🍂 KNF Tips, Regenerative Renaissance, and Indigenous Microbes, with Chris Trump
12:40PM Jan 28, 2025
Speakers:
Jordan River
Keywords:
KNF tips
regenerative renaissance
indigenous microbes
soil growing
natural farming
microbial life
living soil
JMS recipe
liquid IMO
soil drench
microbial community
temperature parameters
Actinobacteria
soil steward
community support
Greetings podcast listeners. Thank you for tuning in to grow cast hot off the presses, once again, I'm your host, Jordan River, and I am at the liquid Jordan stage today, Chris Trump is back to talk about IMO and how to succeed at KNF. He gives us all a really good overview from a 30,000 foot view, getting your toe into the water of KNF, and then tips for those who are already doing it, already deep in the practice, plus some talk about soil growing and his philosophy. It's a really great episode. I know you're gonna enjoy it before we get into it with Chris, though, shout out to AC infinity. That's right. They make the best grow gear on the market. AC infinity.com, code, grow, cast one, five saves you 10% that is the maximum discount we've had the code forever. We've been partners with AC infinity for years. And why? It's because they make the best tents you can get your hands on. They make the best inline fans, the best oscillating fans. They make really, really great quality accessories like scissors, pots, Ratchet hangers and things like that. And now they also have lights. They've got the ion board and now the ion frame bar style, really, really great stuff at AC infinity. Get the whole grow kit you've been after. You know you can get a three by three kit, a five by five kit. You know you want another one, just go ahead and pop over there. Use code grow cast one five, always at checkout for the max discount. And thank you for supporting us and AC infinity. We love them so much. To make our favorite grow gear out there, I'm looking at two AC infinity tents in my bio dome, and you won't regret grabbing one. Use code grow, cast one, five at AC infinity.com. Thank you to AC infinity. All right, let's get into it. Thank you for listening and enjoy the show. You Joe, hello, podcast listeners. You are now listening to grow cast. I'm your host, Jordan River, and I want to thank you for tuning in again today. Before we get started, as always, I urge you to share this show with the grower. Turn someone onto the show. If you're not subscribed, make sure to follow us on whatever platform you're listening on. We're on Spotify and grow cast podcast.com and everywhere, and make sure to turn someone on to growing. It's the best thing you can do to help us on our mission of overgrow. Thank you for tuning in today. Special. Thank you to the members. Today we have a friend of growcast, Master of natural farming, if I may say so myself. It might make them cringe a little bit, but it's true, we have none other than Chris Trump on the line. What's up? Chris, how are you doing? Man,
Hey, Jordan, glad to be here. I'm doing great. Yes, sir. We
love talking about KNF and just all things natural farming with you. Man, before we jump into all the questions, what have you been up to since we last spoke? And what adventures are you on right now? Yeah.
So one thing with running a business is sometimes you just have to plug away at the administrative things. So I've been painstakingly teeth pulling Lee, catching up on admin. I'm not amazing at it, but it is. It's that time of year, got my taxes done. So nothing like the massive, exciting, but a little real into the what seems all, I think sometimes online, elegant and so fun and cool, but trudging, trudging, and, you know, slugging forward to to get to those cool things is also a lot of the work, yeah,
a lot of stuff behind the scenes, flying around and, like, out in Ireland at a great farm, you know, I'm sure it's so much fun. But then, like you said, there's the whole hidden side.
It is, it is, it is the very cool things. The friendship I have with Tom, who runs the dairy in Ireland, is invaluable for life. I mean, it's he's a great human and so then getting to go and teach at his farm this next year, we're going to be on his farm the whole time we're setting up class on a farm. And actually, if you've ever wanted to go to Ireland, oh no, it doesn't work unless you're Irish. Anyways, it might it. Might. We will look into it. I'm setting up a deal with a National Organic training skill net, and it's an Irish governmental agency, whoa, and they're going to, yeah, they're going to subsidize tickets this year. So tickets, I think, are going to be 600 euro, and that's all your food, certificate, some swag, and then the five day class, and there's some lodging options in Ireland that are super cool. We're setting up a camping space. So, yeah, Ireland, the class is shifting, but so is the country. There's a lot of energy towards regenerative, AG, and really acceptance, more. More than, I would say, most kind of European or even, you know, us cultures. That's really cool. Man, yeah, they're jumping in with both feet. So I think we're watching kind of the start of a agricultural renaissance in Ireland. And, yeah, it's been really an honor to be a part of. So
that's so cool, man. Well, I want to talk about all of it today. I want to talk about that revolution like you're talking about this kind of shift towards natural farming. I'd love to start from the basics and then work our way up to some more advanced stuff and some philosophical stuff. Yeah, if you haven't heard Chris's other episodes, listener, I do highly advise you Google Chris Trump, grow cast, listen to the old episodes. But for those who just tuned in, and also for like, a refresher, like I said, we'll get to some more advanced stuff. But let's start from the top man, like, when someone approaches you now in 2023 and they're like, Hey, I'm a gardener, or I'm a cannabis grower, and I want to get into this KNF thing. What is KNF at its core? How do you explain this philosophy and style of gardening from a 30,000 foot view? Let's start
there. Absolutely, I think to maybe prime that question, I'm going to jump back to a little bit of what we were just talking about in Ireland. I refer to it as a renaissance, Renaissance. For me, the the reason I use that term is because it's, it's the return to the things of agriculture that were, you know, by and large. And I think that is one of the things I like to try and communicate about natural farming, is that it is not something new. We're not discovering some undiscovered truths and then sharing it. We're kind of teching a bit, you know, applying some modern tools and application methods and even preparation methods to agriculture that existed three generations ago in the US and everywhere, right. There was no other agriculture than regenerative agriculture. You cared for your land or you didn't have good crops next year, and you did that with what you had available, which was all organic materials. And so as we explore this, and as as farmers shift. So many times I hear a farmer say, Oh, I'm doing all the natural farming stuff. But then, you know, I remember my grandfather did these things, and so we're doing that on the side here. And you know, they're able to merge these, these culturally historic practices and so natural farming is a elegant method to 30,000 foot view. It is an elegant method to tend to the microbial life your soil and really the overall nutrition and pest and disease of your farm, and so it's it's kind of a whole package way to farm that a farmer can achieve some sovereignty in their inputs and really profitability because of the savings there are in inputs, not having To buy them, but being able to source them yourself and and create some of them. So it's, it's a way forward for agriculture that is profitable, and for for farming to really shift, we need farmers to stay in business, have capital to be able to, you know, do the next thing with or reinvest in their farm. And so it seems to me, and I've been playing with natural farming now. Started on my 750 acre macadamia net farm, shifting it over to organic. I started playing with I started playing with that project, in 2010 and really got going into 2011 and have been full tilt natural farming since then. That's amazing. And I've seen over and over farm profitability, farm cope. You know, some of these farmers are pretty stuck, and so I've seen some real opportunity for them.
Well, it seems to me like, you know, we encourage all types of cannabis growing here at grow cast, but it certainly seems to me like the benefits of this style of farming a from, like, an ecological perspective, right? Like, if you're actually on a farm, this is important. It's important to the land and the earth and the pollinators and all the things you talk about. But it just seems to me, like in general, the larger the scale and the longer you plan on doing this, the better off you are going a natural farming route, right? If you just got your little two by two in your room, that's one thing. But like you said, If this is your land for life, or if you plan on growing for 1020, years, it becomes. Way, way more reasonable and effective, like you said, because of that fertilizer cost at scale and over time,
I would, I would agree with you, like 90% in what you just said. I think that it is like time for sure. 100% if you get to have farm on in the soil over time every year for the first three years, you're going to get improvement, and by the end of three years of doing this tech on your farm, you're facing real, permanent change where you're getting kind of dividends on the prep work you did, right? And that's, I don't know, that's crazy valuable, because it's, you know, it's equity, it's, it's Land, land health, equity, and a farmer can get paid on that year after year for an initial investment. And all of a sudden those initial investments becomes nearly moot because of the longevity of the effect. And that's a big deal. When somebody owns their land, they're trying to keep their land, they're trying to farm on it profitably. It was a big deal for our family farm, and we're still figuring it out, because being on an island, even getting wood chips can be really challenging, right? But we're doing it. And I'm starting a ginger farm in Hawaii, or I started one in March. That's cool. And we're gonna basically grew seeds this year. For next year, we're going to plan out about an acre of ginger. We have about a half acre planted. And it's, it's because I have those tools in natural farming that ginger farming for me is even possible. You know, the the conventional avenue to farm ginger is insane, yeah, I am pruning an apple tree. Currently. My add brain. There's
no that's good. I like that. Man, you never stop. You got the ginger going. You got the macadamias going. You got the apples going. My
brother, my brother runs the macadamia nuts. I am just pruning a friend's apple tree, one apple tree. So definitely not Apple farming just yet. Of course, you are, I am starting a couple farming projects in Boise finally, which is exciting, potatoes.
You're finally getting into potatoes. No,
I'm just closer to my kids. My kids are in Boise. So nice. I try and stick around there as much as
possible. I knew you were getting into potatoes eventually, Chris, get
me back on track. Jordan, I got you. I got talking about it.
So let's, let's go next to, you know, you great. Gave a great overview of, like, this idea of respecting the land, and, like you said, a microbially driven gardening system, a
living, a living soil, a living, a real living soil system, not not something where we're getting one bug in one jug and putting it on and we're saying there's something alive in there. So we're calling it living. This is a diverse ecosystem, like nature has in the forest, bug
in a jug, one bug in one jug. I like that. So, so let's say that we're already growing. Let's say that we do that living soil style you just described. Or maybe we're on bottles, you know, maybe they're liquid organics or whatever. What's a great way to get started? Where does somebody start? Other than, of course, Chris Trump, YouTube channel should be subscribed, uh, soil steward on Instagram. But where do I go if I'm a grower and I just want to dip my toe into KNF,
yeah, I think, I think it's really important to start with a little bit of a caveat, that just because natural farming shows this whole system, just because there's all these pieces to it, does not mean as a grower, to do natural farming, you have to start with the whole system. I love that you have you have your farm to consider. You have your income to consider. There's risk in trying something new, even if it is better. That doesn't mean you're going to be good at it your first time. And KNF is like that. There is some learning curve. So I strongly encourage people to protect their bottom line. You know, take care of your take care of your farm. Do what you need to do to be in business the next year, because that is sustainability. If you can't sustain financially, you definitely can't be a sustainable farm, right? You got to go get another job. That's real, that's important. So then if, yeah, whatever scenario you're in, you can mess with adding some microbial life to your soil with a with safety like you don't, you don't have to really do a whole lot else. So if you're on body. Old, organic nutrients. Maybe you're like, you know, I bought into this whole clean thing. I want my medicine as clean as possible. But you're not making your you're not deep down this rabbit hole. You're just like, hey, I get, you know, the best I can. I run cute mix and I add, you know, X, Y and Z, right, cheering for you homie. Like, crush it. The thing I would encourage you to do is bite off a small piece of the entry into microbes. So what I mean by that is that you might be building up if you have, like a living soil bed something and not changing out, you might be building up nutrients where you've been putting it on for a couple years now. And some of the things people run into when they're trying to, you know, kind of beginning living soil tech is that they they just keep getting more stuff. Now they're chasing just deficiencies, and they're just loading their beds with nutrients over
amending. Now I see it. I see it, Chris, I do see it in that scenario you described.
Yeah, it's, it's the chase, because as soon as you are the God of your plants nutrition, meaning you personally make every decision that affects them. Now when things shift on you, you have to act, because you know that unless you do something that's going in whatever direction. So now your pH starts going down. Now you add something. Now your your nitrogen is high. Now you you know, calcified now, you know, you go down this line of things and deficiencies you're chasing. And some people get it really dialed, and you have a system I'm, you know, speaking to any of you, wherever you are, in that scale we just described, you can bring in microbes to your substrate. Even if you're growing in cocoa, you can bring in some life. And what that does is it will, it'll start to process your nutrients and make them plant available. They will mine in the root zone, so that your plants actually have the type of nutrient they need to have already food. See, they work in tandem. Their roots work in tandem with these decomposers, just like the microbes in your gut decompose your food and allow it to pass through your cell wall, exactly.
Dude, I totally agree. And I think, I think a lot of living soil growers go through that arc of diversification and seeing the results. But I'm telling you, man, even the bottled growers, you add those microbes to the grow, like Chris is saying, your plants are going to respond. There's a lot of good syngenic growers out there, and it's because, like you said, they threw some life in their cocoa, and maybe they have to reapply it, right? Maybe it's a little bit different than a living soil system.
They're gonna have to reapply it. But still, no, when you it works, but it works, and it'll it'll help keep the disease down. It'll help your plants produce more diverse biochemicals, which in cannabis we call cannabinoids and terpenes. So you want, you want those flavors to diversify, you have to get the nutrients available to your plants roots to diversify, and the only way to do that really effectively is with microbes interaction in the root zone. And that's why these knfers are winning cups and these natural soil, living soil people are getting flavor kudos because their plants are able to express more diverse biochemicals, because they're able to eat a more diverse food. So, very simply, very simply, start with JMS or make a liquid IMO with an IMO, two both of those are pretty like, accessible JMS you can make in 48 hours with a bucket. Oh, liquid. IMO, you're gonna have to invest in a little aerator, and you're gonna have to spend a week hunting microbes in the forest. Mycelia in the forest both very fun to do and extremely effective for anybody growing tomatoes or cannabis, indoor or outdoor. And you're you're cooking with fire in a week, either direction, if you really apply yourself.
That that JMS interests me. Let me tell you, yeah,
have you messed with thingganics? Absolutely. I
haven't made JMS before, though. And now that you can say that it's, it's such a quick process, I might have to try my hand at JMS for the first time. My gosh,
so freaking easy. And here's, here's what JMS is. JM. As is a bacterial yeast dominant. Some fungi can be in there from whatever your original handful of soil had into it, but they won't really multiply in there. But it's basically like a super diverse L, A B, like a like a dirty la B, but dirty in the best way, dirty, like dirty with its friends, like hanging with its homies. A lot of people isolate and create la B, which is fine for like a, you know, germicide on the leaves, for powdery mildew or something, but the JMS has kind of the friends necessary to create a bit of community in the soil and do some soil conditioning so you can really clarify your soil. And so that I recommend JMS only as a soil drench, not as a foliar applications, because it's a little dirty. They're ready for the dirt, less
suited for the stomata? Yeah, just really quickly. Do you want to give, like, a two minute breakdown of the recipe, or refer someone to a video? Maybe?
Yeah, you know, guys, I made the video. It took time to edit. It's up on the YouTube clear. It's so clear and easy, like for me to explain it to you would be disrespectful to the effort I put into that. Now, I mean it really, guys, if you're hearing this, you are a click away from Chris Trump on YouTube explaining JMS, I got my kids, like five years ago in there. They're cute as can be, and we'll just walk you through it, like in a five minute video. It's very easy. So JMS is a as a soil drench liquid IMO with IMO two as a foliar application. This is your this is your rocket fuel. This is the best practice for cannabis, is to create an IMO for and to apply any nutrients you might add, fine, but to apply a liquid IMO weekly on an outdoor crop, that's all you need. Love it. You can do some soil conditioning. You can you can get your soil as rich as you can, but your protocol throughout the grow to prevent bugs and disease, is liquid. IMO, once a week and your plants go gangbusters. Good flavor. Love
it. So those are your top two recommendations. Yeah, and
now making IMO four, which is the best scenario for liquid. IMO, that is a major like that is a year of school, a year of practicum, where you're practicing making IMO two into a liquid IMO, sorry, guys, for all the acronyms. So liquid IMO is we say limo, and IMO stands for indigenous microorganism. And so all I'm saying with this two four reference after, I'm sticking after the IMO word is the steps in the process. There's four steps in IMO, kind of completing the microorganism preparation process. However, I did some experiments with shortcutting it and just using IMO two. I am not recommending this as best practice, but what it can do is it can get somebody started with almost no learning curve or little learning curve in a week or two. And so instead of all the process to learn how to do it over a year, you're just kind of jumping in and using the inoculum to get yourself some great compost tea, which is really better than anything we can get on the market. So it's, yeah, it's amazing. It's, it's easy to kind of figure out. And you just watch some videos on IMO one and two, get that dialed, and then make yourself a little, you know, five gallon, if you're small scale, little five gallon bucket with a mesh paint strainer. I got a recipe and all the tools right on, on, on the video there for you. So those are, like, entry level jump in, figure it out, and really let the plant speak to you. Your product is the test on how well this works. That's it like, No, we're not, you know, touting some yield. You're just gonna say, Damn, that's better. And I did better. That's a good feeling. Yeah, that's, that's the test. Put it to the test, do it on a plant, and when it beats your other plants, say, Okay, I'll make the shift. And that way somebody can really not mess with their program, not risk their whole crop, and they can get a taste for, you know, some advancement in their growing because that's what we're doing. Yeah, we're all learning. And what we can from nature as we go. And yeah,
that's good advice for somebody who has only dipped their or looking to dip their toe in now let's get into this. Let's get into the more advanced kind of currently practicing stuff. Here's how I'd like to phrase this question for those who are already making a lot of these recipes that we're familiar with, right, like jmss and the water soluble calcium and the fpjs and the ffjs and all this stuff. Are there any like, key factors or or finer points of nuance that you can enlighten us to with any of these recipes that comes to mind, like, for instance, have you? Have you approached making any of these recipes differently lately, you know, like had any changes in your practice when it comes to making these inputs that everybody's hyped on, I
definitely am always shifting and learning, especially in relation to The different environments or crops, I find myself interacting, right?
I'd imagine so fine tuning that constantly,
yeah, so, so areas can have different things that are needed or need to be shifted based on Yeah, 100, 100 factors, environmental factors. The good news is, most natural farming doesn't need to be shifted at all, because it's designed to interact with an indigenous environment. So wherever you find yourself, one of the things that is just so important if you're going to go into IMO, three and four, I cannot stress enough that stain within temperature parameters has to be your pass or fail. So you create temperature parameters in the explanations. But basically 120 degrees Fahrenheit is the top temperature your pile can get to. And if you're, if you're going over and spiking and going on a wild roller coaster, that's your inexperience, and you can learn from it. But let's not call that good and call that, IMO, like we're, we're talking about creating and having all this beneficial effect, because one of the keys in natural farming is being really honest with yourself on the quality you've created, compare it to the goals, interact in a forum, share with people that have done it. And so true. Yeah, if you if it sucked, if you messed it up. Don't call it the thing that's going to fix your farm, or apply these kind of conversations like we're having. I'm not saying that if you completely fail at preparing this stuff, that it all just magically works, because you're calling it handouts, you know. So that's, that's, I think it's an important point, yeah, for those you guys really wanting to do this to make your living on it now, dial it in. Now,
why too hot? Or is that about killing off too much of the life, or is it kind of populating the life that we don't want?
It's this really amazing, beautiful sweet spot that exists in composting and decomposition in soil microbial communities that 120 degrees and below, there's this whole huge group of microbes That will take control in that space that range from ambient to 120 degrees, and they will make a uninterrupted web of community and diversity that becomes really stable. Now, if you take a finished, properly made IMO, it will, even if you mess with it and add too much water or too much nitrogen, it will maintain a resistance to going over 120 degrees, because the community is actually maintaining its own kind of homeostasis. Wow, yeah, it's, it's wild. So lots to learn about that lots I'm curious. But then there's this other dynamic that happens over 120 degrees, and it's one microbe that just specifically in an IMO preparation environment, when you go to, you know, really over 123 if it holds for more than if you spike to 123 for 30 minutes because you're watching it, or you've been around, you're safe, like this short kind of going over, you're really going to be okay. But if. It holds at higher temperatures, 125, for a couple hours. Now there's this microbe that is Actinobacteria, actinomyces, is one of the subcategories, and it is abundantly prolific in that context, at that temperature, so it will take over the percent population and become like 90% of what's there in a day, if leftover temperature and then its favorite temperature is like 130 to 150 and we're killing some of the other microbes of those temperatures, and so that now that you've got a big population of them growing, if you've left it too long, they will continue to proliferate. They will continue to try and take you over temperature, and you'll be battling that pile the whole rest of the time doesn't mean you can't get great value over a pile that goes over temperature. It just we can't call it of the same value. Wow, especially for making tea where you're putting it on the leave, Actinobacteria is not really we don't want it in abundance on our leaves. So we create imbalance that way. So it's really about creating this extremely balanced, diverse community, and that is the sweet spot. You hit that, and your whole farm just kind of goes onto a little bit easier track. I don't know how to say it the disease and the bugs are less and the plants functioning well.
So it's like, observable in in nature. Is what you're saying. Like that 120 degrees is, like, just this week,
yeah, making it making it well and making it bad. The effects on the plants are significant. So this is the advanced tech, kind of, you know, encouragement from Chris is like, take the time to figure out the parameters. And a very average, very normal time it takes to play with that, because you got to make three or four piles, is a year. So if you're doing it, if you're figuring it out, and you're getting it dialed faster than that, you are a freaking rock star. But if it takes you an ear, yeah, year, don't be surprised, because it took a lot of other people that long to get the style. This is a lifetime tool. Once you have it, it's like knowing how to play. Come as you are on the guitar, you pick up a guitar wherever, and you could strum that out. So this is a skill. Now, I can go wherever get some grain that's kind of in the ballpark of something that'll work. And we can grow indigenous microbes in abundance and get it applied to farmland. So I love it. Yeah, once you kind of have the parameters down to the chef, you can use a lot of different media to make that happen.
Grow cast membership. Yes, that's right. Grow cast podcast.com/membership, if you love this show, you'll love membership. Not only are we like an insurance for your garden, anytime you have a problem, we will identify it and tell you how to solve it, but you also get hundreds of hours of bonus content. That's right, video content. We have the AMA, which is a, ask me anything, Q and A every single Saturday, and we got grow cast TV every single Wednesday. We've got the Q and A live stream, so we answer all your questions in depth. That's every other Saturday. And then every single Wednesday, we got grow cast TV. It's for the members only. Catch it live. Catch all the archives, plus all the other benefits, like members only discounts, giveaways, resources, members only videos and more. You'll love it. It's at growcast podcast.com/membership it'll bring you right there. Try it free for seven days. Consume all the content. Tell us how you like it. I know that if you like this show you will love grow cast membership. We even got a members only discord. I'm in there hanging out every single day. We'll take care of any your garden problems. Mary Beth, is there? Producer Jay, is there? Rise of rich. Is there? Wolf Man is there? Come and see us. Come and hang out with grow cast membership. That's right, the order of cultivation. It's waiting for you, and that's all at grow cast podcast.com. Click membership. Would love to see you in there. Huge. Thank you to all of the members who support the show. Let's talk about biomay solutions. This is a new website, biomay dot solutions. That's B, i, o, m, e, i, dot solutions. You got this bio may calculator up here? Figured this is a good time to talk about this. Can you refer to refer the knfers to this calculator and also what they can find on the rest
of your website. Yeah, I'm really actually it was a great time to talk about the calculator, because it actually helps people that have no initial parameter from for kind of where to start on water addition, nutrient addition to create good. IMO, it actually gives them a kind of a set starting point. Now there's there's shifts depending on what kind of materials you use, but basically the IMO three, you put in the pounds of material you're going to use, of wood chips and grain, and it gives you a water amount to prepare with, what nutrients, and it calculates all of it out for you. So it's really taking a lot of the tedious math and kind of what is kind of guesswork when people are figuring it out, it can be kind of daunting to, you know, follow these recipes and then figure out your amount and how much water to add. This has a average water calculation put in there that I put in there from, you know, 15 years of methane with this, I have about an average, you know, that people need to start a pile. So that, by itself, is awesome. But then it has all these feeding recipes, and it calculates it all out for you based on how, how many gallons you want to make, or how you know. So it's just, it's pretty cool. It's easy,
soil foundation one week before, Maintenance Solution, slash, seed treatment. IMO, three. IMO, four. That's pretty dope.
Liquid. IMO, yeah, so if you're gonna mess with that, IMO, two the recipes right on there, it'll calculate it out for you, and you can just punch in, I'm gonna make four gallons. Oh, and
an acronym guide. Oh, fantastic. This for me, yeah,
yeah. So there's a tab, there's a tab on my website that just says free stuff. And so it's a ton of resources that you can just click through and they're yours. That's great. There's nothing you don't even have to put in your email
free resources. And then also, for people like me, you sell the inputs here straight up, I can get some FAA. I mean, listen, I'm never gonna make FAA. I love what you do, Chris, I'm serious. I love what you do. I am a soil grower myself. I just don't think I'm gonna watch in two years, I'm gonna be rotting some fish in a bucket, and I'm gonna say I finally did it, but I don't see myself making FAA in the foreseeable future, fermenting,
fermenting fish in a bucket, fungal fermentation. Sorry, I shouldn't eat. Yeah, no, me and one of my best friends make nutrients in bulk, and especially, like, I take classes, or I teach a class, and everybody's like, off to the races. They want to go do this, but then they're told that FAA and takes a year and, OHN, take three months. So that's kind of how it started, was having those longer prep items just available so people can, you know, get a small bottle and jump and do all the things right away. Yeah,
20 bucks for some FAA, man, I just shut down my garden, but I literally be copying one of these right now. Otherwise, that's fucking dope.
Yeah. And then Maintenance Solution we sell. It's already mixed up, so literally, if you want to, like, dip your toe into natural farming, main solution is OHN FPJ and vinegar. The FPJ is made with bull kelp from the Pacific Ocean, harvested wild, and obviously, and the OHN we make in house and and so you can do this. You can get all these components together and mix them up. But this is already mixed, and then you just pour it, one to 200 into your bottle and spray it out the bottles. Have the nutrient calculator in a QR code on the back of them. So if you're like, got some OHN and you're trying to make liquid, IMO, and you didn't bookmark the calculator page, and it takes you there, yeah, so they're just really well made nutrients, if people are wanting to jump in, they're pretty inexpensive. As far as how everything goes. It's not a giant business, that's for sure. I wish well
support Chris everybody and grab a bottle this. This is, this is really cool, and some of them are sold out, so grab one before they're gone. A bit of a left turn. But on the subject of FAA, and I don't know, maybe dipping my toe into aquatic microbes, or just in general, I'll ask you this question, Chris. This is something I asked him, I guess, what's your favorite microbe and why? Like, what species of microbe is you? I know, right. Great question. Thank you. Jordan River, interesting, what's your favorite microbe and why? Man, I know I'm putting you on the spot.
Yeah, I've never, I've never thought of that. Mine
is the, probably the nematode, or the nematode, I say nematode because that's how they set it on SpongeBob. But the nematodes are probably my favorite because a they're the most. Most rare. So it's exciting when you find them. And B, if you look at the the predator ones up close, especially they look like little monsters. Oh yeah, I like the the nematodes. I also think that people are missing nematodes from their garden a lot of the time. Like, that's probably one that you could inoculate your garden with. But, but what do you like? What have you been studying lately?
Yeah, you absolutely can inoculate with nematodes. And a lot of reasons why people are missing nematodes is they don't have their food there, right? So there's not enough bacteria fungi, for the other kind of part of the nematode community be eating that grows the whole thing. So, yeah, it's, um, my favorite. I would say that I am entertained by the appearance of Clement type fungi in nature. They they have, it looks like a you ever see those, like, cartoons where, like, the bad guy, or one of the characters gets hit with like, a mushroom growing, you know, death ray or something, and they just, like, turn into a forest,
maybe, right? Or like, the twilight zone, where everybody's like, growing that green shit off them.
Yeah, yeah. They just kind of sprout, like chlamydos spores. It's like, This branching organism, and then all of a sudden it just, like, starts sprouting. It's, it's fruiting heads just kind of off of it randomly, or all over the place. It's really a pretty
microscope right now, I see what you're saying. It looks like, it looks like a zombie spore from a movie Up close, under a via under a microscope, like a zombie virus. Yeah,
it's just kind of scratchy, you know, bulbous fruit all over it, almost like that tree where the little black fruit grows, like on the trunk of the tree.
Anyways, yeah, yeah. It's kind of, yeah, it's, it's interesting to look at. I did not know that's a great specific answer. What a good answer. Chlamydosporce, you can Google that everybody. Chlamydosporce, wow. Some of these are actually beautiful. Looking at microbes under a microscope are stunning.
Yeah, I've seen, I've seen some really beautiful fungi that were in the, you know, had that climatosp Or fruiting expression. I'm not sure which like, how the that expression of of fruiting like, crosses species. I don't, I don't know if it's just one species. I'm ignorant to that. But anyways, very beautiful. That's cool, man. I don't know that I could say that's my favorite, but that's what came to mind just now. No great answer. Super great answer.
So listen, I want you. I want to give you a chance before we wrap up the show here to talk more about, you know, you talk about what you do, and people love listening to the natural farming instructionals and stuff like that. But you know, we were talking off air about why you do it. You were talking about this renaissance, the philosophy of natural farming. So I'd love to give you a minute just to speak about that and some of the inspiring stories that you've seen around the globe. This is important work that you're doing, Chris, like you must thanks, man, you must feel good about that, right? Like we all go through life, and I think a lot of the times we're like, oh, you know, does my job make a huge difference in the world? And everybody as a person, and everybody as part of society has a value. But when you're working on something like natural farming, you must go to sleep at night going, like, I did something meaningful and good and changed the world for a better place, for sure, because of this work, you must feel that so I admire and I just love to hear you more talk more about the mission itself, you know, yeah,
what comes up for me when you say that Jordan is, is that, you know, I do. I hear that voice. I get really amazing emails, actually, and messages on different platforms that I really should be compiling, because they're just, you know, I've cried some of them just, you know, this guy in Mozambique and and he, nine years ago, started reaching out to me through Facebook Messenger, you know, African from Facebook Messenger and and I dialogued with them, you know, I'll check, I'll check any conversation for, you know, the robots show themselves pretty quick. Or people asking for money you
want to give away. You're like, okay, you know,
so I'll shut those down. But sometimes it's just a conscientious farmer that that is trying to find a way to talk to somebody that can answer the question, yes, I've loved some of those conversations. And so this guy was like, Hey, I'm I'm trying to do this thing. I want to make a. Living on farming in my community, we need it, but we're just failing. He just, it was, it was a struggle to start, and some of the things they had tried weren't working. And he's like, I want to try and do pigs. And so he just started. I was like, Hey, watch these videos. And then we dialogued about some of the ways that the business can work and how to work on food for the pigs. And he just plugged away. Every time we had a conversation, he went off and figured it out and kept you know, we'd come back with intelligent questions. And he's got a like 1800 pig piggery, and like some 4000 chickens, and he is a wealthy, relatively wealthy human and affluent human in his community, and he's providing jobs and food he just did over nine years with the resources that are available online, and he's grateful for the help. So those stories, out of those, you know, it changed my life, and it really is, is amazing, and for me, like, you know, the measure that I judge is like, what do my kids think about how as a dad? So that's, that's the, that's the deeply real part of motivation. But also I want for their future, you know, I want to say I worked towards them having a chance to have food on the shelves, if we're like medicine, like real food, if we're going to continue this grocery store kind of thing, then let's shift how the farming is happening. And I would like my kids, when they're my age, to be able to go to the grocery store and the whole thing's medicine that they buy for their kids, and it's still affordable, you know, it hasn't turned into some thing that only the rich can get, because the farmers can make a living,
because the soil is still alive, right? That's the at the end of the day, what you're giving those kids is a planet with soil that's still alive. That's kind of the mission,
yeah, that's the mission, yeah. And that's not just for my kids, you know, I think that the whole world can have that. I think that we have enough knowledge now, science and backing to say it is time to shift, and the whole world needs to make the change. And, and, yeah, so that that is the hope. And, you know, I more and more the more that starts going on, the more I recognize the need for a community to do that with, to to build towards that goal with. And so that's been a lot of kind of what I've been noodling, working on, some of the infrastructure on and pursuing, figuring out is how to have a bit of a community run org, where the people that have the skills that want to do the things, can build something that is also theirs, that they get that community benefit from. Because so many networks do that, so many I mean, you look at the the Mormons, for example, the the back padding and help to each other's businesses and the support and, yes, community. And, you know, people, all ships rise as people come together and work together. So there's this natural farming community growing and people want to participate. Some people have skills and a farm. Some people have farm and they need skills and just help build something that kind of fosters that,
yeah, support, amazing man, I couldn't have said it better myself, and what better way to tie that in than with the natural farming community. So I LOVE IT people. I'm sure people want to know, are you going to be anywhere here? Coming up, any classes or events or speeches or anything like that? On the calendar?
I have one event in California actually coming up first week of December. I'm going to do a class. They reached out they would love to host. And so they have a small community there that really wanted to get educated. They're starting to play with it in their vineyards. And so I said, Sure, let's see if we can put a class together so we can get your team and your people educated too. And I was really busy when we kind of agreed to do it, and then I'm just now talking about it, so we'll see. I think, I think it'll be a go. We've got, I think getting close to 15, we have 15 signed up, so maybe with 20. Any the classes that go nice
California class. So people will hit you up at soil steward on Instagram for that one, or straight to biomaid dot solutions. Yeah,
they can go to biomaid dot solutions and just buy a ticket. An amazing place to have a class. I think they're doing lunch every day. I mean, just kind of like an epic vineyard to have natural farming class in. So there you go. It'll be a, yeah, it'll be a great spot. And yeah, last class I'll do this
year, nice, warm December class, yeah,
I am jumping back to Ireland, though, if you can get in to not at their discounted price, then, yeah, that is a, probably the least expensive class I can put on because of the subsidy. Hey,
eu chapter, I know you guys are out there. Yeah, I got some Irish listeners. Yeah, go ahead. Hit that up right away. Check that out. For sure. I wish those, man, I wish I could make,
yeah, next July in Ireland. So yeah, and I have an online class that people can take any time, every time I update, that anybody that's ever purchased it gets any new content that's added. So it's kind of a lifetime membership to an evolving, it's awesome, an ever growing bit of content. So it's like 4050, hours of like everything, all
at bio may dot solutions, everybody. And stay tuned for those dates. I'm going to be in Nova cup. That is November 11. I'll see you Northern Virginia and DC area. I wish I could make it to some of those events. Man, I'll try to fly out to Ireland. I swear to God, to
Ireland. It would be a trip to remember. I'll tell you what the Irish are, incredible human, incredible culture.
I would love to do that, man. So stay tuned. Everybody always give us a follow at growcast and follow at soil. Steward, that's at soil steward. Chris Trump on Instagram, I see you posted on and
you listener, your listener should send you to Ireland so you can come back with all the deeds. You can tell them. Tell them. I'll give you three classes of content. Download. You
heard them. You heard the man. Everybody. No, that sounds great. Man and listen, let's connect. As soon as possible. Stay safe on your travels. God speed, you're doing amazing work out there. And if there's ever anything you need from growcast or team growcast or our community, you just holler, okay,
yeah, yeah. I chatting with you, Jordan. And the warm response from your listeners, guys, thanks for your support, and feel free I say hi on Instagram. Feel free to say, what up? I
love it. Give them a follow, everybody. And stay tuned. We got some more stuff coming at you. Don't touch that dial. Stay tuned to this feed. Everything's at growcast podcast.com you know the drill. Check it out, everybody. This is Chris Trump and Jordan River. Signing off for now, saying, Be Safe everyone, and grow smarter, you guys,
that's our show. Thank you so much. I appreciate all of you again. Remember Nova cup, Northern Virginia, November 11, I'll see you there, DC area, Northern Virginia, gromies, I'm gonna be there emceeing the Nova cup. Thank you to canterburys. Thank you all you listeners, before we wrap it up, shout out to rooted leaf nutrients. Rootedleaf.com code growcast for 20% off the carbon based nutrients. They are big supporters of the show. We love them, and you can find them@rootedleaf.com pick up their solar rain foliar. It's fantastic. They've got a new lush green v2 that's their nitrogen supplement. And you know, I love that Cal mag fuel with 0% nitrogen. Check it all out. It's at rootedleaf.com if you're not absolutely satisfied with your nutrients, just go ahead and switch to rooted leaf. Use code, grow, cast, ditch the pH pen and enjoy the healthiest plants you've ever seen. Rootedleaf.com code, grow, cast, always. Thank you to rooted leaf. Alright, everyone. That's the show. Appreciate you tuning in. Don't touch that dial. We got some good stuff on the way. Take care. Be safe out there. Bye, bye. You
hunt in microbes in the forest, my ceiling in the forest both very fun to do and extremely effective and.