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One IMO4, Three IMO5s: Match the Plant's Stage

Master Cho Han-kyu (interpreted by Dr. Hoon Park), Cho Global Natural Farming (CGNF); Dr. Park calls him 'our Chairman Cho'. Evening lecture to the field-trip group; the room is not named in the audio. · South Korea

Spoken in Korean. Translated to English and checked line by line.

The group in the lecture room that evening, Master Cho front row center.
The group in the lecture room that evening, Master Cho front row center.
Master Cho at the whiteboard, with Dr. Hoon Park interpreting (frame from the video).
Master Cho at the whiteboard, with Dr. Hoon Park interpreting (frame from the video).
Taking the group photo at the break (frame from the video).
Taking the group photo at the break (frame from the video).

Video of this visit will be added to the members' archive. The transcript times below match that recording.

After the farm visits of October 6, 2016, Master Cho Han-kyu gave the field-trip group an evening lecture, interpreted by Dr. Hoon Park, on one idea: IMO5 is not one recipe. The IMO4 base stays the same, and what goes in depends on the crop's stage: fish protein for early growth, calcium phosphate from charred bone for the changeover, calcium from charred shell for maturing. He worked it through with corn (calcium phosphate about a week before the changeover, day 58 of 180), then covered seawater at 1:30, a vinegar, LAB and yeast tonic, and an alcohol, mugwort and dropwort recovery mix with doses for pigs.

What they found

The question

Master Cho's main claim for the evening: Microbes (IMO5) should change with the crop's growth stage, so a farmer has to know the stage, above all the start of the changeover, before deciding what to add to IMO4 and when to give it.

How they tested it

Evening of October 6, 2016, the second field-trip day, after the visit to Lee Eun-ha's missionary farm (record 27) and dinner. A meeting room with a Korean flag, green walls and a whiteboard; the venue is not named in the audio. Master Cho speaks Korean at the whiteboard; Dr. Hoon Park interprets into English and relays questions both ways. About 85 minutes: some 19 minutes before dinner, when Cho is mostly off-mic, and the rest after. The audience is the Hawaiʻi group and Korean participants. Nothing is examined or measured: the examples are corn, sugarcane, tomato, pepper, eggplant, hens and sows, plus the ten-ear corn shown at the symposium. Rates for most mixes are not stated.

What was compared
  • IMO5 for early growth (nutritive stage, 'type 2') — IMO4 plus protein: fresh (not cooked) fish flesh. In corn, give it at 2–3 leaf layers rather than 5–6. If fish is short or costly, perilla (rich in omega-3). Salted anchovy (the Korean fish sauce) is also good; mixing sugar with the salt beats pure salt. No amounts given.
  • IMO5 for the changeover ('type 3') — IMO4 plus calcium phosphate, Structure (WCP): bone charred to remove the organic matter, then put in brown rice vinegar so it becomes water-soluble. Best bone: large ocean fish; sesame is also named. In the Q&A Cho put brown rice vinegar into IMO4 and mixed in burnt bone ground to a fine powder. No ratios given.
  • IMO5 for maturing ('type 4') — IMO4 plus calcium, Reproduction (WCA): eggshell or oyster shell burned to charcoal, then dissolved in brown rice vinegar. No ratios given.
  • Calcium phosphate timing — Spray about 7 days before the changeover starts. Cho's corn example: a 180-day crop read as three 60-day periods, changeover from day 65, so spray on day 58. For tomato, at the seedling stage in the pot, not after transplant; the same for bell pepper, paprika and eggplant.
  • Sow after farrowing — Calcium phosphate for milk and for coming back into heat. No meat or extra protein, no raw eggs, dead chickens or live animals as feed, and no rats around her.
  • Daily tonic (people, plants, animals) — Brown rice vinegar, Cleanser (BRV), plus lactic acid bacteria, Protectors (LAB), plus yeast, taken every day. In a hot, rainy year, add seawater as a fourth. No rates for the mix.
  • Minerals (seawater) — Seawater diluted 1:30, bringing about 3% salt down to about 0.1%.
  • Recovery formula — Alcohol (vodka, 35–40%, or Korean soju, 'about 35 degrees', the same alcohol used for Medicine (OHN)) with mugwort Food (FPJ) and dropwort Food (FPJ), seawater 1:30, and seaweed (miyeok or dashima). For flowering crops, with calcium phosphate. Also given as Cho's way to soften old hen meat. Mixing ratios not given.
  • Recovery formula dose (pigs) — About 1 liter for a big pig, 50 cc for a piglet, as a drink (not an injection), every three days. If they won't drink it, mix it into the feed, ferment it and feed that.
Results
  1. Corn, sugarcane and rice, the grass family, carry about 15–16 leaf layers

    Cho used corn as the worked example because the Hawaiʻi group named sugarcane and corn. Cho's own Korean here is mostly off-mic.

    ▶ 2:13 As spoken

  2. Crop stages likened to a human life: nutritive growth 1–15, changeover 20–45, reproductive 45–60

    As interpreted. The gap between 15 and 20 was not explained.

    ▶ 3:29 As spoken

  3. IMO5 is IMO4 plus one addition by stage: protein, calcium phosphate, or calcium

    Type 2 needs protein, type 3 phosphorus and calcium, type 4 calcium; each plus IMO4 'becomes number 5'. Written on the whiteboard, which is not readable in the video.

    ▶ 13:05 As spoken

  4. Charred bone (and sesame) in brown rice vinegar gives water-soluble calcium phosphate; charred eggshell or oyster shell gives calcium

    Burning removes the organic matter; the alkaline remainder reacts with the vinegar's acid and dissolves.

    ▶ 17:16 As spoken

  5. An overfed plant does not flower

    Cho's parallel: an overfed hen lays down body fat instead of developing her ovary, and a woman who is too fat at that age cannot get pregnant.

    ▶ 23:37 As spoken

  6. Give fish protein at 2–3 leaf layers; the corn changeover comes at about 5–6

    He likened 5–6 leaf layers to girls of 15–17 and said that, when the plant is ready to flower, it is time for calcium phosphate.

    ▶ 30:45 As spoken

  7. A sow fed meat after farrowing may eat her piglets; give calcium phosphate for milk instead

    Raised for David Wong, who has 1,000 pigs. No live animals, raw eggs or chickens as feed.

    ▶ 36:16 As spoken

  8. No two IMO5s are the same; the IMO4 base is

    'If you don't know how to use it properly, then that's useless,' even with all the materials prepared. He credits the theory to Japan's Oinoue Yasushi.

    ▶ 39:26 As spoken

  9. Corn: 180 days, three 60-day periods, changeover from day 65

    A teaching example at the whiteboard, not a measurement.

    ▶ 53:20 As spoken

  10. Spray calcium phosphate about 7 days before the changeover: day 58 for corn

    His 'home run': before the plant 'gets pregnant', not after. The audience said seven days; the interpreter gave day 58. For tomato, pepper, paprika and eggplant: at the seedling stage, not after transplant.

    ▶ 55:18 As spoken

  11. A 'pregnant' plant gives off a faint sour smell that draws soil microbes; calcium phosphate makes it stronger and carry farther

    Cho's picture: a woman's scent turns sour in pregnancy; a tomcat smells a female in heat from 30 ri (about 12 km). He says the result is many flowers, and that this is known by feel, not by analysis.

    ▶ 1:01:02 As spoken

  12. Vinegar, LAB and yeast every day keep people healthy, and plants and animals the same way

    He said 30% of the body's microbes are lactic acid bacteria. In a hot, rainy year like 2016, add seawater.

    ▶ 1:06:27 As spoken

  13. Seawater is about 3% salt; at 1:30 it is about 0.1%, the salt level he gives for a plant's 'green blood'

    He compared a 1:30 seawater spray to a Ringer's drip in hospital.

    ▶ 1:08:39 As spoken

  14. Alcohol given to an old hen softens her meat

    His answer to the opening promise that old hen meat can turn tender in three days (t 319). He pairs the alcohol with mugwort and dropwort Food (FPJ): iron to make blood, manganese to speed cell division and healing.

    ▶ 1:15:21 As spoken

  15. Mugwort and dropwort Food (FPJ), seawater 1:30, seaweed and calcium phosphate: one formula for recovery and for flowering

    Tied to the Korean custom of mugwort water and seaweed soup (iodine) after childbirth; he says sprouting and giving birth mean the same thing to a plant.

    ▶ 1:20:35 As spoken

  16. Dose for pigs: about 1 liter for a big pig, 50 cc for a piglet, every three days

    As a drink, or mixed into feed and fermented. Cho said pigs, chickens and crops then don't get sick (the interpreter said cows). Not measured.

    ▶ 1:23:02 As spoken

Hold it loosely
  • A lecture, not data. Nothing was tested or measured in the room, and no records were shown.
  • The day counts (180, 65, 58), the 15–16 leaf layers and the pig doses are Cho's teaching examples, not results. Corn's changeover is given two ways (5–6 leaf layers, and day 65 of 180), and the two were not reconciled.
  • Cho's Korean is only partly clear, and before dinner he is mostly off-mic. Most numbers rest on Dr. Park's English interpretation; where Cho's Korean was garbled (day 65 and day 58, for example), we followed the interpreter.
  • The whiteboard can't be read in the video, so the stage formulas come only from speech.
  • Most mixes come without rates: how much bone goes into IMO4, the vinegar, LAB and yeast tonic, and the parts of the recovery formula.
  • The hen, cat and pregnancy pictures are analogies. Cho says himself that the sour-smell idea comes from feel, not analysis.
  • No still photos were taken during the lecture.
For your farm
  • Know your crop's stage before you make IMO5. Keep the IMO4 base; change only what you add.
  • Start with one crop and find the start of its changeover: note when flowers and fruit begin to set, then look back.
  • Give calcium phosphate, Structure (WCP), about a week before the changeover, so it is there when the plant needs it.
  • Make it from bone charred to remove the organic matter, then soaked in brown rice vinegar. For calcium, Reproduction (WCA), use eggshell or oyster shell the same way.
  • Go easy on protein and heavy feeding as flowering nears. Cho's rule: too fat, no flowers.
  • Dilute seawater about 1:30, which takes 3% salt down to about 0.1%.
  • After farrowing, back a sow with calcium phosphate, not extra meat.
  • Then practice. Cho: study is only study if you put it to use.

Next to Master Cho's teaching

  • Agrees

    IMO5 is IMO4 plus a stage addition In 2018 Cho again described number five as burned cow, pig or fish bone mixed into IMO4 for heavy flowering, and said IMO5 'is made according to your needs', with fats for vegetative growth. Here the early-growth addition is fish protein.

    2018/Cho - advanced hawaii/cho advanced 2018 3-3 @ 0:50:35 (translated)

  • Agrees

    Calcium phosphate a week before the changeover Cho's printed nutritive-cycle pages give 'a week before floral differentiation (a week is needed for absorption)' and name sesame or soybean stem ash. The day-58 corn example is the same rule.

    Natural-Farming-Nutritional, p. 29–32

  • Agrees

    Calcium phosphate from charred bone in brown rice vinegar CGNF's WCP sheet: cow, pig or fish bone burned at low temperature to remove organic substances, then put into BRV to extract calcium phosphate.

    Water-soluble-Calcium-PhosphateWCP, p. 1–6

  • Goes further

    A pregnant plant's sour smell draws microbes His book says plants get 'morning sickness' at floral differentiation, sour things help, and calcium phosphate is the remedy. That the sour smell calls soil microbes is not on the cited page.

    Cho, Cho Han-Kyu's Natural Farming (Theory), p. 88

  • Agrees

    Sow: calcium phosphate for milk In the 2017 swine sessions Cho adds WCP to the drinking water so the mother makes richer milk.

    2017/Advanced Cho/swine/IMG_1462 @ 0:22:02 (translated)

  • Agrees

    Mugwort iron, dropwort manganese, recovery after birth Same story in his book: mugwort's iron for a woman who has just given birth (bathed in mugwort broth), and dropwort's manganese to stimulate the peripheral nerves and speed healing.

    Cho, Janong Natural Farming (2003), p. 105

“If you understand, what must you do? You have to practice it.”

▶ 24:22

“IMO number five is not all the same. It depends upon what growth cycle.”

▶ 39:26

“If you can translate that particular book into English, then I will adopt you as my son.”

▶ 42:38

“You love each other by the feeling, not the theory or data.”

▶ 1:02:08

“Analyzing data is very good, important. But fact is more important than just the data of the report.”

▶ 1:13:20

In this talk

  1. 0:00Why IMO5 starts with the crop
  2. 2:43Three stages, three ages of a life
  3. 4:14Tough old hens and pigs
  4. 6:22Nutritive cycle types on the board
  5. 7:35A woman's life as a crop's life
  6. 12:34IMO5 by stage
  7. 14:10Fish, bone, sesame and shells
  8. 19:17Dinner break
  9. 19:59Study means practice
  10. 21:16Ten-ear corn and the changeover
  11. 24:54Fish early, calcium phosphate at flowering
  12. 28:23Perilla and salted anchovy
  13. 32:26Flowers make the next generation
  14. 34:53Sows, milk and calcium phosphate
  15. 39:18No two IMO5s alike
  16. 40:58Oinoue's theory and the hard book
  17. 43:18Q&A: bone powder in IMO5
  18. 44:45A participant explains the stages
  19. 52:14Corn: 180 days, changeover at day 65
  20. 53:49Calcium phosphate on day 58: the home run
  21. 58:16Pregnancy, sour smell and soil microbes
  22. 1:04:45Vinegar, LAB, yeast and seawater
  23. 1:08:55Seawater 1:30 as a plant's drip
  24. 1:12:40Ten ears of corn: fact over data
  25. 1:14:12Alcohol, mugwort and dropwort for recovery
  26. 1:22:42How much to give pigs

Transcript

English translation, checked against the Korean as spoken.