Farming with IMOs part 1

A Hawaiian style take on Korean farming practice using indigenous micro organisms and local waste materials. Gregg shows how he grows his own IMOs at Dragon Fruit Farm http://www.greengardenservice.net

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Natural Farming
• IMO
• Organic Fruit growing

[gbell12]

@WhichDoctor1 - it's not rude to ask hard questions.

So many brew up potions with little evidence or testing. Breeding billions of organisms, only to send them out with little or no food available seems futile.

Microbes growing on rice and sugar would obviously be different than the microbes that inhabit healthy soil.

Everybody should read existing research and do small trials before spending a lot of time and money.

Thanks to Bill and Gregg for sharing the techniques and experience.

[GreenGardenGuy1]

@gbell12 I am glad to have stirred up some thought here. I can't honestly say that I am a total follower of this Korean farming practice. Gregg has reach out to in in an effort to grow his crop organically and to try and solve some fruit deformity problems. My interest here is a fascination with any form of agriculture that doesn't rely on the standard practice of importing NPK input. This planet crops it's self without our help for billions of years. We have a lot to learn in this reguard

[MrMENRIQUE2]

@GreenGardenGuy1 Great video, I just have a question, how do you get your microbes to start the process? thanks.

[GreenGardenGuy1]

@WhichDoctor1 It's fine. I have questions about what comes out of the fermentation process myself. There has to be some of the forest fungi existing in the mix because I have seen it sprayed on green wood chips and it produced a nice mycellium. I am positive that natural farming is possible with limited imported inputs using mostly what exists with in a given site. The microbes are the key to recycle the biomass produced by natural energy as plant nutrients.

[WhichDoctor1]

@GreenGardenGuy1 My apology's. I didn't mean to come across rude it's just I'm interested in this kind of thing and this was a little unusual. Thanks for giving the name of Dr Han Kyu Cho, I shall have a look into his work with interest.

[GreenGardenGuy1]

@WhichDoctor1 To begin with I am only the camera man and interested party here. My product is the video. Gregg is the man who makes and uses the IMOs on his Dragon fruit farm. I can't tell you much more about the process than I documented in these videos. What I can tell you is this Korean IMO farming has become a wide spread practice on the Big Island. The process Gregg uses is typical of the one that Dr. Han Kyu Cho teaches in Hawaii. It is interesting and that's why I recorded it.

[WhichDoctor1]

@GreenGardenGuy1 Yes I understand that I just dont see how you are getting the strains you wont on those substrates. You can grow isolated fungi on rice or millet but it has to be totally sterile, if its not it just gets overgrown with simple molds and yeast. I would have thought the same would go for bacteria, no matter what you use to start with the things that like simple foods will surely outcompete the natural soil flora. Have you had your products tested to see what they contain?

[GreenGardenGuy1]

@WhichDoctor1 Most of the cultures start with inputs that are harvested from specific local environments like old growth forests or ancient bamboo stands. The tree cultures contain mostly fungi and the grass cultures contain bacteria. The principle is to multiply these organisms and then apply them to soil or compost. The principle is similar to using pro-biotic fertilizers or compost starter cultures. The organisms eat the weeds that are chopped over the lava and release food for crops.

[WhichDoctor1]

Excuse me if I'm wrong but aren't you just breeding yeast? Mix rice and sugar together and I would expect to get a mix of yeasts and bacteria good at braking down simple carbohydrates, everything ells would get out competed. But the organic parts of soils are mostly made up of complex things like Cellulose, lignin, etc. So what is the benefit of adding all these microbes to soil when there's nothing there for them to eat? I'm not trying to be nasty I just wont to understand.

[GreenGardenGuy1]

@biblemike1 Currently the center of IMO activity in the USA is on the Big Island of Hawaii. There are several people who teach the topic there. For your purposes it would probably be best to visit the Island and learn from the people there. There doesn't seem to be too much activity in this topic on the Mainland. Check out the Hawaiian Homegrown Food web site for contacts.