Skip to main content
← Back to Office Hours

Animal Feed From Manure, IMO1 Mixing, Fish Amino Acid

Drake opens with the I Ching reading on modesty, then answers Lee's question about processing IMO1: weigh the collected rice biology, add an equal weight of brown sugar, and knead it together like dough until the sugar reaches every clump.

The main segment is a farm visit showing cow manure turned into animal feed. Manure is mixed with IMO4 and fermented about two weeks until the smell disappears, using roughly two parts fermented manure to one part fresh IMO4 for each new round. Drake notes cow manure works for this, not horse manure, because horses strip out vitamins that cow manure keeps. To rescue a batch that still smells bad, add diluted seawater (1 to 30), yeast, and LAB, plus minerals, then finish with more good IMOs to flip the microbiome from bad to good.

Other recipes covered: fish amino acid made with equal weight of fish and sugar layered in a jar filled two-thirds to three-quarters full, and FPJ or yeast solutions diluted 1 to 800. A viewer also asks whether rice bran and LAB can make solid LAB, which Drake confirms.

Questions answered

  • 8:39 How do you process IMO1 - do you break up the lumps? — Weigh the collected rice biology, add an equal weight of brown sugar, and knead it all together like dough.
  • 12:25 Do IMO piles need to be covered while fermenting? — Yes, IMO likes about 70% shade, so cover loosely with breathable weed mat, rice straw, or banana leaves.
  • 14:11 How do you turn cow manure into animal feed? — Mix manure with enough IMO4 to ferment it about two weeks until the bad smell is gone.
  • 14:53 Can you use horse manure the same way? — No, use cow manure - horses strip out vitamins that cow manure leaves in.
  • 15:40 What do you add with seawater to fix a bad-smelling ferment? — Dilute seawater 1 to 30 and add yeast and LAB to flip the microbiome from bad to good.
  • 18:14 Can you make solid LAB with rice bran? — Yes, you can make solid LAB that way.
  • 19:00 What ratio of manure to IMO4 should you use? — About two parts fermented manure to one part IMO4, adding more each round to build microbial life.
  • 24:27 What's the ratio for fish amino acid? — Equal weight of fish and sugar, layered, filling the container two-thirds to three-quarters full.
  • 25:12 What dilution do you use for FPJ or yeast? — One to eight hundred.
  • 26:42 How do you rescue manure that still smells bad? — Add yeast to clean it out, LAB to knock down bad microbes, minerals to power them up, then good IMOs to finish.

Topics: imo1, imo4, lab, fpj, fish amino acid, seawater, animal feed, cow manure, yeast, ferment ratios

KNF Office Hours is a free live Q&A every Sunday at 9 AM HST. Bring your question to pureknf.org/learn/questions or join live.

In this episode

  1. 0:00 Welcome and I Ching reading
  2. 1:45 I Ching: modesty
  3. 4:11 Natural farming vs conventional methods
  4. 8:39 IMO1 collection and mixing
  5. 12:25 Covering IMO piles for shade
  6. 13:46 Onion seed heads
  7. 14:11 Loading manure cart for animal feed
  8. 14:53 Cow vs horse manure for feed
  9. 15:40 Seawater, yeast, and LAB additions
  10. 18:14 Rice bran LAB and manure ratios
  11. 19:45 Farm equipment tangent
  12. 24:27 Fish amino acid recipe
  13. 25:12 FPJ and yeast 1:800 dilution
  14. 26:42 Rescuing a bad ferment
  15. 29:18 Integrated animal farming wrap-up
  16. 29:57 Sign-off

Transcript

Auto-transcribed with Whisper. Click any timestamp to play from there.

Share