Plant Alchemy With KNF: Korean Natural Farming And Jadam

ALM

So, it's leaf raking mowing time in these parts so you know what that means. That's right, time for some more experiments.

This round will feature something I hope will prove an effective alternative to Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss (CSPM) for me. Specifically aged leaf mold (ALM).

Leaf mold is made with a fungal breakdown process as opposed to the bacterial process we use in normal composting. This is a cold process that takes time, rather than a hot process as with most compost.

The process is quite simple. Pile up a bunch of leaves, ideally at least a meter square and high, wet it thoroughly, and let it sit for a while. Like a couple of years. This is not a quick process. The breakdown can be speeded up with the addition of turning and adding high nitrogen items but then you're back to a more bacterially dominated end product. So, time it is.

I started my first batch a couple of years ago in two 32 gallon garbage cans, wetting the leaves as I filled the containers. The same result can be had by filling black garbage bags with leaves, adding water, poking some holes with a pitchfork for aeration and drainage all around, and then sticking them somewhere out of the way for Mother Nature to do her thing.

It turns into a dark, almost black, crumbly, humusy end product. In my research I found many references to using it as an alternative to CSPM, so I wanted to see for myself.

EXPERIMENT 1:
My first experiment compared its wicking ability to that of Coco and CSPM. I dried each sample, screened them each to normalize particle size, filled my little propagator containers, set them in a bottom watering container and noted the time it took to fully rehydrate each sample.

Coco - 90 minutes
ALM - 12 hours
CSPM - complete failure (or at least I'm still waiting 3 days on)

Conclusion:
Although Coco was the fastest, the ALM proved to be able to rehydrate a fully dry container, and the CSPM didn't wick at all. To be fair, it probably would have fared better if not bone dry, but many of us let our medium dry out between waterings so I thought that would be the best thing to test.

I suspect many of those who oppose bottom watering have a CSPM based medium and this experiment shows why they may have been unimpressed.

EXPERIMENT 2:
My second experiment was to compare the water holding ability of the three mediums. I used 16oz by volume (dried) of each, weighed them and then oversaturated them in 32oz of water overnight to get them thoroughly soaked. Then I drained the standing water and weighed them again.

CSPM and Coco are often touted for their ability to hold water so I wanted to see how ALM would stack up.

MED. Starting Ending
ALM 98 grams 511 grams
Coco 49 grams 495 grams
CSPM 90 grams 469 grams

Conclusion:
The ALM held more water than either of the other two! It's starting weight was slightly higher than CSPM but that could be explained by the medium itself as it is not uncommon to have small bits of twigs mixed in.

Also it was interesting to note that after the overnight soak, the ALM had a froth of bubbles covering the surface showing some really good microbe activity, while the other two understandably had nothing going on. ALM appears to be very Jadam friendly!

So, it would seem that ALM is a quite suitable alternative to either of the other two without some of the downsides.

Coco is good but comes frome half a world away and can cause issues if not thoroughly rinsed. It also has a reputation for holding onto to certain nutrients causing lockouts if not addressed in the nutrient mix.

CSPM is extremely hydrophobic when dry and difficult to rewet if allowed to go dry, and in the process has very poor wicking ability which can lead to dry pockets throughout your medium.

ALM wicks reasonably well, holds a good amount of water, and adds life in the form of microbes to your mix. Leaves are also what I feed my worms so it would seem to be a good way to sustain a worm population in my pots. The downside is you have to make it yourself as it is not commercially available and it takes a loooong time (a couple of years) to do so. But it's free, so there's that.

So, based on these two experiments, I'm sold. But, as with all my experiments, I'll try it on my houseplants before testing it on my ladies, and I repotted a variety of plants this weekend to see how they like it. I used equal parts of ALM, perlite and worm castings.

And, as with all of my experiments, I look forward to my plants not dying overnight.
 
Highya Azimuth,

Interesting experiments. Nicely presented, as well! I'm more committed to compost and microbes than before, after the results you found! JADAM's biggest success (according to Mr. Cho) was the stuff he used for repelling unwanted insects with organic means. I didn't get into that much because I don't have a serious problem with insects. But I have experienced the increased vitality using the microbe solution! Thank you for that, and Happy Smokin'
 
Organic DIY Nutes, Round 2

Today I started another round of testing my organic nutes. My last round ended in failure as I was attempting to convert older soil plants over to perlite Hempy and they succumbed in the process effectively wiping out that set of genetics.

So, I popped a couple of beans of two different strains and grew them up to where I could take some clones. I'll be starting this test with 4 clones of my Northern Lights #5. Two will be in a hydroton Hempy set-up and the other two in my base soil mix of equal parts ALM, RWC, and hydroton. No added minerals or meals of any kind.

I don't have what I consider to be the ideal nute mix since I didn't have the right plants last year and had to order them and plant them in my garden, which I did. So, I'll be using a variety of things this round to try to approximate what I think my GoTo mix will be. By mid summer I should have what I think will be a really simple yet effective combination of extracts.

For now though, I'll be using a variety of my KNF and Jadam extracts that I produced last season. My goals are to see if I can get and keep a nice color in the leaves without obvious deficiencies, get some good growth on the plants, and ultimately whether I can take the plants through flower powered by just these extracts.

Perhaps a pretty tall order, but I am looking forward to see just how far I can get with my home grown nutes. And half the test is to see of I can grow Hempy with them. Fingers crossed.
 
Welcome, @DV8 ! Glad to have you along.

I don't do pics for security reasons at this point. I will eventually, but for now this is the best I can do.

Nutty hasn't been around for a bit. He had a security issue of his own with a neighbor and went radio silent a while back. His journal is a fun read and he really went 'whole hog' with the extracts. He showed that one could grow some big, beautiful plants using just these types of amendments. I'm hoping to do so as well but using a much smaller assortment. Like maybe a half a dozen, easy to source in your yard ones, at most. But that will have to wait a few months for the weather to warm and for the new plants I put in to grow.

You're in mid-summer down your way, right? We just got about 15cm of snow yesterday so it's gonna be a while before the garden starts back up here.
 
Yeah, mid summer here down under mate. Been cooler for the main, but it does get awful hot and dry where I am.

I wont clog up your thread too much but your information and experiments go hand in hand with my growing experiences.

Ive been a gardening as a past time on and off for years, fruit trees, veges, and a bunch of exotics and ornamentals both in and out of season in gardens and greenhouses. The beauty is though you never stop learning.

I like natural processes, vermiculture, composting, natural ammendments, teas, etc. It all started when I read a book by Bill Mollison on Permaculture in my 20s. No expert, just a student.
 
Yeah, mid summer here down under mate. Been cooler for the main, but it does get awful hot and dry where I am.

I wont clog up your thread too much but your information and experiments go hand in hand with my growing experiences.

Ive been a gardening as a past time on and off for years, fruit trees, veges, and a bunch of exotics and ornamentals both in and out of season in gardens and greenhouses. The beauty is though you never stop learning.

I like natural processes, vermiculture, composting, natural ammendments, teas, etc. It all started when I read a book by Bill Mollison on Permaculture in my 20s. No expert, just a student.
Clog away, brother. That's what these threads are all about. Sharing our knowledge with others who are interested/curious about the same topics. :thumb:
 
Organic DIY Nutes, Round 2

Today I started another round of testing my organic nutes. My last round ended in failure as I was attempting to convert older soil plants over to perlite Hempy and they succumbed in the process effectively wiping out that set of genetics.

So, I popped a couple of beans of two different strains and grew them up to where I could take some clones. I'll be starting this test with 4 clones of my Northern Lights #5. Two will be in a hydroton Hempy set-up and the other two in my base soil mix of equal parts ALM, RWC, and hydroton. No added minerals or meals of any kind.

I don't have what I consider to be the ideal nute mix since I didn't have the right plants last year and had to order them and plant them in my garden, which I did. So, I'll be using a variety of things this round to try to approximate what I think my GoTo mix will be. By mid summer I should have what I think will be a really simple yet effective combination of extracts.

For now though, I'll be using a variety of my KNF and Jadam extracts that I produced last season. My goals are to see if I can get and keep a nice color in the leaves without obvious deficiencies, get some good growth on the plants, and ultimately whether I can take the plants through flower powered by just these extracts.

Perhaps a pretty tall order, but I am looking forward to see just how far I can get with my home grown nutes. And half the test is to see of I can grow Hempy with them. Fingers crossed.

So, it's been a couple of waterings using the interim organic fertigating mix and the plants mostly all have really good color so far, but it's still way too early to reach any conclusions.

The up-potted hempys made their way over to the worm bin. :confused: I rooted them in perlite and when I potted them up I rinsed that off and stuck them in dry hydroton. I watered them in but it seemed to be too much change for them. They drooped over by the next day and never recovered. I've got replacement plants in the cloner (10 days in) so I'm going to try again. I've got 4 potentials so I'll probably try a variety of ways when I up-pot them.

I did switch the two hempys I have going over to the organic nutes this week and, so far so good.

Most of the soil plants have good color. There are some exceptions but those are due to other reasons I think.

The fertigating mix is more involved than I would like as I add small amounts of the following KNF extractions: FAA (fish amino acid), WCA (water soluble calcium), seaweed, horsetail fern, comfrey, aloe, and finally a small amount of wood ash to bring up the pH. I figure that mix should have everything and more that they could want.

Later this spring, once the garden plants come up, my plan is to have two 5 gallon buckets with JLF (water based Jadam Liquid Fertilizer).

The first will be my veg bucket and I'm going to do 1 part seaweed, 2 parts horsetail fern, and 2 parts stinging nettle. The horsetail fern and stinging nettle are super complimentary to each other when it comes to their nute profiles, and the seaweed should add some great growth hormones and lots of micronutrients to the mix. I'll probably also add a bit of my ALM (aged leaf mold) to the mix as well.

The second will be my flower bucket and will have mostly comfrey, and then an assortment of flowers starting with dandelion, then daylily, squash, etc. Anything large and showy. Also I'll add some fruit (unripened to over-ripened) and seed pods and seeds.

And, I'll add JMS to each bucket weekly from both worm castings and leaf mold soil to help break down the material.

So once I get those two buckets going it should be very simple to take a measured amount of JLF from one or the other buckets to mix with rain water to fertigate my plants. I'll also experiment to see if adding additional JMS (Jadam Microbial Solution) will add much to the fertigation mix or not. The nutrients are supposed to come out of the extraction process already plant available so shouldn't need the extra microbes to feed the plant, but we'll see.

Emilya suggests this is force feeding the plant rather than having the plant determine what it wants and having the microbes deliver the goodies to it.

I'm ok with that if that's what's going on. I just want healthy plants, being fed nutes I make myself, from stuff I grow in my garden with no chemicals.

But, so far I like what I see.
 
Highya Azimuth,

I like what you're saying. When I first started, I used to try things (experiments) similar to what you're doing. I was a little younger, and a little more mobile. At that time it seemed like a lot of little things to tend my garden. I tried actively aerated compost tea last year, but still something was missing. I have comfrey directly added to top for mulch. I apply diy compost each spring. I burn wood, so have a good supply of potassium and calcium. We compost all kitchen scraps, grass clippings, spring nettle, and general yard debris. I supplement with bloodmeal and bonemeal when necessary. Everything organic. But still, something was missing. I started Nutty Professor's journal where he talked about similar things. I decided to start with the microbes as I reasoned they were the key to plants getting nutrients. So, every week I fed my whole garden with JNS and the difference was unbelievable at times. That (microbes) was the missing link, for me. I even sprayed JNS on cannabis leaves and buds before wet humid weather. It did keep the botrytis down, similar to lactobacillus serum year before last.
I only said all this to give you more data for your experiment designs. And I'm so pleased I can be proud of our garden!
Happy Smokin'
 
Highya Azimuth,

I like what you're saying. When I first started, I used to try things (experiments) similar to what you're doing. I was a little younger, and a little more mobile. At that time it seemed like a lot of little things to tend my garden. I tried actively aerated compost tea last year, but still something was missing. I have comfrey directly added to top for mulch. I apply diy compost each spring. I burn wood, so have a good supply of potassium and calcium. We compost all kitchen scraps, grass clippings, spring nettle, and general yard debris. I supplement with bloodmeal and bonemeal when necessary. Everything organic. But still, something was missing. I started Nutty Professor's journal where he talked about similar things. I decided to start with the microbes as I reasoned they were the key to plants getting nutrients. So, every week I fed my whole garden with JNS and the difference was unbelievable at times. That (microbes) was the missing link, for me. I even sprayed JNS on cannabis leaves and buds before wet humid weather. It did keep the botrytis down, similar to lactobacillus serum year before last.
I only said all this to give you more data for your experiment designs. And I'm so pleased I can be proud of our garden!
Happy Smokin'
Thanks, Bode.

I think you're using the microbes in the way they're probably best used, that being symbiotically with the plant. The plant wants some nutrient and it sends a signal to the microbes through the roots. The microbes go get it, break it down and deliver it to the plant. Exactly what's needed and when.

That works great for a larger pot size or in an outdoor grow.

Since my containers are so small I have to find a different approach.

I'm still using the same microbes, but in my case it's to break down to organic material ahead of time and then just feed it all to the plant all together.

So the plant gets what it wants but probably also other stuff it doesn't really need at the moment. Very much like feeding with bottled nutes, except mine are all organic and home grown in my garden (well, except for the seaweed) lol.

I guess the question will be, if the plant doesn't need some of the nutes I'm giving it at that time, what happens to the excess? Does it lock out others because of overload or what?

I guess we'll find out, but so far the plants seem to be happy. It is early yet, however.
 
Highya Azimuth,

I had about 15 house plants outdoors las summer (Christmas cactus, Spiders, a Jade, Aloe) and all of them got JMS every week just like the garden plants. I watered to a good bit runoff and this winter the foliage is so much more, and the cactii are flowering at will (cold enough temp). My guess is what was needed got used, and not needed nutes went to runoff. Never had any trouble even with the smallest of pots. I think JMS upped the brix too, but I don't have a meter. Happy Smokin'
 
I'll be testing that theory. It makes sense that they would help. This summer I'll be making the JMS every week to help break down the organic material and a portion of that will come with the cup or so of JLF that I'll mix with the rain water I water in with.

I figure it can't hurt and you've demonstrated some very positive results by adding them.

Good stuff, them microbes!:thumb:
 
It's now been about two weeks that I've been using the diy organic ferts on my plants, including the two hempys. So far, so good. Plants have good color and are growing well, but I know The Rev suggests in his book to wait a couple of weeks after making changes to evaluate before making others, so I'm right on the cusp of knowing if this can be a viable approach.
 
So, another week in and some of the leaves are fading and beginning to look hungry. Not completely surprised, tbh, as the mix of nutes I'm using doesn't have the balanced profile I want. So I'm going to switch over to FAA (Fish Amino Acid) diluted to 3/4 strength, which will provide nutrients in almost the exact ratio as to what I'll have this summer with this year's run of Swamp JuiceTM with the plant combinations I'm planning.

FAA is the stuff made with fish guts and brown sugar, left to ferment for a few months. As seen in the table at the beginning of this thread, it has most of the major nutrients in pretty high quantities, except for silica. Some growers have found it strong enough to burn their plants which is why I'll go a bit thin to start with.

I gave them all a foliar with it yesterday and they seem to be responding, but I'll concede it might be what my eyes want to see, therefore I have.
 
Hiya Azzie! :passitleft:

I’m trying to follow along, but I must have missed something. The nutrient levels you show for the FAA are very impressive!

...........................P.............K..........Ca..........Mg..........Fe.........Si...........S.............Cl...........Na.........Al...
Fish (FAA)............836.8......1,013....718.8.......105.7.....2.57.....0.29....127.2......1,000.....109.3.......1.31
But where are you getting the N? I don’t see it listed in any of the elemental breakdowns you have shown.
:surf:
 
@FelipeBlu ,

Yeah, unfortunately the tables in the book don't show the figures for 'N'. I really wish they did, obviously. The FAA is supposed to be high in that one as well, but would be nice to know what the levels for each plant listed were.
 
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