Practical Hawai'ian Considerations
by drake
To clarify things, IMO is IMO. There are no numbers associated with Indigenous MicroOrganisms. What Master Cho calls IMO1-5 are, in fact, a really sweet IMO bokashi that utilizes a waste stream in Korea with great efficiency. Koreans have mountains of rice hulls in every village. We, Hawai'ians have to use jet fuel to get hulls here, so let's rethink this.
Master Cho's collection method of IMO up to IMO2 is what I consider IMO. At this point, I take that sugary goup and I mix it in a plastic five gallon bucket with rain water, a local resource we have plenty of. If I put 4 cups of cooked rice out to collect IMO, I will mix it with 4 cups of brown sugar and 3 gallons of water. After a week, I will strain the solids out of the bucket, then I leave this bucket in my shed for storage and pour out small amounts, of this now liquid IMO, when I need them.
In Hawai'i, we have a tropical environment where weeds thrive and good sources of manure are not hard to come by. If you mix 70% carbon, ie dried out weeds and 30% nitrogen, ie manure and 1% IMO and juices and make sure the pile has a consistent 65% moisture content, you will get a 101% ten day super compost chock full of IMO conceptually identical to Master Cho's IMO5. This is what I recommend after a year of practicing natural farming. The mill run is sweet, but not in sync with the philosophy of using what is at your feet. The only case I would use mill run is for animal feed, and I hope to feel ashamed of saying so in the near future. Grow moringa, grow.
To make the IMO mix I sell at the market, I take 1 liter of liquid from IMO collected in the forest near my house, 1 liter of liquid from IMO collected in the pasture near my house, and 2 liters of LAB (see Cho's preparation, it's spot on) and mix that with 40 liters of water and throw in a handful of brown sugar. This is a 1/10 ratio of IMO (I consider the LAB an IMO, it's just a specific type of IMO. In general, IMO from the forest is fungal, IMO from the pasture is bacterial, and LAB is da kine everywhere) to water, and the handful of sugar is because microbial health is a function of food, if there is plenty of food there is no stress and the microbes are good, no food they freak out and pathogens eat them and take over, pathogens cause sickness, so make sure there is the right amount of food. My resulting mix is similar to what is known as EM, or effective microbes, because in this 2 LAB to 1 fungal and 1 bacterial ratio IMO are able to assist in many applications.
I use this IMO all over. I sometimes drink it. With a cane juicer, and a bit more discipline, I may be able to eliminate my dependency on buying bags of brown sugar to make my potions, and become the mythical sustainable man.
posted Mar 22 13:49