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Kalo From Poisoned Ground, Broiler Costs, Plant Juice Mold

Drake retells the Let's Grow Hilo project: a roundup-poisoned traffic triangle in downtown Hilo brought back with wood chips, biochar, fish char, and IMO drenches, then planted with kalo, sweet potato, bananas, and sugarcane. The corms grew to the size of a human head, three per mound, and the harvest fed about 200 people at a street event.

He also announced a new RocketChat for Pure KNF Foundation members, with general, novice, expert, and office-hour channels, and reminded listeners the membership runs about $5 a month, or $60 a year.

Watching an old Master Cho video, Drake and guests discuss why raising broiler chickens rarely pencils out in Hawaiʻi — a whole Costco chicken sells cooked for about five dollars, undercutting home-raised birds — and how integrated animal farming routes chicken-pen waste to feed pigs. He also warns against leaning on dolomite lime too often; it jump-starts Hawaiʻi soil but should give way to microbes.

A viewer named John Snow asked about extracted plant juice that formed two inches of sugar at the bottom after three weeks, still bubbling with mold on top; Drake says over-sugaring the batch ties up the water molecules. He closes by flagging next week's return to an avian influenza question, where the point is fixing conditions, not just prescribing a cure.

Questions answered

  • 11:22 How can members connect with each other and the foundation outside the livestream? — Drake set up a members-only RocketChat with general, novice, expert, and office-hour channels.
  • 16:07 What does a Pure KNF Foundation membership cost and fund? — About $5 a month, or $60 a year, which pays for the videos, meetings, and chat community.
  • 19:36 What was the Let's Grow Hilo project Mark and Drake talk about? — It restored a roundup-poisoned traffic triangle in Hilo using wood chips, biochar, fish char, and IMO, then planted kalo, sweet potato, and bananas.
  • 23:50 How did the Let's Grow Hilo harvest turn out? — Corms grew as big as a human head, three per mound, plus large sweet potatoes, enough to feed about 200 people at a street festival.
  • 27:43 What happened when someone tried to buy up the whole harvest? — An uncle bought all the kalo huli for ten cents each to resell to a commercial farm, which killed the community-sharing purpose of the project.
  • 32:44 Is it a problem that the soil mix still had dolomite in it? — Dolomite lime is fine to jump-start Hawaiʻi soil but shouldn't be used all the time; the goal is to get microbes established instead.
  • 48:14 Is raising broiler chickens with natural farming profitable in Hawaiʻi? — Drake ran the numbers and couldn't make it work — a whole Costco chicken sells cooked for about five dollars, undercutting home-raised broilers.
  • 52:59 How does integrated animal farming work between chickens and pigs? — Waste from the chicken pen feeds the pigs, recycling the same nutrients from one animal to the next.
  • 54:29 My extracted plant juice has two inches of sugar at the bottom after three weeks, still bubbling, with mold on top — what happened? — If you stirred in too much sugar and super-saturated the batch, the sugar ties up the water molecules instead of drawing out the juice properly.
  • 1:04:09 How should farmers think about curing avian influenza in a flock? — Master Cho's approach looks at improving conditions first rather than just prescribing a treatment; Drake plans to pick this back up next week.

Topics: imo, biochar, kalo, dead soil, broiler chickens, integrated animal farming, dolomite, plant juice, mold, rocketchat, membership, avian influenza

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 Intro: no I Ching book today
  2. 6:18 Choosing peace by growing your own food
  3. 11:22 New RocketChat for foundation members
  4. 16:07 What membership costs and funds
  5. 19:36 Let's Grow Hilo: from poisoned ground to food forest
  6. 23:50 Harvest day: taro corms and a street festival
  7. 27:43 When a buyer tried to flip the harvest
  8. 32:44 Dolomite: useful once, not forever
  9. 33:30 AI-generated images and video, for better or worse
  10. 48:14 Why broiler chickens don't pencil out in Hawaiʻi
  11. 52:59 Integrated animal farming: chickens feeding pigs
  12. 54:29 Plant juice with mold and too much sugar
  13. 1:04:09 Avian influenza: fix conditions, not just symptoms
  14. 1:04:45 Sign-off and next week's membership meeting

Transcript

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

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