Well-Fed Diversity = Healthy Soil: KNF in Scientists' Words

1:00:49 So the presentation I wanted to do was, I just went to the, I'm also part of the Hawaii Farmers Union, and I just went to the state convention, And they had a lot of really good scientists there, talking about all these high-level concepts. Does Master Cho want to talk now, or are you missing something? So what I put up here and why the thing that I thought would be most relevant to present

1:01:35 to you guys since you guys have all been practicing is to connect the vocabulary of what the scientific terminology is to what we've been talking about. Because we often talk about FPJ and all this stuff, we have our own language. And I believe that one of the struggles with getting natural farming out is that it's a vocabulary issue. Like we're speaking French and these people understand Japanese, right? And we're saying the same thing, we're just saying a different language. So that's kind of what the presentation wanted to give here a little bit.

1:02:10 And the key to me, well-fed diversity is healthy soil, is kind of the bottom line of what everyone's saying. You have well-fed diversity, and that is healthy soil, which then creates everything on top of that becomes healthy, as we went in this morning. And I wanted to underline kind of a scientific effectiveness of the solutions that we got. So I just went to the conference and this guy here is Gabe Brown. He is kind of nationally being recognized right now as a forward thinker and just a leader in what he's talking about. So he goes around and lectures nationwide.

1:02:55 This is one of the first slides he talked about. If your grandparents are eating bacon and we're eating a product that's called bacon, it's not the same bacon. It used to be like lean stuff with good fat that wasn't harmful antibiotics. And we'd eat that. And it used to be you could eat some bacon and be healthy. Nowadays, you go fry up that bacon and it's like right here in the market, like, you know, right away. And so the same thing, the nutrient value has just declined, declined, declined. And this is the story that's even well-recognized by all kinds of scientists. The USDA studies this.

1:03:33 But really what the answer is, this is Bob Shaffer, another superstar in the bioreclamation, you know, bringing your soil back to fertility. And he's talking about growing rhizosphere health and food quality. And so this is where I'm connecting the scientific words to this. Is that when you go talk to a scientist and you say, oh, if you can say rhizosphere, you're immediately going to get their attention. What is the rhizosphere? It's the area right around the root. So it's not, oftentimes we go, we soil sample our field, right, and we want to correct the pH of our field, right?

1:04:17 So we go through a sieve, so we throw calcium, or in this case we throw seawater, right, to alkalize it. But you don't need to do your whole field. You really need to worry about the rhizosphere and create a healthy rhizosphere. Because the way it works is, if you've ever seen that graph where there's the solubility of different minerals at different pHs, the plant will actually exude different sugars to change the biology. It will change the pH in that micro region, and say it puts out these sugars, the iron-loving guys, it solubilizes that, and now the plant can get iron.

1:04:59 It'll change the pH really low if it needs aluminum. Also, it'll make your soil really acidic, and now aluminum, it can take up. So when we're trying to correct the pH in this general way, we're missing what nature's already providing for us in the rhizosphere. And so understanding that, that's why we put that diverse microbes out, because they go and they create this, they interact with the roots and create a healthy rhizosphere which then grows high quality food. The other principles they had are basically maximizing biodiversity and maximizing living roots.

1:05:40 This is coming from the scientist at USDA. This is Jen Moore-Kucera's presentation, of the USDA. And she's really talking about what is the key, or the key is biodiversity. So what is IMO? Biodiversity. So if we go to the scientist and say we have IMO, they're like, well whatever. But if we go to them and say we have a biodiversity document that we want to put into our soil, then now we're speaking the same language again. And these are all the benefits. We all know about these. you know, breaking disease, you know, increasing soil organic matter, increasing nutrient cycling,

1:06:23 body growth, and everything that comes from just biodiversity. And this here, this was one of the more telling slides, this one on the left is from a rich forest, this one on the right is one where there was soybean monoculture. Now, you can see this one looks like a brick. And this one on the left actually looks kind of healthy, it's airy, it's all kinds of aggregation. What I noticed is that there's a trend happening with these guys that they're really anti-monoculture. And for good reason. But what we have an upper hand on this that I believe in natural farming is,

1:07:10 is I later asked Gabe Brown at lunchtime, I said, what if you can have biodiversity below with a monoculture above? And he looked at me and said, I don't know. How would you do that? Well, my answer was, so I asked him another question. And I said, what if, because he talked about these exudates, the things coming out of the roots to feed the biodiversity, and that's what he's doing. He's putting polycultures in there to feed different exudates to grow a diverse biology. Right, you've got to have different food to have different microbes.

1:07:54 And so I asked him, what if I could get concentrated root exudates without, and apply those to the field? Then I would have, you know, diverse microorganisms and diverse food. And he looked at me and said, how would you do that? I said, fermentation. Fermentation. So what I came to realize by looking at these two things here was that what we have in natural farming are these two tools. We can put the biodiversity right on the top as a microbial biodiversity from this environment. We just take this biodiversity we captured, we put it into this environment, and then

1:08:40 even though we're still growing a monoculture of soybean, we feed it an FPJ from sweet potato, from comfrey, from these different plants that we have, and now we've taken the biodiversity here plus all the foods that would have come from a polyculture, and now we're able to get the efficiency of monocultures without monoculturing. And so I found this to be hugely interesting. And that's why I think natural farming thrives in certain situations. And the whole key is this vast biodiversity. So we can get those inoculants. And each of the microbes within an acre.

1:09:25 So you see these many cows outlined there? That's how much microbes there are, equivalent weight, in 2.3 acres. It's something that's like a couple cows per acre of, if you took all the microbes and compressed them together, you'd have that many animals. So when you hear people talking about these systems where they're integrating grazing into cultures like Joel Salatin's methods, we actually have the cows grazing under the ground. So if you come to a natural farming thing and you say, oh, well, where's the livestock in your monoculture thing? They're actually under the ground.

1:10:04 Our microbes are getting all this crazy parts. And I thought this was one of the most telling slides here of the two principles I often talk about. She said, you've got to protect your microbiology and you've got to feed it. So when I often talk about natural farming, I say on one hand you have microorganisms, and on the other hand you have foods. So you have our IMO and our LAB, those are the microorganisms. So in this case where she says protect, she isn't even aware of this inoculate coming in. We're beyond protection. We're at introduction, and then beyond that, protection.

1:10:48 then the feeds which come in by understanding the nutrient cycle and pretty much always putting FPJ, which is your root exudate, putting BRV, which is your acids to kind of help dissolve as well as balance out your FPJ and the OHN which is always a medicine right so for us we always need food plus medicines and BRV is sort of a cleanser you know we got to excrete our waste correctly and so via natural farming work we're not only protecting we're also introducing and then we're always feeding and these are the two basic keys of what she was talking about how do we bring soil back to

1:11:32 help and these are the core principles of the methods we've learned here so they're talking a lot about the polycultures and the worms that come in from doing polycultures but just by applying diverse IMO to the top of your surface, who has noticed their worms increase? right so by doing this same activity without necessarily the polycultures on top because they're talking a lot about polyculture cover crops and i do think there's value there but He's showing that by just doing that we get this. We do the same thing without the poly culture and we're getting the same effect.

1:12:14 So I think what we're on to is in terms of research, we're right there. It's not, you know, the tip of the spear we're like out in front. It's the air splitting in front of the spear being thrown at the target. And so I just wanted to show this slide here. here this is one of the more striking slides that i think really made an impact on folks that this field is the same uh conditions they had a drought that year instead of getting seven inches of rain we got two. Crazy, that's a drought. I mean, we have so much more rain than that.

1:12:52 but what happened here in the front was this is just the cash crop being sunk in the back this This is the cash crop that you can see the white wisps coming up above, plus five other cover crops. So this is a polyculture cover crop that they put in. So you'll see the same effect via using IMO4. The crops that you planted without that in your dead soil die in a drought, whereas the ones you put IMO4 are able to withstand. And it's that diverse biology that's bringing water into your soils. And, you know, in this case, obviously it's better covered when things grew in.

1:13:37 But this is the leading-edge research of showing, okay, what we sow these polycultures. But if you were able to get this same result back here, up here, without that polyculture, it's going to make your harvesting that much easier. Because back when they have to do all kinds of sorting and other things. And so as a natural farmer you can do this one in the front where it looks like the one in the back But you're able to pull off a much better crop than your neighbor who doesn't understand the diversity and then feeding them right through our liquids.

1:14:08 So in certain applications you just wouldn't cover crop? Is it unnecessary? I always think that you should keep your soil covered. It's just like you don't want an open wound. So you should always cover it, because naturally it'll want to grow a scab. So weeds will come in, they're scabs, to cover everything. So whether you put a band-aid, which is mulch, or a living cover crop, is always a good idea. But the importance of poly culture cover crops for us we're getting that same benefit via our IMO4. And so again, behind her, this is Jen talking about this, and I really

1:14:47 like her shirt that says soil. And these are five test plots in the front where each of these were a single cover crop put in, planted by themselves. Then there's a small 10-foot row of sun hemp in there. And then in the back is all five of these crops combined. And this is about six weeks of growth. And so by using polycultures that are bringing the soil back to life and this is what they're doing but again just to show you kind of the monoculture you know what what happens if you're not including

1:15:25 that diverse biology you just don't get the same result and i thought this was also one of the most telling slides um this this was a hard hitter for me because he basically considered his four neighbors or his three neighbors that are adjacent to his farm the first guy is doing organic management which is USDA organic. He's tilling, he's throwing down organic fertilizers, whatever those may be, and he is getting two parts of nitrogen per whatever unit this is in. Then his other neighbor is no-till but low diversity and he's getting a little bit more,

1:16:15 Then the guy that's doing no-till with medium diversity and high synthetics, he's getting a little bit more diversity, or a little bit more nitrogen. But this bottom one is Gabe Brown's one. He's doing no-till, high diversity, no synthetic fertilizer, plus livestock. And he's getting 281. So he's, that's like, what, 100%, almost 100 and whatever percent, or times more, yeah. A hundred times more available nitrogen. And that's across the board for all of these things. His numbers are just off the charts compared. And this is the same thing you'll find with, by using IMO.

1:16:58 The basic idea is that you have sand, silt, or clay. And in each grain of sand, there is more nutrients than could feed this entire island in one grain. But the problem is, in that grain, it's not next to the plant. And so by increasing the diversity and the biology in your soil, they're able to break that grain down and make it available to your plants. So all your NPK, which we continually throw on the soil, he hasn't thrown anything on his soil for the last 20 years, and he has this much in his soil. You think, oh, it's going to get depleted.

1:17:41 No, the biology is actually breaking it out of the sand, silt, and clay when he's able to get those exudates, which is our FPJ, So this is what he's doing to really crank it up. What's the last number? The last one is something organic content. I don't know what the WD stands for. Sorry, Jerry. I'm going back one. So Gabe's thing was no-till, high diversity? High diversity, no synthetic, and livestock. And this is tested by some university here in Temple, Texas. So what he really got to at the end of this presentation,

1:18:27 and unfortunately he kind of ran a little long on time, so they're really militant all the time, which is something I admire about them. He got to this: mycorrhizal fungi build soil aggregates. So again, these are scientific terms that we need to start using. When we talk about IMO, it's like, OK, What is that? Or if you say, oh, well, this is concentrated mycorrhizal fungi or a stimulant, a prerequisite for that to naturally appear. You said that guy's been motivated in terms of prebiotic. Now you're able to say, and it's building soil aggregates. It's not making my soil rich or whatever.

1:19:08 You can actually use these terms to say, okay, it's balling up the soil. When you see these soil balls, you say, oh, that's nice aggregation. It's happening from the thing. And this is why when you go gather your IMO, you want to gather it from a rich forest environment. Because I can just take starch, I can just take a thing of rice, and put it right here on the table, but am I going to have mycorrhizal fungi that are real soil aggregates? No. I will have the nice cotton candy, but what you're trying to get is to go to those rich environments

1:19:43 with those starches, capture the mycorrhizal fungi, and then introduce that to your other environment and that's what's really gonna make your farming work. He also then got to this which is this is what I've been was what I learned from Elaine really a lot and this is why it would enable me to understand the value of IMO and why to make it correctly. Why not just let the temperature shoot up through the roof, you know, like why does Master Cho tell us keep low temperature?

1:20:18 Because you're growing fungus. And if you can change the fungal to bacterial ratios, which is what this is outlining, you can see the results between this one and this one, and it's different fungal to bacterial ratios. It's just undeniable. This is the thing when Ginger John followed Master Cho's process and his ginger starts were twice the size of his best organic methods, that he got started dancing. because this is the results and this is the process we're going through is to change this fungus to bacterial ratio in our soils the fungus is so vital to us and right now it's under assault

1:21:02 all of our emissions that we do all of our land practices um i was sitting with steve lung by the pool and i've been talking about the whole world's getting coated in petroleum And so the fungus that used to symbiotically work with our forests is now cleaning. And it's cleaning all day and it forgot to feed the tree because it's like, Oh, there's more mess to clean, I can't think about feeding right now, I gotta clean before I can cook. And as he was saying that, I could like smell the jet fuel that's just present in our upper atmosphere

1:21:37 that's raining down on us constantly and just assaulting the fungus everywhere. So globally, fungus forests are declining. And I believe it has a direct relationship to this. We used to have nice abundant forests. As we killed off our fungi, we started to go back this way. And now we're like, oh, why doesn't the ʻōhiʻa tree grow? Why doesn't this oak just take over the forest like it used to? And it's because we killed off the fungus. And it's just leaving bacteria around. And that's why these methods are so important for us everywhere.

1:22:16 And this was another key, key, key point that I thought was there, is majority of fertilizer, no matter what initial form, goes through microbes before the plant does. So it goes through microbes. So when we're there and we want to throw chemical fertilizer or this or that, you need the microbes. Even if you are using a chemical fertilizer thing, if you kill off your microbes in your soil, you won't have as much results. Your fertilizer will be less effective every year. And it's because it goes through your microbes no matter what initial form. Always.

1:22:59 And so understanding this and understanding why we want to build our soil and why we want to put rich microbes out there is to me like, it's the whole reason. No matter what your farming style, you still have to have your microbes. Well, the chemical salt fertilizers kill a lot of soil life. I mean, the salts are poison. It depends. It all depends. I am super non-dogmatic, by the way. When I'm teaching natural farming, I teach as true to Master Cho's teachings as I can, but your actual practical, how you do it, how you make your bottom line, everyone has a different style.

1:23:39 And yeah, so that's what I found. Can you go back to the last slide for one second? Thank you. So, and again just looking at this field again, you know, these were the monoculture cover crops. This is the row of sun hemp, and this is the polyculture, that we get without necessarily putting polyculture above, to maintain that efficiency. I think that's all I have for that there.

1:24:33 So, yes? Were these receptive to your translation or your ideas? So, first off, I'd like to say that these aren't my ideas. I'm standing on the shoulders of giants. I really appreciate all these things I was able to gather. Sometimes I go to sleep and I wake up with a great idea, and I just like to think that it's something else. Were they receptive to my ideas? I learned in my journey through natural farming not to tell people they're wrong or tell people that I have a better idea. So what I did with Gabe was I asked him a few questions.

1:25:19 I asked, do you have diversity? Do you have diversity above? And he kind of scratched his head and started thinking about it. And I asked him, could we make exudates without these polycultures? And again, he was like, how? And I said, fermentation. He started scratching his head. And he was like, mm. Because that's what's happening in the soils, right? We know that as a patient. And what I found in my journey with natural farming is if you do it right, you cannot stop people from copying you. How many people come to a no-smell pig pen and go home and try to copy that as soon as possible?

1:25:58 But you could go to him, just like when Master Cho came to Mike DuPonte and he said, I got no-smell pigs, and he laughed him out of his office. Right? But as soon as Mike DuPonte went to Korea, he saw that. He was just crying. And he was like, oh, wow. And you couldn't stop Mike DuPonte today. He's not going to go back until you put in a wash-down system. You cannot stop it. Because you witnessed it in action, and somebody saw the thing and you do it. So if people aren't listening to you and you say, oh, da-da-da-da-da, no worries. Maybe one day say, oh, maybe you want to come to my farm,

1:26:36 or the project I did in downtown Eel, where I just went into the town and planted a cow, right, in the middle of the town, and that thing was just pumping. So get a smaller area where people can see it, and let them come to you and ask a question. Say, oh, how come the cow is so big? How come the banana fruit is so big? How come your little kids are coming back to life? and soy is easier to plant. I don't think I did that. How, you're comparing FPJ to an exudate, and then exudates are just specific for nutrient and mineral uptake.

1:27:14 Is the type of FPJ going to at some point when you get the science down, that's going to equal the exudate that the plant would want or are you just talking about general exudate? Okay, so the question was about exudates and are there specific ones that work? Well, basically an exudate attracts what it needs. Yeah. Okay, so why is FPJ in my mind analogous to these exudates? So, number one is that they are produced without heat and without pressure. The only heat that is involved in that process is a natural heat that would occur in the soil, in nature.

1:27:59 And it's the heat of fermentation. The only pressure that is applied is osmotic pressure, which does not rupture the cell wall. It just osmotically pulls the best nutrients across and leaves everything, everything else in the plant and you compost or discard that or feed it to your animals or whatever you're going to do you're just getting the best juice that came out so because you're producing it without heat and pressure these two things are unlike any other thing that i've seen out on the market

1:28:37 that anyone else is producing everything else like producing regular fertilizer high energy intensity bound with salts. And the third thing is that it's bound in sugar. Sugar acts as a preservative, but as soon as it's diluted, it now becomes another food. So in those three aspects, FPJ is superior. Now, what type of FPJ should you use? That's why Master Cho recommends different FPJs for different growth stages. That's why he also recommends certain plants at different times. I find just in general something like a comfrey is loaded with a lot of things. It grows really well here.

1:29:24 It's easy for me to get a hold of. And [unclear: sounds like 'banana cake heat'] is another one that gives a whole lot of juice. It's really easy to get lots of vigor. But that's why also when you're making your mixes, when you're going through the nutrient cycle, and we just say up here FPJ, well think in your mind, okay, well I can include a couple different FPJs in there. You know, half this one, half that one, and I'll get these different growths happening. Do you think that natural farming, it may already be there, but do you think it can get to a point where we say,

1:29:57 oh, it's an iron deficiency, we need this FPJ? So when you're talking about correcting deficiencies with natural farming. Primarily the biology and getting, once you've got enough IMO4, like, you know, diverse biology, you shouldn't have these deficiencies. And when we're looking at FPJ, I largely compare it to food. So I'm not necessarily, like, calcium, calphos, fish amino acid are to kind of change what's happening, whereas FPJ to me is more of a food. And then And then just like we have foods, you can eat a dessert, you can eat a main course,

1:30:37 you can eat a pupu, you can eat these different things that will change your behavior, how you're going about it. But largely that is a food. So if you're having deficiencies, feeding the biology, re-inoculating that biology should correct majority of that. But yeah, what I've seen the most actually in that is human health. So we know different plants provide different things. Like they're talking about moringa to help combat diabetes. Well shoot, [unclear] moringa and then eat that? And these different properties we know plants have, in humans I've seen the most effect.

1:31:21 Because our IMOs are really weird. Versus the soil, you can put diversity out there, but to put diversity into me, it's like, where do you start? I gotta take someone's poop and, like, I don't know. People [transplant?] [unclear] the specimen and what they transfer, right? You know, it's different. Oh, Drake, good job explaining those three points. It really was magical and wonderful, as always. You're very humble and you give credit to all the giants, but did they say exactly those three things or did you come up with that particular three points? The three points.

1:32:03 The osmotic pressure, the fermentation heat, and I forgot to write down the other thing. And sugar. Sugar, yeah. Sugar becomes food. Great. I spend a fair amount of time just sitting and studying. My wife [unclear], or I had a bunch of things out there. And then I also, you know, I've noticed in my own body how these things happen. I don't think anyone's told me that. No, you just need to get that... [crosstalk, unclear] Yeah, synthesis. Yeah, that's great. Is there an ideal or like balanced ratio of fungal to bacterial in like a healthy soil Or is it dependent on what is growing in that soil?

1:32:51 So that's a good question. Is there an ideal fungus to bacteria ratio? Or does it change? And it changes based on the crop you're growing. So things that are quick growing, fast, like weeds, tend to be highly bacterial-[dominated?]. So if you want to grow a lot of weeds, bacterial-[dominated?], You'll get tons of fireweed growing in your pasture. You'll have medicinal plants growing really well. If you want to grow an old-growth forest, you will look and they will have tons of fungus. It will be highly fungally oriented.

1:33:38 Old-growth forest grows really slow. It is in it to win for the long run. tends to be more fungal oriented. So typically where we want to be is in the middle for our annual or perennial crops. Kind of what we want. When Elaine talked about it, there was about 600 bacteria with 600 fungus and that's biomass per gram I think or I don't know the exact numbers but she had a way of quantifying it. And so we wanted to be in the middle. What I found here in Hawaii is we're extremely fungal deficient, just in general. So it's almost always better to have more fungus in your IMO

1:34:24 to inoculate it and then to see that happen. And I found the same IMO pretty much works for everything. It's then the mulch that you put on top is the determining factor. So if I'm growing lettuce, I use the IMO4, but then I put wood chips there, I'm going to slow down the growth of my lettuce, versus I grow a lettuce and I put grass clippings there. Now my lettuce is gonna do fine. If I'm growing fruit trees and I put a bunch of wood chips around in tandem with my IMO4, then I'm going to get even more fungal growth. So it's what's feeding your microbes

1:35:04 once they're in your system, is what I found. But I'm not, like Joe was saying, do you spray? I was more on that. And really what, I don't wanna say more on, [unclear] But making your spray equipment correct for you, and this is something that I've increased in my life lately, is I bought a sweet power sprayer to be able to go deal with my whole area I want to treat. Before that I was, like, too hippie and trying to do all kinds of barefoot stuff. Sometimes you just gotta burn a little gas to get things done. And in the long run, you're better off.

1:35:54 What make of your power spray do you have? Maruyama. Maruyama is what I got. I really should get a sponsorship from Maruyama, because [unclear]. If you call them, tell them [unclear]. I have a garden plot and have two rows of [kalo?] which aren't flowering. And I have a row of papaya. Watercress. Different things are close together. So if I spray a changeover, what are my dangers of over spray on other plants that are nearby if they're not needing that specific [unclear]?

1:36:41 So one thing, so that's a great question. You have two crops next to each other and they're in different growth stages when you do. And this, when I go to Korea and I look, it's like one greenhouse all at the same stage and treating all the same things. So these formulas really make sense there. For me, I have polyculture plantings. It's just the way my garden's set up, along the permaculture style of doing it. And so I've got all these different stages. So what do I do? Well, that's why I'm here at the advanced training, because he knows all about this the most.

1:37:17 So far, my advice has been is to alternate week by week. so one week I'm going to encourage this, the next week I'm going to encourage that and alternating between just like you were talking about the baby gets chubby and skinny and chubby and skinny same thing to your plants if you alternate back and forth and you make them more chubby one week and more flowering one week you know, and you alternate back and forth I found that to be effective But you know, I'm not that expert on that. Go on.

1:38:07 Okay. here I was talking about that The other thing that I wanted to talk about here, are there any more questions on this before we transition to something else?