Is stale beer good for plants? - Ask Extension
I've heard for years that stale beer with or w/o ammonia and/or dish soap is good for flower and vegetable gardens. But recently I read that the yea...
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Is stale beer good for plants? #393320
Asked April 12, 2017, 2:02 PM EDT
I've heard for years that stale beer with or w/o ammonia and/or dish soap is good for flower and vegetable gardens. But recently I read that the yeast in beer can actually cause fungus to grow and damage or destroy plants. Which is true?
Macomb County Michigan
Expert Response
For starters, stale beer is really good for catching and drowning slugs in your garden.
As for a recipe of beer ammonia and dish soap, there are plenty of suggestions online. MSU Master Gardeners/Ask an Expert folks use university based research as there are a lot of false claims out there.
Two professors did an experiment in 2011,with plants in a hydroponic(growing in water) setting and added beer plus a weak fertilizer solution. The plants absorbing the beer were not any different than the ones with just the fertilizer. So it wont' hurt to dump stale beer on your lawn but it won't perform any miracles either.
One of the MSU AG professors wrote an article on the "recipe" in 2011. He didn't see any harm but no particular benefit either. The article suggested using a 20 gallon spray tank to apply the stuff which would be pretty hard for a homeowner to do.
The larger part of the problem here is that you cannot control the amount of nutrients that you are putting onto your grass. Soils differ greatly in their ph and their natural nutrient content.
MSU and some garden centers offer soil analysis in which the homeowner can determine exactly which nutrients his lawn needs to grow well. Then one can buy fertilizers which contain exactly those nutrients. The only significient nutrient in the "recipe" is Nitrogen(ammonia). Grass always needs nitrogen but spraying ammonia on it is pretty inefficient.
To answer your second question, no, the yeast in beer doesn't harm plants nor cause bad fungus to grow but it won't do much good either. There are many kinds of yeasts and they exist in healthy soil. Adding beer probably won't have much effect.
As for a recipe of beer ammonia and dish soap, there are plenty of suggestions online. MSU Master Gardeners/Ask an Expert folks use university based research as there are a lot of false claims out there.
Two professors did an experiment in 2011,with plants in a hydroponic(growing in water) setting and added beer plus a weak fertilizer solution. The plants absorbing the beer were not any different than the ones with just the fertilizer. So it wont' hurt to dump stale beer on your lawn but it won't perform any miracles either.
One of the MSU AG professors wrote an article on the "recipe" in 2011. He didn't see any harm but no particular benefit either. The article suggested using a 20 gallon spray tank to apply the stuff which would be pretty hard for a homeowner to do.
The larger part of the problem here is that you cannot control the amount of nutrients that you are putting onto your grass. Soils differ greatly in their ph and their natural nutrient content.
MSU and some garden centers offer soil analysis in which the homeowner can determine exactly which nutrients his lawn needs to grow well. Then one can buy fertilizers which contain exactly those nutrients. The only significient nutrient in the "recipe" is Nitrogen(ammonia). Grass always needs nitrogen but spraying ammonia on it is pretty inefficient.
To answer your second question, no, the yeast in beer doesn't harm plants nor cause bad fungus to grow but it won't do much good either. There are many kinds of yeasts and they exist in healthy soil. Adding beer probably won't have much effect.
