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Nutrient Cycle, Changeover Period, and OHN Extractions

Drake opens with a listener question: do you need to make all five pour-offs of OHN? No, he says, you can stop early. But the longer you store all five, the more potent the medicine gets, and a full batch settles out to about five gallons of finished solution.

Most of the hour goes to Master Cho's nutrient cycle. Drake walks through the three stages of a crop's life: nutritional growth, the changeover period, and reproductive growth. Nutritional growth wants heavy nitrogen for leaf and cell division. The changeover period wants little nitrogen but a lot of phosphorus and potassium. Reproductive growth wants calcium to move carbohydrates into fruits, nuts, and seeds.

The changeover period, Drake says, is the most important time to spray. Master Cho calls it the plant's morning sickness, tied to floral differentiation. Applying extra phosphorus, such as water-soluble calcium phosphate or ash from sesame or soybean stems, about a week ahead helps the plant through it. Drake also reviews Master Cho's 60-day seedling schedule (sprays roughly every five days) and a longer outdoor schedule running mid-April to late October (sprays every seven to eleven days).

Drake ties this back to his own book, where Master Cho's numbered types become seven formulas built from nine core solutions: maintenance, soil, seed, leaf, bloom, fruit, and harvest. Leaf and fruit formulas alternate rather than running straight through, which shows up as a chubby-skinny growth pattern in the plant. He closes with an update that a committee is working on the KNF farmer directory, now with some funding in place.

Questions answered

  • 7:35 Do you need to make all five OHN pour-offs? — No, you can stop early, but going through all five and storing them means the medicine gets more potent over time.
  • 9:17 What is Master Cho's nutrient cycle theory? — It matches the right nutrients to a plant's needs at each growth stage, and the cycle repeats in loops rather than running once.
  • 29:04 What are the three stages of Master Cho's nutrition cycle of crop? — Nutritional growth, the changeover period, and reproductive growth, like a plant's childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.
  • 37:57 When is the most important time to spray a crop? — During the changeover period, right before floral differentiation, when the plant has what Master Cho calls morning sickness.
  • 39:24 What should you spray a week before floral differentiation? — Extra phosphorus, such as water-soluble calcium phosphate or ash from sesame or soybean stems, applied about a week ahead.
  • 42:10 What is Master Cho's 60-day nutritional cycle for seedlings? — A fruit-vegetable schedule from soil prep to transplant with sprays roughly every five days, about twelve sprays total.
  • 47:50 What does the nutritional cycle look like from planting to harvest? — An outdoor-season schedule, roughly April 15 to October 20, with about sixteen sprays spaced every seven to eleven days.
  • 52:58 How does Drake's book translate Master Cho's types into formulas? — Into seven formulas built from nine core solutions: maintenance, soil, seed, leaf, bloom, fruit, and harvest.
  • 58:53 Do you spray leaf formula first and fruit formula last, straight through? — No, you alternate leaf and fruit formulas back and forth through the season instead of leaf-then-fruit.
  • 1:03:50 What is the chubby/skinny concept, and can you actually see it? — Yes, it shows in the plant: a chubby phase of leaf growth alternates with a skinny phase where the plant stretches out.
  • 1:04:40 Is the KNF farmer directory or map still coming? — Yes, a committee is working on it and the foundation has secured some funding to get it out.

Topics: nutrient cycle, ohn, changeover period, floral differentiation, calcium phosphate, master cho, seedlings, knf formulas, chubby skinny, knf directory

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. 2:28 Intro and Welcome
  2. 3:52 I Ching Reading: Increase, Powerful Improvement
  3. 6:30 Zoom Link in Chat
  4. 7:35 OHN: Need All Five Extractions?
  5. 9:17 Master Cho's Nutrient Cycle
  6. 13:22 Fixing Zoom Connection
  7. 25:20 George Shows His KNF Lab
  8. 26:20 Back to Master Cho's Nutrient Cycle
  9. 29:04 Nutrition Cycle of Crop
  10. 37:57 Master Cho's Changeover Period
  11. 42:10 Nutritional Cycle for Seedlings
  12. 47:50 Nutritional Cycle for Planting to Harvest
  13. 52:58 Drake's Book: Nutrient Cycle Formulas
  14. 58:53 Drake's Book: Alternating Formulas
  15. 1:03:50 Chubby/Skinny Concept
  16. 1:04:40 Committee Working on the KNF Directory
  17. 1:05:34 Thank Yous; Long Live the Natural Farmer

Transcript

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