OG Tea: Veganic Special Sauce (Microbial Tea)

Back when the “old growers” in Northern California invented organic and biodynamic gardening techniques, they would mix a bucket of compost and worm castings with some water to use as a fertilizer. Stirring was pretty hard work so they put an aquarium pump with an air stone into the bucket. The first thing they saw was this big head of foam like dirty soap bubbles or a glass of warm beer. They didn’t know what they had, but they could tell that it was alive.

It didn’t smell bad. It smelled like good dirt. So they let it keep brewing over night. When they came back the next day there was an even bigger head of foam on top. It still smelled good, so they poured it out on some plants in the garden next door. This is how the first compost tea was discovered in Sonoma County.

With more time and more experiments, the “old growers” developed modern, microbial tea. The search continues for the best food and medicine possible. Please feel free to experiment yourself and share your testimonial with everybody at www.OGTEA.com.

When you first add clean water to the Veganic Special Sauce™ all of the alive, yet dormant bacteria and fungi start actively growing. All of the necessary nutrients are available with just the right kind of nutrients at the right concentration. You can pour the solution directly on the soil around your plants or drop an air stone in it for an overnight brew. Filter it and put in a pump up sprayer for a foliar feed. Or dump it in your hydro reservoir. It is gentle enough for young plants, yet powerful enough to create an amazing effect all the way into flowering.
When you first add neutral water, the pH will remain somewhat neutral for several hours. Then the microbes feed on the carbohydrate energy source which is called bio-activation. The pH will drop as organic acids are produced.

They are called organic acids because they were produced by living organisms. Lactic acid is the primary biological acid produced as opposed to sulfuric acid, phosphoric acid and the other industrial acids formed by burning minerals in oxygen and then adding water.

Living processes are the methods OG Tea Company uses, not industrial methods. Feed the microbes sugar and you get organic acid which can dissolve rocks. This is the natural, veganic method of making water soluble plant nutrients.

When you aerate your microbial tea for 12-24 hours, the conditions are favorable for aerobic bacteria to grow and rapidly multiply. Adding the oxygen “selects” or produces conditions that are more favorable for one species of bacteria to grow. The foam is an indication of a population of microbes that is dominated by the group of Bacillus bacteria.

This is not necessarily better or worse than not adding aeration, it is just different. The Bacillus grows faster than all the others of the consortium when air is added. The foam is a bio-film or surfactant produced by the bacteria. It is a mucus-like slime. It is a sign that the bacteria are active. These bacteria make anti-biotics to protect themselves from pathogens. This is the medicine that they will share with your plant in exchange for sugar.

If you keep brewing with the air stone, the microbial population of your tea will change. After 48 hours or so, the Bacillus will have consumed all the carbohydrates and begin to die. Another member of the consortium then becomes the dominant species, Trichoderma fungi.
You will begin to see thread-like filaments or fungal hyphae in your tea if you brew long enough. Be careful or the air stone and pump can become plugged with fungal filaments. Some of these fungi are predators that attack and feed on other fungi which are parasites and cause disease.
Some growers worry about Trichoderma eating beneficial fungi like Glomus species, but since both are members of the same consortium, there is no danger if you let the Glomus grow for a few weeks before you add the Trichoderma. Again, this brew is not better or worse, it is merely fungal dominant. And remember that the pH can continue to drop over time.

If you add the Veganic Special Sauce™ to water and not aerate for a couple of weeks, the solution goes anaerobic and other microbes become dominant. It should not go septic because Pseudomonas or purple non-sulfur bacteria are in the consortium. These bacteria are found everywhere from the mud in a roadside ditch to deep sea hydrothermal vents in the ocean. This bacterium is facultative which means it can live both with oxygen and without oxygen. This is a rare combination and makes Pseudomonas an important member of the OG Tea consortium.
Each of the different ways to make Veganic Special Sauce™ results in a different consortium member growing to become dominant while the other microbes are still alive and still compatible with each other. This is like having five or six different products in one that can be used at different times during the entire life cycle of the cannabis plant.

The Veganic Special Sauce™ is strong, yet gentle so as not to not burn young plants or multiplying microbes. Most growers use the special sauce at least once a week throughout the veg and flower cycle. Rapidly growing plants need to be regularly and constantly inoculated as new leaf and root tissue grows. More often is better when inoculating with beneficials.

The minimum application schedule is once a week, but some growers include the Veganic Special Sauce™ with every feeding or watering. There are many different ways to use a microbial tea inoculum, but all have one thing in common; a guarantee of consistently growing clean, pure, safe food and medicinal herbs.

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