Growing With Fishes Podcast 368: Chris Trump talks about IMO, LIMO, IMO Microbial Analysis and More!

[00:00:01]Hey guys, Steve here.

[00:00:04]Today we're going to talk about growing with fishes.

[00:00:13]Growing with fishes.

[00:00:21]All right, everybody. Welcome to Growing with Fishes podcast. We have one of our favorite returning guests today. We have Chris Trump back with us again.

[00:00:30]>> Hey guys.

[00:00:32]>> Super excited to uh to have him on as always. He has brought us an immense amount of IPMO to all the KNF education that I ever gotten. He's the first one that turned me on to that at uh Josh's regenerative conference. So, I'm super excited to have him back on with us today. Thanks a lot for joining us, Chris.

[00:00:51]>> Yeah, thanks for having me, Steve. I I uh love talking microbes with you and uh all that you're up to is is uh always inspiring. So >> glad to be here.

[00:01:02]>> Always love spending time with Chris both on and off the camera.

[00:01:07]>> Um so um uh tell us a little about what you got going on. Uh you've been a very very busy dude doing lots of cool things lately. Um, those of you guys that don't know, he is uh got a really awesome new updated website. We're at Biom Bio Mi for those listening audio format uhsolutions.

[00:01:28]So, you can check out his website. He's got all kinds of cool new stuff he's got going on. Um, what have you been up to lately?

[00:01:35]>> Yeah, man. I uh we did a a year of classes out in Hawaii, which was awesome. Um, and uh really kind of uh doing a trial run on a vision I've had uh and some members of the natural farming community have had for a while to have a learning center, a place of uh gathering and agriculture. Um and [snorts] uh it it went well. Um there was some really amazing uh people that came out to learn and uh so super grateful for that opportunity and I learned a lot. um my my good friend and business partner Michael Drexler helped me out and uh um yeah loved loved a lot of it and learned a ton about what it takes and um yeah so it is uh right now on a yes let's do it uh list but um I think uh I have kids uh my youngest is 10 and so being focused on something that far away. We're in we're in Idaho doing kids and uh doing stuff in Hawaii just felt like um something for later. So, in uh 8 years, my 10-year-old will be 18 and uh we might uh call call the uh community together to create something where we can all uh participate and I think uh I could then be really uh focused on and excited about it. But um yeah, we um ended the year there and looked around and said, "Okay, this is cool. We could really see how this could be a lot of fun and and it could be really uh collaborative with um not just natural farming community, but the regenerative community as at large. Um so definitely uh keep an eye out for that in the in the coming years. Um and especially if you want to be involved. But yeah, for now we putting a pin in that. Uh it's uh something we'll we'll revisit in the future and uh whether it's Hawaii or uh here on the mainland. But um it was yeah, it was super cool. Um really neat to share kind of my hometown and the agriculture there, the community there with people. Um just really rich culture. So um I continue to work in Hawaii. I have um a cool uh farm partner um on Kauaii called Aloha Poi Company and they have a nonprofit they're associated with that they run to teach children. And so we're going to go out there and work with them uh in August and do a bunch of IMO5 for their tarot farm and and uh hang out and educate the youth. So lots of cool things. But uh yeah, definitely pausing on the learning center. I think uh the next class we do we'll do here in Idaho.

[00:04:35]Uh so uh we keep a lookout for that.

[00:04:38]It's just uh so much easier to do it in your backyard than it is to uh do it in another place.

[00:04:45]>> They can find out information on your classes. They go to your website that you have a whole >> Yeah. on the website and they can sign up for a newsletter. we started getting better with uh putting out what we're up to um in an email. Um and it's maybe three emails a year. So, it's definitely not uh not in the spam category. It's just kind of here's the update, here's you know what's available if you want to check it out. So, people have been uh enjoying those emails. It's been a pretty easy way to communicate. If you go to biomolutionsclasses, it has a link to the all the upcoming courses as well as the online courses on there as well.

[00:05:28]>> Yeah. And the online course has still been super helpful for for people that you know can't get to an inerson class.

[00:05:35]It's a lot of time uh you know so there's a lot more education than the short YouTube videos and uh kind of gives people a good kind of baseline or foundation to if they want to get into it.

[00:05:48]>> And it's a great class. So had a chance to take it from start to finish and it's super good but it's still not quite as good as in person where you could taste stuff and smell stuff and a lot of the things especially with KNF like you can smell and taste it immediately if something's off. So you do really get a huge added benefit if you can get a chance to get to one of his online inerson classes of the online.

[00:06:08]Yeah, it's a it's a lot of fun too hanging out and doing uh adult camp together able to he does have a wonderful library of resources on his YouTube channel as well which we'll we'll have in the description.

[00:06:23]Yeah, there's there's a bunch of free resources and um the calculator I think is probably the most helpful free and uh accessible um if you're trying to mix up a tank of something to spray out that gives you kind of the dilution ratios. So that's um really intended to be something uh super easy for for people to get into.

[00:06:50]Yeah, you click that top thing and you can click down into whatever you're trying to make. So, if you're about to mix up some imo and you need to figure out what the solution is, uh, liquid imo and yeah, good stuff.

[00:07:05]>> It's got a whole wide range of different things depending on what um, plant stage, you know, life stage your plants are in. So, definitely a wonderful resource for people out there. It's It's definitely by far the most in-depth and expensive uh calculator you can find anywhere online for free. Regards to um Korean National Farming Inputs, it's really great.

[00:07:26]Biom solutions pound sign or I guess the kids call it hashtag these days calculators.

[00:07:34]>> Yeah, you just scroll down on the main page and you can find it. But the the kind of the vision with Biome is to make natural farming accessible. That's uh continued to be um what we're going for is that uh this spreads, you know, as um Master Cho wanted to see this uh be an alternative for uh for agriculture that wasn't healthy for us. And um I think we're we're getting there.

[00:08:05]got a wonderful little glossery on there too in case you forget what one of the abbreviations are because I know the first time Chris ever started talking to me about it, it sounded like speaking a different language, but once you understand what everything is, it's uh it's quite indepth, but it does take, you know, especially if you're just getting started, it's really wonderful to have a a glossery like that right there next to the calculator in case you forget something.

[00:08:27]>> Yeah. Yeah. And that's, you know, uh, next thing we've been up to is, um, we we are here in Idaho making a, uh, an IMO, a ship ready, um, bag of microbes for people. And, um, this is, you know, really in response to, uh, people saying, "Hey, IMO's hard.

[00:08:52]I I can make the sprays and um, challenges [clears throat] with IMO are um are real." just because it's it's um it's a skill-based uh tool. Um so you you have to really kind of get into developing the skill to make it. And um so I make it really well. Um we took a lot of care to to make the best product here and um we're shipping it free anywhere in the US. So um [snorts] that is uh something I'm I'm excited about.

[00:09:26]um you know the the best you know in in my philosophy the highest and best is is that uh people are learning to make it and really empowered to create it on their farm. But I think one of the things that's a little bit of a a barrier to entry is that well I'm gonna spend a year learning to make this but how good is it? You know how well does it affect my farm? And if people are getting to see, oh, wow, this is the impact of natural farming. This is the value of it, then they're saying, well, I if Chris is making, I can make it. And then I hope that really is is what this inspires. I hope it inspires um people to make good rather than saying, oh, it didn't work because they messed it up and it made crappy stuff. you know, you can take these ingredients that are in IMO, throw them together and do it wrong, and you don't have, you know, it's not an automatic uh, you know, win just because you throw the ingredients together. So, um, as much as we put into education and and, uh, really empowering people to do this, there's still those that are like, "Hey, will you just make it for me?" And, uh, so this is an answer to that. And um we're working with golf courses on the California coast. And uh the goal, the hope here is that our rivers run more uh more clear and uh our coastlines are less toxified because we get the microbes at work in more agricultural settings. and uh and they they process, you know, the heavy agricultural chemicals and they um send microbes down into the ocean to make the uh ocean alive. And and so the um the hope here is that this is um uh kind of a broad brush approach to making the the uh the US at at least for now a little healthier. Um, and so yeah, we've uh we've finally gotten there. It's been kind of a a process to get everything together for this, but I'm pretty excited to offer uh you know, IMO we made uh for for the masses. And um yeah, I'm going to send Steve a bag here next week. Get to play with it. Steve makes good imo already, but you know, sharing microbes is caring. Oh yeah. All about sharing microbes.

[00:12:00][laughter] Um I remember you just first started talking about this about two years ago and it's really awesome to kind of see this come to fruition and stuff like that. Um also like I think it's also a really good thing for people that hear about green natural farming. Maybe are interested in getting their toe dipping their toe into organic farming but they're like man I don't know how to do all that stuff. I'm intimidated. they can just buy this, get started, test it in their garden, and then see if it's right for them, see if it's the right thing that they want to shift their farm to because they can actually buy a, you know, properly formulated IMO and immediately, you know, see results in a positive way rather than having to go through the learning process of having to figure it out properly in the beginning. you know, kind of they can skip that whole step and just find out if it's right for them and right for their farm immediately off the bat without having to, you know, get as in-depth with it, which is, you know, all of us enjoy it that are into this stuff, but a lot of people that are coming from the uh fertilizer and chemical a side, this is kind of a big jump for them, but giving them a kind of a stepping stone like this really, you know, plays an important part in helping them, you know, get to that road of education that we all embrace.

[00:13:10]>> Yeah. Yeah, it's it's um a lot of farmers I work with um you know, you have um I've had a lot of um conversations and uh consults with big farms and they're like yes, we want to make it yes, you know. Um but then you have different barriers that for each different farm are unique. you know, one farm in Iowa, we we traveled for an hour in a bunch of directions from the farm.

[00:13:42]There was no place for an hour in every direction that hadn't been sprayed over the last, you know, 10, 15, 20 years.

[00:13:49]Everything was pretty sterile. So, you know, the heart was there. The farmer had a huge heart for regenerative and he wanted to do it and he was doing it. He is still but getting good um indigenous inoculum. They didn't have it anywhere.

[00:14:06]And Iowa is flat. So there's not some beautiful like you know um state park that we can go to with trees and and mountains you know it was like farmland sprayed by planes for the last generation. and uh and so just getting life into his soil was going to be a challenge regardless. And uh that's just one farmer's issues, you know, and working with a farmer out here in the Treasure Valley kind of Idaho u Boise area. And um they are an incredible regenerative farm, McIntyre Pastures, and uh they have a full IMO program uh going now going to be spraying out tea and we did a a test plot, but [snorts] we checked, you know, this beautiful regenerative farm. We tested all their soils and it's only bacteria. I mean, they do everything right. I mean, as far as uh um poster child regenerative farm livestock and and whatnot, they do everything right, but there's still, you know, no fungi to to find in in the entirety of their property. And so, we did one strip u you know, some 2,000 3,000 lbs uh spread out in a freshly planted pasture. And 2 weeks later, still no fungi in the uh in most of the um pasture land, but in the you know u you know 40ft strip 3 400 ft long. Uh there was a huge uptick in fungi just in one treatment.

[00:15:51]Um, and so they're they're able to move their dial to fun a balance in fungal bacterial ratio just with a simple application. These guys work hard. They don't have a bunch of extra time. And though they are the perfect candidate to learn how to make this, they they have the, you know, the knowhow and they're they've been studying microbes for years. um they have the heart for it, but when it comes down to it, the time to implement to to create IMO for their farm, that's out of reach as much as they are, you know, into it.

[00:16:32]And uh so we're um we actually partnered with them on this IMO project um using their land and equipment um so that they can get um a real natural farming program going and uh really be able to kind of show the success uh with a before, you know, analysis of their soil and an after. So that that'll be really fun. um they're already having a bunch of success and uh real fun to work with these guys. But yeah, it's Go ahead.

[00:17:04]>> Speaking of analysis, do you want to pull up the >> Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah. So, what um we're doing with the IMO is uh every batch we make, we're going to do a guaranteed analysis. And I want to do um uh multiple labs. So if somebody sees this and they got a lab they really like, I would love to send some imo over there too. Um and uh so yeah, our our fungal to bacterial ratio is almost 5:1 4.7 to to one um fable to bacterial which is great. Um and uh yeah, but even you know this tech is um you know uh really intelligent trained um by [clears throat] Dr. Elaine through the soil food web program and been doing it a long time. uh has a job working for the conservation district here and uh still it was kind of a little bit of a back and forth like wow um what are you seeing that's so much prozzoa and uh and I think um being able to look at what is in a dormant state which it just looks like an entire field of marbles um and to say that marble is a fungi and that marble is a cyst and that's the you know dormant prozzoa it's it's um that's a that's a tall order. So my thoughts here is we got a lot more um prozzoa than uh or we have a lot less prozzoa than than tagged. I think it's a lot more fungi but um we're going to we're circling back with them and we're going to wake up some look at it together and then uh look at it compared to the dormant state so they can kind of see okay here's what's actually there. this is what's going on. But um the the key here and really what we aim for is to maximize diversity in inoculum. So we had you know um I think 20 different sites that the uh inoculum the IMO2 came from to go into the IMO. But yeah, a lot of a lot of success. really happy about uh how it performs in farmland already and um really excited for people to use it on their on their plants and in their gardens. Um because it's, you know, it's way down the road just just by applying it, you know, they're so far down the road to, you know, fungal bacterial balance >> [snorts] >> um compared to, you know, what's available otherwise. There's just not something on the market that can get people this much fungi in their in their soil right off. So, super excited about that.

[00:19:58]>> That was just the IMO3. Then we got the IMO4 here as well. That's a comparison.

[00:20:08]>> And 4 uh is bringing in soil, so you're going to have a lot more protoone life.

[00:20:14]Um and uh it went really well. Um and again I think I think uh 4 billion prozzoa is maybe a little uh of the fungi count got into that uh [snorts] protozoan count but um you know it's pretty hard to find. I had a a lab I used to use um apparently they've been bought out and they completely fell off.

[00:20:45]they don't do a capable analysis anymore and so uh yeah looking for a new lab to do uh you know triplicate testing on this but uh this is going to be available uh to click through on the website when you look at IMO um for purchase so that you can kind of see hey this is what I'm getting and so each batch we do we'll do a guaranteed analysis like this and um so people can know what they're getting and know that it's been uh analyzed and uh yeah, cool stuff.

[00:21:24]Um >> you've done a lot of these different analysis. I know you did DNA analysis and all kinds of other crazy stuff over the years. Um what are some of the differences that you've noticed between like tropical climate IMO and seasonal climate IMO? We talked a little bit about this before we got started on the show, but um I'd love for you to kind of reiterate on that kind of like how the different climates will show some subtle differences because you've seen more, you know, than anyone else when it comes.

[00:21:52]>> Yeah, absolutely. And I think that Steve should be our next uh next talk on your on your podcast is I have all that uh DNA data. We did a huge um analysis from a company that was trying to promote their services and they they gave us um like it's like 80 grand worth of analysis on IMO. Uh so we have just this huge bunch of data and I have some really good geneticists uh natural farming geneticists that want to talk about it. So, I think uh maybe get Matt on there and a couple of the geneticists and just go through a little of the data would be uh really cool. It's it's something uh we've had that analysis for 4 years and haven't done anything with it. Um but yeah with uh three different um um samples sent in, three different natural farmers gave IMO um one from uh we made in Colorado um and uh some from uh New York and some from um where was he? I forget where the third person was, but I think it was more east. And um yeah, it was 700 unique species um on average and and the three and pretty close to each other. Um there's about 400 unique um bacterial species and 300 unique fungal species.

[00:23:24]Um and you know, for me that looking at that, um I can get like a general like, oh, this is interesting. There's a lot of different things going on here which we kind of already knew, but as far as, you know, breaking that down and really um understanding it on a on a DNA level, it's above my pay grade. So, I would love to uh jump in with some people that have more of the lingo on uh the genetic differences of these different markers and uh you know, just kind of uh plug through it together. So, let's uh let's set that up. That would be fun.

[00:24:04]>> Yeah.

[00:24:05]>> I remember one of the things when you you were talking about before was the um photosynthetic bacteria numbers were were different than what you were expecting and some of the other ones. It was really interesting to kind of see some of the some of the blends being uh different than what you were anticipating, which is really cool.

[00:24:23]>> Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I'm I'm along for the ride with nature with this stuff. So I I know that um as a general rule like okay maximize diversity and trust nature to kind of work it out from there and uh nature's really good at at finding balance in a in a micro um in communities of microorganisms.

[00:24:47]Um and we know that you know when you do have abundance of diversity uh disease has a much harder time and um because of the kind of strength that um plants are able to uh live in. You have a lot less bug problems because they're not anemic or um you know underfed on their microbes enabling them to create complete proteins in their cell walls.

[00:25:14]So, we know that diversity works, but yeah, exactly what all is going on is still uh a little over my head. So, I'm I'm okay with that. I can continue to learn about it and and study into it, but um I'm uh I'm not mad that nature's bigger than us.

[00:25:36]>> Oh, that's part of the fun of of doing this DNA testing and the the higher level stuff. we get to see things that we didn't weren't able to see before or detect before. It's that's why a lot of it differs from some of the early, you know, um soil, uh microbial education that was put out, you know, decades ago.

[00:25:55]Um we're learning so much every every year, you know, that we're really understanding a lot more about what the data is in our observations.

[00:26:04]But one of the coolest things about it's why soil food, anything to do with soil science and soil microbes is, you know, so interesting and never gets boring is because you're there's always something new to learn. You know what I mean?

[00:26:14]>> New frontier. Yeah.

[00:26:16]>> It's like the least boring topic you can get into in agriculture. [laughter] >> Freaking freaking nerd. [snorts] >> Oh yeah, brain food's good. I think that's why half the people listen to the listen to the podcast and and follow your stuff as well as the brain food, you know.

[00:26:32]>> Absolutely.

[00:26:33]Yeah, brain brain bending sometimes. Um yeah, as far as tropical to um to mainland and different climates, um there's a few things that stand out as as different. I think if uh one of the things if I had to take a microbe um or a culture and hope that it had the most impact then I wouldn't go to a tropical environment and bring that to other places um because they're a little more um prone um or are going to have a harder time in a dry environment.

[00:27:19]Whereas if you take, you know, high desert or or dryland microbes and you give them a little extra water, they say, "Oh, it's a a water- richch year."

[00:27:29]And they still go nuts. Um and so I think um you know just in general if you're if you're looking to you know get diversity to have the most impact in the most places um the the aid environment is is where you're going to find kind of the hardiest cultures for um for spreading. And so um you know in a golf course in California they're always watering it but at the same time it's in sand. So when it's not wet, it's dry.

[00:28:04]And um and those um those environments where uh stuff dries out and then uh the microbes are still thriving cuz they function well. And that is um you know, I' I've noticed that. I've seen that to to go further. Um, you know, for people that are growing indoor, you know, they might keep a real humid um, high moisture environment and, uh, tropical microbes could do really well in that environment. So, there's there's that, too. Um, with this imo, we decided to kind of really expand the different cultures. Um, and so I brought cultures from Hawaii for making this pile. And I used um you know uh Washington and California kind of uh grape land California, Napa area and then then the high desert here in Idaho.

[00:29:01]Really um beautiful aid kind of indigenous places that are well by indigenous I mean kind of untouched un und undisrupted places that are uh full of life even though it's you know crispy dry. uh which is really fun to see. Like people are like, "Oh, but I live in a desert. I don't see any of those blooms like you have in Hawaii." It's like, "Yeah, they look different, but they still have blooms." And so going out in the desert, I'm looking for this like um like linen like uh like um parchment paper looking colors um in in uh of mycelium in the ground. And they don't they're not in a big fuzzy bloom.

[00:29:47]They're in these kind of dried out strands that when it gets wet, they're they're bursting forth and and moving around in their soil, but they have uh they have kind of a desiccated um state that um is most of what you're going to find when you go looking in the desert.

[00:30:05]And so learning to identify places of abundant health, even in a desert place, um has been uh part of the long 15-year journey of, you know, where where are microbes in nature and what do they look like and how can we best uh coax them onto our farm?

[00:30:24]>> Oh, yeah. And I've noticed that too, like out here in California in the springtime, you go out there, you put your imo down, you water it, and the soil kind of like plumps up almost like watching a cupcake and it like raises up like a half an inch or whatever. You can like the the pressure and the PSI from those fungal hay and everything just lifts the soil up. See little cracks on the surface and everything, but I never really saw that visually much until I was up here in Norcal. So, but you can visually see it when when everything's going good. you you'll see it in the soil and see that expansion like this, like I said, like a cupcake rising.

[00:30:58]>> Yeah. Uh it's, you know, it's it's seeds uh germinating, you know, and then putting out bodies and, you know, where they weren't occupying a lot of space, now they are. It's it's pretty amazing nature and and these um especially these fungi. I'm I'm a bit biased, but they're uh they're fascinating always.

[00:31:22]Um uh any other um things you want to mention on the IMO front? I know you've done a lot of experimenting thing. One of the questions I get often asked is like do you have to use rice? Can you use oats or some other thing? And um I don't know if I've asked you that yet on the show. I know I've spoken to you about this in private, but um have you experimented with things other than rice when it comes to that? Um, I know Elaine before she passed away was was an um a fan of trying different things that were more native to different continents um than rice is, but I know you're kind of the much more of an expert on this particular topic. So, I'd love to hear your your opinion on the the ver, you know, changing up rice as a collection um starch.

[00:32:04]>> Yeah. Um, it's um, yeah, it was it was a little bit I was I was chuckling a little bit when we, you know, they're in Northern California and talking about how we got to use things that are more prevalent in our environment. So, we're going to use oats. Rice is from, [sighs and gasps] you know, um, Asia and and um, in Northern California, we don't grow any oats, but there's massive amounts of rice. you know, we we we grow a tiny bit, but the amount of rice that uh Northern California produces is is uh but I think I think both of those theories on why to use or or both of those aspects of that are um for me uh irrelevant. Um it it's not about uh how indigenous is that, you know, protein and fat and and starch. um it's how um well does it work as basically an augur or a um a substrate for microbes to grow on. And um rice has a really high fat protein profile.

[00:33:15]And so, um, whereas something like wheat has a really high carbohydrate, uh, you know, in comparison and, um, oats are great, um, as far as a, um, as a fat protein profile. But in that im kind of getting it to bloom in nature, um, one of the things I teach people is as you're starting, especially, um, changing the recipe for a good idea or something that maybe you philosophically like, like I like oats better for this reason or the other, um, can be really, um, counterproductive because we have this, um, incredible body of knowledge on how to do this properly around rice and so we can teach the the nuance and get the details right so you can have success whereas when you go off and you're like I'm going to try quinoa it's like okay well what are the variables of quinoa how how best should it be cooked so that it gets to that right kind of dry wet stage for a fungal bloom and um there isn't anybody to help you now now you're off in an experiment doing your own analysis with your own um variables. Um and that can be really hard, especially when you're learning to now be, you know, cuz for the science-minded people, if you have like a baseline to go off of and it's like, oh, it performed this or this compared to the baseline, then you have some relative data. you're able to kind of say, "Oh, well, it it com performed well compared to." Whereas, if you have a brand new thing, you have no idea where you are in comparison to success or or failure. And um that can be really challenging for learning. So, um, my, uh, my my go-to is, hey, start out, don't change the recipe. Learn how to do it well with what's provided for you, the knowledge that is, you know, several generations old now. Um, that's worked for farmers all over the world. And then with some degree of mastery or understanding tweak something and see how it performs compared to the, you know, the standard or the the the knowledge that exists and then you have a place to base some, you know, some analysis or some uh some results on. Um whereas if you get off into a brand new experiment right off, it can be just such a headache to even because now you've done it three times and you don't even know uh what to change, you know.

[00:36:14]And uh so um rice [clears throat] is um and white rice is um is a bit processed. So it's kind of um like a stripped available form of fat, protein, and carbohydrate. And so it becomes really accessible um for everything to grow on. And um yeah, go back to where it all came from, you know, uh you know um farm worker in Japan, took his lunch to um to work, forgot it out in the forest, came back a week later and um saw bloom and that changed everything in their garden. And so then that went into the university system that went to some leading experts in uh um analyzing enzymes and that's what Master Cho learned from you know these these people that were studying into how is this all working and what are the implications on a land and um nature taught taught us all these things you know these these were these these techniques were initiated by nature teaching humans by accident. You know, humans fell into natural law. So, I think uh I think we have a pretty good starting point for people with this um traditional knowledge and I think um from there it can definitely be improved on. Um that was one of the things um that I was pretty impacted with learning from my teacher um Master Cho.

[00:37:59]You know, he uh pulled me up. We were on a farm tour of some natural farming farms in southern South Korea and uh he pulled me over and through our translator, Dr. Hoon Park, he said, "Chris, natural farming isn't finished. you need to finish it. And um it was it was a really um impactful because Master Cho in this context was you know we come to these farms or we'd be in these groups of people these um Koreans that had learned from him and there's so much honor for this knowledge because their farms are so impacted by these techniques. there, you know, the Master Cho is um is the teacher there um unequivocably and and then for him to say we have more to go. There's more there's there's more to do. This isn't finished.

[00:38:58]Um I've really taken that to heart. Um and continue to learn from nature while we do these things. And so, um, we have shifted some things a little bit for, um, towards the aim of having the most success and having it be the best. And so, um, oats we use as a substrate for 3 um, as one of the main substrates because it's really available in the US.

[00:39:28]It's cheaper than rice products for um,3 when you're buying a lot of it. When you're buying a little bit, a small bag, a medium bag of rice to make a ton of IMO1 collections is pretty easy. But when you're making 1,000 lbs, you know, I can get 1,000 lbs of oats for a quarter of the price I can get rice brand. And so what we do is we do milled oats, about 75% of the kind of carbohydrate side of things. So, milled oats and then 25% rice brand and uh and then mix that with equal wood chips. So, 50% wood chips, 50% carbohydrate. Of the carbohydrate, we got about 75% oats, 25% rice brand. And that um rice brand helps with that initial u microbial growth, even more maybe bacterial growth. Um and then the oats get chewed on by fungi and we get a lot of growth. Um and and it's the fats and proteins that in my experience and in this long journey I've seen the fungi react the best to. So yeah, I I hope uh I hope that's a satisfactory uh you know answer. I know that um [clears throat] I I spent a lot of time with Dr. and and talking about these things. And uh when I first met her in uh 2011, she was kind of opposed to, you know, using an inoculum for compost. And we talked about it and I told her how cool it was.

[00:40:59]And then she's like, "Well, I did have one friend and every time he would go somewhere and he saw healthy ecosystems, he would take a handful of that material and he would add it to his compost over the years and he had really good compost. And then, you know, a couple years later, she was teaching, oh, take a bundle of oats and go find a healthy place and stick it in the ground and then take it and put it in your compost.

[00:41:23]So, we all are able to um learn from things that work. And I think uh you know, it was easier to say oats rather than a box of rice for um Dr. Elaine because then she came up with it, which uh she was a fan of. So, um I I really am grateful for for what I learned from her and the uh it continues uh really in everything I do to impact uh my work. So, yeah, cheers to one of the OGs.

[00:41:59]>> Oh, yeah. Cheers to Ela. Uh if you guys ever interested, I do I did do a mashup of all the times she was on my shows. I listen to all of her stuff and one continuous memorial uh stream. We have that for all the previous guests that have been on the show that have passed away. We have a memorial one pile everything in there. Um, Frenchie canoli's came out to exactly 4 hours and 20 minutes and I know he did that [ __ ] on purpose >> and I forever smile every time I think of Frenchie because of that. But one of the things you were talking about earlier, um the white rice, that's definitely something that I you taught me that really does make a big difference having done side by sides white rice versus um just wild rice is it does colonize much as a day or day and a half faster um like especially in the tropics where I've I've done a little bit more. It's a noticeable difference in speed and colonization.

[00:42:53]Yeah, you're just you're just using something that has less uh lignen to chew through initially for for the material. And when you're dealing with fungal seeds and and little um bits of growth in just a weak period, um that uh that speed of speed of growth is helpful. Um and then and then we want them to grow on all the lignenrich material of you know wood chips and and oats and all that um in that next phase.

[00:43:23]But getting getting a culture and yeah I really think white rice is pretty key.

[00:43:29]Now that said I [snorts] genuinely believe that we will create better inoculum by finding good mixes of nutrients to put into1 collections. I think that there's a lot we can learn there and I think we can do better. So I will be when somebody is you know whether it's us or or somebody else has some data they put some time into you know analyzing or or or uh doing some side by sides. I think that there's a lot of room for growth in that. But um as it is now to you know if you're starting out if you're just beginning and learning being the uh being the front runner in in analysis and uh side by sides of IMO1 is probably not your job just yet you know so if you're if you're a uh veteran and you've been doing this a while and you know what success and failure looks like and what the parameters are then you know absolutely play with some uh different nutrients. I think even the a little bit of the right mix of mineral in the in the rice could be a a benefit. Yeah, >> speaking on that, one of the things when I fed so I I work on a a natural farming slash sustainable permaculture AI um with copy left uh cultivars and one of the things when we took all the different recipes from the different natural farming methods from pre-natural farming and all these different culture I think there's 192 different permaculture recipes for preparations for soil. Um and um one of the things that suggested right off the bat having plant nated and everything else was doing targeted um mixtures in the imo three and four stage where you add those extra material with the soil and the plant material the starches like you use brand and stuff like that but replacing the brand with specifically targeted plant material it's for it to break down unlock some of the nutrients of in that stage. I always thought that was interesting. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it on like obviously we there there there's no hard data on this there there there's no like oh someone's done this and tested it out but it does seem like interesting direction on someone that might be looking to kind of you know experiment with something once they have everything established and just like you were saying get the get the the foundation and uh down make sure you understand how it works with the traditional recipes but just like you're saying it's not a religion it's not you have to do it like this or it doesn't work you can experiment once you understand the fundamentals of what's going on. I really would love to hear your thoughts on something like that where you know um adding those in the later stages of IMO after IMO2 um into that mix really can you know at least has potential to you know you know make a potassium heavy mix or a nitrogen heavy mix or a phosphorus heavy mix or a calcium heavy mix based on what you add in those stages and I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

[00:46:31]Yeah, those are those are really good um points and thoughts. I think um I'm I'm in full support. Um with IMO3 um to start um if I'm working in an area and it's got grass and I'm going to make a pile on the ground, I'll completely remove the top inch of material from that whole platform. And just where we just made it, it was covered in grass. I went through with a bucket and I took the top inch. I set it all aside. We're spreading that back out now that it's full of and and abundant life. We're going to spread all the top soil and all the seeds back out so that that re re uh seeds and the farmers are excited to even add some other seed in in there in that process um to get that field um sparked uh to uh its new stage of growth. But um I'll take all the grass out because even just a little bit of grass in the IMO3 process will [clears throat] do what we would expect in like a hot compost where it'll it'll it'll you'll have a lot of um kind of explosive breakdown of your and and that I don't know what the um what the exact kind of description of that is, but it has a total negative effect on fungal growth, microbial growth, the the breakdown of grass. So, if you leave a bunch of grass in it, all those grass clumps get real funky, just like you'd expect from like a like a thermopilic compost where it's kind of, you know, um getting hot and funky. Um [clears throat] that we want to avoid IMO3. we actually want that really controlled kind of steady um growth and um even just a little bit of greenery will mess with that and and uh in hundreds of times of doing it um you know the times we've had uh uh grass or or grass clumps in there um it's had a real negative effect on the total growth um same in IMO4 what we um in natural farming um attack what we to to do what you're talking about. We do that in the IMO5 stage. We take this abundance of microbes grown really well in OO4 and now we bring in our diverse plants, our manure, our you know different you know even even some mineral and you can now compost that and if you can make it a low tempmp compost like we do now you're maintaining all that nutrient you're not off gasing anything but now you're growing microbes through it breaking it down making it highly plant available and now you have that that real fertilization uh impact and5 is um I think probably the sleeper in natural farming. A lot of people haven't got to IMO4 or they've struggled with IMO so they've never messed with you know having good IMO to make their compost with and um really 5 is kind of the the the key um to kind of high yield production agriculture. So, um, with natural farming and I love doing that stuff and putting it down in the winter or in the downtime so that that's getting, you know, soil established and then it's just kind of kind of late and ready to jump out of the ground with the with the spring growth.

[00:50:15]But yeah, I think um I think bringing in those diverse nutrients at that stage really once you've gotten all that fun fungi and diverse microbes to grow out at that really controlled steady pace.

[00:50:27]Um I think that's when you bring in that kind of wild growth that is uh a regular compost.

[00:50:36]>> No, it makes a lot of sense. I I don't play with too much with the MO5 because with aquaponics, which is 80% of what I do, we already have all the nitrogen we need. So >> yeah, >> there's no point adding manure to it.

[00:50:48]But um but that's really cool to know.

[00:50:50]And and would you have I guess a question I have on that is if you were using dry material, would it still have that same effect with the um thermopilic runaway or is it mostly from like fresh plant material that that would >> Yeah, it's mostly from fresh plant material where you're going to have the the runaway. I think if you had crushed leaves, you know, as part of your um woody material, but even then now you're dealing with kind of um still kind of green material, right? Even though it's it's not wet, it isn't that higharbon um like wood chips. Um it's that kind of uh medium mix carbon nitrogen even if it's dry. Um, but yeah, I think uh I think I'm I'm always open to playing with stuff, you know, to come up with oats and uh rice brand. I went through, you know, I don't know, 10 different uh materials, you know. I tried Cobb and tried uh all the things you can get pretty inexpensively, you know, as far as grains or animal feeds. Um definitely tried wheat brand a bunch. Um and [clears throat] messed with leaves um a ton and and all kinds of uh different things um have gone for me into the process of learning this. Um, and uh, yeah, it's so so where we're at in this kind of recipe is is um, not because I'm particularly a fan of oats or, you know, I need rice brand for some, you know, personal reason. It's mostly just trial and error. You know, make it, look at it under the microscope. How did it go?

[00:52:38]What did we get growthwise? And, oh, that was way harder. and not as successful, you know, because we added the leaves and um you know, as much as leaves, like here in Idaho in the fall, there's as much leaves as you could want if you wanted that as a byproduct for making something, but it really doesn't make good.

[00:53:03]>> That's good. That's good to know because I know it's interesting to hear that it doesn't make good immo and when when some of the other natural farming methods swear by leaf mold and it's kind of funny to see that uh there's such difference in >> Yeah. So so leaf mold um is um is really helpful. Leaf mold is actually a lot of what we're we're basing this on. But as I teach people to go in and look at look at leaf mold. We don't want the mold in the 3 in of leaves that's in between those leaves. We want the stuff that's under all of that in the soil touching soil. You want soil interactive mycelium. And so that's that's where we get inoculum from is that soil interactive. When you get when you take a pile of leaves and you just get that fuzz that's in the leaves, it's really narrow diversity. It's a it's a decomposer. They have very little soil interactive functions. Um and so yeah, leaf mold is a very catch-all term for a lot of things. But um when I teach people to go out and find um material, I say, "Oh yeah, the stuff under the detritis that's touching soil where you have a white strand that's chewing on a piece of bark but then running down out of sight into the soil.

[00:54:27]That that is great. You know, we're we're going to find uh that has impact on plant life and interactions." And that's why you teach about clearing the the top debris away for putting the imo collection boxes out. Correct.

[00:54:41]>> Exactly. Right. Yeah. We want those soil interactive microbes. Um and that's a pretty broad brush. You know, it's a pretty non-specific thing, but it's a big difference from the stuff in that top layer of leaves. Even just that one tiny change where um we're we're we're focusing focusing on something a little different. Um, >> and you you see that too in practice, having done a lot of Jadam and K&F. I mean, I and having seen other people's farms that do it, I've seen um Jadam microbial solution where they just took those top leaves and put them in actually replicate septoriia in that collection, whereas I've never a single time seen observed that with IMO because again, it's those deeper fungi that like you're talking about.

[00:55:31]>> Yeah. Yeah. And people ask me all the time, they're like, "Oh, I had a wood chip pile dropped in my backyard and I see all this mold growing in the wood chips." And it's like, "Yeah, that has value, you know. It's not like that's terrible, you know, but that's not what we're aiming at. That's easy. Yes, you put a pile of wood chips, you let it get rained on, you're going to have white stuff growing. And you don't really have to do anything to do that. You can just put wood chips on your ground and you can get all that happening. But to get stuff that, you know, other to get diversity, we're going to need to have multiple soil interactions be where we get our inoculum.

[00:56:14]>> And that's yeah, >> the last question I have for you on the IMO topic was um a lot of people have this like fear of sugar in their systems, especially for 2 or for some of the other preparations. Um I I don't have any problem with sugar. The other nice thing about rice and sugar with KF is I I mean I was in Zimbabwe remote Zimbabwe there there's few places maybe Liberia has less expendable income for farming than than Zim but it's about as low income as it gets and even they could afford sugar and rice >> and have success. So even if you're in a place that has some of the lowest income levels on the planet you you can take off with it. Um, you want to talk maybe a little bit about sugar versus non-s sugar methods when it comes to this because >> yeah, this does seem to be this strange fear that people have or not wanting to use sugar and I think a lot of people that have that simply don't understand that it's for for preserving these products is with a shelf life, right?

[00:57:09]Like if I I can make IMO and store it for up to three or four years and have those different seasons of collections on the shelf that I can whip up at any time or IPMO which is an even more important one. It's a pest control. Um I think people just don't understand why it is that they're using sugar in the preparation.

[00:57:27]>> 100%. Yeah. I uh I watched that um that begin. I actually remember uh in the process of people learning about natural farming. I remember when there was a group of people that were down on sugar um and um they were a group of people that learned um natural farming from you know uh remotely from us with uh Master Cho and then um they struggled with IMO and then when Jadam came to the US they're like oh we're going to be a Jadam farm and uh they're big you know teachers and you know social media people and and so they wanted to differentiate themselves and they're like, "Oh, well, we bring no sugar.

[00:58:12]We're we're more pure, you know, uh we bring no uh nothing outside of the farm." And and so it was, I think, really marketing for them. And uh in the cannabis community, it was real popular to to listen to what they were saying.

[00:58:28]And so I watched that happen. I I listened to their thing and it was because they were making and selling Jadam in a bottle basically. and and uh and that's uh a good marketing if you can say we're better than K&F cuz we don't do sugar. Um sugar's in everything.

[00:58:47]Sugars in all compost. Alcohols in all compost. Sugars break down from plant matter into minor alcohols. And that's what compost does. You know, that's the whole process of compost, carbohydrates and other um nutrients breaking down.

[00:59:04]and it's a normal part of nature. Um that's what plants do with a lot of their photosynthesized energy is produce sugars. Um and so yeah, sugar is not um some big evil. If um that said, sugar out of balance as a plant additive is a short path to disease and bugs. Um, [clears throat] so, uh, one of the misnomers, I see it more in the, uh, cannabis community than anywhere, is people are like, "Oh, I'm just going to make FPJ." People hear about FPJ and they're like, "Oh, it's amazing." And then they're like, "Yeah, Chris, I I apply I make my FBJs. I I buy my bananas from the store and I mix them with sugar and I spray it on and that's all they spray on just and so in natural farming would never use FPJ by itself because it's sugar imbalanced. Um so at bare minimum if you are applying the least things you want to make it easy as possible you can make FPJ and then mix it with equal parts vinegar before you apply it and that will give a balanced food. It'll prevent disease and bugs from coming from just FPJ because FPJ is high in sugar. Um but what so like for liquid IMO I did um years of call it side by side but really what I was doing is I had you know months of making it one way looking at another microscope change something look at another microscope and um I got all these nutrients in there and actively airrating the imo with nutrients And I found that if I added sugar, what happened is I got an initial jump in bacteria and then because there was that activity of bacteria um going through their consumptive kind of um replication all that the fungi started to grow and if I didn't help that initial jump of bacteria with a little bit of sugar, I got less total growth of everything.

[01:01:16]And so um you know uh ready carbohydrates just like just like using green material in um composting we're talking about adding things to IMO3 using that kind of nitrogenrich when we say nitrogen and green material it's a lot of sugar it's you know various forms of sugar in plant material and uh using that we get a lot more bacterial growth um and that and it's almost too much. There's there's um and so yeah, it's it has a place. Um and um it I can't say blanket good, blanket bad. Um you know, in in IMO2, we use sugar to create a dormant state for the um bodies that have grown. So things have grown up. Now we take away all available um [clears throat] water in their environment and it causes them to sporulate and desiccate and go into a dormant state. And that's because the osmotic pressure, the dryness of the sugar being a chemical, you know, that looks about like this is perfect fit for water molecules. So it traps all these water molecules in a chemical bond and it so the microbes look around. there's no water to do any of their processes, they go dormant. And so we use it for that. Um, in the making of FPJ, we use it because it creates a really controlled fermentation. We don't go into alcohol and then in vinegar, we stay at this like half chewed compost, liquid compost that's a really plant available and microavailable uh food source. And so it's it's like boutique liquid compost, but it's that high amount of sugar that causes it to freeze and not go all the way into alcohol because the natural progression is sugar, alcohol, vinegar, and um and if you have too much water with that plant material, it's going to go right into alcohol. I actually make some fantastic alcohols um with the byproducts of my FPJ. So I'll make FPJ, I'll pour out all the liquids. Now I got all this sugar and plant material. Now I'll add way too much water. Not too much, the right amount of water for way more than there was ratio-wise in FPJ. And now I made like the byproducts of jalapeno. I made a jalapeno um like uh wine.

[01:03:48]So good. High alcohol, sweet. um a little bit [clears throat] sweet but uh and it it would taste like full jalapeno and then you swallow and it was like the little burp of fire. It was like just the fire hit you at the end but it wasn't really hot. It was really tasty and we made a prickly pear champagne. We drank most of that in Tennessee at a class we had out there. But we just took the byproducts of making FPJ, added a bunch of alcohol, put an air or added a bunch of water, put an air lock on it, and the natural yeast and and life that was on the FBJ fermented it into this beautiful viscous, you know, dry alcohol. It was really cool. Um, so yeah, I mean, if used wrong, I think sugar can cause all kinds of problem problems on your farm. Um, but natural farming isn't some willy-nilly, you know, uh, hope and a prayer, you know, hope this works out. It's a really systematic approach to cultivating microbes and feeding plants. And if you follow the recipe, um, you're not going to have any problems with sugar imbalance.

[01:04:59]And even the alcohols we use, the alcohols are are way less in concentration than a normal compost pile. compost has tons of minor alcohols in it. So yeah, >> the biggest thing I've noticed with the u sugar incorporating preparations versus the non- sugar incorporating preparations is >> you can actually use K&F in a grow a grow tent in your bedroom.

[01:05:23]>> You ain't doing that with you. You are not doing microbial solution in your bedroom.

[01:05:29]Certainly not if you want to invite a partner over and spend time in your bedroom. They're going to be like, "What is that rotting smell?" [laughter] Yeah.

[01:05:37]>> Well, the other thing I was going to mention just on what you were saying with the vinegar and the FPJs is um there was another person in the the natural farming realm that was talking about doing vinegar extractions on some of the leftover um uh FPJs too. And one of the things that they noticed a lot and I've noticed a little bit too in my own testing of some of those is potassium and malibdinum availability really goes up a lot. those vinegar extractions, the FPJ um where you take your FPJ leftovers and put them in vinegar and um you know basically do a pull on them as well. And uh that was one of the things I thought was the most interesting chemistry wise compared to the FPJs was that you could take the same material and get you know in some cases almost double the potassium levels in terms of bioavailability of of plant form or plant available form.

[01:06:26]>> That's really cool. Yeah, I hadn't heard about that. I um I came up with using the byproducts to make vinegar um well farming 700 acres because I was t making all this FPJ to try and cover all our fields with this liquid and I'd have these vats of sugar and plant material and it's like beautiful plant material sugar. I'm like this is food and I'm just dumping it by the vat into my worm bin and my worm bin was so amazing. I was so happy. But at the same time, I'm like, this is almost too high value material for worms. Like this this needs a And so I just chemistry.com.

[01:07:08]How do you make vinegar? And uh and there was a bunch of different recipes, but I was like, okay, what's the okay, the bare minimum is the right amount of water and the right amount of food or sugar. And so I was like, I just need to get poured. And so that I just started pouring water into the leftovers and leaving it sit. Add a little apple cider vinegar with the mother. And um we made fantastic vinegars. So good. I use them for cooking actually. Now I have a bunch of different vinegars that are real interesting. Um >> I have I have one in Hawaii that's uh tangerine um grapefruit lime uh vinegar. and uh it'll be it'll be ready in a couple months here. But the early tastings was where it's like still a little bit sweet. I was like, man, I would just drink that. It was so good.

[01:08:01]>> For you British or former British Protectorate folks, be on the lookout for Chris's new molted vinegar line for your your French fries.

[01:08:10]>> Not even joking. Not even joking. We've we've uh we've looked at that as like, man, this is this is the byproduct we should be uh selling because it Yeah. Or or like getting it in the hands of bartenders as like a shrub additive.

[01:08:26][snorts] >> Oh yeah.

[01:08:27]>> So that that's uh that's not even that's not even joking. Then that might be coming next year.

[01:08:35]The one last thing I was going to mention on the sugar is um you know just the conversation we were just having like too much sugar causes problems and yeah you can spike the bricks in your plants by just dumping a bunch of liquid sugar on it but it's not it's still going to cause problems garden like bricks isn't a magic bullet and it's one of the biggest myths that I hear a lot lately especially the last two years is that oh just get your bricks right and no there aphids can feed a bricks level of 34 >> like there's no magic number on that and people need to stop chasing that.

[01:09:06]>> Well, I think um I think it's like anything. There's like a a rudimentary look at a scientific um and by overly reducing it, you now are using it improperly. There's there's a lot to that. Um, bricks can give you I I'd say the the most useful way to approach bricks analysis is to get historic data over time, comparing that to yield and performance and then having an idea of where your plants are the healthiest, you know, and if you if you put in the effort to create um historic data for yourself on your bricks, then you can you can use it to have some idea of where you are. Um, another thing that's really important with bricks that um most people I know are that are messing with it aren't doing is having the right um um leaf in in progression. So, if you're going to analyze bricks, you need to analyze the third leaf from the top every time. And it needs to be at about a certain at at the same age or production age as the last time you analyzed it. And that one detail, if you aren't doing it, you actually don't have any data because you can take the same plant and check its fresh leaf and its old leaf and its middle leaf and you'll have three completely different bricks readings. And um so having the right ream or or growth point from um from your plant is uh vitally important if you're going to have um compare apples to apples or have uh data that you can use as comparative analysis.

[01:11:08]>> I've run into that too with sap analysis where people are taking it from different parts of the plant and had different radically different readings.

[01:11:16]>> Yeah. Yeah. It's it's why in make using making making FPJ we use the fresh growing uh portions of the plant because that's where all the um oxins are, you know, that's where that's where all the the stuff's happening.

[01:11:33]>> Um well, I'm I really liked your your mentions on that about how everything's kind of an evolving science. It was really cool to hear you talk about Master Cho on that how we're we all still got things to learn and it's still an evolving science. I think way too many people take pre natural farming in particular as like a almost like the Bible where if you alter anything then you are blasphemous and I think that we need really really badly need to get away from that. I know one of the wheels on that topic but it really is a problem that we >> it's not a religion and and Master Cho didn't view it like one. Master Cho was like, "Hey, we're working together to have a better way to farm for farmers."

[01:12:14]And uh if something's better, he he um he's taught [clears throat] the liquid imo recipe I came up with his last uh several years of teaching. He would explain liquid IMO as airrated and and uh because he saw how well it worked. He saw what we were doing and he's like, "Okay, well that's an improvement. we're going to we're going to add that to education because he wasn't religious about it, you know, even though he was the the teacher, the sensei, the guru.

[01:12:47]Um it wasn't uh it wasn't about that.

[01:12:49]And so I took that from him. Um and [snorts] and it was it was controlled.

[01:12:55]It wasn't like, oh, whatever works, you know, he wasn't he wasn't uh he was a he was a scientist, you know, uh um he didn't use a microscope, but he was a scientist. But he he was yeah he was very um much a person that took leading scientific thought from Japan and in Korea and like okay let's let's methodize this to uh be effective and and really accessible to farmers. And so that's kind of the uh vein I I continue and you know even with this IMO we're doing I'm like we need to make it uh farmer available.

[01:13:38]So >> speaking of making it far more available uh I guess we'll kind of close on this topic but um it's not just good for your garden plants. Um I know we first met I think it was at the first Humble uh IMO or the Humbult regen conference when Cowboy came. remember the guy from Montana or Yeah. Wyoming or whatever% he was great >> did it and had incredible results with his cattle fields and I know now you're working with lots of dairies in Ireland.

[01:14:05]Um do you want to talk a little bit about its use in in poultry and in in um beef production and kind of how it's really being used in many aspects of agriculture not just because a lot of times people that come from the cannabis side especially or vegetable side don't realize that it has all these other wonderful uses and and you know the rest of the farm with all their livestock and things. you worked a lot especially over in Ireland with working with a lot of people there and I'd love to have you know maybe close on that as a topic on on all the awesome work you've been doing there.

[01:14:35]>> Yeah, Ire Ireland was a really place. I think I had a a student um Tom Stack come to Connecticut and learn from me and he went back and did it and he had a ton of success and then he's like you got to come teach in Ireland. And so we went out and um four years in a row taught uh there [clears throat] and trained teachers and um uh they're they're using liquid IMO on on pasture and and doing almost nothing else a lot of them where they're just treating their pasture land and now their cows are getting more nutrient satisfied.

[01:15:15]They have less disease um and problems with their hooves. Their hubs are healthier because the ground they walk around in is life alive and and healthy.

[01:15:24]Um their manure, which the cattle farmers use to put back out, um they they have a slurry from the urine and manure and the wash out and they spray that back on their fields to add um fertility. That's healthier. They're adding liquid to their manure slurries so it starts to cure it before they put it out. Um but yeah, these these dairy men are um getting off of grain. You know, a lot of them they would their cows all season and then in the winter they wouldn't have enough feed to feed their cows, so they'd have to buy grain, which is a huge cost, especially in the winter when everybody's buying grain.

[01:16:08]Um, and then their cows are getting indigestion because it's a lot of, you know, glyphosate treated uh um grains and and whatnot. And so they're getting mastitis problems um which is an utter um uh inflammation for for a dairy cow.

[01:16:26]And um and so Tom Stack, for example, his farm, he was able to have so much excess feed or grass on the same land that he was farming with the same number of cows that now he's he's keeping pastures [clears throat] where he's cutting making cutings, making balage uh where they where they wrap the um the grass into a a big bail with plastic and uh it fermentss in there, creates basically like silage. Um but he went um from having barely enough to bail to have anything in the winter to having massive excess. He's had to sell some of that um so other farmers get the benefit of his byproduct. But um his [clears throat] bricks to circle back to bricks, bricks is one of the ways they analyze balage silage. So, um, he was getting at like 6 to 7 on his analysis from his basically feed that they had wrapped up. And now he's up at 13 and 14 um on on this brick. So, he's basically double feed quality just by using liquid IML was the one change they made. And um, yeah, that has fallen on ready ears in Ireland.

[01:17:46]um they have a lot less time with our um big a export. They've only been using it for a couple generations instead of three. And so they all remember how their great-grandfather farmed and the you know the way they cared for the soil. And so they're really apt to adopt um a return to that. And so yeah, there's been a lot of farms um that have jumped on that. There's a lot of farmers that are making natural farming products uh available at other farmers. There's um a whole service was created to uh treat farmers silage or their their um their slurries. They're basically their tanks where they keep the manure and and urine from overwintering. Um so they're going through and they're treating those as a service for farmers with liquid.

[01:18:38]So, they put them out with kind of pre- chewed um nutrients for the grass. But, yeah, it's been uh really neat to watch.

[01:18:47]I think uh one of the only kind of challenges or one of the main challenges I've seen in in really spreading this knowledge all over is just the we were talking about it a little before we got going, but just the kind of the tribalism that comes in in regenerative spaces and um you know where um and it and [clears throat] sometimes it's greed-based, sometimes it's you know pride Um, but I think that if I can speak to that, it's we're too small in regenerative agriculture and natural farming. It's all we're all too small compared to, you know, big A um to be infighting. You know, we can we can cheer each other on and the things we're doing, you know, John Kemp and his sap analysis and um you know, um what's the crazy pasture guy? He's not crazy but he calls himself crazy. Yeah, >> subtle tone.

[01:19:49]>> Joel Salatin, you know, is, you know, saying like >> it's all diff, you know, permaculture people and and uh, you know, um, biodnamic people. It's all it's all, you know, different parts of a heart to regenerate nature.

[01:20:09]And I I think that um stones should fly less in that community as a whole so that we aren't um kind of just run over by by the bigger things and we can actually initiate change. So that's my hope for Ireland that there's a lot of togetherness and there is um but um I just see it and even even when I watched I went around with Master Cho in Korea there'd be you know just different um you know dramatic human things that would happen as as people uh wanted to be the grand pooa and uh I think that's less of the point. I think we should get to uh healthy food and medicine when our kids are uh ready to go to the grocery store. And I think we're getting there.

[01:20:58]So yeah, I uh yeah, Ireland's uh Ireland's having a renaissance. They're blowing up with uh natural farming methods and they're definitely going to beat the US as far as uh total adoption percentage per capita. They're they're going for it. There's a lot of small holder farms there. uh you know a lot of 10 acre 100 acre farms where we have a lot less of that nowadays here in the US so they're able to kind of shift but yeah it's been really I was I was really grateful for time spent there I told them this last time I was there that um I wouldn't come back for a while that they had everything they needed they had some really good teachers and and that uh you know I'd come back if they needed me but uh the idea is that you know, indigenous farmers teaching their peers um is really uh what I what I see as success.

[01:21:57]>> That was always the funniest thing with the regen conferences. Uh you and Elaine were like best friends at the region conference things and everyone always is like KF versus Soil Food Web and I was like what are you guys talking about?

[01:22:09]Because both the teachers in this are like really really close. So, anyways, I just thought I'd throw a picture up of uh of uh me, Chris, and Elena on there just because uh I think it's the first show we've done since she's passed. But I um I just always thought that was so goofy because there is no tribalism there.

[01:22:27]>> Oh, weedured by Instagram.

[01:22:29]>> We shared research papers back and forth via email. Um and uh she loved um the the theory of uh what we're doing with natural farming. Yeah. We didn't we didn't ever argue in person. We sat and had tea and coffee together a bunch of different different shows and uh we we just had camaraderie. Um, you know, I think uh, yeah, I think it's um, it's unfortunate, but also it's it's human, you know, it's it's just it's what we do. We like that uh, that itch from throwing stone, especially with the internet, you know, people in person, you know, they don't want to, you know, act the fool. Um, and uh I think there's something that the internet does to uh kind of galvanize [snorts] us to be naysayers. But it's all right. We can uh we can continue beyond it. And uh you know the one of the things I want to do with getting IMO out is kind of create a a bit of a standard you know. So, you're asking about what if we do this or change it like this. And a lot of people have those questions. I was like, "Okay, well, use this, see what the impact is to your garden, make something experimental, put it on the garden next to it, you know, or the raised bed next to it, and see how do they compare, what's growing better plants." Okay. Well, if you got something that's working way better, let's hear about it. I want to know about it, you know, but let's not make crappy IMO and and say, "Oh, well, I uh tweaked something and my crappy IMO got less crappy." It's like, okay, well, that isn't actually an improvement. You just were making bad IMO and now you're making less bad IMO. So, I uh I hope that there's a a bit of um people people are going to want to improve on everything we do in agriculture and they want to be the people that are the improvers and I'm I'm really [clears throat] for that. I I think that that's a um a noble mission and and uh something to be supported and uh championed and talked about. Um, so I think um I think there's a lot of room for that and uh and uh I hope we see more of that in the in the coming years.

[01:25:10]>> All right. Well, I don't want to take up your whole afternoon. We didn't even get to our IPMO topics, but we'll save that for the next episode. Uh I know we've talked about a little bit in the past, but that's all right. Um we will uh um there's a whole lot of different ways people can find your resources. You can find him at soil steward on Instagram.

[01:25:28]He's got lots of cool stuff on there, lots of really good posts, lots of updates on what he's doing on a more regular basis. He's got the awesome YouTube channel. Type in Chris Trump on YouTube. You'll it'll come up right away. Um it's YouTube.combiomol.solutions.

[01:25:46]It's got biom.solutions.com.

[01:25:48]That's biomei.solutions.com.

[01:25:52]>> No.com.

[01:25:53]>> Oh, I'm sorry. Not.com. Sorry. I'm on I'm on autopilot brainwise. Um, we have biome.solutionsnews.

[01:26:02]I know you were talking about this as well.

[01:26:04]>> Oh, yeah. Real quick, can I jump in?

[01:26:08]>> Yeah.

[01:26:09]>> So, uh, right there on that latest news feed is the limo solution. And, um, we're going to come out with that probably by the end of the month. Um, and so what it is is people maybe haven't been able to play with liquid IMO and getting all the pieces together, OA, FPJ, humic acid, all the different things to make liquid imo can be kind of a lot. So, we're going to put it we're putting out IMO is already um online and available to buy. So, people can ship immo anywhere in the US for free. um just click the link or or uh shop at the uh at the Biome website. But um what we're going to have available here real soon is a bottle that you use one to 200 or or a small amount into your water.

[01:27:03]You turn your airator on with your IMO in there and uh it's just basically now just a two-part thing to make really the best tea I've ever encountered. So, this is um going to be available on the website, too. And it's it's basically the exact perfect mix to make um microbes grow in water with arration.

[01:27:28]And uh it'll be, you know, shippable in a bottle. Um and that, yeah, keep keep your eye out for that. That I feel like is going to give a lot of people a pretty amazing tool with with very little effort. And we're keeping the cost down. Um you know just finding you know uh um you know the parts in in in bulk so that people are are able to get a a really kind of good price on um liquid imos. So yeah >> other thing I want to mention with this is this is great for using implanted aquariums as well. Obviously you got to dilute it a little bit more but is super kickass implanted aquarium. So, if you're aquarium person, another great product you should keep in mind.

[01:28:20]Awesome. And um people can sign up for your newsletter here and get all the latest stuff right to their email as well if you hit the subscription.

[01:28:29]And uh you can find his um classes at his websitearning in person and online class. The online class is wonderful. I've taken and it's really kick-ass. um got his fresh imo products on there, be sure to check those out. Uh awesome collection of free resources as well. So, be sure to check that out.

[01:28:49]>> Yeah. And and if you want to hear a little bit about my uh my teacher, uh Master Cho, there's a page dedicated to him and uh his story. So, >> Oh, yeah. Super awesome.

[01:29:07]Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Chris, for joining us. Uh, always fun to have you on. I know we talk quite regularly, but it's always fun to get on and have a conversation on the podcast. So, thanks so much for joining us today.

[01:29:19]>> Heck yeah. Thanks for your your questions and uh yeah, let's make that time to get together, talk about DNA. I think it's uh long overdue.

[01:29:29]>> Yeah, we'll definitely have to put that together and I'm really looking forward to that one.

[01:29:34]>> Sweet. Same. Thanks, Steve.

[01:29:36]>> Thanks a lot. Uh find the podcast on your favorite podcast platform at Going with Fishes. We're on Rumble, Instagram, Spotify, uh YouTube, uh every single podcast platform that's out there. So, um no matter where you want to listen to us in audio or video, be sure to check us out and we'll be back again soon with another great episode. Take care.

[01:30:00]>> Looking for even more in-depth aquaponic education? Be sure to check out aquaponicmasterclass.com.

[01:30:06]We have a wide variety of aquaponic education courses, including the aquaponic master class, which teaches you how to grow over a 100 different types of crops and a wide variety of different setups. The aquaponic master class for cannabis, which teaches you how to grow cannabis at a any scale and a lot a variety of different methods.

[01:30:26]And we also have the aquaponic and living soil pest control course. So, be sure to check those out if you're looking for more education. All of the courses are hosted on Teachable where we have both the slides from the deck that we use as well as videos, photos, and a whole bunch of supplemental education on each topic. Uh, and walkthroughs of many different types of facilities that we worked on over the years and built and a whole bunch of other cool things. So, be sure to check that out over at aquaponicmasterclass.com.

[01:31:00]Be sure to check out the Growing with Fishes podcast.

[01:31:04]over a thousand hours of educational content. We have content on all things plants and soil science, uh, as well as aquaponics, hydroponics, and much more.

[01:31:14]You can find the show on your favorite podcast app, YouTube, Spotify, iTunes, Google, SoundCloud, Amazon Music, and a whole bunch of other places. Thank you for watching. Be sure to check out any of the amazing resources that we have available to help people with their garden. You can check me out on YouTube over at Potent Ponics. You can check us out over on your favorite podcast app with Growing with Fishes or Potent Ponics, depending on which app that you're using. Um, most of them are registered for both, but you know, sometimes the indexing works a little screwy on others. Um, you can email me at potentonixgmail.com.

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