WHAT IS FPJ AND HOW DOES IT WORK?
When I look at posts online on several groups for Natural Farming, I keep seeing posts like:
What is the best plant to use for an FPJ (Fermented Plant Juice)?
Can this plant be used to make an FPJ?
The questions and the replies clearly indicate that there are many people who don’t understand exactly what FPJ is and how it is meant to be used.
Most people I see online, it seems, think of FPJ as a fertilizer, and they discuss using it as a fertilizer. However, FPJ, Fermented Plant Juice, is NOT A FERTILIZER! It is used as a Biochemical Signaling agent. It is used to signal plants what to do. It is used to direct plant growth.
A big part of the misconceptions come from the dogma of modern agricultural practices and the packaging of Korean Natural Farming (KNF) and Jadam together. KNF and Jadam are not the same. Jadam is a low-cost organic growing system. It is not Natural Farming.
In Nature, plants are able to self-fertilize. In Jadam, fermented liquids are applied as fertilizers. Liquid fertilizers are called fertigation. Jadam is based on fertigation, which prevents plants from self-fertilizing because they are forced to uptake whatever is in the water. The farmer decides plant nutrition, not the plant.
In KNF, the ability of plants to self-fertilize, as happens in Nature, is preserved. KNF is Natural Farming. The weekly misting in KNF is not designed to fertilize. Rather, they are used as biochemical signals to direct plant growth. They may contain some nutrients, however, they are used in such dilute amounts that any fertilization is negligible.
This Biochemical Signaling Technology mainly follows the Nutritive Cycle, the lifecycle of the plants. FPJs are not meant to be used alone. They are the activating ingredient in a formula designed to stimulate the desired growth pattern. The FPJs contain hormones, enzymes, and other biochemicals that direct a specific growth response.
This may sound complicated, but it is actually straightforward. Follow the patterns of plant growth and give plants activated biochemistry (FPJ) to signal plants what to do. For example, give an FPJ made from the fast-growing tips of vegetative plants to signal vegetative growth or an FPJ from ripe fruits to signal fruit ripening.
Let’s look at purslane, Portulaca sp., as an example. Purslane is used as a plant material source to make FPJ. Even though it is one mentioned by Master Cho, if someone asks me if purslane can be used to make FPJ, I can’t say yes without qualifying.
Chopping up the whole plant and fermenting it will not work. This is not how the Biochemical Signaling Technology functions. Remember, this is not fertilization. This is not fertigation. Rather, we are using the biochemistry to direct growth.
If we are looking to stimulate vegetative growth, we need just the new tender tips, nothing else. The bud tips are where the meristem is, where the growth takes place. The meristem is where the biochemistry we need for vegetative growth is located.
If we take the whole plant, we will get other biochemical signals. Leaves are adapted for photosynthesis and gas exchange. Stems provide structural support and transport materials between roots and leaves. Flowers and fruits are specialized for reproduction and seed dispersal. Roots focus on anchoring the plant and absorbing water and nutrients from the soil.
If the entire plant is used to make an FPJ, the biochemistry will be mixed. Each part of the plant exhibits different growth patterns and responds to distinct biochemical signals because the various organs and tissues of the plant have specialized functions.
This would be very confusing. It would be like being surrounded by a group of people, all of them screaming commands, each one different from the others. How do you decide what command to follow? Photosynthesize? Thicken cells into strong stems? Produce a flower bud? Grow root hairs?
This confusion doesn’t matter if the entire plant is being harvested as a fertilizer. The hormones are drowned out by the dominant components of Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, etc., the nutrients. However, with an FPJ, we are looking at specific hormones, enzymes, and other biochemicals.
The beauty of the KNF system is the farmer does not need to be a sophisticated biochemical expert to understand this. The farmer only needs to recognize growth patterns of plants and give them to other plants to direct the same growth pattern, for example, using the young, tender tips of fast-growing plants to stimulate green growth. Likewise, using a ripe fruit FPJ will stimulate fruit ripening.
Each FPJ will contain a specific set of biochemicals from a plant pattern, specific to the stage of growth and plant part used, and will direct your plants to follow that same pattern.
Now that we understand how biochemistry works in plants, let's get back to purslane. As stated before, if we want vegetative growth, we want just the young tender tips. However, when I look at a purslane plant, I often see it covered with flowers. This is a very different biochemistry.
If we take flower buds that are just forming, it will tend to signal the plant to form flower buds. If we take mature flowers, it is likely to signal flower production to shut down as a feedback signal that flowering has already taken place and the next generation has already been produced.
So, if I’m looking at a purslane covered with flowers, I am thinking that this may either tell my plants to flower more or shut the flowers down. Reproduction stages are high-energy and high high-risk. The survival of the next generation of the species is at stake. It is a process that is very tightly controlled. That control happens with the biochemistry and changes dramatically as the flower buds mature and open into flowers.
I strongly caution to test any flower or flower bud FPJ before using it broadly. The results may differ on different target plants, so test each type separately. Be aware that this stuff is so potent that I’ve seen just an accidental light mist of about one second on a few leaves shut down the entire bush’s flowering for an entire year. I’ve also seen it affect just one side of a shrub for a few months.
My experiments have shown that using flower-stage FPJs can lead to changes to the plants that last from many months to the lifetime of the plant over many years, including changes in the genetic expression of the fruit. In one experiment, a chili plant I tested changed the shape of the chili fruit for the rest of its life (several years).
These responses are powerful. They don’t happen when using plant material as fertilizers. They happen when using plant materials as a Biochemical Signaling Technology.
The workaround Master Cho developed for the tricky reproductive stage, the “cross-over” stage, is to use a mix of a vegetative FPJ and a green fruit FPJ, which bridges the transition between green growth and setting fruit. This is a safe way to transition through the sensitive reproductive phases without worry.
If you have access to banana plants, the banana flower is stable and makes a great cross-over FPJ to bring on flower buds and flower formation. I use this comfortably without testing.
Again, back to our purslane. If the purslane is past the flowering stage and is covered with seed heads, it has a different biochemistry than either the growing tips or the flowers. It has the biochemistry of ripening fruit and can be used to signal the development of any fruit or seed crop. It can also be used for root crop development since root crops can be thought of as underground “fruit” or “seeds.”
Do you see how the patterns work? Fresh growing leaf tips signal vegetative growth. Flower buds can signal flower bud development. Green fruits signal fruit development. Ripe fruits signal fruit ripening. Seeds are the fruit without the flesh and follow the same pattern as fruit.
So yes, purslane is a good plant to make FPJ with. But it depends greatly on which part of the plant is collected and what stage of growth it is in when collected. Because of its tendency to flower and develop seed heads, it can be problematic. Because it is a succulent, it is juicy, and the FPJs have high yields, making it a popular choice.
If you’ve read anything about FPJ you have probably heard that it needs to be collected before sunrise. That is only necessary if you are collecting for vegetative growth. The reason is that just as soon as the sunlight hits the leaves, the plant immediately switches from green growth to photosynthesis. Think of it as earning money (energy collection) in the sunshine and spending money (growing) at night.
Be sure you keep the harvested plant material out of the sun as well. If the sun hits the leaves, even after it has been harvested, the leaves are still living and will immediately and completely change their biochemistry to photosynthesis. You will have wasted your time getting outside in time, and the FPJ you make will not do what you want it to do. For vegetative growth, you want vegetative growth biochemistry, not photosynthesis chemistry.
If you want to collect plant material to make fertilizers, if you want to use fertigation, that is your management decision to make. However, if you want to practice Natural Farming, use plant materials to direct plant growth, and let plants self-fertilize, then you must do two things.
First, you must carefully select which plant materials you collect for your FPJs. You must understand what that stage of growth will signal in other plants. You know this by observing the simple patterns of plant growth.
Secondly, you must build a solid soil foundation with proper soil biology so that plants have the microbes they need to self-fertilize. This ensures that plants get from the soil what they need, when they need it, and in the exact amount required, no more, no less.
Letting plants self-fertilize, the practice of Natural Farming, has several advantages. Nutrition tends to remain tightly balanced. Force-feeding plants leads to nutritional imbalances, which lead directly to pests and disease. Therefore, with Natural Farming, pests and disease are greatly reduced.
Self-fertilized plants, because they are healthier, produce more, with better quality and nutrition. They are more likely to reach their genetic potential. This is especially true when the growth is directed using Biochemical Signaling Technology. This is the secret sauce of Korean Natural Farming.
Additionally, because much of the work of growing is given back to plants, they require less care and less labor, taking less time and money.
In answer to the question, “Can I use this plant to make an FPJ?” We must first ask,
“What is the purpose of the FPJ? and
“What stage of growth is the plant in?”
The recommended patterns for choosing FPJ material are:
For vegetative growth, Master Cho advocates using Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) and Dropwort (Oenanthe javanica). If you don’t grow these, you should. One flushes best in the spring, the other in the fall, giving access to plenty of plant material for the year. They both naturalize easily. Otherwise, choose something similar. Sweet potato or pumpkin are good alternatives. Use only the tip of fast-growing shoots and collect before sunrise.
For flower development, use banana flower or a combination of vegetative growth FPJ and green fruit FPJ.
For fruit development, use a green fruit.
For fruit ripening, use a sweet ripe fruit.
Avoid plants that are toxic, acidic (citrus, tomato), tannic (persimmon, grape), or otherwise too strong (e.g., spicy chili). However, these plants can be used on themselves: citrus on citrus, tomato on tomato, grape on grape, and so forth.
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