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Green Grass Liquid Fertilizer, Cow Methane Myth, IMO for Horses

Drake opens with the I Ching hexagram Meng, Youthful Folly, then takes a listener's question on cattle digestion and enteric methane. He argues that with proper rotational grazing, cows act as "living fermentation vessels" that build soil carbon faster than their methane hurts the atmosphere.

He walks through Master Cho's green grass liquid fertilizer recipe: chop weeds small, add IMO4, rice bran, and fish meal or oil cake, fill a container two-thirds with water, cover it, and ferment 4-5 days in summer or 7-10 days in winter at 23-25C. Dilute the finished liquid 1:500 to 1:1000 and apply 40-60 liters per 100a.

Other topics: using KNF protectors and lactobacillus in horse bedding for hoof health and digestion, a contact's plan to spray desert soil with microbes from a roughly 100-foot airship, and an Irish dairy farmer's pasture seeing more Wainaku grass and slower cattle rotation after weekly drone spraying.

Drake reads a long comment from Partida on redox and mineral electrolyte balance, tying low manganese and oxidative stress to aphid outbreaks and plant disease. He closes with IMO4 and IMO5 ratios for a rice hull biochar potting mix and news on the November and January KNF classes.

Questions answered

  • 15:08 How do KNF protectors and IMOs help horse bedding and hoof health? — Lactic acid bacteria and IMOs in bedding help hoof health, and lactobacillus aids digestion in older horses.
  • 24:06 Do dietary lipids cut cattle methane, and are cows really bad for the climate? — With proper rotation cows build tons of soil carbon, so their methane is a small tradeoff against the land they regenerate.
  • 27:53 How do you make green grass liquid fertilizer? — Chop weeds, add IMO4, rice bran, and fish meal or oil cake, fill a container two-thirds with water, cover, and ferment 4-5 days in summer or 7-10 in winter at 23-25C, then dilute 1:500 to 1:1000.
  • 38:59 What's this plan to spray desert areas with microbes from an airship? — A company founder Drake's listener met is planning a roughly 100-foot airship to spray desert regions with carbon-storing microbes.
  • 42:14 Does spraying KNF solutions on pasture actually change the grass? — Weekly drone spraying has shifted one Irish dairy farmer's pasture toward more Wainaku grass, and cows don't need rotating as fast.
  • 43:34 What do you do about wild pigs rooting up a healthy KNF pasture? — Drake fixed fence and started hunting the pigs with an AR-10, since healthy soil and worms keep drawing them in.
  • 46:36 What happens when you follow Master Cho's nutrient cycling closely? — One listener, Joe, got phenomenal harvests and had plenty of produce to give away by sticking to the recipes as written.
  • 49:04 What causes problems like aphids, according to Partida's redox comment? — Mineral and redox imbalance, especially low manganese, stresses plants and lets pathogenic microbes and pests like aphids take hold.
  • 1:05:52 How much IMO4 or IMO5 should go into a rice hull biochar potting mix? — Top-dress IMO4 lightly and use about 10 percent IMO5, since the microbes work their way down on their own.

Topics: green grass liquid fertilizer, imo4, imo5, cattle, methane, horses, redox, manganese, aphids, potting mix, pasture management, pigs

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 Countdown
  2. 3:04 Intro and Welcome
  3. 4:58 I Ching Reading: Youthful Folly
  4. 10:55 What's Up, Folks!
  5. 14:52 IMO and KNF Protectors for Horses
  6. 20:15 Apple Cider Vinegar
  7. 20:56 Talking with Office Hours Folks
  8. 24:16 Debunking "Cows Cause Climate Change"
  9. 27:47 Green Grass Liquid Fertilizer Recipe
  10. 37:13 Spraying Microbes from an Airship
  11. 39:39 Grass Management and Bovine Health
  12. 40:43 Upcoming KNF Classes
  13. 41:45 Spraying KNF Solutions on Pastures
  14. 44:20 Talking with Office Hours Folks
  15. 46:44 Results from Master Cho's Nutrient Cycle
  16. 49:04 Redox Fluctuation Science from Partida
  17. 1:05:53 Potting Mix Search on KNF Support
  18. 1:08:37 Thanks for Tuning In

Transcript

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

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