Compost teas as a foliar innoculant
 

What do people make of this situation.

I brewed up a batch of compost tea to apply to the lawn as an early autumn
fertiliser. A couple of rose bushes had an infestation of woolly aphid and
thrip so I liberally sprayed them with the compost tea mix. A week or so
later the aphids and thrip had all but gone.

I concluded either I drowned them, there was some nice microbiology in the
compost tea that killed or drove off the pests, or the smell was so rank the
pests couldn't live with it.

Any opinions welcome.

rob