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Fermented Mixed Compost, JLF Dilution, Human Manure Fertilizer

September 1, 2024 · by Drake Weinert

Drake opens with the day's I Ching reading (Feng, abundance), then catches up with viewers about persimmons, breadfruit, and a hurricane that dropped 20 inches of rain in a weekend. He plugs Pure KNF Foundation's September 8 member meeting with Reverend Logan Silsley of His Majesty's Farm in Kona, and points people to the "human health" playlist on his YouTube channel for IMO baths and related topics after he couldn't recall Master Cho ever addressing uterine fibroids specifically.

Working through Master Cho's Madang slides, he covers fermented mixed compost: best started in fall, with November through March ideal since fermenting microbes like Aspergillus oryzae, Mucor, and Rhizopus favor temperatures below 10°C. Mix in IMO4 at 10% of the pile's material, and it takes roughly two to four weeks to finish.

Most of the episode covers Young Song Cho's cheap liquid fertilizers, JLF and Medaj — made with no sugar, just water, plant scraps, and microbially rich soil left to putrefy for two to four weeks. Drake walks through examples using potato tops, wild grass, purslane, strawberries, and cherry tomatoes, and stresses diluting at least 100 to 1 before use, adding lactic acid bacteria at application time, and watching for mosquito breeding and microplastics leaching from plastic barrels.

He closes on Young Song Cho's slides covering human manure and urine as fertilizer, questioning the precision of the nutrient-analysis numbers while agreeing that composting a household's own waste can supply a large share of a farm's fertilizer for free.

Questions answered

  • 11:52 When's the next Pure KNF Foundation member meeting and who's the guest? — September 8, with Reverend Logan Silsley from His Majesty's Farm in Kona.
  • 15:03 Did Master Cho ever cover healing fibroids with any KNF recipes? — Drake couldn't recall Master Cho addressing fibroids directly; his general go-to is an IMO bath, though Drake wasn't sure that would help a tumor-like growth.
  • 27:42 What's the general time frame for making fermented mixed compost? — Best started in fall, with November to March ideal since fermenting microbes like Aspergillus oryzae favor temperatures below 10°C; mix in IMO4 at 10% of the pile and expect two to four weeks.
  • 30:03 How does Young Song Cho's 'disgustingly cheap' liquid fertilizer differ from Master Cho's methods? — It skips sugar, molasses, vinegar, and alcohol entirely, using just water, plant material, and microbially rich soil, so it's putrefaction rather than fermentation.
  • 39:39 Should lactic acid bacteria be added to JLF while it brews? — Not while it's brewing, but add LAB when mixing it up to spray or drench to help offset the putrefaction contamination.
  • 40:22 When is JLF actually ready to use? — It needs about two to four weeks of rotting before it's usable; using it too early wastes the batch.
  • 42:23 How should JLF be diluted before applying it to crops? — Dilute at least 100 to 1, or let a barrel fill and dilute naturally with rainwater in the tropics.
  • 47:44 Can you make liquid fertilizer targeted to a specific crop, like purslane or tomatoes? — Yes, rotting a single crop such as purslane, strawberries, or cherry tomatoes in water gives a fertilizer with that plant's own nutrient profile.
  • 52:48 Do plastic JLF barrels contaminate the fertilizer with microplastics? — Yes, that's a real tradeoff; glass jugs or clay vessels avoid it, though most people stick with plastic since the method is already so cheap.
  • 54:13 Does Young Song Cho's method require tracking NPK and separate solutions per growth stage? — No, he uses one balanced wild-grass-and-crop-residue fertilizer the whole cycle, though Drake thinks that oversimplifies the biology.
  • 59:45 What does the nutritional analysis of Young Song Cho's fermented human manure show? — Drake read through the chart on screen, noting a decent C:N ratio and a higher-than-expected pH, while questioning how precise the lab numbers really are.
  • 1:03:29 How much fertilizer can a household produce from its own waste? — Roughly a ton of human manure liquid fertilizer, over two tons of urine fertilizer, and two tons of food waste fertilizer, though the timeframe wasn't clear.

Topics: fermented mixed compost, imo, jlf, medaj, putrefaction, purslane, human manure, urine fertilizer, microplastics, young song cho, fibroids

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 Intro and I Ching reading
  2. 5:32 Community check-in: persimmons, breadfruit abundance
  3. 9:23 Storm recap: 20 inches of rain
  4. 11:01 Pure KNF Foundation meeting Sept 8 with Logan Silsley
  5. 15:03 Question: KNF and uterine fibroids
  6. 18:17 IMO bath, pyrotherapy, and the human health playlist
  7. 23:06 Madang: fermented mixed compost timing
  8. 30:03 Making JLF/Medaj: putrefaction vs fermentation
  9. 34:53 Potato residue and microbially rich soil
  10. 40:22 JLF timing, dilution ratio, mosquito control
  11. 43:04 Korea trip stories: Young Song Cho's farms
  12. 47:44 Wild grass and purslane liquid fertilizer
  13. 52:48 Microplastics and skipping NPK theory
  14. 58:58 Young Song Cho's poop and urine fertilizer
  15. 1:06:17 Wrap-up and next week preview

Transcript

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

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