Getting Started with KNF Step 1
LEARN and PLAN
While most KNF teachers will have you learn all the inputs for Korean Natural Farming first, that is not my advice. It’s not helpful to make products that you don’t know how to use. You should spend time learning how the system works, and you should also spend time in the beginning working out a plan.
Yes, there are some inputs that you will want to make to practice KNF as a Natural Farming growing system, and yes, you should learn how to make them properly, but the inputs are a small part of KNF, and you don’t need to make everything to get started. Learn how the system works so you can plan how to set up your growing systems and learn to make inputs as you need them.
The vast majority of practicing Korean Natural Farming is the use of IMO, Indigenous Micro-Organisms. This is the very first thing I do when on a new property or helping a farmer get started, and it’s what I recommend you do first. Even if this is all you do, it will make your growing system better than absolutely anything else you could do.
I’ve taught agricultural experts, experienced farmers, uneducated sustenance farmers, and total newbies, so I understand the best way to get you started so that you are successful and not confused. I’m a Cho-certified instructor, and the way Master Cho taught was confusing. Years of sharing his methods have shown me the best way to get you started.
We are going to cover WHAT to do first. This will give you an eagle-eye view of how to start KNF and keep it simple and easy to understand. There are ten steps to starting KNF. We’ll be weeding out some myths as we go, so stay tuned for that, even if you are not a noob.
STEP 1
IMO—start here!
Nothing you can do will have as much impact as inoculating your soil with a full ecosystem of local soil biology. IMO technology is by far the most efficient way to do this.
I learned about inoculating planting soil with soil biology from my grandfather in the 1960s as peasant wisdom from “The Old Country.” We used an elegant but easy method of composting leaves. While there are certainly several ways of inoculating soil, like leaf compost, the most efficient, by far, is the technology for IMO, Indigenous Micro-Organisms, developed by Master Cho Han-Kyu.
The reasons IMO is so highly efficient:
1. The level of soil biology added to the planting soil is much higher, orders of magnitude higher.
2. The soil biology is installed as a complete, balanced, and intact ecosystem. The keyword is ecosystem. It does not focus on a handful of microbes known to be effective and that can easily be cultured in a lab. The focus is on an entire ecosystem of healthy soil.
3. A single application of IMO can be enough.
This approach does not need time to establish an ecological balance. It is already there. All types of organisms will be present, not just fungi and bacteria. Problematic species are already held in check. Larger soil organisms can move in immediately, making soil remediation quick and complete.
In essence, IMO installs an intact, fully functioning, and thriving mega-city of microbes rather than recruiting settlers to a frontier town in hopes that the pioneers can eventually build a working city. Keep this picture in mind when I explain how we don’t want to change the ecosystem in the IMO as we process it. We want to install the mega-city.
IMO Technology has 5 Steps before installation:
IMO STEP 1. Collect
WHERE TO COLLECT
Where you collect matters. It does not need to be collected deep in a remote forest. This is a myth. A collection from a remote forest may be perfect if the crops you are collecting for are a heavy stand of old trees.
Sometimes, the best collection will be from beside your planting field. The biology, the complete ecosystem you collect, should match the crop. If you are growing tender herbs and veggies, for example, grassland collections will be much more appropriate. The collection location should be appropriate for the crop. Match ecosystems. That is the pattern.
It should be collected from under grass, shrubs, or trees that are healthy and high energy, with plenty of leaf litter. Ideally, white mycorrhizae can be seen in the leaf mold (composted leaf litter).
If you can find a location that is higher in elevation (but not too far away) or that has some other stress factor (such as drier), then the collection will be stronger.
Matching growth patterns is how you get the appropriate microbes in your culture. No microscopes or lab tests are required.
To learn more about where to collect your IMO, see this guide. It goes into detail explaining where to collect and why it matters.
I highly suggest doing this step correctly. It might take a couple of tries to get it right, but this is the foundation of your entire growing system. You only need to be successful once.
COLLECTION
The box is placed under the grass, bamboo, shrubs or trees into the leaf litter. The box, covered with breathable material, such as a woven lid or cloth, is then covered with some of the leaf mold and soil. The collection box can then be covered with a cage and/or tarp to protect it from rain and animals as needed.
Collecting a culture of soil biology generally takes between three to five days, depending on temperature and other conditions, such as wind. It will be slower when colder and can take up to about a week. You can tell it is ready by feeling the bottom of the box. It will feel warm when the microbes have become established on the rice. Do not peak. This will disturb the collection.
The best collections look like they are covered in white cotton candy or cotton fluff, and the rice will have a cake-like structure if you break it. If you see dark spots of black or grey, that means the microbes have already started to develop spores and are reproducing. This means the ecology has already started to change, and this is not ideal.
If there is only a little bit of dark color, it can still be used. If it is very colorful or very dark, the soil ecology has already changed or is predominately anaerobic. Best to try again.
How do you know if the right microbes are in there, the ones you want and need? Natural Farming is done by following the patterns of Nature. Follow the patterns explained above, the look, feel, and temperature. If you follow the patterns described here, you have a good representation of soil biology. What you want is in there. Trust the method. Trust the biology.
If the collection quality is less than ideal because it was not collected in time, was too wet or dry, had too much or too little airspace, was placed in a bad spot, was invaded by critters, or for various other reasons, you may or may not have what you need.
If the collection looks disgusting, don’t use it. Think of it as adding it to your food. You are adding it to the soil, yes, but in essence, you really are adding it to your food.
I recommend doing this step right. Remember, once can be enough, and if you continue to collect IMO, it only needs to be done once or twice a year. You don’t need dozens of collections from dozens of sites. That is another myth. You just need one good one. Don’t make it hard.
You Have Now Collected IMO-1
This is a culture of a complete ecosystem of soil biology. It must be immediately stabilized.
IMO STEP 2. Stabilize
Immediately stabilize your culture after collection. It must be stabilized to prevent it from evolving.
The culture is a complete ecosystem, and you want to keep this ecosystem as intact as possible. You want the mega-city, not the frontier town. You want to install it with as little changes as possible. Microbial ecosystems can evolve into new ecosystems within hours because they reproduce so quickly.
Adding dry sugar will bind all water molecules. Without water, life cannot reproduce or evolve, so the culture enters a type of dormancy. The type of sugar to use is dry raw sugar, not brown sugar. “Use brown sugar for KNF” is another myth. American brown sugar is highly processed refined white sugar coated with molasses.
The books in English published by Master Cho use the term “brown sugar,” but he is referring to dry, raw sugar, which has a natural brown tint and more nutrients and minerals than refined white sugar. Ideally, you want simple crystallized cane juice, although the sugar can be from other sources, as long as the product is dry.
Molasses and brown sugar (white sugar with added molasses) are hydrophilic, meaning they will pull moisture from the air, adding water to the system rather than binding it, and the culture will grow and evolve rather than go dormant.
Mix the culture (IMO-1, collected on rice) with an equal amount of dry sugar.
You Now Have IMO-2
In this stabilized state, this culture of soil biology can be kept for years. It should be kept in stable temperatures, away from light and vermin. This is the best form of IMO to store.
IMO STEP 3. Amplify
One thing that makes IMO Technology so efficient is that a spoonful of soil biology culture can inoculate large amounts of planting soil. This is done by amplifying the culture after it has been stabilized.
At this stage, many try to treat the amplification of the soil culture (IMO) as composting. There are instructions for balancing nitrogen and carbon and many interesting recipes. However, this step is NOT organic composting. This is another myth.
Composting is decomposing organic matter into soil. The purpose is not to decompose added organic matter using the microbes in IMO2. The purpose of this step is to amplify the culture of soil biology captured in IMO2. You want to install an ecosystem of soil biology onto your planting soil, not merely add some compost.
Master Cho designed his system to use rice bran as the substrate
to amplify the culture of IMO.
Master Cho chose rice bran because it was the best and most available choice for him in South Korea. He has worked with many substitutes, but rice bran is the pattern to follow. If you do not have access to rice bran, your choice for substitution should be as similar to rice bran as possible.
Rice bran is particularly nutritious, with Proteins (12-15%), Oils (15-20%), Dietary fiber (20-25%), Vitamins, Minerals, and Antioxidants. Use this as your guideline.
If you are treating your IMO pile like compost, adding nitrogen sources and carbon sources, what about the oil sources, for example? Where are the vitamins and minerals coming from? Rice bran has significant amounts of oils and vitamins. Follow the pattern.
Your substitute doesn’t have to be a grain product. People worldwide have used various agricultural products. Agricultural waste products (which is what rice bran is in Korea) tend to be particularly cheap, often free. What is available to you for free or almost free? Look for something nutritious that has a profile similar to rice bran.
Many like to add wood chips. They act like a sponge, and make it easy to control the moisture. However, using wood at this stage will alter the ecosystem. Adding wood is detrimental to the IMO culture.
Many use wood, thinking they will increase the fungal balance of the IMO. This is trying to manipulate the soil ecosystem after collection. It is better to collect from an appropriate location and keep the ecosystem as intact as possible. Don’t turn your mega-city into a frontier town. Just collect the proper mega-city for your crops.
A spoonful of IMO-2, the dormant culture, is mixed into a pile of rice bran or an alternate substrate, along with some nutrients and water, to reach 65-70% moisture. The pile is cultured on dirt, covered with breathable material, out of the sun and rain, in an area with good ventilation. The pile is turned as needed to keep the culture from getting too hot, and control moisture. A crumble is produced in about five days.
You Now Have Cultured IMO-3
IMO STEP 4. Acclimate
The next step is to acclimate the soil biology in IMO-3 with the planting soil. The pile of IMO-3 is mixed with an equal amount of planting soil and the culturing continues, again for about five days.
You Now Have Cultured IMO-4 Acclimated to Your Soil
This is the stage where you can now apply IMO to your soil and animals. A single application can be enough, both on your planting soil and in your barn or coop.
IMO STEP 5. Enhancement (optional)
If you want to add enhancements, most notably biochar, this is the time to add them. I see many people adding enhancements at the culturing, IMO-3 stage. It is not advisable to add extras at that earlier stage because it changes the ecology of your soil culture. Add enhancements after the IMO is fully cultured and acclimated. This preserves the original soil culture as collected as much as possible.
IMO STEP 6.
The final step is installation. This involves spreading the IMO4 (or IMO5) crumbles on the planting soil.
IMO has several other uses, such as adding to deep litter where animals are housed to establish an Inoculated Deep Litter System (IDLS). IMO in bedding can retain enough heat to brood baby chicks without a hen or any heat source. The IDLS keeps barns warm in winter and cool in summer. The microbes consume manure and excess feed as quickly as they fall. Animal pests and disease are largely eliminated.
For soils, IMO should be installed as a crumble, in small lumps, in order to preserve the soil ecosystem as intact as possible. Using it as a dust destroys the ecological cohesion. The IMO crumble is then watered in with a nutrient solution that enables soil microbes to become quickly and easily established. The crumbles are then covered with mulch to protect them from solar radiation as needed.
There are specific uses for liquid IMO, but it is not the proper method for installing soil biology into planting soil. Liquid IMO will not save you time. It will not save you money. More importantly, it will alter the soil biology that you will be installing on your planting soil.
IMO Technology means installing IMO-4 (or IMO-5) crumbles onto planting soil. It can be installed once, and that can be enough. Don’t make this process any harder than it has to be.
IMO ALTERNATIVES
Soil Foundation involves getting soil biology thriving in your planting soil:
1. in large amounts
2. as an ecosystem
If you are having difficulty with the IMO process, then do something else, such as leaf compost, like I did in the 60s, to get the microbial levels up in your soil and develop them into a cohesive ecosystem.
Plants need proper microbes in the soil in order to obtain the nutrients they need. Soil tests will tell you what nutrients are readily available to the plants, but not what is stored in the soil. With proper soil microbiology, all the nutrients, available and locked up, will be available to the plants as they need them and in the proper amounts.
Too much or too little leads to nutrient imbalances. Furthermore, one nutrient imbalance can cause multiple nutrient imbalances. All imbalances lead to pests and disease. Allowing plants to obtain their own nutrition is the main reason why pests and disease are largely eliminated when practicing Natural Farming.
If you don’t want pests and disease, the best thing you can do is
create a Soil Foundation of healthy, living soil.
There are other methods besides IMO technology and leaf mold compost to develop high levels of balanced soil biology. Organic compost can work, but the results are highly variable, and it takes about three years for the microbes to become established. Also, organic compost can also take a lot of labor.
Make sure the soil is getting organic matter to build and maintain the soil biology. That will help. Use ground covers and mulches. Use “chop and drop,” leaving weeds and crop residues in the field. If the mulch is thick enough, weed seeds will not be able to germinate.
If you struggle with IMO, keep trying to get a good IMO collection and culture it into IMO4. All you really need to do is be successful once.
Getting started with KNF will be continued in the next article.
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