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Bone Char, Seawater Minerals, Jadam Leaf Mold

August 4, 2024 · by Drake Weinert

After the I Ching reading, Drake answers a question on using LAB as a sauerkraut starter and works through Big Wes's bone char question: boil bones 4 to 8 hours to strip meat and fat (no vinegar needed), then char them fully black and snappable to convert the phosphate to pyrophosphate. Char too far and you just get potash.

He walks through seawater as a mineral source, diluted about 1:30, noting 83 of the known elements show up in seawater and comparing the mineral balance to blood plasma and amniotic fluid. A tangent covers Walter Russell's spiral periodic table as an alternative to the standard linear chart. On rock dust, Drake explains phyllite (a compressed-clay mineral supplement) and says in Hawaiʻi he substitutes basaltic or blue rock dust, sometimes stirring crushed rock or crystals into IMO brews.

Drake compares root systems and soil under living-cover vineyards and orchards against herbicided, bare-soil ones, using it to argue for Cho Young Sang's leaf mold method: scatter leaves and microbes in the field each autumn instead of building compost piles. He also critiques a photo of Cho Young Sang's IMO4 as overheated and improperly managed. A viewer question on humic acid from worm compost gets a quick answer (teabag the worm tea) plus a pointer to Elaine Ingham's Soil Food Web videos. Drake also mentions using LAB to clean his dogs' hunting wounds and MMS in their water.

Questions answered

  • 7:02 Can I use LAB as a starter for sauerkraut, or do I need to adjust for salt? — Yes, it can work as a starter — the more salt-tolerant LAB strains survive and do the job.
  • 29:17 How do you make bone char (Calphos) — bones stayed brown inside after 20 hours of boiling? — Don't boil with vinegar, just boil 4 to 8 hours to strip meat and fat, then char until black and snappable; brown means it hasn't converted to pyrophosphate yet.
  • 30:48 What is pyrophosphate and why char the bones at all? — Charring converts bone phosphate into pyrophosphate, the dissolvable form you want; char it too far to white ash and you just get potash instead.
  • 37:26 How do you make humic acid from worm compost? — Steep the worm tea like a teabag until it turns dark brown, and check Elaine Ingham's Soil Food Web videos for more on humic and fulvic acids.
  • 41:51 Does LAB help with dog wounds from hunting? — Yes, LAB on the wound clears the infection right away; they also give the dogs MMS in their water.
  • 46:36 Does Cho Young Sang really understand IMO4? — Drake says no — the IMO4 photo shown is overheated, burned inside with actinobacteria on the outside, because temperature and turning weren't controlled.
  • 48:41 Why does Cho Young Sang skip compost piles for a leaf mold method instead? — He scatters leaves and microbes directly in the field each autumn and lets it sit all winter, instead of hauling material to a pile and back.
  • 57:21 How do you fix a plant mineral imbalance with seawater? — Dilute seawater about 1 to 30 and apply it — its mineral balance matches blood plasma and plant body fluid.
  • 58:44 What is phyllite, and what do you use instead in Hawaiʻi? — Phyllite is a compressed-clay rock dust mineral supplement; in Hawaiʻi Drake substitutes basaltic or blue rock dust.
  • 1:02:57 Why does Medaj farming make it harder to mess up your soil nutrients? — More carbon and microbial diversity buffer the soil, so it's harder to overdose or throw nutrients badly out of balance.

Topics: knf, medaj, jadam, lab, calphos, pyrophosphate, seawater, rock dust, bone char, humic acid, imo4, cover crop

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: The Clinging Fire
  2. 4:40 Pure KNF Foundation membership & monthly meetings
  3. 7:02 LAB as sauerkraut starter
  4. 10:08 Growing the show and community
  5. 10:46 Back to Cho Young Sang's Medaj slides
  6. 11:37 Living-soil vineyard vs. chemical winery roots
  7. 17:21 Herbicided apple orchards vs. natural cover crops
  8. 29:17 Making bone char (Calphos) and pyrophosphate
  9. 37:26 Humic acid from worm compost
  10. 41:51 LAB for wound care on dogs
  11. 46:36 Cho Young Sang's leaf mold method vs. IMO4
  12. 51:47 83 elements found in seawater
  13. 53:23 Walter Russell's spiral periodic table
  14. 56:37 Seawater minerals and amniotic fluid
  15. 58:44 Phyllite and rock dust for minerals
  16. 1:02:57 Why Medaj farming forgives mistakes
  17. 1:06:43 Sign-off

Transcript

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

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