SmokingCrow
Active Member
I've always been interested organic growing but struggled with yields. I thought I'd share what I've been researching recently. It makes sense to me and I'm having positive results.
Korean natural farming, (KNF) focuses on the soil, improving microbiology and plant available nutrients without breaking the bank or a drop in yield.
The cornerstone is using local micro organisms and making a living soil. In essence, you go out to the local woods/forest/wild and collect microbiology and fungal life (called IMO Indigenous micro organisms) that is then multiplied and added to your soil, raised beds/pots etc. These microbes break down organic matter and make it plant available. Making the soil as active as possible helps your plants grow healthily, with that health improve resistance, and improve flavour. Google 'living soils', most of it is not specifically tobacco related but applicable.
KNF has been promoted by Master Cho, at personal cost; Apparently Korean commercial agriculture frown on anything that impacts their bottom line. Chris Trump, who lives in Hawaii with a 700 acre macadmanian farm, has a raft of interesting, step by step guides you tube. Unfortunately there are lots of TLAs (three letter acronyms) but don’t let that put you off.
Here are a few high level examples, the actual details are online and pretty simple.
His view on IMO (Indigenous micro-organisms) differs from his fathers, only slightly. He does not aerate the mixture. Take soil from woods/forest/wild and adds it in a net to a barrel filled with rain water. He then boils potatoes and mushes them through a net into the barrel. Leave it for a few days until it bubbles and water the liquid onto the beds.
Using tap water, kills micro organism. If you can't collect (enough) rain water, fill a barrel with tap water and leave it 24 hours, it's chlorine free.
His surfactant, a soap, is made using KOH (Potassium hydroxide) and rapeseed oil (Canola) mixed with a paint stirrer. My recipe using one litre of canola, makes about 5 litres of soap a perfect carrier for foliar feeds, or sulphur spray. It is simply soap, no additives or scent and can be also be used in the home. Worth a try if anyone struggles with sensitive skin.
The sulfur spray works like a charm with aphids and mould. I use it on vegetables that I eat. Make it using flowers of sulfur and caustic soda. I used 500g of sulfur and I've a life time worth. For a home gardener, 50g of sulfur would be more than enough, it is super diluted.
Enough of a ramble. If you do decide to give it a go, make the change slowly, do a small part of your garden and judge the results for yourself.
If your views oppose mine, I respect them. I’m surrounded by a working farm. The farmers are traditional, with generations of experience and who’s livelihood relies on the yields.
Crow.
Korean natural farming, (KNF) focuses on the soil, improving microbiology and plant available nutrients without breaking the bank or a drop in yield.
The cornerstone is using local micro organisms and making a living soil. In essence, you go out to the local woods/forest/wild and collect microbiology and fungal life (called IMO Indigenous micro organisms) that is then multiplied and added to your soil, raised beds/pots etc. These microbes break down organic matter and make it plant available. Making the soil as active as possible helps your plants grow healthily, with that health improve resistance, and improve flavour. Google 'living soils', most of it is not specifically tobacco related but applicable.
KNF has been promoted by Master Cho, at personal cost; Apparently Korean commercial agriculture frown on anything that impacts their bottom line. Chris Trump, who lives in Hawaii with a 700 acre macadmanian farm, has a raft of interesting, step by step guides you tube. Unfortunately there are lots of TLAs (three letter acronyms) but don’t let that put you off.
Here are a few high level examples, the actual details are online and pretty simple.
- At then end of a bbq, put the left over bones on the coals to char and then break them up add vinegar and you have plant available calcium phosphate. Dilute 1:1000 and water plants.
- Crush and toast eggshells, pop them in a jar and half fill with vinegar. It fizzes like mad. Leave it for a week and you have plant available calcium, dilute 1:1000 with water in a watering can.
- To make fermented plant/fruit juice (FPA)/FFJ) add fast growing plant (nettle or similar) / banana skins for fruit, to a jar and cover with brown sugar – equal weights, stir every day for a week or so. Add to watering can 1:1000. Fermented Plant Juice is high in nitrogen (an others) and Fermented Fruit Juice has potassium and others. Dilution is normally 1:1000
- One remarkable thing he mentioned, is using sea water diluted at 1:30 as it is teaming with micro-nutrients and almost all minerals required. No wonder Corp. Ag. don’t want you to pop down to the beach and get free product. His son uses diluted sea salt, an idea for those of you who are landlocked. Do some research, you don't want to pour salt on the soil, as the Romans did when they left the Spanish Empire and Carthage. Sea water, when diluted can be good for farming, in particular with flavour, if used in small doses.
- If you boil potatoes, rather than salt the water, salt the potatoes after they have been boiled. Use the unsalted cooled potato water on your beds. It provides nutrients for the micro organisms, in turn, feeds your plants.
- If any of you are brewers, crushed malted barley rich in amylase, used to convert carbohydrates to sugars. It is also chock full of beneficial enzymes such as phosphatase, chitinase, urease, protease and amylase. These enzymes act as catalysts in your soil, helping microbes break matter down into nutrients your plant can use. My seedling mixture includes mycorrhizal and malted barley. Disappoint your brew shop by ordering a pound or two, it's all you need. One of the main benefits of using malt is it’s alleged that it enables plants to finish 15 to 20% faster than those without. Additionally, far less support is required as a result of the plant’s increased tensile strength.
- Charcoal/Biochar; this is natural lumpwood charcoal and not briquettes that are mostly paper etc. Just watch “The Oldest New Thing You've Never Heard Of, by Wae Nelson”. Be warned, do not just add charcoal/bio char to your soil, it will suck all the nutrient out of the soil. Biochar needs to be “pre-loaded”. I’ve some in a large bucket with seaweed, hen churned black compost, FPJ (fermented plant juice) and chicken poop, I’ll add it to my beds when they are ready in few week or so.
- Using frass, insect poop, does something magical to the plants. Its worth noting that insect frass is not an insecticide – instead it causes the plant to produce its own defenses, which include insecticidal enzymes, alkaloids, and antifungal metabolites that aid in pathogen and disease resistance. I bought some meal worms for a couple of quid, fed them oats and in a couple of weeks have a couple of cups of frass. the hens liked the worms. I found out that the oats harbour mites that affect the mealworms. Freezing the oats for a week prevents it, I'm hoping the pupae will produce mite free beetles.
His view on IMO (Indigenous micro-organisms) differs from his fathers, only slightly. He does not aerate the mixture. Take soil from woods/forest/wild and adds it in a net to a barrel filled with rain water. He then boils potatoes and mushes them through a net into the barrel. Leave it for a few days until it bubbles and water the liquid onto the beds.
Using tap water, kills micro organism. If you can't collect (enough) rain water, fill a barrel with tap water and leave it 24 hours, it's chlorine free.
His surfactant, a soap, is made using KOH (Potassium hydroxide) and rapeseed oil (Canola) mixed with a paint stirrer. My recipe using one litre of canola, makes about 5 litres of soap a perfect carrier for foliar feeds, or sulphur spray. It is simply soap, no additives or scent and can be also be used in the home. Worth a try if anyone struggles with sensitive skin.
The sulfur spray works like a charm with aphids and mould. I use it on vegetables that I eat. Make it using flowers of sulfur and caustic soda. I used 500g of sulfur and I've a life time worth. For a home gardener, 50g of sulfur would be more than enough, it is super diluted.
Enough of a ramble. If you do decide to give it a go, make the change slowly, do a small part of your garden and judge the results for yourself.
If your views oppose mine, I respect them. I’m surrounded by a working farm. The farmers are traditional, with generations of experience and who’s livelihood relies on the yields.
Crow.
