Plant Alchemy With KNF: Korean Natural Farming And Jadam

[Azimuth]

cant see any pics with the posts , will running it under tap water not kill off your microbes and add chlorine to the soil or is this a different grow , sorry i am easy confused and have not been able to keep up with lots of growers


edit , had a little dig around and came across this

IMPACT OF WATERING GARDENS WITH CHLORINATED WATER​

Many water providers add chlorine to drinking water to keep it clean for human consumption. Chlorine prevents bacterial growth in water distribution systems. Many residents use chlorinated water to irrigate their lawn and garden. If chlorine is added to drinking water to kill bacteria, what impact does it have on beneficial soil microorganisms? Does it kill beneficial organisms in compost piles, too? Researchers have found that chlorinated drinking water may kill a number of microorganisms in soil or a compost pile. However, their reproduction rate is so rapid that populations rebound in a short time. Under normal conditions, chlorinated water will not threaten microorganism populations. Microorganisms reproduce rapidly. In one study, researchers continuously applied highly chlorinated water to soil for 126 days. Two days after they stopped, the soil microorganism populations reached pretreatment levels at all depths of soil.

One reason chlorinate water has little impact is that chlorine binds to soil particle surfaces. This immobilizes chlorine and reduces its ability to kill microorganisms. The organisms in the topmost surface of soil or a compost pile may be affected after irrigation but as the water moves downward little chlorine remains. In one study, researchers found that water chlorinated at 5 parts per million killed organisms only in the top half inch of soil. Organisms deeper than one half inch were thriving.

The amount of chlorine in drinking water is quite low. In order to kill soil microorganisms to 6 inch soil depth, water containing 65 parts per million of chlorine was required in one study. Drinking water usually contains much lower chlorine levels. For example, Colorado Springs Utilities water contains between 0.05 to 0.90 parts per million of chlorine, 70 times below the threshold level.

Thanks, Nutty. I usually water with rain water, but since I converted this plant from organic soil to a hempy pot, I figured microbes really aren't part of the picture so tap water should be fine for the quick rinse. It'll be back to rain water for it though, starting today.

One could argue that tap water with chlorine might be an advantage in a hempy to help kill off undesirables in the reservoir.

Interesting article. I wonder if the same can be said for the chloramines many water utilities are moving to. Can you point me to the source?

 

[NuttyProfessor]

Thanks, Nutty. I usually water with rain water, but since I converted this plant from organic soil to a hempy pot, I figured microbes really aren't part of the picture so tap water should be fine for the quick rinse. It'll be back to rain water for it though, starting today.

One could argue that tap water with chlorine might be an advantage in a hempy to help kill off undesirables in the reservoir.

Interesting article. I wonder if the same can be said for the chloramines many water utilities are moving to. Can you point me to the source?

Done on the journal

 

[Azimuth]

This morning the ACDC plant was looking even more droopy than yesterday. Last night I flushed with rainwater hoping it was excessive nutrients frying the roots, but apparently that was not the issue. So, I put a bag over the plant after misting it and hope that the leaves can get some moisture that way as they rebuild the root mass.

I'm not thrilled with the bag as it is partially touching the leaves which can invite disease, so I'll check it later and if it has perked up a bit I'll come up with another alternative for humidity, perhaps a dome of some sort or at least some sticks to hold off the side of the bag. I had been LST'ing the plant so the stems are outside the footprint of the pot which makes finding a suitable cover a bit of a challenge.

Also, last night I moved some cuts that I had started on the 4th from soil to a hempy propagator. I figured I was going to move them to hempy anyway if they rooted so why not now? I shook the soil off and dunked it in some water to get all the remaining soil off. After 15 days, still no evidence of anything happening except that the lower portion of each stem was stripped down to the core. I had lightly scraped each one but this was something much more. Weird.

I'm starting to think my soil is maybe too heavy and dense for proper oxygen to reach the roots and that may have contributed to my lackluster results in that medium.

Anyway, I cut off that portion of the stem, re-dunked it into fresh aloe and stuck it in my hempy propagator. Even if they don't work I have a lot more confidence in the hempy setup than the soil version. When I first started growing, my first round of cuts were rooted in a perlite swick setup. I didn't continue with that because I wanted to grow in soil and I was concerned that I was establishing water roots that would have a difficult transition to soil.

I like the current setup even better. Hopefully it works.

 

[Nine Toed Hippie]

Also, last night I moved some cuts that I had started on the 4th from soil to a hempy propagator. I figured I was going to move them to hempy anyway if they rooted so why not now? I shook the soil off and dunked it in some water to get all the remaining soil off. After 15 days, still no evidence of anything happening except that the lower portion of each stem was stripped down to the core. I had lightly scraped each one but this was something much more. Weird.

I'm starting to think my soil is maybe too heavy and dense for proper oxygen to reach the roots and that may have contributed to my lackluster results in that medium.

Anyway, I cut off that portion of the stem, re-dunked it into fresh aloe and stuck it in my hempy propagator. Even if they don't work I have a lot more confidence in the hempy setup than the soil version. When I first started growing, my first round of cuts were rooted in a perlite swick setup. I didn't continue with that because I wanted to grow in soil and I was concerned that I was establishing water roots that would have a difficult transition to soil.

I like the current setup even better. Hopefully it works.

Hope you get things sorted and going your way. In regards to your water to soil worries I started my seeds in a grobo start. Other than a small peat pod they are mostly in water. My plants never even wilted when I transplanted into the buckets. They also were kicked outside in 100 plus heat but handled it without as much as a hiccup. In my humble opinion they need a little abuse every now and then. What doesn’t kill them makes them stronger? Peace.

NTH

 

[Azimuth]

Thanks, NT,

These plants have been abused for sure. I suspect that with my (dense?) soil and watering issues, the plant's roots have gone into protective mode from their keeper, and are afraid to come out. They're also pretty old plants having limped along now for many months without much new growth. What's there has stalled.

So, lot's of new things coming at them and me. We'll get it sorted out and I think the perlite medium and the hempy strategy are probably the best mix given all the variables.

I think younger plants sometimes find it easier to adapt. These are pretty set in their ways and I'm introducing something radically different from what they're used to. The extra oxygen in the media should be a welcome surprise once the roots trust things enough to come out and play.

I'm just looking forward to the first sign of progress. The cut I put in my hempy cloner still looks great, but no roots there yet. It's been only about 5 days so still a few to go yet I'm sure.

I'm sure in a week or two I'll have some successes I can build on, but right now it's all anticipation on my part.

 

[Azimuth]

After spending a few days under a misted baggie (the plant equivalent of a ventilator in the ICU) AC is starting to show a hint of green sprouts along one stem so, hopeful progress perhaps. Even the main leader which had drooped over and then crisped up is showing a bit of turgor.

Also, today I converted my two remaining plants, both Northern Lights 5 seedlings, over to hempy. I tried to be a bit more gentle in the conversion, soaking them in water to try to remove the soil. Time will tell if this proves a more successful way to go about it, though probably will never have to do it again.

For these pots I tilted them so the hempy hole was facing down and put hydroton around it then filled the rest of the pot with perlite. I like the way the hole stays clear with the hydroton but like the wicking better with perlite so hopefully the best of both worlds.

So, no more soil in the grow cab. Well, except for the stinging nettle seedlings I started to get some of that fertilizer next year. But those will go out into the yard in the fall.

So, it's all hempy, all the time for me now.

All three plants got 1/4 strength Horsetail Fern FPJ with a plan to fertigate every couple of days. I'll increase the strength as needed but wanted to go slow after maybe frying AC on conversion day with full strength.

Floated out the BKU cut hoping for roots or at least root nubs but nothing yet on day 10. Not surprised as it comes from a not so healthy donor and was an older, and therefore woodier, stem. Still looks great, though.

And finally, before converting, I took a cut from one of the NL5's and stuck that in a perlite hempy after a dunk in fresh aloe gel.

Fingers crossed.

 

[Azimuth]

Today I upped the fertigation strength to 1/2 my normal strength of the Horsetail fern FPJ, and hope that will be good considering I'm doing it three times per week. The last two days showed major yellowing of the lower leaves at the 1/4 strength which I actually take as a good sign because they are showing a need for more.

I think I may have lost the BKU cutting. It was looking great and I was leaving it uncovered longer and longer so I left it uncovered for the whole light cycle. Big mistake as that was also the day I plugged back in the seed mat it sat on.

When I checked in at the end of the cycle the whole thing had drooped over in a major way. Doh!

I spritzed the dome and replaced it and the cut itself revived back to its usual happy self, but the growth tip looks like it dried out. Really dumb on my part. Good thing it was a "practice" plant grown from a free seed.

Looks like practice might be over.

I do still have a Northern Lights 5 cutting that had remained covered that was unscathed. It's a week or so behind the BKU, on Day 6 today.

Also, the tiny little new leaves showing on each of the transplanted plants grew a bit in the past couple of days. I'm hoping with the increased fertilizer strength they will show good progress in the next day or two.

Still waiting for some hempy success. Anything. But on we press.

 

[Azimuth]

Watered again today with 2/3 normal dilution on the HTF FPJ. Lower leaves still yellow and now spreading to uppers. Normally would have waited until tomorrow's watering but didn't see any point in waiting. If this doesn't do it will go to full strength tomorrow.

 

[Bode]

Highya Az,

Mine were doing that too. Couldn't seem to get enough nitrogen into them. So, I got some bloodmeal frome a big box store, and they've been fine eversince. Happy Smokin'

 

[Azimuth]

Thanks for that. I'll see how they do when I finally get up to full nute strength. Hopefully it'll be enough but need to keep other options in mind.

 

[oldmanjj]

Wow, lots of co info here. I don't have time to read it all now but I'm in!

 

[NuttyProfessor]

Is there no way you can add pictures to your journal ? @Azimuth

 

[Azimuth]

No, no pics for now. I will at some point down the road.

 

[Azimuth]

Wow, lots of co info here. I don't have time to read it all now but I'm in!

Welcome, oldmanjj.

Happy to have you along.

Azi

 

[Azimuth]

So, sad news to report. The ACDC plant has been relocated to the worm bin. It got fried, tried to recover, but never actually made it through.

I'm actually thinking it was a combination of things including too much light, the shock of replanting into a completely different medium, maybe too strong nutes after pot up, and other things. And bugs. Did I mention bugs? I think I have thrips. Master Cho says that mackeral FAA is very effective in getting rid of mites and greenhouse white fly. I'm hoping its same properties work on thrips, so all the plants are getting a foliar of that today.

All of these struggles are on me. In addition to the change over to perlite hempy, I'm also using a new cabinet build I modded out and so I have lots of new things to get adjusted to. I did just reduce the light load and that seems to have made a significant and positive difference. The one set of plants in there that haven't been moved over to hempy are my nettle seedlings and they ramped up significantly after decreasing the lights. So, lesson learned.

My two NL5'S are looking better with each watering as I increase the strength of the feed each time. I started pretty low (way too low in hindsight) and got major yellowing of the lower and then upper leaves. This last round has brought some green coloring back to some of those leaves so I can see I'm getting closer. My last feeding was at a 1:750 dilution of HTF FPJ and this next one will be the same dilution but split between HTF and FAA (fish amino acid) which is a stronger solution on its own so this should increase the nutes a bit more.

Today I'm also planning on an h2o2 soak of the root zone with a foliar feed of the FAA.

Still no rootage on either of the hempy cuttings (day 16 on the NL5) but it still looks about the same as it has been, happy enough. I am getting some yellowing on the BKU cut with the fried growth tip and I know sometimes that can be a sign of rooting. But, without a growth tip, even if it does root, I not sure what it can do.

Still looking for some hempy success. Any will suffice.

 

[Azimuth]

ROOTS!!!

We have roots! I can't even describe how happy I am about it. The second cut, this one of the NL5, was dunked in aloe and stuck in a hempy cloner cup with a dome 23 days ago. I kept it untouched for three days, and then removed the dome for a bit every day for a couple of weeks. Then I swapped and only had the dome on for a few hours a day.

I haven't seen any roots at the side of the cup, nor any evidense of growth, so I decided to float it out and have a look. Looks like I would have been seeing them any day now as they appear quite vigorous.

So, there is my first hempy success! Now onward to the good stuff (fingers crossed).

 

[Azimuth]

I've decided to take a bit of a detour and try to isolate the variables. Since the cupboards are bare and this hempy thing is completely new to me and adding in an untested and unproven nute regimen on top of it all just further complicates things, I've decided to start off with some off the shelf nutes to get a baseline before continuing with the homegrown organics.

I've had some significant yellowing of leaves even with the FishAA so I went out and bot some 24-8-16 plant food expecting to see some magic. Didn't see much, if anything.

Then I got some fish tank drops to test pH and, although the ranges are pretty wide, water from the tap was comfortably north of 7, and even after adding in the fertilizer it was still in mid sixes.

So, since I have no idea what I'm doing I've decided to follow a recipe and have ordered the suite of stuff I'll need like a pH pen, pH up/down and some proven nutes to get started on the right path.

Once I get a baseline and have a better sense of what I'm doing I'll start some plants on the organics to compare and contrast. But first I need to restock the cupboards and that doesn't leave a lot of room for screwing around.

 

[Azimuth]

Today I began my Leaf Mold Soil vs. RWC experiment.

Specifically, I want to compare the rates of plant material breakdown both in terms of speed and completeness of the three samples in the study. The experiment consist of three jars crammed full with dandelion leaves and roots in identical weights.

Jar 1 has rain water only and is the control
Jar 2 has rain water and leaf mold soil
Jar 3 has rain water and my worm castings (RWC)

The leaf mold soil and worm castings were added in identical weights. The leaf mold soil was not as moist as the RWC so there was a larger quantity used.

The material in all three jars was covered in rain water also in identical weights.

To be fair, my leaf mold soil is probably not the best example going of the stuff so it may very well not be a fair fight. On the other hand I am staying true to the principles of Jadam in that I am using inputs that are local to me.

I plan to weigh the remaining plant material at some point to determine the winner. I'm hoping, and frankly expecting, it to be the RWC because that is readily available to me in whatever quantities I need.

But, we will observe the scientific method and have objective measures to determine the results.

So today I'm posting the results of the test. It did go as expected, with the RWC showing the most thorough breakdown, followed by the rain water/leaf mold soil, followed by plain rain water.

I weighed the inputs to start, and weighed the remnants of the extractions after a good drying out in the sun to try to get at a result not biased by water weight.

The RWC ended with a weight of 17 grams from a starting weight (leaves, roots, plus rwc) of 181g, or a 90.61% extraction rate. (17/181=0.0939)

The leaf mold version finished at 19 grams vs starting weight of 148 for a 87.16% extraction rate.

And the water only was 31g from 181 grams or 82.87%.

So, bottom line is the RWC is the best and also easiest for me to process, and has confirmed my expectations. It will be my preferred extraction method going forward.

 

[Azimuth]

Comfrey

If the fertilizer benefits of comfrey were not enough, it turns out this is one of the most prized of herbs for the natural medicine folks.

Specifically, it can be made into an salve by steeping it with an oil like olive, grape, sunflower or coconut, or made into a compress, and is used to treat inflammation, bruises, strains, and bone breaks because of a compound it contains called allantoin, which is supposed to aid in cell proliferation, which in turn speeds the healing process from physical trauma to the body.

Maybe that's why it works so well on plants!

I recently hurt my knee and lower back and was reading up on natural treatments and came across this one. And, since I'm taking a bit of a temporary detour from my organic fertilizers, I'm going to use this year's comfrey crop to make some salve and see how it works.

I started my comfrey planting in the spring with a single root cutting about the size of my thumb and appear to have enough leaf matter now to easily fill a 5 gallon bucket. I think this fall I'll dig up the roots, dry some for future treatments and replant some to other parts of the garden to increase my supply.

Both the leaves and the roots can be used, with the roots being a bit stronger. The roots, when dried and made into a powder, turn into a gel like consistency when reconstituted with water. If applied directly to the skin in this form, it will dry to a fruit leather like consistency and is kept on the skin in this form for a day or two to deliver its compounds deep into the skin.

There are some downsides to planting comfrey in your garden if you're not careful. Comfrey sends down a tap root in search of water that has been estimated to be able to grow 10-20 feet (3-6 meters)! Since it also is propagated by root cuttings, that means you'll probably never be able to dig it all out without actually making more plants in the attempt.

Also, it produces beautiful purple flowers which can then produce seeds which can blow around your garden and quickly become a problem by producing a multitude of new plants.

I planted a sterile cultivar called Bocking 14 so I won't have the seed issue, and put it in a special spot in my garden where I'm happy to have it take up permanent residence. But just be aware of these issues if you decide to plant some in your garden.

 

[Rexer]

Comfrey

If the fertilizer benefits of comfrey were not enough, it turns out this is one of the most prized of herbs for the natural medicine folks. Specifically, it can be made into an salve by steeping it with an oil like olive, grape, sunflower or coconut, or made into a compress, and is used to treat inflammation, bruises, strains, and bone breaks because of a compound it contains called allantoin, which is supposed to aid in cell proliferation, which in turn speeds the healing process from physical trauma to the body.

Maybe that's why it works so well on plants!

I recently hurt my knee and lower back and was reading up on natural treatments and came across this one. And, since I'm taking a bit of a temporary detour from my organic fertilizers, I'm going to use this year's comfrey crop to make some salve and see how it works. I started my comfrey planting in the spring with a single root cutting about the size of my thumb and appear to have enough leaf matter now to easily fill a 5 gallon bucket. I think this fall I'll dig up the roots, dry some for future treatments and replant some to other part of the garden to increase my supply.

Both the leaves and the roots can be used, with the roots being a bit stronger. The roots, when dried and made into a powder, turn into a gel like consistently when reconstituted with water.

There are some downsides to planting comfrey in your garden if you're not careful. Comfrey sends down a tap root in search of water that has been estimated to be able to grow 10-20 feet (3-6 meters)! Since it also is propagated by root cuttings, that means you'll probably never be able to dig it all out without actually making more plants in the attempt.

Also, it produces beautiful purple flowers which can then produce seeds which can blow around your garden and quickly become a problem by producing a multitude of new plants.

I planted a sterile cultivar called Bocking 14 so won't have the seed issue, and put it in a special spot in my garden where I'm happy to have it take up permanent residence. But just be aware of these issues if you decide to plant it in your garden.

Great write up, I had no idea for the salve part, I'm going to have to try and remember this come next spring to plant some.