Powdered Chelates
31% Powdered sugar
37% Diamond K soluble Sulfate of Potash"
For every gallon of spray you would add 2-5T dry,mix well and add 1-3T liquid.
Sprouted Barley Tea
Here's the recipe for the sprouted barley tea that many of us use to good effect. Many thanks to John Deere for his summation and for others in the community who have experimented, improved, and shared their results:
"*Weigh out 2 oz. of Barley seed and remove any foreign matter by the seeds into a large jar and fill it half-way with water and agitate to wash the barley. Pour off loose husks & dirt that float to the top. Drain in a colander. Repeat until everything has been removed.
*Soak the seeds in water for 8 - 10 hours. Drain the seeds and weigh after completely draining the water off. Assuming you started with 56 grams, you want to hit a minimum of 84 grams at the end of these processes.
*Let the Barley rest for 8 - 10 hours and then soak for another 8 hours, drain and weigh. Repeat if necessary but that's not too unlikely.
*Take a piece of cloth and you want to use something as 'raw' as possible like hemp cloth, organic cotton, linen, canvas, flax, etc. - just check with a large fabric store. If you buy a piece that is a square it probably helps or doesn't.
*Wet your cloth, wring out and fold it 2 times. During the rest cycles this is where you want to let the seeds rest. You want moisture surrounding the seeds but not water.
*Once you hit 84+ grams, spread your seeds again in the middle of this folded piece of fabric, place that in a brown paper bag - 55F - 65F ambient temperatures will move this along quickly.
*When the shoots inside the seed have grown the length of the seed you're done. You're not growing sprouts but rather activating the enzymes and the compounds in the endosperm as described in the post above.
*Take these seeds and put them in a blender and some water and get it to a puree to the extent possible. Using 56 grams to start will give enough puree to make 5 gallons of tea.
*Water your plants with this diluted tea. This will give you far, far more enzymes than the straight sprouting method. One thing about beer brewers is that they live & die by enzyme levels extracted from seeds and this article is cited on several home brew forums."
The next big foliar that seems up for discussion is foliar calcium. Many here us CA-25 in its various forms, however growers such as milkyjoe and backyardgardener have been having great success with Albion Ca, either with or without boron added. Both of these products are expensive for their weight, however the dosage required is so small that a 4lbs jar of CA-25 at $125 should last you multiple years.
I'll be editing this post for improvement as things continue. One Love and Big Ups!
I'd urge all of you who haven't to read Donald Hopkins "Chemicals, Humus, and the Soil" which examines without ideological blindness the interaction between chemical fertilizers and the soil. His views were a level-headed refutation of much of Albert Howard and Rodale's extremism as well as a refutation of the growing use of chemical fertilizers. It's a shame he's been mostly forgotten as people take hardline sides in the Organic v. Synthetic war. For the record I'm almost entirely organic, but I've been known to make use of ingredients like Potassium Silicate, and rarely, synthetic urea to speed up extremely high-carbon compost heaps.
All caveats, disclaimers and intros out of the way, let's get to business. I'd like to start off with the recipe for the old Brix Mix, which used to be a standard for many of us in the Big Plants thread, and which Happy Valley shared once they realized their product was too "alive" to ship. This is posted multiple places here on ic, and came directly from Happy Valley:
"The following are the proportions of ingredients we used in our Brix Mixes. Feel free to change the blend to suit your needs and the availability of the ingredients. You do not have to use every ingredient for the mix to be beneficial. For example: if you don’t have Phytamin 4-3-4, you could sub a liquid fish or a dry fish powder, like HFPC hydrolyzed fish. If you prefer, you can use a liquid kelp extract in place of maxicrop. If you don’t have a trace mineral deficiency, you can do without the MB powdered chelates. Keep in mind that kelps, such as maxicrop, do provide some trace minerals. If you don’t have access to a liquid sulfur, just leave it out of the blend.
Liquid Brix Mix:
16.5% Molasses
16.5% non GMO pure Malt
25% Phytamin 4-3-4
24% Humax
16.5% liquid sulfur
1.5% Therm-X 70
Dry Brix Mix:
13% Maxicrop
19% Fertall MB Powdered Chelates
31% Powdered sugar
37% Diamond K soluble Sulfate of Potash"
For every gallon of spray you would add 2-5T dry,mix well and add 1-3T liquid.
Sprouted Barley Tea
Here's the recipe for the sprouted barley tea that many of us use to good effect. Many thanks to John Deere for his summation and for others in the community who have experimented, improved, and shared their results:
"*Weigh out 2 oz. of Barley seed and remove any foreign matter by the seeds into a large jar and fill it half-way with water and agitate to wash the barley. Pour off loose husks & dirt that float to the top. Drain in a colander. Repeat until everything has been removed.
*Soak the seeds in water for 8 - 10 hours. Drain the seeds and weigh after completely draining the water off. Assuming you started with 56 grams, you want to hit a minimum of 84 grams at the end of these processes.
*Let the Barley rest for 8 - 10 hours and then soak for another 8 hours, drain and weigh. Repeat if necessary but that's not too unlikely.
*Take a piece of cloth and you want to use something as 'raw' as possible like hemp cloth, organic cotton, linen, canvas, flax, etc. - just check with a large fabric store. If you buy a piece that is a square it probably helps or doesn't.
*Wet your cloth, wring out and fold it 2 times. During the rest cycles this is where you want to let the seeds rest. You want moisture surrounding the seeds but not water.
*Once you hit 84+ grams, spread your seeds again in the middle of this folded piece of fabric, place that in a brown paper bag - 55F - 65F ambient temperatures will move this along quickly.
*When the shoots inside the seed have grown the length of the seed you're done. You're not growing sprouts but rather activating the enzymes and the compounds in the endosperm as described in the post above.
*Take these seeds and put them in a blender and some water and get it to a puree to the extent possible. Using 56 grams to start will give enough puree to make 5 gallons of tea.
*Water your plants with this diluted tea. This will give you far, far more enzymes than the straight sprouting method. One thing about beer brewers is that they live & die by enzyme levels extracted from seeds and this article is cited on several home brew forums."
The next big foliar that seems up for discussion is foliar calcium. Many here us CA-25 in its various forms, however growers such as milkyjoe and backyardgardener have been having great success with Albion Ca, either with or without boron added. Both of these products are expensive for their weight, however the dosage required is so small that a 4lbs jar of CA-25 at $125 should last you multiple years.
I'll be editing this post for improvement as things continue. One Love and Big Ups!
