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JADAM Sulfur & Soap Recipes, IMO Stages, Mulberry Recovery

Drake opens with the I Ching hexagram Biting Through, then works through listener questions: whether the KNF instructional booklets cover chickens, pigs, or quail (they don't — Drake points to the free YouTube playlist "Basic Poultry Training" with Master Cho, including a feed-formula video), how often to spread JMS (JADAM's green grass liquid fertilizer) during the growing season, and why a young mulberry tree defoliated after a dose of fish hydrolysate before coming back thicker than ever — Drake recalls a nearly identical JADAM microbe solution incident on a mulberry in Texas.

He also walks through the four IMO stages from Cho's book: seed IMO, preserved seed IMO (IMO2, made shelf-stable by fermenting with brown sugar), propagated IMO, and foundation IMO mixed into soil, comparing them to infants, grade-schoolers, high-school grads, and battle-hardened veterans.

The back half is archive footage from a Big Island JADAM (Medaj) training with Yong Song Cho: melting 25 kg of sulfur with sea salt, red clay powder, and 20 kg of caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) in 54 liters of water, then a second 28-liter addition, to make JADAM sulfur (JS) — a violently exothermic, off-gassing reaction Drake repeatedly warns viewers never to try at home without full PPE.

He finishes with the JADAM potassium soap recipe: caustic potash dissolved in soft water, mixed with canola oil to a thin-mayonnaise texture, cured three days into a butter-like block, then redissolved into liquid soap — noting soft water is essential and that homemade soap avoids the microplastics in store-bought detergent.

Questions answered

  • 6:48 Do the KNF instructional booklets cover chickens, pigs, or quail, and applying LAB/IMO to them? — No — the books only teach the recipes, but the free YouTube playlist "Basic Poultry Training" with Master Cho covers livestock, including a feed-formula video.
  • 12:37 Has anyone ever failed at doing KNF? — Drake doesn't think it's possible to fail — if the solutions are made properly and applied, it works like mimicking nature.
  • 15:45 Is JMS, the JADAM version of IMO, the right thing to keep spreading every few weeks? — Yes — Yong Song Cho recommends applying the diluted JMS soil solution three to four times a month, roughly weekly, during the growing season.
  • 18:05 I fed fish hydrolysate to a young mulberry and it looked dead, then came back with a vengeance — normal? — Drake saw the same thing in Texas with JADAM microbe solution on a mulberry — it defoliated, looked dead, then came back with far more leaves than before.
  • 26:04 Can I just use IMO1 instead of making IMO2? — Always go to IMO2 — preserving the seed IMO with brown sugar runs a fermentation selection that filters out the bad microbes and makes it shelf-stable.
  • 26:49 What's the actual difference between the IMO stages — seed, propagated, foundation? — Seed IMO is like an infant, preserved seed IMO an elementary schooler, propagated IMO a high school grad, and foundation IMO a battle-hardened ten-year veteran.
  • 30:16 How is JADAM sulfur (JS) actually made? — You melt 25 kg of sulfur with sea salt, red clay powder, and 20 kg of caustic soda in water — the sodium hydroxide reaction gets hot enough to dissolve the sulfur, hotter than plain boiling water can.
  • 38:22 Why does the caustic soda reaction bubble over and gas everyone out? — Sodium hydroxide reacting with water runs hotter than boiling and off-gasses hard, which is why the front row got chemical burns and full PPE is required.
  • 44:18 Isn't making JADAM sulfur the opposite of natural farming? — It's part of Korean natural farming from Master Cho's son, but Drake only covers it for completeness and always recommends Master Cho's microbe-based recipes instead.
  • 48:59 How do you make the JADAM liquid soap? — Dissolve caustic potash (potassium hydroxide) in soft water, add canola oil, mix with a drill until it looks like thin mayonnaise, then cure three days into a butter-like block.
  • 55:27 Does water hardness matter for the JADAM soap and sulfur? — Yes — always use soft water; hard well water has no oxygen and gives worse absorption, so run it through a water softener first.
  • 57:06 How do I know if the soap cured wrong after the three days? — If it separates into layers instead of setting into an even butter-like block, the water volume was off or hard water was used instead of soft.
  • 1:10:09 Why make your own soap instead of using Tide? — Store detergent puts microplastics into the water, so Dr. Bronner's or homemade JADAM soap is the more ecological choice for washing clothes.

Topics: jadam, imo, sulfur, soap, caustic soda, potassium hydroxide, jms, mulberry, fish hydrolysate, quail, poultry, water softener

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 & Season Check-In
  2. 2:37 I Ching: Biting Through
  3. 7:40 KNF Booklets, Quails & Poultry Feed Videos
  4. 10:08 Monthly Membership Meeting Reminder
  5. 12:37 Can You Fail At KNF?
  6. 15:45 JMS Application Rate For Growing Season
  7. 18:05 Mulberry Tree Defoliates, Then Rebounds
  8. 19:33 Archive: Texas Mulberry Story
  9. 26:04 IMO1 vs IMO2: Why Preserve Seed IMO
  10. 26:49 IMO Stages: Seed To Foundation
  11. 30:16 JADAM Sulfur Recipe Begins
  12. 36:12 Caustic Soda Reaction: Handle With Care
  13. 44:18 Why Cover JADAM At All
  14. 48:59 JADAM Soap: Potassium Hydroxide & Oil
  15. 55:27 Soft Water vs Hard Well Water
  16. 1:00:57 Second Water & Bottling The Sulfur
  17. 1:03:21 Ginger John's Farm & Liquid Soap Demo
  18. 1:10:09 Wrap-Up & Membership Plug

Transcript

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

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