AusBonsai

treeman wrote: ↑January 2nd, 2016, 4:01 pm I have been asked many times how to make this and seeing as though I needed some I took some pics.
It is very simple and quick and results in high quality and cheap plant food.

I'm using roughly 3 to 1 Soya bean meal and blood and bone. You need to use the best quality materials you can.

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Mix the two ingredients dry. Here I've used about 10kg of soya and about 5 of b&b.

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I added about 300g of molasses. It's not a vital ingredient but it supplies the carbon needed for fast fermentation. It also has substantial quantities of minerals such as magnesium and many others. You need to disolve it well in warm water before adding.

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Then you add enough water and mix to achieve a reasonably sloppy ( but kind of firm) consistency.

This is too dry. It will dry too quickly and not hold together well

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This is about right

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Use a fine meshed tray or similar

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Place in tray to a thickness of about 20mm (more or less)

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As my farmer neighbour says ''make it all nice'' and cut into 25mm squares.

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Place the trays on some kind of drying rack where rats can't get to it. (By the way, this is a very nutritious food and rodents love it so you need to stop them getting to it. They do not view commercial products the same way)
Fermentation will be fast this time of year. The smell is not so bad during this process. If too wet, they will start to putrify (rot) which really stinks and will attract insects. However, it makes no difference to the plants.
Use when dry and hard (3 to 5 weeks).

20 trays....

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So, the cost. I used about $20 of the soya bean; around $8 of the Blood and bone and molasses was about $5.
Round it out to $35 for the lot.
This will last me about 2 years (at least. probably 2 and a half) for over 100 trees of various sizes. Each cube will last between 4 and 6 weeks. How does that compare with say dynamic lifter which releases all it's notrogen in 2 weeks?

FreddieV wrote: ↑May 30th, 2020, 3:06 pm In fact I might as well share my whole formula, and I would appreciate your input on it plz...
The ingredients I plan to use is..
Rape seed meal (it has a low N content)
Fish meal (nitrogen)
Seaweed meal (micro nutrients)
Molasses

What ratios do you think?

FreddieV wrote: ↑May 30th, 2020, 1:48 pm
. You think I can use it as a general fertilizer on other "non acid" prefering species to?

treeman wrote: ↑January 8th, 2016, 12:04 pm Hugh, I would average it out at around 5-2-1. (very roughly) I also use kelp and other liquids to boost the K etc. But I have fed things exclusively with these many times and have not noticed any deficiencies.
Note also that the P in bone is only slowly available so in the end the P which the plants actually see could be half the above due to repotting etc.

treeman wrote: ↑April 12th, 2016, 12:05 pm The cakes need to be in intimate contact with the soil.

Keep it for a week at least. Usually we keep it for a month until the fermentation should be completed.

Never get wet with rain. When it will be rain, you have to move. After a few days, the fermentation must be started by bacteria in the cake. So the temperature of the cake must be going up by fermentation to be over 40 C. 　By the high　temperature, bacteria will be dead, the fermentation will be decreased and the temperature going down. After that, the fermentation begin once again. The fermentation will be finished after 4 or 5 times of cycles. It will takes about one month usually. We have to keep it for a few weeks at least. This period is very important. If you finish at the fermentation incomplete , the cake will not be fermented enough but will be rot.

SuperBonSaiyan post_id=302169 time=1698884384 user_id=14220]

Why is this? Won't they work if placed in teabags? I do notice the bonsai gardens that use this type of cake (Bonsai Mirai uses it, as do a few Japanese gardens I've seen on YouTube) place them directly on the surface - not in any bag or basket. I'm just curious why it doesn't work as opposed to Dynamic Lift which is commonly placed in teabags.

If you finish at the fermentation incomplete , the cake will not be fermented enough but will be rot.