Bactivate

BJ starts with ...
I recently saw an advertisement for Bactivate – it is apparently good soil bacterial mixed in with coal dust and you can sprinkle it on the garden to improve the soil etc. I’m keen to improve some of the soil (and I use the term ‘soil’ loosely) around my house, but where there are existing trees the process is going to be very slow. Their web-site is: http://bioasis.com.au/
Does anyone know if Bactivate is a gimmick, or a legitimate option? Is the slow and steady practice of adding compost and mulch every year the best way to go or would use of these little buggies greatly speed up the process (not that I’d stop adding the compost and mulch - I'd just rather I had good soil in two years instead of 10!)
My soil / sand is typical of WA and quite poor. After a few years of composting I’ve only recently found a few worms so a short cut is very attractive (provided it actually works).

BJ says...
Thanks Steven,

I think you articulated my concerns exactly!

If adding the goop was going to speed things up then I would be willing to spend the money, but from what you say I am better off adding some aged compost and poo (something I am planning to do at the end of winter). I do have worms in the compost bin, but they just don't seem to move into the garden ... hopefully soon the conditions will be suitable for them.

I'm a bit distrusting of 'miracle cures' that sound a bit too easy or good to be true. (It would be nice though wouldn't it ... sprinkle something onto the ground and come back a few months later to rich loamy soil!!)

Steven says...
Hey everyone.

I know I have thought the same thing many times. Actually there is one thing thats being heavily researched these day (especially in australia because of our depleted soils). Terra preta claims to greatly improve depleted soils. the ancient south americans used to use it (i cant remember which one) and its really easy to make its basically charcoal thats make to be very porous. there is plenty of info about it on google or youtube :)

It probably would be good for sick soil, i always tell people to have yoghurt if they have a sick stomach and its the same principle. Although personally i would only use those as a last resort though.

Regards

Steven

Pete says...
Hi Steven,

I've used Bactivate to great effect on the grass at my house. I moved into a new property in Dec 09 and the grass was patchy to say the least. I applied Bactivate and put Seasol over the top to stimulate the bacteria. Within 3 months all of the holes/gaps were gone and the grass is extremely lush and soft.

I'm led to believe that Bactivate is not mycorrhizal fungi but beneficial bacteria from the Baccilus genus. My biggest concern is that a lot of the products around today can't tell you what 'good bacteria' are actually in their product. At least the guy that sold me Bactivate could tell me what Iwas putting in my garden and what they did.

I would recommend

Charles cant spell says...
BJ has you mulched the whole area with 10cm of street tree prunings?
This is the single best cheapest way to get worms and bacteria. It is their food, feed the bacteria, the bacteria feed the worms the mulch keeps it all moist, in 6 months you have 5cm of broken down black active compost.

Worms need protection (cover) and constant moisture. Our soil offers neither.

If you want to speed up having better soil you could spend $500 and get 5m3 of Vegetable Bed Concentrate from Green Life Soils. You can blend this 50/50 with your crappy sand to make a good viable soil medium. So you would end up with 10m3 of good soil. Vegebed 30cm deep so that 30m2 (or 5mx6m) of "topsoil"
They make a decent product unlike soils aint soil etc etc.

I have had dealing with them so there's a vested/knowledgable interest I shall declare and they support Permaculture so good on them.

Steven says...
If you want to but compost to mix into your soil to increase the amount of humus its a good idea to get aged compost as this is already well broken down and you wont loose your compost as it decomposed to water and CO2.

Also it might be a good idea to look into tera preta i tried it once and it seems to work well, plus its easy to make at home and very cheap.

Regards

Steven

Brad says...
Isn't Sand Remedy just rock minerals and some spongy material (fosilized coral?)? I remember looking at it when I did my vegie beds and it was expensive for the volume and i found something else. But maybe I had it wrong.

Agree with Charles regarding green life soils. Since I bought some vegie mixes from other suppliers and was disappointed, I've been discussing this with everyone that had any experience with suppliers and these are the only ones consistently regarded as producing a long lasting high quality mix. I have no association with them, but if I ever buy in again, it'll be from them. Every other supplier ever discussed needs you to add compost / composted manure etc to make it into good mix. For this reason I bought an over-sized (for my small block anyway) composter off ebay for $100 and generate my own - straw and manure can be obtained cheaply to get it going. I'll be moving around the time the first batch might be ready, so that's a dilemma - use it where it was intended or bag and take compost???

To keep agreeing with Charles (pay me later): If you can leave a big pile of street mulch (cf mulchnet) on your verge for 6 months and then use it, you'll have all the bacteria and worms etc in no time, plus an environment they can survive in.

Brad says...
I've used about 2 bags of coles kitty litter - anything with bentonite will do. Also available from rural suppliers. I'm not sure how useful it is, but it can't hurt

brad says...
I'm not dismissing it but
1) doesn't look like an unbiased source / website
2) if i read between the lines in one of the vegie studies it says "we stopped fertilizer burning the roots, but look how much effect the bactivate had"

Its a bit like Pete in a post above - would the grass have improved any less with just Seasol? you really need peer reviewed study of this kind of product.

Jodie says...
I met a man selling this stuff yesterday and he seemed pretty passionate about his product, as I'm sure a lot of salesmen are, although he'd had a career change from electrical engineer and decided on this company, which I guess is neither here nor there but thought I'd mention it. Anyway, I did come across this http://farmguide.realviewtechnologies.com/default.aspx?iid=24943&startpage=page0000048 which does say that it has recently been endorsed by Landcare. I don't know how much of this is researched by NSW Farmers Associotion, or if it was more of an advertising feature, although it's usually mentioned if it's an ad. From what this guy told me you'll pay around $80 for about a 20kg bag which he said will cover a fairly good expanse of land. He did say that a $30 tub (unsure of size)would be ample for my garden. Our house is on a 1200m block. Anyway, just thought I'd share the info I've come across in researching the product myself.

ABear says...
Just a quick note regarding worms in perth: One of the requirements for happy worms is stable temperatures. Worms don't like it too wet, too dry, too hot or too cold. SO if it soggy underground they'll move up (why you see them suiciding on footpaths after rain often in Melbourne)and if it is too hot they'll move underground, and if the heat persists, they will move on. If you put worms in a garden bed make sure you mulch it well, not only providing food for worms so they hang around, but cooler sub surface temperatures.

ABear says...
Microbial activity in WA 'soils'

Hi BJ, i was super green from the eastern states and it was one huge garden wakeup to come here in one of the dryest summers on record.Nothing would grow in the vegie box and I knew it was the biology, or lack of, of the 'dirt' mix. What I've learnt- herbaceous soils will naturally have more bacteria and trees more fungi. Your soil will settle itself over time. The key is to keep it moist! all soil life needs ample water. My aim was to make it retain more moisture and in doing so to also increase and diversify the biological profile and add more available nutrient. I dug in heaps of lucerne, coir fibre ( a bit woody, good for moisture retention and to attract fungi) rock dust for minerals and worms like it, manure and a bit of lime. Then I grew a green crop of clover (for nitrogen fixing bacteria and mustard greens, dug in after 2 foot high, (Clover attracts nitrogen fixing bacteria also puts the nitrogen back int soil when dug back in, and mustard greens treated this way have excellent anti nematode activity. I made weed teas, added manure, seaweed, and worm juice. I kept everything well aerated along the way to encourage bacterial activity. The green weed/ worm juice tea will be a hotbed of microbial activity, and also full of nutrients. I fed it in green manure stage to kick start the soil, and then also to the first food crops because the soil was still establishing. the Plants thrive on it. I put down a good layer of mulch to encourage worms to stay, it keeps the ground cooler and provides food for them. Watering was done with leaky hose ( i think they call it weeping hose) under the mulch. two years and every crop I can see improving. the first ones we put in- in bought "vegie mix" came up with multiple deficiencies. Now all are booming. Oh yes, also in desperation, I bought some potters clay and mixed it up into a sunny mix then in my weed tea. Clay has a very high CEC and is a natural part of a good soil ( don't use the bauxite red clay soils from darling scarpe) . Anyway much of the above was free- and built a foundation of both good physical as well as chemical structure. It cost less than $100- about $15 coir, $6 rock dust, $12 lucerne, $10 manure, $15 lime, free seaweed and weeds, and also $20 on lucerne and mustard seeds (many many of!). Good luck

ABear says...
hi ringelstrump
Absolutely. A soil mineral deficiency will only perpetuate itself in the same garden recycled back onto itself. I hope to diversify what goes into the garden for this reason, eg if you ate lentils from a part of the world that hag Mg in the soils and then self manure your Australian Mg def soils, things might look up slightly. I do add trace minerals to mine. It takes different parts of the world, under diff climate conditions 8 months- 20 years to put down 1" of topsoil. hopefully we get some of that volcanic ash settling on our gardens!

ringelstrumpf says...
I never saw thes minerals to buy. I think I should put some into the soil.

snottiegobble says...
I have not found anything to beat pure unadulterated horse manure. It seems to cool real quick & when you keep a heap covered in the garden the worms come to it by themselves in a short space of time! It has to be pure, no antibiotics so racing stables are out.

Anthony says...
Hi I am a biological / sustainable advisor, one of our distributor cliants uses Bactivate and has had amaizing results with it ....cuting to the chase, it works.

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MaryT says...
It's called creative advertising, John Mc. :) This is my logo LOL

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Charlton says...
Geohumus, if you found out exactly what is in it, you could find something similar here. Research the company that makes it, the MSDS should list whats in it, probably in more detail than the label.

gardenererer says...
Agree with Steven in Melbourne . There are armies of white coated 'scientists' who are merely salesmen flogging factor X ---sourced from the jungles of Borneo and yours for $49.99 a kilo. When faced with a claim I ask for a reference and it ought not be from the Department of Agriculture and Podiatry , Balikpapan, Sumatra.
Try composting garden waste and grass clippings from contractors . It's free and it is amazing the numbers of worms that come from nowhere and lodge in the compost.