Office Hours

Wood Chips for Mulch, LAB Ferments, and Fish Amino Acid

September 25, 2022 · by Drake Weinert

Drake opens with an I Ching reading on oppression and exhaustion, then answers a run of practical questions. He explains how to ferment aloe vera into a KNF Food for its vitamin E and rooting power, and how banana and sugar ferments feed potassium to potatoes. He announces his Jan 6–12, 2023 certification course (levels 1–3) at knffarm.com, and points farmers to knfsupport.com over the KNF Facebook group for better, ad-free answers.

A viewer's moldy LAB jar leads to a fix: too much airspace and not enough sugar to supersaturate. Wood chip questions follow — amend fresh chips with IMO and KNF Protectors (LAB) so microbes don't steal nitrogen, use his "pile tech" (about 30 gallons of fish waste under wood chips) plus humic acid to kickstart decomposition, and favor straw or grass clippings over wood chips for annual crops since chips push a fungal ratio suited to trees, not annuals.

On EM1: it's lactic acid bacteria, purple non-sulfur bacteria, and yeast, best used sparingly with a KNF Food. On pH, Drake argues microbes manage it locally at the root zone, so building soil biology matters more than chasing a target pH number, and the standard foliar prescriptions already balance acid and alkaline on their own.

Milk questions cover powdered milk as the cheapest LAB base, plus goat's and camel's milk. On anaerobic fermentation, Master Cho's method relies on facultative anaerobes for a broader lactobacillus family. To kickstart soil biology, spread IMO at about 3 lb per 100 sq ft (1,200 lb/acre), drench with Soil Formula, and repeat weekly for two to four weeks — or use JMS, a same-day cheap microbe brew diluted 1:10.

Questions answered

7:07 Any KNF solutions made using aloe vera? — Ferment it into a KNF Food — it's rich in vitamin E, works as a rooting hormone, and helps heal cuttings.
16:27 Why did mold grow on top of a LAB ferment left a few days? — Too much airspace in the jar, and probably not supersaturated enough — no sugar ring at the bottom.
21:54 Are freshwater fish as good as saltwater fish for fish amino acid (FAA)? — Use whatever fish is local to you; blue-black fish like mackerel, sardines, and tuna are ideal for their omega-3s.
26:09 Is it safe to use wood chips directly for mulching, or will they raise acidity? — Amend fresh wood chips with IMO and KNF Protectors (LAB) so microbes break them down instead of stealing nitrogen from your plants.
30:50 Are wood chips good mulch for annual crops? — No — wood chips favor fungus, which suits trees; for annuals use straw or grass clippings for a more bacterial ratio.
32:50 Is EM1 worth trying? — Sure — it's lactic acid bacteria, purple non-sulfur bacteria, and yeast; always feed it with a KNF Food when you use it.
34:51 Does the fungus-to-bacteria ratio affect soil pH? — Yes — microbes manage pH right at the root zone, acidifying or alkalinizing to dissolve whatever nutrient they need.
38:00 Should a foliar maintenance spray be adjusted to correct pH? — No — the KNF prescriptions already balance each other, like the acidic Food against the alkaline Cleanser.
41:43 Is buttermilk suitable for making KNF Protectors (LAB)? — Never tried buttermilk himself; the cheapest reliable option is reconstituted powdered milk.
45:16 Are coffee grounds ideal for trees and forest plantings? — Yes — the parchment breaks down slowly, which suits coffee's natural spot as a forest understory crop.
47:33 Can KNF Protectors (LAB) be made anaerobically, without a curd layer on top? — Master Cho's method relies on facultative anaerobes, which grow through the whole solution, not just sealed off from air.
53:55 What's the best way to kickstart soil biology? — Spread IMO at about 3 lb per 100 sq ft, drench with the Soil Formula, and repeat weekly for two to four weeks.
55:44 What's the fastest, cheapest way to get microbes onto a field? — JMS, the 'disgustingly cheap microbes' — cook rich soil with starch and salt, dilute 1:10, and use within 24 to 48 hours.
1:00:15 Do you need air stones for IMO, or can you do a static soak? — A static soak works, but Drake runs a vortex brewer with an airlift pump instead.
1:01:53 Any way to ripen tomatoes and peppers faster? — Spraying KNF Food made from fruit near the end helps a little, but there's no real way to speed it up.

Topics: lab, imo, fish amino acid, wood chips, em1, ph, jms, soil biology, aloe vera, mulch, coffee grounds

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

Transcript

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0:30 Hey, aloha, and welcome to Korean Natural Farming Office Hours for September 25th, 2022, 9am, Hawaiian Standard Time, pretty much every Sunday. celebrated almost a year actually a year last last week somewhere between this week because exact dates don't line up or I guess if you count it by weeks maybe they would but by days started doing this for a whole year so welcome thanks for being here thanks for

1:17 growing the community thanks for doing natural farming where you are and I'm going to start with a little inspiration and then get into some of the questions here. And yeah, thanks. Thanks for being here. So today is, ooh, hey, oppression or exhaustion. And it's an unavoidable time of adversity. Quiet strength ensures a later success. It is a time of oppression and exhaustion. None of us escape such moments. They are simply a part of living. By meeting them in the correct spirit and cheerfully bending instead of breaking, you weather the adversity

2:07 and meet with success at a later time. Inferior elements either in one self, another, or the larger world interfere now to restrain the superior person. It is foolish to fight against the restraint. Success is simply not possible now. Rid yourself the desire to progress and return to neutrality and acceptance. The stubborn pursuit of results will bring misfortune. With others, quietness and equanimity are the watchwords of the moment. Say little, say it gently A similar reticence and gentleness should be applied to yourself

2:56 Do not lapse into impatience or mistrust of the deity Accept that the creative often works in a way That we cannot see or even understand A feeling of despair or depression is a sign that you are holding to a false belief. To perpetuate an untruth about yourself, another, or the sage is to block your own happiness. Root out and remove any idea or attitude which causes negative feelings. By opening your mind and quieting your heart and calmly holding to proper principles,

3:42 you make possible for the creative to eliminate the oppression that currently exists. Whew, yeah. So, uh, always, always interesting to get these ones where it's like talking about, you know, oppression, exhaustion, and in my life here, feeling pretty good. Not, not exactly sure how that, uh, how that happens. Um, but you know, maybe it's, maybe that reading was for you guys or, and, or maybe there's larger macro pictures that I'm just ignoring that, um, not entirely sure of, you know, if I look, I always have this ticker on my phone. I'm not really sure why, but

4:24 you know, um, and since this is mirrored, it's the stock market going down. And I always just keep that there kind of as like a canary in the mineshaft. I'm not an investor. I don't have any stocks or anything, but I know a bunch of people do. And I watched that thing and it goes down like 3%. Right now it says it's down 1.6%. So imagine that was like your money in there and all of a sudden you lost like 5-6% of your money in like a week or maybe even more. Maybe it'll go down like 20%. Who knows? I always think like the oppression, the exhaustion, maybe it's talking about these,

5:01 um, these larger macro things was just listening to, um, economic ninja on the, you know, I subscribed to his YouTube and, uh, he's talking about multiple currencies collapsing around the world. And it just seems like financially there is, you know, some oppression, some exhaustion out there, um, things going down, but then I go out into my yard, into my garden, and, um, I see things just thriving, kicking butt, growing, growing huge, you know, um, got tons, like tons of bananas coming in right now, um, yeah, and, you know, I actually, I got more bananas than I

5:45 can harvest right now, I gotta, gotta get out there and harvest them, and we're thinking of making, can of food. So taking the bananas, mixing them with sugar, making a ferment, and then feeding that to our potatoes because potassium aggregates a whole bunch of the bananas, banana fruits, and then yeah, that's good for potatoes. So spraying those and getting those things together. So, yeah, it's a beautiful day today. It is, absolutely. It's good to see all you guys tuning in here. We got X Factor in Little Rock, Arkansas, Indiana, Stonemason. How's it, brethren?

6:31 Good to see. It's probably starting to get kind of cold up there, I would imagine. What is the Equinox was the other day, 22nd. It's nice. Shout out to my brethren, Kapila. You got to turn 40 on the Equinox, the little Equinox baby there. And yeah, so good. Yeah, it seems like a good day. Yeah, so and Cheryl, what's up from Idaho? Good to see you. And so Crab Grows is asking here, you know, are there any KNF inputs made using aloe? Excuse me. Can I get off?

7:17 Her. But yeah, yeah. KNF, if you make KNF food from aloe vera, it is one of the best things. You can use it as kind of a rooting hormone, has a ton of vitamin E in it. It's a great drink to drink yourself. and it also really helps you know cuttings and things in fact I know people that'll take little clippings and then stick them into the aloe and and kind of helps helps to heal any you know wounds and those types of things and makes an amazing drink that way so if anyone's done this from aloe let me know I think it's one of those things it tastes terrible I've had it before it

8:02 tastes okay. I was, you know, throwing off sugar in there. Um, and, uh, yeah. So, and then what's up, Tyler? Hey, man. Hey, it's, it's been a good, good time. We're just, we're just looking at some of your photos he took the other day and looking, you know, amen. It's good stuff. Um, our, our Christmas card actually ended up taking that photo with baby bacon and chigs, which chigs had to, had to go, man. He, uh, he's now sleeping, um, permanently. Um, so yeah. And I witnessed down in Florida. What's up? I was talking about you the other day too. It's amazing. People,

8:44 people that come to the farm and Cheryl, you know, I'm just talking, it's like people that come to the farm, check it out. Um, you know, leave a good impact on our lives. Um, you know, my wife and I, Suze, we just reminisce about all these things, and Brandon coming in from New Zealand, what's up, man, another Pacific Islander out there, amazing, so I did, before I jump into any of the rest of this stuff, I did, I think I mentioned it last week as well, but let's see here, this one switch this over i did put up a class here and um i am teaching pure knf the whole

9:27 certification class um you know level one two three all the way um you know so if you know nothing uh it's okay prefer you you do know something before you get here especially if you're familiar with the the solutions but if you don't that's okay um still take you all the way from one, two, and three up, which is basically level one being familiarization with the applications and how to use the solutions. Level two being that you know how to make and manufacture the solutions. And level three being that you go through a teacher training mentorship training program

10:05 so that you know the basics of teaching and how to convey the messages and how to get these solutions out so that you, you know, and also to list yourself as a pure KNF certified teacher so that you can get yourself out there and train people up in your area. And we all know that you have that level of quality and care and everything that you need to do this. So I will be doing this January 6th through the 12th, 2023. three so it's coming up kind of soon and um i do have a few options one is for you know two people

10:46 to come stay in the same cottage save a little bit of money there uh other options are um uh staying in the cottage alone um all their option is to camp here on the land which it's been really nice last these couple weeks it's been raining at night but really nice place I do live on the east side of Hawaii, and it does rain here, just to let you know. Another is to stay some other place and just take the class. So those are up now. If you're thinking about it, you want a Christmas present, some sort of maybe Thanksgiving present, beat the crowds, get there early.

11:25 I already got one cabin reserved, so that means there are two cabins left. Sorry, I only have a few cabins on my land. And when I say cabins, they're not just cabins. They're these here. These Airbnb deluxe things. I mean, you can be staying in luxury. It's nice. You know, rainbows for you. You know, here's these cottages doing their thing. They're real nice. Real nice. You know, look at it. Yeah, here's our farm. This is a picture of a long time ago. Almost all these plants have grown in way bigger. Beautiful sunrises. Get to hang out with us. Tyler took this photo. He stayed here.

12:03 He enjoyed it. It's a great place to go. honeymoon, vacation, eat bananas and breadfruits, although I don't think the breadfruits will still be ready when you get there. Thomas, stay there. Super cozy. Yep, amazing. You know. So I did want to mention that those classes are up and online, and it's kind of first come, first serve. It is knffarm.com. May as well promote some of this, right? But also teaching you guys and getting this out there. the more we spread the message, the more we get people that know what's up and are, you know,

12:39 certified spreading these things, spreading good information, quality stuff. And by the time you've come here and done the class, you will be like, wow. And all the subtleties, you know, there's like, it's kind of like cooking. You can just, you can do it. But if you train with someone on how to cook really well, you get all these subtleties. And sometimes it, you know, it can be, that's why I recommend you're familiar with this stuff before you get here because it can be like, whoa, that's a lot of information because there's so much to it.

13:10 And I've been doing natural farming for 15 years here. So, yeah. And hey, Ben, what's up? Yeah, Ben's coming, actually. And no, Lila didn't bug me too terribly last week. It was fun. She's a persistent and she must really love you and be into it because I was busy. I'm building a shed right now and I was slamming building the site foundation, putting in all kinds of things. And, um, she came by and I went down to go check her out at 11, but then it turns out she wasn't there. So I went back up to the site and it turns out I think she drove to my parents'

13:47 place. Then I had to cut anyway, persistent, amazing. Uh, got a copy of the book to you. And, um, yeah, the fire hose of information happens. So, um, so those things are there doing that. Um, and, um, other thing I wanted to share with you guys is just that, um, here we are, you know, one year into office hours doing these things, but I'm going to pull this up on this side here. And here, this is the, how do I maximize this thing? Come on, why doesn't it maximize? Oh, it only minimizes. Nope, doesn't do it. Okay, well, anyway, that's the size window

14:34 you get. I'll slide it over to the left so I'm not covering it. But I just want to show you, you know, one of the reasons I started to do this office hour is because of the KNF group here. And if you look at this, here it is, and it's still a lot of basic questions that, you know, are back here. You know, someone's asking about WCAP, which is structure. And I think part of it, too, is that the information, the vocabulary is kind of weird. But here it is, you know, like folks still, here's some good solutions, good people. Like that's a really nice IMO this guy made here. Good job on that one.

15:20 But still a lot of people I think would benefit from listening to the office hour and getting into it. And a lot of these questions coming up and it's good. It's good. But every time I scroll the Facebook group, I'm like, oh man, same basic questions. and I see people making similar errors on these things. So I don't know. Huh, interesting here. But yeah, so look at that IMO. Oh, man. Is this a good collection? No, not really. But here's Joseph. He came here, did the training.

16:07 answering the questions and getting into there and trying to help folks get in there. But it's just kind of interesting to me that it's always, you know, I scroll in here and I'm like, oh, it's always the same basic questions. A lot of these people would benefit, I think, go check out the office hours, check out some of the learning series. So, you know, question to you guys. Why do you think this bridge in here got this mold on top, you know? sitting in the jar a few days. Now it has mold on top. Is it okay? What do you guys think? I know you guys have been here tuning in for a little bit.

16:44 Yes, it is a Casio F91W. Watch that I have, of course. All the greatest minds in the world wear these things, including President Obama and, ironically enough, Osama Bin Laden. So, whether you're on the side of good or bad or ambiguity, we all wear one of these yeah i got a custom band on mine though um what cheryl said yeah yeah that fire hose of information um too too much airspace yes absolutely that's why yeah look at this jar you are amazing cheryl you know but he put this in this huge jar it is less

17:28 like a quarter to a third full it's like it's kind of less than a quarter full of this jar too much airspace that's why the mold grew absolutely that is the answer and um also maybe he didn't super saturate enough i don't see a sugar ring at the bottom so maybe he didn't super saturate enough but a combo of not super saturating plus too much airspace that is why um so you guys knowing this getting in there doing the things um you know and then and then it's always kind of interesting you know we get questions like does anyone try this method in the high desert

18:08 it's like i want to one interesting thing to me about facebook is like folks folks go in there and they just ask questions right away without even searching it's like just hit this thing here and type into this like desert and it's like before you go and get your get your question answered you could see that um man this uh you know the table of contents on this one here does it have it no but um you know you can see here like all these folks doing it in the desert and it's always it's always interesting to me when i see you know like even look at spencer

18:45 man, that looks like a high desert to me, trying to some IMOs with his loader there, I wish I had one of those, man, track loader, it's a nice thing, but yeah, scrolling, looking, it's, it's, so anyway, enough, enough, enough talking about that, but there is, I don't know, let's see, and you guys, you guys already here know all this, yeah, it's transferred to a smaller jar, um, stick it in the fridge. Yeah. If I only had a Facebook, I only, that's the only thing I do. You know, people friended me on Facebook. I quit it by the way, which was a kind of a recent

19:25 topic that we've been talking about. Um, uh, one of Suze's best friends and my good friend, uh, staying with us this week. And she was talking about, you know, um, just the, the terribleness of social medias. And then, you know, I talk about the benefits of it too. I've been basically Facebook sober for since January 2022. So I guess this year, no, was it? Yeah. Yeah. 2020? No, I don't know. 2020? 21? I don't know. 2021, I think. I quit January 2021. one so uh quit that stuff and um you know it's okay but um building up other services can of

20:11 support so here you know if if you went you know i just i just searched on facebook a little bit for that um for desert there but even better you search here can of support and you search this for desert and let's see even better even better answers that come up here so soil um you know here's someone asking you know i bag soil because they live in a desert poor soil here's imo collection in dry climates um imo collection during drought collecting imo in southern california And so even this site off Facebook, a site that's run by the Pure Canna Foundation, even better way to find these answers.

20:59 And you don't have to share your data with the Zuck. None of the data collected here goes anywhere. It's owned by, I guess, the foundation. I don't even know if there's a terms of service on it. But basically, what happens here stays here. And you get great answers, like, look at this in the dry climate here. You know, here's a couple great answers. You know, the two Microbial Secret Society episodes. Getting great answers for folks. And these answers, then you can vote them up if you like them. And the best ones can float to the top. So it's even better than Facebook there.

21:42 um so yeah someone's asking about oh are freshwater fish as good as salt water for the fish aminos um you know that's a great question and in your answer they're answering it here um yeah use what's local as best i like that answer um and then i just um you know the classic um master chose um answers here like if i look up let's see um like this old book here pull this guy up over here

22:31 and um so you know you guys are asking what's ideal what's great this is an old book written by Master Cho and Joo Young, translated by this PhD guy, which did not the best job at translating it. But if I look here in the second page, it looks like FA is recipe number five. So scrolling down, down, four, five. Okay. So the whole reason for blue, black, fish is given right here where it talks about the blue black fish is common name for the blue

23:18 colored fishes for example mackerel spanish mackerel horse mackerel sauri garfish herring yellowtail sardines salmon sweetfish bluefin tuna skipjack tuna anchovies blueback fishes have good proteins amino acids and fatty acids they contain a lot of dha and epa which i'm not sure what the exactly that is, which are well-known unsaturated fatty acids that are recognized as healthy food. Both DHA and EPA function to lower cholesterol levels and prevent adult diseases such as arteriosclerosis and high blood pressure.

24:01 Blue-black fish help children to be bright by supplying oxygen to their brain cells. Mm-hmm. Need some more of that these days. Blue-black fish also prevent Alzheimer's disease in elderly people by preventing aging and death of brain cells. Blue-black fish contain various amounts of vitamins. Vitamin A prevents night blindness and strengthens the immune system, increasing resistance to diseases such as the common cold. and vitamin b complex prevents anemia and beriberi and helps their cells to regenerate vitamin e functions to slow down the aging process by blocking peroxide per peroxized

24:47 lipids in the cells such effects is also excellent in plants as well so all those things for you but also your plants right you know you ever think your plants getting diabetes They might, right? I don't know. I think it's maybe slightly different, but who knows? You know, thinking of the plants getting Alzheimer's, well, if they forget where they are, they're still in the same place. But all those things, yeah, fish heavy and omegas, this is exactly what you guys are talking about. These are the reasons for using the blue-black fish.

25:24 But it also talks about salmons, and I don't know if trouts fit into this. I don't think it was listed on this list. And if you're worried about contamination and pollutants, man, you know, the best thing you can do is when you go to the beach, spread IMOs and stop being part of the problem. Put an IMO sprayer in your car, start spraying the IMOs. And, you know, toxins or toxins are everywhere. and I don't know, you know, it's almost impossible to avoid them. So I'd say you're probably better off just going with what you got and causing less toxins as you do it. Hey, James from Tanzania.

26:13 And is it safe, he's asking, is it safe to use chipwoods direct for mulching? Some say it will increase soil acidity. Please advise. So one thing is when you use fresh wood chips is what can happen is fresh wood chips require, like sometimes people say it'll steal nitrogen or increase acidity, which are similar processes happening. At least I think so. I'm not exactly sure on that. But the chips, they can steal nitrogen from the plant. But really what they're doing is they're taking all the nitrogen to grow microbes in your wood chip pile.

26:58 So if you're going to use fresh wood chips, I highly recommend that you amend your wood chips with the indigenous microbes. And the KNF protectors, the lactic acid bacterias, you amend those two things in there to really help kickstart the breaking down process. as well as keep the plant from stealing nutrients because as it's growing biology, it'll suck the nutrients out to do it. But if you amend your chips as they're fresh, it'll work. If you're going to wait a little bit and compost them for about two weeks before you use them as well, that can help.

27:36 Sometimes it depends how thick you put the wood chips, but fresh thick wood chips can really heat up and then cause the plant also some stress to die. But getting those things, you know, I use what I call pile tech, which is basically, and now I've been dropping fish waste. So I actually drop a pile of fish, like think about 30 gallons of fish, and then I cover that with wood chips on top.

28:04 And then I put that around where my fruit trees are, existing fruit trees, or I plant, you know, drop a pile like that and then plant around that my taros and cassavas and sugar canes and more and more of my garden type of crops around those. And those things are are are doing great. So, um, so for, for wood chips, I would say, um, and then also if you can get humic acid, which is like, um, taking, um, compost and running water through it, not spraying it to make it come off, but just passively running water through it. And you get that humic acid.

28:45 If you apply that also to your fresh wood chips, um, it'll really help kick off their, um, their process to decompose and to grow the fungal stuff that you need. And so other thing too is that if, let's see here, if I look into, let's see, I should probably have it open here somewhere. do I do I do I no um let's see open the recipe book here because there's another there's another relevant chart um which makes a big difference for you um hang on oh I should just find it this

29:32 way I should have this thing on a shortcut is really what it comes down to um let's see Okay, so in the recipe, the thing that I'm going to pull up is one that shows where there's a succession in forestry. And that, let's see here, pull this up and let's find the right page here, is this graph here. And make sure I'm on the right thing here and make this a little bigger. And so what I wanted to show you is this as well here. And make this even slightly bigger.

30:17 Too big. Okay, so this here is that if I'm, and this is the difference between like forests over here, where they have this column coming across here is bacteria, this upper column here, and then this column coming across is fungus. and in a forest there's like 700, 7,000. It's these large quantities of bacteria but also a ton of fungus and that is most conducive to growing trees. If you are using wood chips from trees on annual cultivation, you maybe are adding more, it's more conducive to this fungal populations

31:06 than it is to this annual cultivation. So if you were to do annual cultivation, your ideal mulch instead of wood chips for annuals and perennials is going to be like hay, or not hay, straw, or grass clippings or those types of things. And balancing these out that way, versus putting wood chips. If you're putting wood chips on trees and forests, that's when you're getting more fungal, and the wood chips are broken down by more fungal things and that's a better thing. So, you know, pathways and things you want to have slow, slow growing,

31:45 weeds not come in as fast, wood chips, areas you want to have faster growing crops, you're going to want to have a little bit more of a bacterial than fungal ratio, about 2 to 1 here and about 1 to 1 here. So versus this one is one to like negative 10 or whatever, whatever. If I was using that same ratio here, it actually be 10 instead of, you know, like one to two or one to one. So so do be aware of that as well with your wood chips and those things. And it lost the sound. No, I think the sound's still coming. I'm not exactly sure. I should probably clean this up when I get feedback on there.

32:30 Okay, so going up here. Yeah. So, yeah. Okay, so, yeah. Yeah. Oh, so 808 Shibi Haskin helped out on the farm this weekend. I got gifted a bottle of EM1. Try it or chuck it. I would say try it. Try it. EM1. And if anything, you know, my friend Cab, who makes EM1 up on the north side of the island, he always says, if anything, just flush it down the toilet. You're going to help clean the planet, help clean the wastewater, clean your sewer lines out,

33:19 dump it into a, you know, if you're on Oahu, dump it in the Alawai Canal. Oh, all of a L-Y. Welcome to Hanalulu. But yeah, EM1 is great. It is essentially what you're getting with EM1 is lactic acid bacteria, which are the KNF protectors. You are getting purple non-sulfur bacteria, which you can get out of pond water. and you're also getting a certain family of yeasts, which all three of those things are great individual components that can be used in natural farming. The main one, of course, KNF protectors makes the biggest difference, but the other purple non-sulfur bacterias

34:04 help, they synthesize sunlight and turn it into energy. They photosynthesize and And the yeasts are always healthy, help clean up excess nutrients and things and keep things in balance. So it can help firm things up that way. Yeasts love eating sugar. So I would make, you know, keep the EM around, use it, use it sparingly. If you're going to use it, always include a food with it because it's like you're putting out a bunch of microbes. Those microbes need to eat. Mix it in with some manures. you know, really, really amplify it and use a whole bunch of it for yourself.

34:51 And Partita got some great comments here, and surely the pH is dependent on the ratios of fungus to biology. And yeah, it, you know, in addition to, in addition to changing pH and things, you know, there is a different pH if you sample the forest versus the annuals. And, um, but the microbes, you know, if you're worried about macro pH, the microbes manage micro pH and like right around your root zone, if they need to solubilize certain things, they'll acidify it or alkalinize it. And, and then it'll make more, um, more things more available or less. So the plant will exude different sugars.

35:33 The bacterias will then change the pH in the soil to make it available. So there's a great thing here where I'm just going to search pH solubility of fertilizer. I'm just going to search this and see what it gives me. Yeah, here. So this is what I'm talking about here where, let's see. this here where basically in different um different um ph's you know down here's the scale the bottom okay can i multiply this or i gotta zoom in this way um but in in the um

36:25 different ph's down there at the bottom you can see that like for instance iron is very absorb is very dissolvable at very low pH. And so is boron, manganese, copper, and zinc. Whereas the NPK are absorbable around the 7 pH, and then also down in very highly acidic, or excuse me, strongly alkaline things like the molybendium over there. And so what you got to realize is that if you're trying to macro manage pH, and you're trying to make it all seven because you know you were told that seven ph is where the plant wants to grow and

37:02 what it likes to do well then you're going to miss out all your iron and manganese and boron or at least some i mean it kind of overlaps here but but a lot of it you know here and so you're better off to get good biology in the soil and then they they will dissolve it right so this is only looking at a few um a few of the nutrients there's much more than this you know there's there's gold there's all these other things which applying seawater can do. But this is why that if you're trying to macro manage the pH, you're always going to have a hard time.

37:32 And some people are always like, oh, my pH is off. It's like, well, actually, if you get more biology and more organic matter, organic material or organic matter in there, the biology will start to grow and it will manage your pH to break it down the way it wants to instead of you trying to do it. So I always recommend that and, you know, understanding the pH for these things. Um, um, and, um, you know, so speaking, speaking of pH, do I recommend pH correcting the foliar maintenance sprays? Um, the answer is no, not really, because if, if I go here and I look, I'll pull up this

38:13 here where this is the, um, all the, all the maintenance or excuse me, all the, um, sprays you would be doing foliarly, you know, the seven different prescriptions of how to include the nine solutions to make these. They balance each other out like this. For instance, the food here is acidic, but the cleanser is alkaline. And then the structure should actually be neutral and the medicine, I haven't checked the pH recently, so I'm not sure. But these tend to balance out. you know the minerals are going to be alkaline protectors are going to be i think slightly for

38:55 sure acidic um so these two balancing and then again the food the cleanser balancing each other out um and they they tend to balance out pretty well i've never had um like ph problems and as the goofman is saying a little bit of acidity helps to open the pores and the leaves to take things in. You know, there's all this more complex stuff that I really think that one of the impediments to us has been focusing too much on the chemistry of farming versus the biology of farming. Like if you're just taking material and you're fermenting it using the biology and then

39:37 putting it back to a plant and then you're getting all the chemistry because the plant itself had the right chemistry, then you're fermenting and extracting it. Then you're spraying it back. You're giving like the chemistry is like there. And if you focus too much on the chemistry, you'll be looking at one element and you'll be upsetting your balance coming, coming back and forth, you know, um, versus you look at the biology of it. And if, if your biology is healthy, your chemistry is healthy like there's no way to have um you know bad chemistry with healthy

40:16 biology like it just doesn't happen so if you focus on the biology you really get good biology in there the chemistry just by its nature without knowing too much without having a mass spectrometer without doing chemical analysis you can understand that your chemistry is healthy it must be for for life to thrive, the chemistry has to balance. So if you focus, that's why I often tell like focus on the biology. Um, and yeah, and then in Mike Mitchell here is saying, you know, if you don't have the biology, there's no point to focus on the chemistry. But you know, if, if I listened to,

40:51 you know, some YouTubes of, of, um, farmers down in, um, down in Florida, where they having all these citrus issues, they're like, I've sterilized my field. My things still aren't going and I've sterilize all this and I have all these problems. It's like, well, there's this idea of like sterility is like good and clean for plants and like killing everything and nuking it all. And just, you know, like spraying so much chemicals that you kill it all. And that's actually the opposite, right? If you're putting good biology and no offense, if that's you and you're doing

41:24 oranges, maybe, you know, maybe that's your old self talking, right? Your new self can say, Hey, I got all these, all this great biology and I don't even have any of these problems anymore. I don't have to spray all these chemicals. In fact, I spray good biology. I put it out there and now, you know, all my problems went away, right? That's your new self talking, right? Old self was like trying to think sterility, killing, cleaning versus your new self is thinking of amending, letting the biology do the work, hiring trillions of workers that way, doing these things.

41:58 Um, and I, um, and so, yeah, it's a, it's a different, different, uh, take on things here. Um, so, um, in, uh, so Ben here is asking, uh, is buttermilk suitable for making lab? I've never used buttermilk. I don't know. That's a great question. Um, I've used almost every type of milk at this point in my life. I haven't used buttermilk. um i even use like non-fat um half and half stuff which is really i don't know why people would drink that i look at the ingredients i'm like oh this is why people have cancer

42:40 um because milk is just supposed to be milk man straight from the cow um and you know half and half you'd get the cream mix it with the milk and it'd be delicious awesome product but the half and half no fat like let me let me see if I can pull this up and see if I can pull this up oh it's like maybe I'm searching the wrong I'm gonna just search zero fat half and half it's this dairy gold stuff yeah where's but let me see if I can find ingredients you can use all kinds of stuff here um let's see where's the ingredients on it

43:29 is it they don't even show it on the internet censored um let's see here no this is oh maybe no it's not the right one well this one is kind of not really anyway um Yeah, and if buttermilk is expensive, then yeah, use the cheaper stuff. Try and, you know, the cheapest way to make lactic acid bacteria is to get powdered milk. Reconstitute that. Use that for sure. Let's see. Anyway, the point is, like, I'm reading one of these things here, and it has, you know, medium-chain triglycerides. um, organic acacia flour or fiber, um, dipotassium phosphate, sodium citrate, uh,

44:23 jellar gum and coagulant extract. And, um, you know, so you can, lacto are really powerful. You can use all kinds of things and they will take it over. Main thing is that you want to have the, you know, the, you know, the, the fats and the proteins, you want to have the milk, the lactic acid, you know, lactic acid, build lactic acid bacteria the best, right? So having lactose in there, I think, yeah, lactose, and then they make lactase and they break it down and it's this really cool process. um so um and so Mitchell is asking are coffee grounds more ideal for trees forest um yeah the parchment

45:16 the parchment breaks down slow so um it'd be good for trees and forest again your your coffee is coming from like think of where it came from and what you want to put it on uh coffee's like understory in the forest type of thing growing. One second. So, okay. Oh, yeah. Okay. So coming back, getting these things. Yeah. So container growers might worry more about pH. It seems irrelevant where we do not also consider the oxidative stress of the pH to the electrical content. Yeah, you know, growing in a container, you know, if anything,

46:12 try to make it as natural as possible. Grow a cover crop, mulch it with straw, try and make as much of a natural thing as possible. Thank you. Bless me. Thank you. Thank you. And Julia has goat's milk and she says it works great. And I totally believe that, you know, getting your own milk, having that situation where you can do it, you know, if you are in a dairy situation, you've got tons of milk left over, what to do with it, ferment it, get it out there. Right now I've been collecting milk from a, um,

46:53 a distributor of food and luckily like every other week or so I'll get about 30 gallons of milk and, um, and I ferment that. And, uh, is that Chris Chang there? I don't know. what's up brettah um camel's milk has the best most nutritious you know but it's only if you own camels right the middle eastern folks awesome they got tons of camels over there but if you don't you know you don't have it um you know it's hard to get um okay so any issue making lactic acid bacteria anaerobically other than not getting the curd

47:37 layer on top okay so um oh wow camels he's powdered camel's milk amazing um so no there you know um so the whole point of master chose recipes uh for the lactic acid bacteria is that But the way he does it, he actually makes it in a way where the whole idea is that you increase the diversity. Okay, so if I switch over to his old book here and it says, you know, the LAB are effective. It says they're conditionally anaerobic, which I think, shoot, there's actually a specific word of what they are.

48:26 I can't think of it right now, but the way that they grow, they can do well without oxygen. And there is a guy that I did, he sent me a message and he was testing like the amount of like lacto, let's see if I can find that. Um, oh man, this is gonna be hard to find live, but he was sending me, um, a thing where he was talking about, um, lacto. Oh, let's see.

49:12 Um, where he was, what he was saying is, um, um, oh wow there's someone else kate's natural farm nature farm um doing these things where he was saying he was trying the lactic acid versus oh what it is it's faculty facultatively anaerobic um yeah and i do pile tech yeah um and um he was making it um let's see here he was doing one where it was a comparison um but uh i can't find it right now

49:59 oh yeah okay so so here it is here it is um transition is over and so he he was trying a comparison and then trying it under the microscope and seeing this stuff and he was saying oh you know it's way better here i'm gonna skip through most of him talking here um but he was saying that he came out with uh lacto being better and anaerobic but the whole point is that actually um is that you're getting a broader family of lacto using that um master chose methods so i know he's kind of he's kind of saying like maybe it's like an inferior

50:42 method sort of based on what he was saying um you know um this is his conclusion um it says you know he was getting a higher active lacto count which means that those lacto were just activated at that conditions it's not that other you know and um and he said you get more serum being closed um and so he was saying it's superior in everything which you know from my understanding the whole point of what, um, Master Cho is talking about is a broader family. If you do a closed lacto ferment, you're going to get a much narrower family. And if you look at lactobacillus,

51:20 they're actually a broad family. And so, um, but, um, but I'm open to the idea and, you know, it'd be interesting to see, um, you know, going out and he did say he did some side-by-side, trials of this stuff, but, um, but, um, yeah. Um, smallest container I'd recommend. I'd go as big as you can, man. Um, yeah, facultative anaerobes. Thanks, Jim. Yeah, that's the, that's the name for it. And then, um, You know, another one, since we're kind of on this topic, facultative anaerobe, and then the interesting thing about this was that

52:09 I thought this photo here was interesting here. So let me pull this up here. and so this here this one here is an obligate anaerobic and look most of the microbes are at the top facultatively anaerobic they're at the top but they're also through this aerotolerant anaerobic means that you know they're distributed everywhere if it's strict anaerobic they're at the bottom and if it's a micro anaphyl they're kind of here at the top so So this is where a facultative anaerobe, its distribution here is going to be at the top as well as all the way through.

52:53 But most of them, they thrive better with a little bit of oxygen here at the top, but they can live without it. So this, again, a reason for an open ferment is that this is the broader family, right? If you're doing have oxygen here at the top, you're getting these other different microbes, you know, LAB growing at the top and throughout your solution. You know, if it's just a strict anaerobe, they'd be at the bottom in this distribution. So so I hope this is kind of interesting to you.

53:25 When I found this graphic here and I was like looking at this, I was like, oh, kind of helped me to understand how to culture the LAB a little better. They're primarily right on the surface here, but then they're all throughout your solution. So if anything, that's interesting there for you guys. Yeah, and I grow mostly outside just because I'm here in Hawaii. And it's always going, what's the best way to kickstart the biology? Make IMO and follow this formula here. So go through and follow your soil. Let's see, where is it? Sorry, coming down, coming down.

54:11 Right here, where basically what's the best way to kickstart biology? It's this right here, building soil foundation. And establish it two to four weeks before planting in the field. Step one, spread the IMOs about three pounds per hundred square feet or 1,200 pounds an acre. you just dust that over the top and then repeat every seven days for two to four weeks drench it so right after you spread it drench it five gallons per hundred square feet or two thousand gallons an acre which seems like a lot but if you really concentrate your microbes in

54:45 the right area and you do it right or you do it right before it rains even better or you do it in the springtime when it's really moist and your soil is really moist less water you need but you put on this soil formula so microbes spread out three pounds per 100 square feet and then soil formula on top of that what is the soil formula it's right here soil formula has food cleanser medicine structure protectors and minerals in there so that all that food and all this this solution goes together and activates your microbes you put it down you know every other every week for two weeks.

55:26 It should have good food. If you have really poor soil for a month, you put it down every week, and this feeds them and helps them establish themselves, right? So that's the great way. That's the best way to do it. Best way. Second best way is down here in the disgustingly cheap microbes. This is a terribly low-cost solution. And water, rich microbial soil, starch salt cook that all together stir it up and then dilute it about one to ten with water use it immediately and within your first 24 to 48 hours and put that out there and this is a great

56:09 way to get microbes out there quick and dirty so um so that's the other recipe good way to do it And, yeah, so JMS is the fastest way, and this is a thing that people would call JMS. It's disgustingly cheap microbes, also known as JDAM Microbe Solution, and a great way to do it. So, yeah, fastest way because you don't have to prep all the IMOs and all that stuff. So, yeah, and you can use liquid IMO, make a liquid IMO and do that and all these things.

56:56 And you guys are saying all that this, you know, the disgustingly cheap microbes is the way to do it. The win, right? It's, you know, it all depends on where you're at, when you're at, what you're doing, care, attention, you know. um, Master Cho's stuff is like a symphony. It's very well composed. It's very complex versus Young Song Cho's, um, disgustingly cheap stuff is more like just like a pop song. It's like put together to make some money quick, right? It's not going to last. It's not going to be the time, you know, like how many people are still listening to Britney Spears versus

57:30 how many people are still listening to Mozart, right? And you'll find that, you know, um, so So anyhow, that's kind of the difference between them, the sophistication on one or the other. And seaweed extracts to boost root hormones without disturbing the bloom cycle. Yep, seems good. All these things, you know, learning all these things. um yeah yeah i'm glad glad you guys are getting into it and um so and then yeah since we're almost almost done with the day here of my sister's getting

58:19 married this week yeah so i'm gonna be over on the other side of the island all week um doing that my sister's here from colorado yep my sister lives in colorado and she's here in hawaii getting married having a good time we just had a barbecue farm tour all her um relative or her husband future husband's relatives were here went up to the farm uh checked out the pig pen they got to eat some fresh um bananas right out harvest those eat those um and they got to see the the pigs, they were pretty impressed. They're like, really? There is no smell. It's like,

58:58 yeah. And the pigs are so cute and lovable and petable. And I got in there with Papa Lalo and gave him some pets. He didn't roll over because he was busy eating. But anyway, before we go, I started off the office hour this week talking about class coming up, the KNF Farm. So knffarm.com, you can check it out get into the trainings here you click on this little guy here it takes you over here you can learn about the trainings and sign up get in there come on over have a good time you know all these folks they're out there doing stuff you can you can go contact any you know I

59:42 should put up more photos because Thomas was here we had a whole bunch of classes between now and why I put these photos up. And, um, yeah, so yeah, can a family fun. Uh, in fact, yeah, my sister's getting into the microbes too. Um, she's, um, you know, actually she's been using a lot for her own, uh, personal health, getting that together. Um, and also we've been, uh, we'll, we've been talking with, um, farmers union will probably be at the Maui convention, um, December 4th. In fact, I think I definitely will be there. And I think we'll be doing some KNAP. So if you're

1:00:21 on the island of Maui, you want to come down, check that out. HFUU.org, check that out. We'll be at their convention. Suze and I will be there enjoying it all. And yeah, vulnerable, emotional, sensitive bridesmaids. And Mitchell was asking, do you have air stones for limo? Could you just do a static soak? It's possible to do a static soak. I actually, if you look at my, let's see, if you, what I end up running is actually a Vortex Brewer. So my channel here and search up.

1:01:08 what I end up running is something similar to this. This isn't exactly it, but something similar to this is what I'm running. So where it's actually using an airlift pump and it's vortexing the water around and around. So it's little airs coming in through this line, water's recycling with an airlift pump to get it to vortex around. This is what I end up using for my brewer and if you look at the top it's it's sucking in all this air and stuff and it's a really simple easy method this five gallons i'll then dilute um huge into like you know dilute it

1:01:47 one to ten or at least maybe even one to a hundred somewhere in there depending on what i'm doing and um makes a whole lot so five gallons goes a huge way so that's that's what i end up using instead of that. Any suggestions for ripening tomatoes and peppers quicker? There's no real, you know, if you spray the can of food made from fruits on it towards the end, it will help it to ripen. There's no way to really speed it up. Although if you do can off the whole way through, I've heard that your things ripen faster than other people. I'm not exactly sure.

1:02:23 um matt drear has been using this he's been pulling carrots faster um and partita isn't mentioning that dandelion tea helps ripen tomatoes um and just using a stick is a good way to do it too so um so last little bit i wanted to get to is just the pure knf foundation thank them for sponsoring this and let you know that they're you know the the whole point of pure canna foundation is our mission let's see this i'm gonna make it bigger the mission is to balance life through microbial awareness education and action so

1:03:01 they've been helping sponsor this show for the past year it's been going huge i'm glad we built this audience um we're working on the directory to get that together so that you guys can find each other easier and to do all that. But big shout out to those guys. If you do want to help out the foundation itself, you could make a donation here. Or Cheryl kicked out super chat on this one. That's awesome. Really appreciate it. You can slam that thanks button down at the bottom if you really liked it. You know, not that you have to do best things to go out and do natural

1:03:36 farming, but you know, you help out the people that help you out and pretty soon the world is a great place. So I really want to thank you guys for tuning in. Thank you guys. If you have any photos you want to send me for next week, whatever, it'll be good. I love sharing things back to you guys and being a conduit to help all these things happen. I love what's happening in the chat where you guys are talking about silica and how, you know, dandelions and all these things. It's amazing. This is why I do what I do and working every week to be a better person. So thank you.

1:04:14 Hope your oppression and or exhaustion is brief and short-lived and or it's not you. Maybe it's the world and we can live through it because we find our center in ourselves. We strengthen ourselves. We know that what we're doing is the right thing. And thank you. Yeah. So long live the natural farmer. Aloha. Love you. See you next week. Allah.