Collecting IMO, Preserved IMO2, Propagated IMO3 Explained
Master Cho's presentation continues with IMO1 (collecting indigenous microorganisms), IMO2 (preserved seed IMO), and IMO3 (propagated IMO). Drake explains why it's better to collect from a slightly barren area rather than a nutrient-rich one—barren-area microbes are tougher and better suited to hard soil. He also covers the difference between the decomposing-fungi layer near the surface and the soil-microbe layer underneath, and recommends combining collections from your own field, a barren spot, and a rich forest, including near a "mother tree."
For IMO2, mix IMO1 with brown sugar 1:1 by weight, fill the jar two-thirds full, cover with a breathable paper lid, and ferment about seven days (two to three days in Hawaiʻi) around 25°C—honey and molasses have too much water and will activate the microbes instead of putting them to sleep. For IMO3, Stone Mason kept his pile between 110 and 115°F; going above 140°F for long selects for actinomycetes, which smell like asphalt instead of forest floor and start eating the good soil microbes. Liquid IMO2 for spraying is diluted about 1:500 by weight.
Other topics: Roundup and chemicals aren't the enemy—biochar and enough soil microbes disassemble and store the nutrients they release, so a soil with good carbon and microbial life handles chemical inputs instead of being damaged by them. Vermicomposting worms need food layers no thicker than about an inch, or the bin overheats and worms leave; Dr. Norman Arancon at UH Hilo is named as an expert. For an Earth Box that sub-irrigates from the bottom, add KNF protectors (LAB) each time so standing water doesn't rot.
Questions answered
- 21:30 How thick should food layers be for vermicomposting worms? — No more than about an inch, or the pile heats up and worms leave; Dr. Norman Arancon at UH Hilo is an expert.
- 33:33 How far apart should raised beds be for a KNF vs. non-KNF trial? — At least three meters, since 10 feet is a long way for fungal networks to cross in one season.
- 34:00 Wouldn't there be more microorganisms in a nutrient-rich area? — Yes, but a barren site breeds tougher microbes suited to your actual soil, so Master Cho recommends collecting there over rich ground.
- 35:15 Does aloe make good KNF food (FPJ)? — Yes—chop it and mix with sugar close to equal parts by weight since aloe is very juicy.
- 41:12 Are chemicals like Roundup always bad for your soil? — No—chemicals are just concentrated nutrients; with enough biochar and microbes, your soil breaks them down and stores them instead of being harmed.
- 49:26 Why make IMO2 (preserved seed IMO) before going on to IMO3? — The week-long sugar fermentation is a purification step that ferments out any pathogens you may have collected.
- 56:11 Wouldn't introducing IMO straight to soil purify itself on its own? — To a degree—that's what KNF protectors do—but guiding the process deliberately works even better.
- 57:11 What dilution rate should I use if I can't turn my IMO3 pile three times a day? — Dilute IMO2 about 1:500 by weight into your soil foundation recipe instead.
- 59:23 My IMO3 pile hit over 140°F twice—do I throw it away? — No, it's still usable, but the longer it sits above 120°F the more it grows actinomycetes instead of your target soil microbes.
- 1:07:54 Is IMO Master Cho's own invention? — He learned it from a couple of masters over many years; Drake isn't certain of the exact origin but has notes on it.
- 1:08:16 What's the difference between Bokashi and IMO? — Bokashi uses effective microbes (EM)—lactobacillus, yeast, and purple non-sulfur bacteria—and can be left to run, unlike indigenous microbes.
- 1:09:03 My Earth Box sub-irrigates from the bottom—is that a problem for KNF inputs? — No, just add KNF protectors (LAB) each time so standing water doesn't rot.
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
- 4:02 Intro and Welcome
- 4:32 I Ching Reading: Deliverance
- 12:04 Stone Mason's IMO Pile
- 16:09 IMO Bath Video With Dr. Park
- 21:30 Vermicomposting Worm Layers
- 23:09 Master Cho IMO1 Presentation
- 32:43 Tilling, Weeds, and Microbes
- 33:33 Spacing Raised Beds
- 34:00 Collecting IMO: Barren vs. Rich Areas
- 35:15 Aloe for KNF Food
- 35:52 Forest Depth and the Mother Tree
- 40:07 IMO2: Preserved Seed IMO
- 41:12 Chemicals, Biochar, and Roundup
- 44:04 Good Soil Defined
- 52:45 IMO3: Propagated IMO
- 56:00 KNF Protectors (LAB)
- 57:11 Dilution Rate for Liquid IMO
- 59:25 If IMO3 Gets Too Hot
- 1:08:16 Bokashi Is EM, Not IMO
- 1:09:03 Earth Box Solutions
Transcript
Auto-transcribed with Whisper. Click any timestamp to play from there.
4:00 Hey, hello, hello, hello. And I was just eating some yogurt. Not sure it's still on my beard. But welcome to Korean Natural Farming Office Hours Sunday, 9 a.m. Hawaiian Standard Time. And it's 9 a.m. here with Master Cho in the background. Pure KNF Foundation. And I want to thank you for joining in November 13th, 2022. And let's get started with a little bit of higher wisdom. Today's is deliverance. So a change in attitude delivers you from difficulties.
4:49 The hexagram hisse signals the beginning of deliverance from danger, tensions, and difficulty. The I Ching instructs you here on both the cause of deliverance and how you must act in order to fully benefit from it. Deliverance is always caused by a change in our attitude. The higher power uses conflicts and obstacles to teach us lessons that we refuse to learn in an easier way. But they only darken our doorstep until we have acknowledged the lesson. So long as we ignore or resist the difficulty, it remains our constant companion.
5:39 As soon as we accept the presence as a sign of some self-correction as needed, our deliverance begins. truly the only way to dispel trouble and regain peace of mind is to change our attitude the yi ching also teaches us that we have several responsibilities once our deliverance begins the first is to forgive the misdeeds of others the image of the hexagram is that of a powerful rainstorm washing away what is unclean. This then is a time to clean every slate and begin anew,
6:26 meeting others halfway with gentleness and patience. Next, we are advised to restore inner balance and see that it is maintained. Deliverance offers us a return to equanimity And we must avail ourselves to the opportunity conscientiously Finally We are counseled not to try to force progress Even though the time is beneficial If we have truly changed our attitude We have become detached innocent, modest, and accepting. In this state, we allow the progress to unfold naturally
7:18 according to the will of the sage. So, good deliverance, good fresh clean slate, good time to recognize that any hardship we have is just some sort of lesson that we need to learn. And anything we're struggling with is just, you know, it's the higher power being like, hey, school of hard knocks, you know, so open, avail yourself to this opportunity. Thanks for being here to grow with us. thanks for being here to wipe the slate clean of like regenerative agriculture solutions that you can make at home getting off the fertilizer chains that keep us bound
8:09 getting into the natural real world around you the microbial secret society the hidden microorganisms that keep us all alive it's time for us to feel some deliverance like we've made it we've seen the truth and we're headed in the correct direction. It's like the story of the ox with the Chinese New Year, right? The ox heard the sage call him and he's like, I'm headed there now, you know, to get the deliverance. And then even though the rat caught a ride with him, jumped off first, he was like, yeah, you can go first. So anyway, good, good stories here. Good
8:53 things. Glad you're here with us and checking in from all over the world. We got Finland in the house. We got Indiana in the house. We got, uh, Spain. I'll, I'll, um, and 808 Shibi. I assume you're somewhere in the islands. I don't know exactly where, but I'm assuming with a name, 808 Shibi. Oh, bro. Gotta be in the islands somewhere. Um, and this guy right here, uh, his name is Flat Eric. Wahiwa. What's up, Wahiwa? Yeah, bro. That's, that's where it's at. Um, Flat Eric, if you don't know about him, um, I got him much, uh, a long time ago,
9:39 but, uh, here's, here's a little, uh, let's see here and transition this over this one here. flat eric um i got this guy back in 2005 maybe and he's quite famous um but this is one of the things he was built by jim henson's creature shop so he's one of jim henson's like first prototypical uh puppets and uh Let me see here. I'm going to change. Sorry, I didn't do this ahead of the time, but I am going to change my mouse to be a little bit bigger here. I probably shouldn't have done it ahead of time, but there. It's always harder to use a bigger mouse, but at least now you can see it.
10:35 So, yeah, so Flat Eric, he was in a band, Mr. Oizo, and, but, yeah, so, anyway, he's been hanging out for a long time, and he's been in a few movies and things, but he's fairly famous. in fact um yeah so that's that's who he is um in case you didn't know but if you tune in and um check it out he's he's a cool little doll man i uh he this not this guy but i have two of them actually this is my backup flat eric he hangs out in the office um keeps watch um my primary flat
11:23 Eric is in my house. He hangs out on my couch, and he's been all over the world with me. We go road tripping. He's been up, like, I used to live in Montana, and he went to Portland, and he's wild. He likes to party. So give, you know, give that creature anima to him. These days, you know, I'm a pretty old man here doing my thing. So, yeah, so good to check out everybody around the Islands, Wahiwa in the house. And before I get into, I did, I'm going to continue to go over the Master Cho presentation today, but I did want to just quickly show you this, that Stonemason,
12:08 who's in the house, he's here. He is making a 400 pound pile, he said, I think. What does it say? uh oh no oh yeah no i think no i'm not sure how how okay i'm not sure how how big of a pile maybe it looks like 200 pounds to me um but check this out so he's actually doing it up in a um in a storage bin type of thing which is similar to what i have um i usually store my imo in this and i usually mix it on the ground because i have a bunch of soil and also where i'm at it's you know Hawaii. So like, you know, it's starting to get cold. He's in Indiana. I know it's, I know it's
12:48 cold up there right now. Just talked to my, my parents talked to my sister in Denver and she said it was like 16 degrees or something just crazy. Cause you know, it's winter, isn't that coming? Right. And, uh, but here in Hawaii, it's like, that's nice. It's, you know, I'm still in a t-shirt. I'm going to go out and, uh, hang out. And, um, but so, so, you know, doing it up like this, um, you know, and then look, he has all this nice, uh, straw to put over it and, uh, looking really good. I'm not sure if that's steam. He was saying that he was getting into this, um,
13:22 pilot IMO, but look at it just texturing the soil and, um, you know, it's, it's alive. It's doing its thing. Got this nice square shovel to turn it. Um, and he was saying that he's been getting in it and actually like enjoying the sauna type of idea. And then look at these, you know, there's the microbes, you know, myceliating out, meaning that they're very healthy, there's enough food, and also starting to form the soil into these ball aggregates. And especially as this, this hay or not hay, straw that you put on top of here is able to kind of interact with this and
14:02 give it that extra carbon that it needs and just looking amazing. I mean, look at that mycelia. So I know he's going to have, you know, an amazing season next year when he puts this out. And, you know, I'm not even sure, maybe put it out before winter, you know, before the snow sets, if you did and you put watered it in, it would be activated and all, you know, I guess falls over, But take all those leaves and put the IMOs and really build up your soil foundation with this. And he says, yeah, it's steaming. So this picture is it's steaming because he just turned it.
14:43 And it's probably because it's cool. It's so cold out that when you turn it, it's steaming. But look at that, man. And I mean, you know, what could be better on a cold winter day to get into your soil, your living soil, your microbes and have all those come up on your body and just make it amazing for you, you know. That's the reward of making IMO in the winter as a natural farmer, you know. So, yeah. And everyone around the world saying, good job, man. You're doing it. You're doing it. Really, it's cool to see.
15:22 And it's cool that, you know, this technology, man, it's so wild that, you know, it came around the world all the way from Korea, you know, thanks to Dr. Park and bringing this stuff all over and Master Cho sharing this with us and bringing it here. and now it's on the internet and now it's in Indiana. And, you know, Master Cho always wanted this to be a global movement. You know, he always called it Cho Global Natural Farming. And so it really, you know, it's just, it's amazing to see. And I'm going to pull up just
16:04 a small video here of IMO Bath. And I know, I know you guys have probably seen this, but it's just a little short video here of Dr. Park talking about this. So I'll transition this back over, put this to this mode, and then I'll play this. And I think... The third one is up here. Three times you said. Three times. Yeah. So 10 minutes, 10 minutes break, 10 minutes, 10 minutes break, and 30 minutes. The last one. So all together it'd be the... 17, 17. You can sit that in and not back out. Yeah, suppose, the first day, we didn't even have the first drink.
16:52 I was so hot. How do they keep me hydrated? Well, you can drink some water. Salt water. Salt water. Yeah, salt water. Just a little salty. I wish they had some Pedialyte, that would be better. But it just put a little salt in the water. So we drink it Thursday. Anyway, after 10 minutes, oh, it's kind of unbearable. And especially the heel is really hot. So they put some extra towel underneath before that started. So I had to kind of move a little bit this way. And I was trying to, you know,
17:38 how can I endure this suffering? You're hanging in there for Dr. Wong. Remembering the Bible words? Anyway, 10 minutes, and it's a 10 minutes break would be really good. After the second day, I had the 10 minutes and then break for 10 minutes. And it was easier to go to the second one. first day was really, really, I couldn't say. So did they overheat the IMO4 or it was natural? The claim is that the heat from the IMO4 can go up to the 70 degree centigrade. Like 150. That is, I mean, the Master Chou told me
18:31 the cancer cell can die 45 centigrade. So you weigh over that heat. However, if it is hot water that's hot, 70 degrees, or have an electric burning something, then you burn and you die. But this microorganism heat is a fermentation heat. So that's a different kind of heat. So it's hot but it's not burn or kill. It's more like being in a sauna than a... or a steam room. Actually, Dr. Kaur had skin disease even on the face and the neck. Still, it doesn't help.
19:17 It's better. But I definitely felt better. It's not completely gone. But if we... The people who use this one are the farm families and their relatives. And their relatives. Yeah, it's not for the public. Not worldwide. It's very small. If they advertise, a lot of people will come, so they don't even advertise. They just use word by mouth. They're doing just for the special for them. Because they're going to use that one after we use to feed this quail. Yeah, use it for the yew and then use it for farming after. Right, that's true. But the Master Chou saw 70 degrees.
20:09 I didn't measure it, but that's what the Master Chou said. It can go up to that high. But I felt like it was 70 degrees. As long as it's coming out non-compacted, because if it was compacted and touched you with that, that it could actually burn you then. But as long as it's fluffy still, there's enough air in there that you can moderate. Less conduction. Yeah, less conduction and more like a steam room. Yeah. Saunas get up bloody hot. But this is different. Just to go back to the numbers real quick. So... So yeah. So that's anyway, that's Dr. Park talking about it.
20:53 And, you know, hear him talk about the nice benefits of the IMO bath. And, you know, that's like the legendary old Cho Global, the people with the pure hearts that were really trying to spread this movement. That was like back when, I don't know, 2010-ish. And, yeah, God bless. You know, you guys saw maybe Kim Chang there. Bless her soul. hopefully she's doing well where she's at and um you know just um the original people making natural farming happening so thomas was asking a little bit about worm farm not that it's
21:33 natural farming but i do happen to know a fair amount about vermicomposting and um it the key excuse me the key is to uh put in um not like not put more than two inches of food on top so if you're trying to feed worms and you put too much thickness of food uh it'll start to compost and heat up and the worms can't get in there and eat it um fast enough so if you're trying to you know you're trying to do vermicompost and it's um not not working it's because maybe you might might have made the layers too thick so real thin layers like um inch inch layer at most um
22:16 and let me just search my um channel here i don't i don't have anything but um there's dr norman ronkong um is really good with um with vermicompost and i learned a whole bunch from him so see if you can find him dr norman ronkong university of hawaii hilo um and And if it gets too hot, your worms will leave your bin. So you want to just make sure that it's very thin, the layers that you're feeding vermicompost. So with that, IMO baths, these things, this is the deliverance for us, right? You're going through this process. You're learning it in harder ways.
23:00 But the benefits you reap are just amazing. So let's see here. I want to jump over here. and get back into this Master Cho presentation here. So last week, so we've been, I've been doing this presentation for a little while here. That's slide 38. And last week, you know, the first week we went through all this, just review a little bit. You can go back to past episodes, knfsupport.com. Oh, and maybe before that, I should plug my class coming up because there is one more space available to be here at the farm.
23:45 So if you are interested in coming to KNF Farm here in Hawaii, staying with us for a week, learning all about these solutions, everything, knffarm.com here, knffarm.com. And you can sign up. there is one more, um, uh, spot to stay here in a nice cottage. Also, I got camping spots available, um, and where you can stay somewhere else and just take the class either way. Um, but just didn't want to pump that too. I mean, just, just putting that out there. I'm really glad there, you know, got a good group of people already coming and, um, you know, so it's worth my time
24:24 and everything to like really get in. And I'm just, I'm stoked that people are, are coming to tune in to really, um, learn about this and get into it. So anyway, uh, if you do want to join in and also, you know, you get an orange hat this, this week, I'm not wearing my orange hat. I'm wearing, uh, my, uh, um, friends, friends, Spencer, and, um, he's actually right here. If you look, if I can see him right there, Spencer and Yarrow is there and Earl, where's Earl at? I don't know. Can't see. I got to zoom in. Where's Earl at? Oh, no, that's Yarrow there. And Earl's right up in front.
25:05 There you go. So those three guys, the Royal Flesh Farms out in Nyssa, Oregon, right on the Idaho border. But they came out. They learned. They're so grateful. You know, Spencer came, officiated our wedding, gave me this hat in exchange. You know, but come get an orange hat. come learn, be part of the, um, you know, the crew that, that knows what's up and learn as best you can, you know, cause, uh, I don't, master chose not teaching anymore. Um, especially not, not out of Korea. And, um, you know, I'm not, so, you know, next best is, is, you know, come here,
25:43 learn, um, get a full immersion and more than you ever bargained for of just amazing stuff. And, you know, so, so going through this presentation here, I'm just talking about, you know, the elements, how these things all fit together, how it all fits into a spirituality, how we're not that much different than plants, you know, and then how the microbes make a difference, right? We talked about this where, I know I'm going through it fast, but this is kind of just a review here of, you know, the microbes on the leaf surface, the microbes in the soil,
26:17 the whole ecosystem actually working to create more fertility for you. and if you're able to get IMO seawater and just let the grass grow they'll restore the soil automatic and make great aggregates like this there's airspace coming in and without that it's all compacted right especially if you've been tilling herbicide and chemical fertilizer you've just compacted your soil so as you make your soil better the roots reach out better things come in otherwise it is all stunted like this and there's excess nutrients that they don't need
26:52 and things can't move around and your plant becomes really weak versus once you get the soil together, then your plant can reach its natural potential and grow better. And the whole key to that, again, is the IMO, which is what we're going to kind of cover today, getting into the IMO, what I call seed IMO. And so here's good collections of IMO. You can see getting under the forest duff into that, really collecting in this zone. You know, when you get this nice white mycelia like this, it's great. And then these microbes will go up onto your leaves as well as in your soil and just be so amazing.
27:39 And yeah, tilling is damaging to the soil because what happens is your ground here has all these natural aggregates, all these natural airspace and you think oh i want to fluff the soil i want to do better for the soil so you till it and you're grinding up all these fungal hyphes that are running through there and and really established process get ground up and smashed and so this is like airy aired and like light and fluffy for the top three inches or six inches maybe if you're deep tilling
28:11 And then as soon as it rains or gets moist, all this recompacts in the air and it just, it'll turn into mud versus if you run water through this system, the water will come out clean. So tilling can be really, really damaging to your soil. and so instead of tilling what what master cho recommends here is uh it's actually here that he recommends instead of digging down and trying to put a plant in and having the roots ball up instead burying it like this and putting your amendments on the top and having the microbes
28:46 naturally reach down and uh build your soil fertility so so yeah so it's you know and the machines take a lot of energy and everything to do. And, you know, oftentimes they put manure in the bottom and it's soft up here, but, but it really, you know, you can only go down so far and there's hard soil beneath in it. And we're talking the other week, Partita was talking about the, um, the, um, the oxygen being one of the keys. And if you collapse all your soil down, you know, you collapse all like the, in this, in this system, there's oxygen air penetrating your
29:32 soil in this system. There's no oxygen. So the roots, as soon as they don't have oxygen, start to express disease. And so a disease is the, you know, like lack of oxygen choking. Think of that, Like you die, you know, within about seven minutes, three to seven minutes of not having oxygen, you die. Right. And so same here of, um, you know, when you cut off the oxygen, Hey, well, your roots may be growing up in the top. Okay. But as soon as they get down, it's, it's so tilling all this is, is, you know, the antithesis of natural farming.
30:08 um and so um yeah i'm glad glad you guys can listen to this too it's today it's maybe nice to see the visuals here um but going through putting you know if you don't have microbes on your leaf you get all kinds of disease so making a liquid imo spraying it up on the leaves getting the knf protectors out there um you know that that recipe and again i you know i the rock or the paper breaking the rock, right? So last week we went through the IMOs and I talked about this. And one of the things that was the most surprising to me was this one here, which is
30:47 something I, you know, I always say, go get it from the richest environment around you, but also get it from your field. But it is better to collect in a slightly barren area rather than a nutrient-rich area. So I just want to reiterate that because that's something that, you know, it's really striking for me to see this because it's like, oh man, you know, I really got to promulgate this idea here of collecting from a barren area rather than a nutrient-rich area. So again, we talked about how to get the IMOs, cooking the rice, putting it in a box,
31:27 um yeah and uh and julia's talking about doing a little side-by-side trial there so we talked about this how to gather these process of gathering the imo1 these guys are grabbing the leaf litter to do it inside um you know and there's a video on this but we we talked about this last week so if you're interested go back to that and then these are the nice imos that they have. Um, okay. So this is where we're going to end off or start up here today. So, um, and Julia said she's going to do a trial with, um, next season with KNF versus non-KNF with
32:11 raised beds, um, one meter by one meter, no dig beds with wooden sides, cardboard, compost, mulch, any thoughts or considerations um no i mean you know putting putting the imos following the soil foundation recipe putting those out um it sounds it sounds cool to try you know side-by-side trials of um you know what you can do i know partita is also doing a trial and she's saying that the fungus maintains organic acids which maintains certain nutrients in a reduced form. For some elements, this means an available or not to our plants depends on the
32:54 plant. But if you want weeds till so, um, so yeah, the fungus will actually, um, make more or less nutrients available, which will affect what kind of plants grow above, believe it or not. So the having good microbes, you can actually suppress weeds because they make the nutrients not as available for the weeds and the quantity and the availability they want. So as you start to get more fungal, the plants or the fungus naturally limits your weeds. How far apart from each other would you place the beds? Question for all. I would say, I mean, if I were to take the beds,
33:40 I'd put them at least, you know, three meters or so. So that way, you know, the fungus isn't going to go across and go into the soil and come up in the other one. You know, 10 feet is a long way for IMOs to go in one season. Wouldn't there be more microorganisms with more nutrients? I've also read we want to go places such as forests with the most biodiversity. diversity uh the so i always say a barren like go go to the richest place around you but also collect right on your right on your land so whatever you got um collect right there and
34:19 then collect from a rich area and combine those but here master joe is saying get it from a barren area um and the thing is there may be more microbes where there's richer nutrients but you're not going to get the tough ones that are going to deal with your soil solution, like your soil where you're at. So it's a balance there of what you're trying to bring over. You're trying to bring the tough, hardcore, like really tough microbes, not the, not the like easygoing, it's rich here, you know, like spoiled children type of idea. Um, it's one way to look at it.
34:57 we live where the soil is heavy clods but get the microbes and plants in and it changes that yeah so the microbes will actually change your soil structure um you're getting your first freeze tonight oh man come to hawaii um i have some aloe that probably won't survive does this aloe make good knf food um aloe makes amazing knf food So if you take the aloe, chop it, and just slit it up and put it with the sugar about equal parts because the aloe is really juicy. So between one third of the weight or equal, it's going to be closer to equal with aloe, and it'll make really good juice for you.
35:50 Yeah, hey, what's up, Postop? Good to see you, man. I heard that deeper forest has more decomposing fungi. What are your thoughts on that? It's totally true. You know, you want good soil microbes. That's why, again, when you're collecting your IMO here, the key is to look at this photo here. Wait, where is it? Which photo? Oh. This photo here, where if you're getting it up in this layer, you're getting decomposing microbes. if you're putting it down to this layer here where this is dug underneath this is where the
36:28 soil microbes are so sure there'll be more decomposing microbes my nose is really itchy for the reason sure there'll be more decomposing microbes in up in this layer but down here you'll get the rich soil microbes as they break it down as the water percolates down all those nutrients are making this soil you look at the this balled up soil it's like that's rich soil follow my soil and my gardens look like this where it's airspace, it's water, it's everything growing. That's what I want, right? So get this soil right here.
37:05 Yeah. So always the key with IMO is to get diversity. So here it says get it from a barren area, but then they're going to this rich forest to get it. So, you know, go figure. The pictures show different than the slide. So I always think it's best to get from both areas, get from your, your field, but also get to get from this area and get down to the dirt layer where you're into this. So yeah, and big biodiversity, your local forest, they'll always be out there. yeah and going Master Cho would always talk about like the mother tree like there's one tree in the forest
37:49 that's like the old grandma tree of all the rest collecting there you're going to get even better microbes in this so yeah and I think we overlooked the saprotrophs like pseudomonas when it comes to decomposing organic matter yep it's true there's so much much about microbes and mycelia running. It's on the shelf right behind me, right there. Great book by Paul Stamets. So if you don't know what sapotrophs are, sapotrophs, look up Mycelium Running by Paul Stamets. And if your neighbors are spraying pesticides, also get a collection from there. So that way those microbes are already tuned in to
38:38 dealing with pesticides. Um, so get, get from a nice area and get from your area. Um, yeah. And yeah, cause that way it'll, it'll, they'll already be adapted to chemical drift, all these things, everything coming in. So, um, and it's true that, uh, the goof man saying that, fields will always be more bacterial rich and forest litter is more fungal rich. This is all true. But what you're after is this microbe diversity. And so there's like this fractal type of idea where if you collect, they will through polymorphism. Yeah, I think that's the
39:25 right word, they'll actually fill each niche and get into this. So, yeah. So, anyway, all these microbes will fill this niche. So, the key here is that once you've collected these microbes here from your forest, you've got this great population. They come into your rice and form something like this or whatever starch medium you've used rice is probably a good choice but they you collect them like this then the next solution here is to go into the IMO number two here so after you've collected these great microbes what happens is that you take these and then you you go through
40:17 the process of what Master Cho calls IMO too, but I consider this just preserved seed IMO. Like here you're collecting your IMO seeds, like think of you're going out to just gather seeds from the forest of all these microbes, and then you're going to preserve them in the sugar. So you need IMO, the one that you just collected, brown sugar, of course you need a clay jar. I use glass, I use half-gallon mason jars or gallon mason jars, and I use a paper towel on the top, so white paper and a rubber band or rice straw, which I don't.
40:57 Yeah, I just use a rubber band or the jar lid itself, actually, to go. Yeah. Yeah, chemicals, chemicals, thinking of chemicals as the enemy, it's not chemicals as the enemy is not quite the right thing. Chemicals are just a concentration of certain elements. And the way to break down chemicals are to get enough biochar in your soil and enough microorganisms. And the microorganisms will disassemble the chemicals and turn them into and store them in the biochar very safely. and so they'll they'll bioremediate your area so thinking of chemicals as the enemy is not true
41:44 it's just i mean not like it's i don't think it's like a better way of thinking of it is it's just a concentrate of a bunch of nutrients that are over nutrients and as the microbes break those up and make them more palatable then like for for instance like roundup is a descaler that's it what they initially invented Roundup for was to descale old boilers. And they would take, and so then they found out that it was a good herbicide as well, because what it does is it sucks all the, like imagine you had like a scale, like on your boiler, some sort of mineral deposit,
42:26 it goes in and it eats that up and it solubilizes that and it pulls it out. So the same thing happens on a plant. Here's your plant and you spray Roundup and it solubilizes all these nutrients and that pulls them out. And so Roundup, if you have biochar and microbes there and you spray Roundup, it'll solubilize all these nutrients out of your plant, but then the microbes will store that into the biochar. And so you can actually, you know, like thinking of these these um these chemicals as like oh they're bad it's actually they're just concentrates doing
43:00 certain things and if you have good imo and good biochar enough soil carbon basically um these chemicals shouldn't affect you in fact you should actually get a benefit from them it's when your soil doesn't have a carbon buffer and doesn't have microbes in it that the chemicals are really gnarly for you like the first 40 years of the green revolution we had amazing production where By green, they mean chemical revolution, where we took all the chemicals from war and we put them onto our fields. They had amazing production because they had microbes and soil carbon.
43:36 But the chemicals will eventually eat away the microbes and the soil carbon, especially combined with tilling, and you'll eat all that away. And so the key is to build that back up. And then if you use chemicals, you don't have the same negative benefit. You actually have a positive benefit. Not that I'm advocating for chemicals, I'm really advocating for good soils, but I'm trying to just dispel this idea that the chemicals are bad. It's that bad soil is bad.
44:05 And so if you have good soil, and by definition that's soil carbon and microorganisms living, and if you have microbes that means all your nutrients are there because they're in the microbes, the nutrients are, you'll have everything you need. So don't think of chemicals as bad. Think of it as just, I'm going to outpace these chemicals with good soil. So IMO, soil carbon, and all these things, you know. And yeah, so then Cheryl's suggesting that you maybe spray your KNF on their golf course and make the rough extra lush.
44:45 So if people get near your house, they're like, oh, why is the grass so thick here? and yeah broad leaves all these things and I think Partita is also saying that Roundup is also highly oxidized so it deselects all the reduction based microbes biology that means no more of the elements will be mobilized so the plants die yep and the only thing to worry yeah okay so you guys are kind of getting this concept of the you know, uh, chemicals breaking down the microbes do that. They're the grand disassemblers and assemblers. They're like alchemists of the soil. Um, yeah, I look at it as a war too,
45:32 of trying the front lines of the fungal networks, building their lines and building it all. So, um, so anyway, I do want to get back. Um, I know all that's good, fun, awesome, exciting thinking of this of how to get the good IMO. But once you've got good IMO, the process is to put that into what they call IMO2, but I just call it seed IMO because it's so much easier to think of preserving your seed IMO. What you do is you put that into this brown sugar here, and the process is to mix IMO1 with brown sugar one-to-one by weight, and then put it into the jar. And when
46:12 you do that, you're adding enough sugar to enough of the microbes that you're going to tie up all the water. You're going to supersaturate the solution and tie up all the water. So the microbes are going to go through a quick fermentation process, about two to three, or he says it's actually about seven days here, about two to three days for me here in Hawaii, but about seven days of a fermentation process once you've mixed the IMO and your sugar together. And during that process, it will select for all the good microbes. They're in the sugar and they're still growing a
46:51 little bit before they completely get super saturated and there's no more liquid available for them and they'll hibernate. So you keep this around 25 degrees Celsius is for fermentation and cover that jar with a breathable lid while they're fermenting here. And they basically hibernate and go to sleep. And the best ones kind of grow. And so that's why when you, you know, they do do a little bit of diversity selection here. And again, if you fill up your jar, this point here, if you fill up your jar two-thirds, you leave one-third airspace, that gives them the opportunity as they're fermenting
47:33 to quorum sense with the gases they produce. And the paper lid keeps it aerobic, but keeps their gases in so they can quorum sense and really build their area. And people always ask about honey. Gil Kerang Dang says, sell your honey, buy brown sugar. Honey's worth more. It's too liquidy. It won't super saturate. And same with molasses. It's too liquidy and it won't super saturate. There's too much water in there. And the molasses will actually activate your IMOs as opposed to hibernate your IMOs. So both honey and molasses are no-goes on that.
48:14 If you had dehydrated molasses, maybe that would work. But the whole idea is to have a little bit of moisture so that they will hibernate and go to sleep. And that's a function of super saturation. if you're curious click on the my channel below and search for for super saturation and you'll find a video on it i think it's even in my top row of videos so if you're not sure what super saturation is go do that um and um bee pollen i don't think will work either um round sugar is where it's at. So, um, yeah, too expensive not to eat it yourself. Um, I, and Talina, Talina,
49:07 I'm not sure what if the mother tree is a black walnut tree concerned about jug loan in the soil. So maybe don't, maybe don't gather near there, gather where you think it's healthy. Use your intuition on that. But try to find the healthiest place you can get it from. I know there's other diseases, but again, like I'm saying, even if you collected an IMO here, IMO with a disease in it, you're going to go through this process of adding the sugar. And through this fermentation, these microbes should get rid of any disease-causing microbe that you may have collected.
49:44 That's the whole reason for this. Why go through this mixing with sugar? Why not just go from this stage, where is it, this stage here of this collection, and then further bulk it up and go immediately into your substrate to make IMO, what they call three, which I call propagated IMO. Why go through the two stage to preserve your seed IMO? It's because in this stage, it's sort of a purification step that say I collected some pathogen here, that if I mix it with sugar and I leave it for seven days, during this, it's going to ferment and they will select
50:24 out, they will get rid of the pathogens. This is a purification step. So if that makes sense to you, that's what will happen here. So here it is. You know, you picked it up and it looks wet because there's so much moisture because the microbes are growing. You mix it here with the crude sugar, which is brown sugar and or unrefined like turbinado type of sugar. Cover it with a paper towel, fill it up two thirds. So and mix this really well. Don't just put the IMOs and put the sugar. Mix it. Mix it really well in there. And then after a week, it'll look muddy. Mine always gets kind of liquidy.
51:05 The rice remains to some extent. It's totally true. You don't have to pull the rice out. The microbes actually live in those little rice kernels. and you'll have this what they call IMO2 and it will look like this here's here's your sugar be mixed here IMO1 mixing it around then uh turns into this kind of soupy mud here and uh there it is being stored in this nice clay jar um and being stored here so this is what they would call IMO2 I would also call this preserved seed IMO because here's your seeds IMOs and here it is preserved
51:45 in the sugar because he didn't use honey or molasses and the brown sugar tied up all the water molecules and it's preserved. And so yeah, everyone mentioning the trees they like to pick up under. So this process is really simple to go from IMO 1 to IMO 2. You just go, you know, collect your good IMO, pop it out, mix it, mix it, put it in there, leave it for seven days, you're done. Real simple, real simple. The preserved seed IMO, very simple step, not a whole lot of things. Key is to just use one-to-one by weight of brown sugar and put it
52:26 into the jar, cover it, do these things. Real simple, right? So after you've got your IMO2 now and it's been purified and it's been cleaned and the microbes have competed in there a little bit and the best ones have won out how do you go on to IMO 3 and this is where this gets kind of complex I'm not gonna lie if you're if you're brand new to this and you want to just like have something that works just make IMO 2 and then make add your IMO 2 to water and add the maintenance solution into that and just make liquid IMO from your IMO 2
53:04 keep it there. If you go on to IMO 3, which I call propagated IMO, this is where it gets a lot more complex. So if you don't have the amount of time to deal with this, you're going to need a full week of being able to turn your pile three times a day at least and watch the temperature and not let it rise above a certain temperature. So if you don't have that and you're not committed to it, just stick with IMO2. Just stay right here and then make this and it's going to be great. It's just like your good microbes, they're just not as strong as they could be.
53:42 The whole point of going to the next steps is to really strengthen them and tune them to your soil and propagate them from, you know, this is millions to up to billions to trillions, right? so um and you saw stonemason's um pile earlier he's doing a great job he's maintaining it he's keeping it between 110 and 115 degrees and that's exactly what you need to do if it goes above that it overheats so if you want to just stick here stick right here do this you'll win um but you can go further and this is the whole point that makes korean natural farming like that top tier
54:19 farming. It's like, it's beyond, you know, a lot of people talk about a lot of ways of farming and I don't want to get like too like ego, like it's the best. Oh, look at me. I'm the best. It's not, it's just, it is the best. I mean, it's just, you're going in. Sure. Sure. Maybe there's better ways to do it or something. And if there are, let me know. Love to see side-by-side trials of that. And, um, but it happens to be really a good one of going here. So to do IMO three, collecting IMO3. I don't know why collecting. This is Kringlish here.
54:57 Any Tartarian fans out there? Yeah. So a shade that shields the area from direct light, right? So I do this in a barn where there's about 70% sunlight hitting the area. If you do this out in open, it's too much sunlight. You want about 70% shade. Okay. That's what this means. Shade that shields the working area from direct light. So you could hang up a tarp. You could do it in an area that's covered. I don't recommend you do this under your house or in an area where the microbes will start to live and compromise your foundation because they'll start to decompact your soil and
55:45 eat rock and compromise your foundation. So don't do this under your house if you want to, unless you're about to move and, you know. But anyway. So wouldn't just introducing the IMO to the soil be able to purify themselves on their own? I've read articles about milk where they inoculate salmonella and E. coli and the cultures take care of it. Yes, Alvin, what you're talking about is KNF protectors. And they do purify themselves to a degree. But what I'm talking about is like, it's like sending kids to school, like imagine
56:25 school is actually a good place. And it was their original foundation of like educating kids and turning them into good human beings, like sending them there. It's like a it's an environment that's designed to make things better. And if you just say, oh, well, we'll just let the kids go in the bushes and they'll turn out to be good kids. It's like, maybe, maybe not. You might have some Lord of the Flies stuff going on. So we're helping out in this process, which would naturally happen, but it's even better when we help guide it this correct way. And in what, you know, the milk,
57:03 what you're talking about is KNF protectors, and they do help. Okay, and then 808 Shibi is asking, what dilution rate of water if just using IMO2? I can't turn the pile three times a day because I still work. Absolutely. So dilute it about 1 to 500. And you can do that by weight if you wanted to, or it's hard to do by volume. So just do it by weight. So figure out what one gallon of water weighs. And I think it's like 7 point something pounds, 8 pounds. And then dilute it around 1 to 500 into there with everything else.
57:51 And in fact, your classic, how do I make liquid IMO? I'll go to the book here. Hang on, I should probably... Well, okay, I'll just go to it this way and going to where... Why is it not here? Why is it not there? Well, just make this right here. Make this soil formula right here and add in 1 to 500 of the IMO. so add add this soil foundation recipe and add in um that yeah okay let's see here
58:39 uh and a dedicated washing machine and have it turn on every x hours is uh maybe more like a dryer where it's going to tumble it washing machine i don't think would would do it um but a dryer, a tumbler type of thing. And the whole key is actually to do it on soil and to turn it in. So, so we'll go through the IMO3 process because I'm kind of getting ahead of how to automate this, but, um, but, um, and, and, um, let it crobe nice name there, uh, saying I had the pile get over 140 twice. Do I just throw it away or can I keep, keep it first time trying to
59:23 do my im03 um it depends how long it was above 120 because if it goes up to 140 you're growing a different set of microbes you're growing these opportunistic ones that are not your soil microbes they're not the microbes you're looking for so if it's above 140 for a long time your piles starts to change what microbes are growing there and it'll start to smell like asphalt and you're getting actinomycines and those actually those microbes actually eat other microbes they're they're more of a cleaning microbe so all your good soil microbes get
59:58 the longer it's above 120 those actinomycines are then eating your other microbes and and using them as a food source and so then when you use that you're getting actinomycines you're not putting out your soil-based microbes so it depends how long it was above 120 and your nose knows but in order to tune your nose in, you have to, you know, know what it smells like. And that's what I teach here at this. Um, you know, that's why I do teachings in person. It's like, here's the internet. I'm trying to tell you this, but, um, your nose got to know. Actinomycines smell like,
1:00:32 um, asphalt versus the ones you're looking for smell like the forest floor. Um, so do you just throw it away? No, it's still going to be good for stuff, but, um, but you're going to be putting out actinomycines versus putting out your soil microbes, depending on how long it was above 140. So it's not a complete disaster if it rises above 120, but it's not recommended because the longer it's there, the quicker they decompose. Yes, and cyclopath, you're right. Metric is so much easier. One liter equals one kilo. Easy. Done. Yes, exactly. Measure in metric. Why gallons? Why
1:01:12 tablespoons. I don't know. Just do it all in metric. So easy. Um, yeah. And if it heated up, um, there's, yeah. Um, yeah. And, um, forest. Okay. So anyway, I'm going to get back to this here because, um, slightly sour smells, the sour smells probably acting on my seeds. Uh, be careful. I know it depends what kind of sour there's like sourdough sour there's lactobacillus sour um so yeah alvin go watch watch some of the past episodes man talked about that a lot i want to stick to this and get through this um i can talk about water maybe next time to start but i do i only got like
1:02:01 two more minutes here at the office hour and so instead of going into water here i'll get back to I'll talk about water. I'll write it down here. And next week I will talk about water. Um, where's my pen at? Here it is. And I'll just write that down. I'll talk about water, water, because it water is a huge subject that'll take its whole time. So, um, so anyway, thermometer, rice straws, rice mats, fallen leaves. Um, I'm not sure what they need the fallen leaves for but um so we'll go into this here and go to the next one tools as the tool
1:02:39 um so rice bran is what they're using um i've used wheat bran horse feed dog food and wood chips all kinds of things some sort of substrate material that you need here um and then im02 between 1 to 500 to 1 to 1,000 of it. And this is where you can mix in multiple of them. And all at 1 to 500 is how I do it. I mix in about three, four batches, all at 1 to 500. And then your nutrient liquid, which is your medicine, your food, your cleanser, and this mineral A, which is basically seawater. Master Toll will talk about nutrient A through E.
1:03:24 And they're proprietary things that Joo Young wanted to keep in the family. And so we, yeah, anyway. So those are the materials you need. Some substrate, your micro binoculant, and the liquid nutrients. So method is to, here, let's see. This is an interesting one. It's hard to describe this here. But basically, you're going to make these nutrient liquids. And for basically 50 pounds of substrate, you need about 5 gallons of water. So for every 10 pounds, you need a gallon of water, roughly. And you mix these into there. So say I'm doing a 50-pound batch here.
1:04:12 If I mix in these liquid nutrients into there and then mix in the IMO into it in the water and I mix it into the pile, I will end up getting a 65 to 70 percent moisture content. And then the key is to keep the temperature between 40 to 50 Celsius, which is basically under 120 degrees. And they stack the IMO up. They make the pile about 13 inches tall, so about a foot, foot and a half, somewhere in there of tallness. And they say it takes seven days. I find it takes between seven to 10 days. And, um, I think this is then when they're
1:04:50 storing it after to keep the temperature because, um, I don't, I don't think that that I'm not sure what he means by that, but here's, here's a picture of it. Basically, you know, once you've mixed all your liquid into this and you've, you know, covered it, um, don't cover it with a plastic sheet, even though it says this, this is not the best here. And you culture this, get your IMO3. It takes about, you know, here it is under an area, but this has preservation on it. But anyway, you turn it to keep the temperature below 40 to 50 due to fermentation, right? You continually
1:05:29 turn this. And his presentation is as bad as mine. But here it is. Here's their rice substrate. they're mixing it in um they're adding the liquid into it here these liquid this is a huge one that then they're putting this straw on top they got their thermometer in there they're keeping it the right temperature and then they are you know here it is blooming out and growing so um so anyway yeah so that's that's all he has on im03 and i think between this and that maybe i should bring a better video to this because, um, and Stone Mason saying, I like to make my piles
1:06:15 in the fall and spring when it's cooler outside and keep the, I can leave the pile all day while at work. And if I mix it thoroughly in the morning, yeah. And then spread it out thinner. These are all great considerations. Thanks Stone Mason. It's totally true for me. I live in Hawaii. so like it ain't ever cooler for me it's always pretty much the same temperature you know it has a blessing and a curse right same thing i and i work on my farm so i work all day here and make it happen so um yeah and you guys are blessed to be out where it's cooler these guys
1:06:54 get the C, uh, the, um, yeah, okay. So yeah, the gallons and foots and inches are all based on sacred geometry and high level Freemasonry. Cause you know, if you look at when we graduate, we all wear a Mason's mortarboard and all that, and it's a whole nother deep subject to get into, but largely, um, Masonry is pretty, uh, pervasive and prevalent here. Um, so, okay. So next time I will get into water, talk about that before I get into continuing on with this presentation, get to the IMO 4, which will give you a little preview right here, right now of it.
1:07:39 But we'll go through that, and I'll show you a little bit more of some videos that make it a little bit easier to do. and these is the IMO Master Cho's invention it's yeah he he learned from a couple masters and I'm not sure I could go back I'd have to look it's been so many years of learning and stuff to actually pinpoint the exact origins there's only so much I can store in my brain but I'm sure I have it in my notes of where he got this from. And Bokashi is a similar process, but it's using effective microbes, EM, versus indigenous microbes. So when you're growing indigenous microbes, you
1:08:26 have to be much more careful on how it's done. EM, you can just let it run. It's lactobacillus, yeast, and purple non-sulfur bacteria. You can just let it run as a Bokashi. what you're doing here in Bokashi just means specialized compost you're doing a low temperature specialized compost so it's a slightly different process in that and a bioreactor Diego must be Diego footer on the internet there so and so I'll take this one last question from Smoke40 um hey man it's me again i have an earth box and water from the bottom is that a problem for using
1:09:13 the can of foods uh no just make sure that you add can of protectors to it so that um you're not letting those things rot right so if you're going to add you know you can add these solutions down into your earth box down below um but make sure that on each one you're adding in the protectors which are down here. These guys, they're right here. So add in the protectors in there. They're the lactobacillus. So add those in and they'll keep it from getting rotten. Otherwise it could rot a little bit. And EM has Japanese and KNF is Korean. Yes,
1:09:55 you're right. 808 Shibi on that. So anyway, interesting going through Master Cho's presentation here. You know, I think that's why it's always important to train in person, learn these things, because sometimes the presentations, even though I'm trying my best to like translate and go through these, even that seems a little wild and weird to see. But I'm glad I did it in person with Master Cho. I'm glad we've turned IMOs and we've done all this. I guess this is my deliverance here of like, you know, these obstacles in my way are I need to
1:10:30 create clearer, better documentation, better videos, these things, because this is clearly an obstacle for me. So my deliverance, maybe I'll have ease when I can point at my own learning material. I do teach here, and that's my easiest way, but to make it concise and have this learning material where you can just like, boom, there's the answer to your question. Just watch this video, right? And it answers like 90% of what I'm talking about and goes through this. Maybe that's what I need to do for my deliverance but big shout out to master cho pure knf foundation everyone that
1:11:04 does this everyone that makes um you know the world a better place plants trees builds microbes cleans the water the soil the air all of it you guys are doing a great job appreciate you i will be back next week i will be i think hopefully it's not thanksgiving or anything i don't know no I don't think it is uh seven days 20th let me check my calendar real quick here and just see this here there are so many tabs um where my calendar at why not that one okay hang on let me check my calendar real quick here today is Sunday yes okay yeah I'll be back next week
1:11:43 and then looks like the following week too. Yep. And then I will be December. Just so you guys know, December, I'm going to have a hard time being there because the 4th, I'm going to be at the HFUU convention and then I think I'll maybe be there for the 10th. And the 17th, I'll be gone. And then the, so you may only get one episode in December, one or two, I'm not sure. But anyway, much love. Enjoy the holidays. I want to thank you guys for tuning in and as always long live the natural farmer aloha, much love to you around the world bye now