KNF Inputs for Beginners
As you go through the information for “How to KNF Level 1,” you probably notice these beginning steps mean you need some fundamental skills for making the inputs.
You don’t need to have every KNF input available to start KNF. I recommend only the most important ones, as well as starting the ones that take a long time to be ready to use. Start with these.
KNF BEGINNER INPUTS
1. IMO
2. FPJ
3. BRV* or BV*
4. SW
5. OHN*
6. FAA*
7. LAB, optional
*These inputs take a long time to be ready to use.
1. IMO is critical to the practice of KNF, Korean Natural Farming. There are three reasons why IMO technology is so effective at creating healthy, living soil:
1. Very high concentration of soil biology
2. Installed as an intact ecosystem
3. One application can be enough
There are five steps to getting IMO ready to inoculate your planting soil, animal bedding, and feed. The first is collecting IMO from a local area from under grass, a plant or tree that is rich and healthy, with a lot of leaf fall. IMO should be collected from a location that is the same type of ecosystem as your crops. This is IMO-1.
As soon as it is collected, it should be stabilized with dry, raw sugar. This is the best stage for storage and is called IMO-2.
The culture is then amplified on a substrate of rice bran or a comparable substitute. A spoonful inoculates a large pile, using a few highly dilute inputs to enhance the growth of microbes and adding enough water to a moisture level of 65-70%. The microbes grow quickly, and the pile is ready in about five days. The crumbly results are called IMO-3.
As soon as the microbes have been amplified, they are acclimated to the planting soil by mixing an equal amount of IMO-3 with soil from the field or garden. The culture is allowed to grow on this mixture. This step takes about five days. These crumbles are called IMO-4 and this is used to inoculate the soil and the animal bedding and is added to animal feed.
An optional step can be done at this stage to incorporate any other additives, such as biochar. This enhanced IMO is referred to as IMO-5.
The crumbles of IMO-4 or IMO-5 are applied to the field 2-3 hours before sunset, then watered in with a solution called SOS, Soil Treatment Solution, which enables microbes to become established in the soil quickly. The IMO can then be covered with mulch to protect the microbes from solar radiation.
This process is done in this specific way in order to preserve the stability of the soil ecosystem as much as possible. The idea is to install an intact ecosystem from healthy soil but in massive concentrations. It’s a powerful and highly effective way to get soil biology, as a complete ecosystem, into the ground where plants will grow.
I think of IMO as more than an input, the system of collecting, cultivating, and installing IMO is a technology to enhance soil health beyond anything I am aware of. To summarize, the steps for creating IMO are:
1. Collect
2. Stabilize
3. Amplify
4. Acclimate
5. Enhance (optional)
6. Install
2. FPJ Learn how to make a Fermented Plant Juice. FPJs are the active ingredients in the Biochemical Signaling Technology, BST, which follows the Nutritive Cycle. The only ingredients needed to make an FPJ are the appropriate plant material and dry, raw sugar, as well as something to ferment in and something to store in. Plant material is used according to its biochemical properties. They are not fertilizers.
In general, you will need only four types of FPJ:
Green Vegetative Growth
Flower bud set (Cross-Over)
Fruit Development (Green Fruit)
Fruit Ripening (Ripe Fruit)
3. BRV or BV Learn how to make a Master Cho-approved, fermented, living vinegar. Brown Rice Vinegar, BRV, or Banana Vinegar, BV, is used as an ionic buffer in almost every formulation. Substituting these two versions is not recommended, and apple cider vinegar is specifically contra-indicated.
The choice of materials for making vinegar is based on specific ionic properties, not pH or acetic acid levels. These ionic properties vary according to the plant material used. Just because your plants don’t die using a different vinegar doesn’t mean you are getting the biochemistry you want.
BRV is made from makgeolli, Korean rice wine (easy to make), which is allowed to age into vinegar naturally. BV is made from a banana fruit FPJ, which is allowed to age into vinegar naturally. Which one you choose depends mostly on what climate you live in for access to source materials.
4. SW Collect Seawater or make it from salt designed for saltwater aquariums.
5. OHN Learn to make the specific recipe for Oriental Herbal Nutrient, a tonic. OHN promotes health, acts as an immune system modulator, and increases effectiveness when growing microbial cultures, such as IMO. Ingredients are first fermented and then extracted with 40% alcohol. Dry ingredients need an extra hydration step before fermentation.
The ingredients are:
Angelica Root (Angelica gigans) Use double the amount of the other ingredients
Licorice Root (Glycyrrhiza glabra)
Cinnamon Bark (Cinnamomum verum)
Garlic Cloves (Allium sativum)
Ginger Root (Zingiber officinale)
Don’t spend a lot of money on ingredients to get started. Use what you have easy access to and skip the rest. Don’t make substitutions. In the Philippines, they use only ginger and garlic. You can start with a small size batch.
Start growing these ingredients if you can. Angelica and licorice can take a couple of years to get a harvest. Cinnamon can be difficult to grow outside of the tropics, and garlic is difficult to grow in the tropics, but if managed properly, it can be done. Again, use what you have access to. Don’t make substitutions.
6. FAA Learn how to make a Fish Amino Acid. FFA strengthens young and weak plants and is used for animal and human nutrition. The only ingredients needed are fish scrapes and dry, raw sugar, and a vessel for fermentation. FAA is ready to use after six months, although waiting a year will yield a higher quality product.
7. LAB Learn how to make a Lactic Acid Bacterial Serum. LAB is not really needed in the very beginning, but easy to make and useful as a human probiotic. As an input it is used mostly for young plants to get big leaf production.
It can be used to help with certain pests and diseases but overuse will lead to a loss in the diversity of soil biology and is, therefore, detrimental with continued use. A properly functioning KNF system will do more to prevent pests and diseases than using LAB to control them.
OTHER INPUTS
You actually don’t need the mineral inputs to start, like WCa and WCaP. You can start practicing KNF without them. Start with this list of beginning inputs. Learn to make them properly. They are adequate for practicing KNF.
It is better to have just the essentials of high quality, than have everything of poor quality.
Keep in mind that everything you make should be edible. The quality of everything you make is tested by your smell and taste. Yes, you should be tasting everything. This tells you far more than any lab test or microscope.
Additionally, this is all going to be producing your food. If you only add food-quality inputs to your food, how much healthier do you think your food will be?
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