Pine Needles for Ph down?

[guanoman]

I posted this in my other thread "Trouble with Guano" though I thought maybe it needed its own topic.

I thought I'd try a little experiment. I took a hand full of pine needles and a couple tablespoons of My Indonesian Bat guano. I mixed these into 2 liters of water and put a bubbler in it overnight. I notice this morning the PH is 6.8 down from 8.2.

I read somewhere that pine needles might have growth inhibitors in them. On the other hand I've seen mention of them being used for mulch in the garden and around trees.

Does anyone know if pine needles could be used as organic ph down? It seems I can make a tea out of pin needles and not put any in my medium. Is this safe or will I mess things up?

thanks

 

[pipeline]

Just make the guano tea, it will likely bring down the ph slightly on its own. I dont think the needles will have much effect on the tea.

You could compost them and it into a media mix in low amounts, that would probably bring it down. 6.8 is right on the mark.

 

[Suby]

Pine needles are very high in absorbic acid and all sorts of vitamins, it has been used for centuries to curve scurvy in a tea and in said to relieves one from all sort of ailments.
I can't see how something like this could harm the plant, mu perennials grow well close to large pines.
Try it and see, if it does lower the ph which is should then i'd be very interested in giving it a try in my humble stasis garden lol.

Peace

 

[guanoman]

Thanks, that sounds very promising.

The pine needles have definitely lowered the PH of the guano tea, its actually fallen to 6.6 now.

This tea has been sitting for a few days now "forget how long exactly " its starting to get a foul smell to it.

Do organic tea's keep getting better with age? Or is it at its prime after 2 or 3 days?

thanks

 

[Ganja Guerrilla]

I have used pine needles to ph down around azeleas for years

 

[Suby]

Organic tea are IMHO at their best at 24-48 hrs and must be bubbled properly with a quality airpump, the more oxygen pumping the better the result will be.
As soon as it smells fould dump it and be sure to clean the bucket with hot water before usijng it again.
When a tea smells foul it means the anerobic (bad) bacteria have taken over.

 

[guanoman]

Ok I dumped this tea and started a new batch. It looks like a bunch of the pine needles caked to the bottom of the bucket and were no longer getting air from the bubbler.

I didn't use the tea bag technique, I think that was my mistake.

My father used to make liquid compost in a barrel. Man would that stuff stink! It always seemed to give everything in the garden a growth spurt when we watered them with it. was he just taking his chances?

thanks

 

[Suby]

i don't use the teabag tecnique either, i think it brews better all loose so....
i think it had more to do with being at day 10+ imho lol.
seeping compost in a barrel is a fine composting tecnique to get microbes and stuff into the soil, but we use things that disrupt the balance like guanos, molasses and liquid seaweed typically which super boost microbes.
MJ is more fussy than say crops or lawn but i'm no farmer, just an organic weed grower.

 

[minds_I]

When a tea smells foul it means the anerobic (bad) bacteria have taken over.

Hello all,

Suby, I bubble my tea in one gallon plastic milk jugs. When I need some tea, I will take out the airstone (which has grown quite nasty looking) from the jug, put the lid on and give it a good shake. I then pour the slurry into recepical and give to the plants after pH'ing with A.C vinegar to low 6's. My teas are always around 8.0-always.

My room temps are 66*F. I am sure this low temp impacts the brew time.

Anyway, I just recharge the jug with water, ewc,guano, kelp and dry molasses and put the airstone back in.

So, my point is that if you keep bubbling an anarobic condition should not become established. I wold also think that the lower temps will inhibit anarobic growth.

The beauty of milk jugs and pepsi bottles are when done with them-rise them and throw them in the recycle garbage.

minds_I

 

[Suby]

On the whole that's true but what also happens is the microbe elements have all the food they need in that initial phase so very little competiton occurs between the bacteria and fungi but as food becomes scarce or one microbe starts overpowering another the microb populations are unbalanced but as far as anearobics are conecerned yes running an airstone all the time will keep them from occuring.

 

[guanoman]

Its been a couple days or so since my last post. I bleached my pail that I make my tea in, and started another batch of Pine Needle tea with Indonesian bat guano, last time I was here. Today I gave the tea a stir and a mild fowl smell came off it.

Once again the pine needles have caked to the bottom of the pail. I think this blocked the oxygen out and became anaerobic.

I'm going to break down and make a tea bag and try again. I think I ran into my first problem with mixing loose ingredients in my tea.

I have an Optima Air Pump 4 PSI or 50000cc/min 4.5watts. I believe it was the largest Diaphragm air pump the fish store had. It bubbles ferociously in the 5 gal pail as well. although I'm not sure how much air or air pressure I need. I thought this pump should do it. If this isn't sufficient let me know.

I will let ya's know how the next run goes. Thank for all the input and help everyone, its very appreciated.

 

[supermanlives]

Hello all,

Suby, I bubble my tea in one gallon plastic milk jugs. When I need some tea, I will take out the airstone (which has grown quite nasty looking) from the jug, put the lid on and give it a good shake. I then pour the slurry into recepical and give to the plants after pH'ing with A.C vinegar to low 6's. My teas are always around 8.0-always.

My room temps are 66*F. I am sure this low temp impacts the brew time.

Anyway, I just recharge the jug with water, ewc,guano, kelp and dry molasses and put the airstone back in.

So, my point is that if you keep bubbling an anarobic condition should not become established. I wold also think that the lower temps will inhibit anarobic growth.

The beauty of milk jugs and pepsi bottles are when done with them-rise them and throw them in the recycle garbage.

minds_I

i second what he said. you should see my 13 gal tea setup. had to finally scrape it with a paint scraper LOL never had a prob just got real ugly looking

 

[guanoman]

The tea I made with the teabag has not started to smell yet. I guess 4 days have passed since I made this batch. The PH is at 6.6, there is a nice head of foam on top. I think this has worked out well this time. I'm going to try giving it to my plants and see how they like it.

The Pine needles have definitely kept the PH in the right range, maybe a little acidic. I will try using less next time. I will keep this batch brewing until its all used up and see if the ph starts to swing upwards.

thanks

 

[guanoman]

I guess its been 7 days since I made the tea bag of pine needles and guano. The Ph started off at around 6.6 but slowly kept rising until it reached 7.5 "that was 2 or 3 days ago already it stayed at 7.5 after it hit that mark". So pine needles seem to work for short term ph down.

The plants seemed to like the tea this time though, so maybe this did the trick. Than again maybe I just needed to bubble my Guano longer before applying it.

have a nice day.