ECHOcommunity Conversations

Foliar Feed Sprays

#1

I have tried making a few different types of foliar feeds for both fruits and vegetables. I have had some success making fish amino acid (FAA) as guided by Natural Farming resources but it seems only useful for greenhouse stage plants or semi-perennials (a small field trial showed yield increased for roselle at 1:500 dilution FAA).

image.png960×720 903 KB

I have also seen a farmer in East Africa soak worm-processed manure in water and use it on his plants (see image below). Has anyone seen this before? Has it proven effective for you? If so, at wat ratio of manure:water and what dilution for the spray?

making manure&worm tea.JPG3264×2448 1.78 MB

Has anyone else had success with other homemade foliar fertilizer recipes?

2 Likes
#2

I have big successes with EM (Effective Microorganisms) that I made. I use the EM Bokashi system

#3

I Soak worm-processed manure in a bag in large tank or barrel of water luke warm (45 gal.). Best to “aerate the water” with a air pump (bigger fish tank air pump is cheap and works). Aerate and soak for 4-6 hours. To keep aerobic micro-nutrients alive, use immediately. dilute 20:1 for foilar spray or spay direct on soil, mulch over soil with ground cover like straw. works for me

#4

Awesome! Thanks for specific descriptions and amounts. Have you found it more effective with certain plant groups (annuals vs. perennials, leafy vs. woody etc.)? I have read that worm castings have some beneficial microbes (from the gut of the worm) that help fight off bacterial or fungal disease on the leaf surface, have you seen any difference in disease protection using your spray?

1 Like
#5

I’m also interested in recipes for foliar sprays, but what I am more interested in, as Stacy mentions above, is actual data showing how big of a difference the foliar spray made compared to a control group. It’s one thing for me to go through the trouble of making a spray, but recommending it to others or teaching them to do it, I would want some hard evidence to show it would be economically beneficial. Thanks.