Yeast?

[big rockpile]

How many has used Yeast as a Fertilizer?

big rockpile

 

[Meadowlark]

@redback was doing some experiments with it but unfortunately seems to have left the building...

Yeast fertilizer

Soil science seems to be saying forget the manures and fertilizers and build the soil microbes instead. I recently went to the local bakers and asked for some fresh yeast. After a wait the young worker returned with a kilo of wrapped fresh yeast that she said would be best used within the...

www.gardening-forums.com

 

[Charlie 001]

Haven’t used yeast as a fertiliser. And in my time as a gardener never really heard about it so. I don’t think it’s a good idea. Yeasts do occur naturally in soils and plant matter and play a role in the microbial environment. But don’t really have any nutritional value. Stick to the usual methods of adding plenty of well rotted organic material to the soil. That really is the best way

 

[smitty55]

 

[Charlie 001]

Well this is an interesting subject.. done me a bit of research. The NPK value of yeast fertiliser is minimal. Much less than any other typical garden fertiliser. (I guess it’s better than nothing). It does have biostimulate properties. But no more than anything else. Some say that it has protective properties, but bakers yeast and brewers yeast has been demonstrated to cause some harm
in summary. It’s a nice fad but totally pointless

 

[smitty55]

Here's another one.

 

[smitty55]

Well this is an interesting subject.. done me a bit of research. The NPK value of yeast fertiliser is minimal. Much less than any other typical garden fertiliser. (I guess it’s better than nothing). It does have biostimulate properties. But no more than anything else. Some say that it has protective properties, but bakers yeast and brewers yeast has been demonstrated to cause some harm
in summary. It’s a nice fad but totally pointless

It's not at all just about NPK. It's also about nutrient density. I suppose you think compost is useless too because it's not even considered a fertilizer There are many videos on youtube showing tests done with adding yeast water like the video above I posted that show big differences in plant growth. I guess according to you all those gardeners are lying. It has more to do with the bacteria added to the soil which is how the soil food web works. Also I've never seen any articles saying yeast is harmful to soil if you'd care to post some.

 

[PGB1]

A good garden use for yeast is to kick-start composting. It doesn't take much. I mix it in barely warm water and dump it over the future compost. It seems to accelerate decomposition and, for some reason, attracts worms like crazy. I do it once and don't have to do it again until I add a lot of new stuff. The yeast lives over winter, but I doubt it does much work in freezing weather.


A good non-garden use for yeast is to mix some in barely warm water and dump it in sink, shower and tub drains. If you let it sit for a few hours, it magically eats the soap and oil film that coats pipes. It helps with grease that sneaks in kitchen sink drains, too.

I once looked in a tub drain pipe clean-out and could see 5 feet down the pipe. It was perhaps 40% closed by build up. After the yeast sat for a few hours and the tub was run, the pipes were clean like new.

I learned this trick from a person who cleans grease traps for a living.

 

[smitty55]

A good garden use for yeast is to kick-start composting. It doesn't take much. I mix it in barely warm water and dump it over the future compost. It seems to accelerate decomposition and, for some reason, attracts worms like crazy. I do it once and don't have to do it again until I add a lot of new stuff. The yeast lives over winter, but I doubt it does much work in freezing weather.


A good non-garden use for yeast is to mix some in barely warm water and dump it in sink, shower and tub drains. If you let it sit for a few hours, it magically eats the soap and oil film that coats pipes. It helps with grease that sneaks in kitchen sink drains, too.

I once looked in a tub drain pipe clean-out and could see 5 feet down the pipe. It was perhaps 40% closed by build up. After the yeast sat for a few hours and the tub was run, the pipes were clean like new.

I learned this trick from a person who cleans grease traps for a living.

Very interesting. Could you expand on that by giving us some volumes of yeast and water used?

 

[Oliver Buckle]

There are about 2,000 documented species of yeast, and possibly 100 times more than that as lots of places haven't been sampled; hmmm.

 

[PGB1]

Very interesting. Could you expand on that by giving us some volumes of yeast and water used?

For the compost kick-start, imagine about a 6 cubic foot wheelbarrow of material. To that I will use three or four packets of baking yeast mixed in about 2 liters of barely warm water. The magic water gets dumped around on the pile. Yeast multiplies by itself, so a small amount is good.

For the drains, I'll use a couple of packs of baking yeast in about a liter of barely warm water. The warm water "wakes up" the yeast. Hot water might destroy it.

Some septic tank enzymes sold are organic with no chemical destroyers in them. I've used Green Gobbler and Zep in the past, but found grocery store yeast is much cheaper. Those products come it little, thumb size packs inside the package. (Photo below) I'll use one little pack for drains and a couple for the compost.

The one downside for yeast on the compost is that my dog buddy hangs around sniffing and sniffing!

Paul

 

[Charlie 001]

It's not at all just about NPK. It's also about nutrient density. I suppose you think compost is useless too because it's not even considered a fertilizer There are many videos on youtube showing tests done with adding yeast water like the video above I posted that show big differences in plant growth. I guess according to you all those gardeners are lying. It has more to do with the bacteria added to the soil which is how the soil food web works. Also I've never seen any articles saying yeast is harmful to soil if you'd care to post some.

Smitty me old chum. No need to get so defensive.. on the whole I don’t disagree with you. I’m just saying it’s no better than anything else. Yeast is a bio stimulant like so many others.. yeast helps plants take up nitrogen and phosphorus (does not provide them though so if the soil has no npk value won’t do much good). I did not say yeast was harmful to soil, I simply said that it could cause some harm. Yeast has been used as an anti fungal agent for some agricultural crops. However plant roots sometimes have beneficial fungal properties to aid there general health yeast can potentially harm these. I am being vague on purpose because studies are still being done. This is why utube is (in your case) the font of all knowledge and not the recommendations of actual horticultural experts
you can use yeast fertiliser if you want. I myself will work on general soil health and eliminate the need of such things
by the way compost is technically con a fertiliser as well as a soil improver

 

[smitty55]

Smitty me old chum. No need to get so defensive.. on the whole I don’t disagree with you. I’m just saying it’s no better than anything else. Yeast is a bio stimulant like so many others.. yeast helps plants take up nitrogen and phosphorus (does not provide them though so if the soil has no npk value won’t do much good). I did not say yeast was harmful to soil, I simply said that it could cause some harm. Yeast has been used as an anti fungal agent for some agricultural crops. However plant roots sometimes have beneficial fungal properties to aid there general health yeast can potentially harm these. I am being vague on purpose because studies are still being done. This is why utube is (in your case) the font of all knowledge and not the recommendations of actual horticultural experts
you can use yeast fertiliser if you want. I myself will work on general soil health and eliminate the need of such things
by the way compost is technically con a fertiliser as well as a soil improver

Well if it's no better than anything else why do experiments done by gardeners show so much difference then, it's not like they have anything to prove one way or the other. Compost is definitely considered an excellent soil enhancer but from what I've researched it's not considered a fertilizer due to it's low npk values of 1-1-1. Although it does add some nutrients to soil as well most of them are very slow release and not much is available to plants in the first year. For instance let take nitrogen, of that 1% only 30% of that is available nitrogen so it's actual fertilizer value is only .3%. Phosphorous is even worse as it gets tied up in large molecules so it's also slow release and even when it does release it binds strongly with soil so it's even slower to become available to plant roots. Potassium from compost is readily available but, because it's so water soluble it easily gets leached out of the compost pile if it's not covered.
So in the end compost actual npk value to plants the first year could actually be .3-.1-1 if there is enough potassium, hard to call that a fertilizer. I love compost, I have two piles on the go each summer as well as a few piles of leaf mold and I make a lot of aerated compost tea. It's all about enhancing soil biology.
Cheers

 

[PGB1]

I certainly can't comment knowledgeably about nutrients in yeast, but one benefit of yeast (or most enzymes) is their hunger. The enzyme "eats" the organic matter, making the locked-away nutrients readily available for plants, microorganisms and even worms and insects.

Enzymes also release lots of carbon dioxide. When released, plants take that carbon dioxide up to build themselves, releasing the oxygen to the air. After all, plants, trees and such are made of nearly 100% carbon and water.

 

[smitty55]

I certainly can't comment knowledgeably about nutrients in yeast, but one benefit of yeast (or most enzymes) is their hunger. The enzyme "eats" the organic matter, making the locked-away nutrients readily available for plants, microorganisms and even worms and insects.

Enzymes also release lots of carbon dioxide. When released, plants take that carbon dioxide up to build themselves, releasing the oxygen to the air. After all, plants, trees and such are made of nearly 100% carbon and water.

Well then that would makes sense for the improved growth of plants fed yeast compared to those that weren't. I wouldn't call it a fertilizer any more than compost as it's benefits aren't from npk values but from improved soil biological activity.