How to Use Compost Tea for Pastures

Compost tea is a gentler way to fertilize plants than traditional compost. It is less likely to burn roots with nitrogen and is beneficial to many kinds of plant life by providing microbes that increase soil nutrients and plant growth. Often plants can make more efficient use of water. In a pasture, this makes the difference between being able to feed all of your livestock and potentially having to spend money on feed from other sources.

Things You'll Need

• Air pump
• 4 air tubes
• Gang valve
• 3 air stones
• 5-gallon buckets, 2
• Compost
• Strainer
• Pasture sprayer

Instructions

1. Attach one end of a tube to the pump and plug the other end into the single side of the gang valve. Connect the other three tubes to the triple side of the gang valve and air stones to the opposite ends of those tubes.

2. Place the air stones in the bottom of a 5-gallon bucket and fill it with water. Pump air through the stones into the water for an hour. Pull the air stones out of the water and place them on the bottom of the other bucket. Fill it halfway with compost. Add water to the compost to a couple of inches below the rim, and dispose of any water still left in the first bucket.

3. Add an ounce of organic molasses to the bucket and stir it. Position the air stones on the bottom to ensure that the majority of the tea is getting well aerated. Stir it a few times daily for three days and move the air stones around. Compost tea needs to be well aerated with the air stones or it goes sour and can harm pasture plants rather than help them.

4. Pour the compost tea through a strainer into the first bucket. You have about 2 1/2 gallons. Fill a pasture sprayer with the compost tea and spray the entire amount over your pasture. Repeat every two weeks.

Tips & Warnings

• If you have a neighbor that sprays pesticides, you might need to apply the compost tea more often to your pasture because the pesticides kill the microbes in the tea as well as insects.

References

• Brewing Compost Tea
• Healthy Soil for a Healthy Environment
• Grass-fed Beef, Home Grown by Betsy Ross of Ross Farm in Central Texas