Fungal vs Bacterial Compost Tea: Which Does Your Garden Need?

Compost Tea’s many of us have heard about. But how many know that there are two main types of compost teas? Fungal Dominant and Bacterial Dominant. What are they, why do we use them and how do we use them.

Perth gardens come in all shapes and sizes. However, there are two main types of plants/trees that we have. Flowering/Fruiting and Vegetative non fruiting plants. For the most part I have always said FUNGAL FOR FLOWERS/FRUIT and BACTERIAL FOR VEGETABLES/HERBS.

Whilst there are many BIOLOGICAL FERTILIZERS and TEA’S, subtypes and bespoke applications/recipes, we will focus on the two main basic stock teas. Whilst they might be stock in name, they are not stock in charge. These brews are supercharged.

Aiding in the establishment of a particular dominance within soil, to correct a dominance or to inoculate, Fungal and Bacterial Tea’s have a great and powerful role within garden health. Both as a soil drench via Fertigation systems, irrigation and foliar sprays.

FUNGAL: Let’s look at a forest. The ground is full of leaf litter, dead trees and branches and loads of Mycelium. There are very little weeds or vegetive growth, it’s moist and slightly humid.

BACTERIAL: Let’s look at a grasslands. There are almost no trees, the soil usually has a higher pH and the annual turnover or high nitrogenic biomass makes for a high bacteria soil.

What if our garden has both fruiting and vegetative plants? How do we know if there is an imbalance? First we must look at the types of plants, the soils’ structure, the plants structure, the canopy and the understory particularly the ground story/rhizosphere.

In the fruit trees, if we are seeing lots of leafy growth and weeds coming up, smothering the ground, we know its high in bacteria. If we see that the flowers are falling off and that fruit is not setting or is very low, it is high in bacteria. What we can do to mitigate this is apply a Fungal Dominant Tea.

In the vegetative/veg garden, if we are seeing that there is low growth, stunted and stubby growth, high flowering and pH issues it is likely an imbalance of bacteria to fungi. To correct this, applications of Bacterial Dominant Tea is recommended.

Eve if there are no issues, adding these (Bacterial every 2 months and Fungal every other in low doses) will help increase the life within the soil and thus your livity and production of life increase along with production of food. In the early stages of Vegetative Growth Stages of a plants life, it can benefit from a bacterial compost tea application around mid way. Then before flower onset, a fungal tea application is Irie for assisting in the blossom production and fruit formation. This is what we can see above ground. Below ground is a cornucopia of life pulsating, moving and growing beyond our wildest concepts.

For Premade FUNGAL or BACTERIAL COMPOST TEAS in liquid and dry concentrate, follow the link below

Suburban Farmer’s Own Botanical Oil Spray

Suburban Farmer’s Veganic Liquid Bio Fertilizer

Lots of love and LIFE

Ras Mark The Rasta Gardener