Using Jadam low cost agriculture, and other Natural Farming tek to cultivate for the cheap!

Botany and Cultivation
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Hello, I’m pretty new to the community here but figured I’d give it a shot!
I have been using natural farming techniques, like Korean natural farming etc. for a few years now and I’m curious if anyone else out there is doing the same! I would love to get everyone’s inputs, ferments etc. For those who are new to natural farming techniques, welcome!!! I will start with a brief intro to Natural Farming principles and move into how this awesome tek can save you tons of cash and give you the healthiest plants you’ve ever harvested!!!

NF or Natural Farming techniques have been a hot topic among organic growers for a while now! There are a ton of principles behind this type of cultivation, however there are a few core principles that reflect natural farming as a whole, although they all tie into eachother. The first core principle I’ll discus is microbiology or MB. NF reflects the use of MB to help maintain plant health, release nutrients in soil, aerate soil, prevent bugs, prevent mold and literally a 1,000,000 other things! But the main focus of MB is diversity. JLC, or Jadam Low Cost, states that there should be no fear of anaerobic bacteria, because deep in the soil more than 5 meters all life is anaerobic. so even stinky compost and ferments can be still be used! One of the main bacterial inputs used is LAB or Lactic Acid Bacteria. LAB are a group of several aggressive bacteria extremely good at breaking things down. Aside from all that, it is crazy easy and cheap to make! I personally have used LAB to treat the dreaded powdery mildew, aka PM. The second NF principle is soil health, obviously! This also ties into MB because a high microbe count or soil food web is key to plant health and awesome yields! Organic material is also extremely important in soil health. This contributes to higher nutrient contents, moisture retention, and most importantly, MB!!! Compost as well as certain collections of MB called Indigenous Micro Organisms, or IMO. This, although being MB, is related to soil health because of the I in IMO. IMO collections are usually done near your cultivation area to collect the MB that exist in your specific area, and are cheap as dirt to make. According to NF experts this allows your plant to connect more quickly to your specific environment. this means less shock from transplant, drought, sudden weather changes and another 1,000,000,000 things!!! The third and arguably most important principle is, you are the plant expert!!! Trust yourself more, use your instincts and always keep learning more! If you think something looks wrong, it probably is! But you don’t need a salesguy in a hydro store to sell you some expensive “miracle” product that will fix all your problems, because it doesn’t exist! Everyone is capable of making awesome plant inputs in their homes for pennies! the only thing they need is the knowledge. And the final principle of NF is working with nature, not against it! This is reflected most in NF tek for controlling pests. Integrated Pest Management, or IPM, is a huge part of NF. Prevention by inter planting species of plants is a key to this. Simply planting less desirable plants to pests around your prized plants can save a ton of headaches! Nitrogen fixing plants are also a huge part of inter planting. The use of predatory insects, such as ladybugs and predatory mites, is always encouraged. These are natural systems, nature has done just fine without us for a while now!

Recipies:
LAB:
What your going to need: milk, preferably unpasturized, rice, a couple containers, paper towels, rubber band or tape and water.

  1. Take about a half pound or so of uncooked rice and place it in one of your containers.
  2. Wash your rice with water. your going to need 1 part water for every 10 parts milk, ex. for 1 gallon of milk you need approx. 13oz rice wash. make sure you wash the rice thoroughly move it around with your hand.
  3. Strain your rice, making sure not to spill. the water is what we are trying to get out of this! the rice can even be soaked for a few hours, kill 2 birds with 1 stone!
  4. Place your carb rich rice wash in a container and place a paper towel lid over it. hold it in place with a rubber band or tape. you can use cheese cloth an old t shirt or any BREATHABLE material.
  5. Put your rice wash somewhere in your yard/greenhouse, somewhere youve seen mold, or other signs of MB. Make sure it isn’t in direct sunlight! this will kill your collection.
  6. wait!!! After about 3 days to 1 week your rice wash should start smelling sweet and fermented. don’t be afraid of it’s a little moldy! You have sucsessfully collected LAB from the air! now to concentrate it!
  7. Add your rice wash to your milk in a big enough container. make sure you give it a little mix!
  8. Put another paper lid on your science project using paper towels.
  9. More waiting!!! put you milk mixture somewhere it wont get any light exposure at all! some people use drink coolers modified for beer fermentation.
  10. once youve waited another week or so, your milk should look a lot different!!! it should look like a big chunky layer, curds, and a liquid layer, whey, as well as a sediment layer at the bottom. what you want is the liquid or whey.
  11. Carefully strain out your curd from your whey. try to leave out the sediment at the bottom.
  12. bottle up your LAB collection and keep it in the fridge! the cold keeps the bacteria dormant until use!!! can be stored for at least a month+.

And there you have it!!! LAB can be used to feed plants through the roots at a dilution of at most 100-1. LAB can be used as a foliar to prevent tons of disease as well as repel pests at a dilution of at most 500-1 LAB can even be used as a cleaning product around the house. LAB is amazing at removing foul odors caused by bacteria, because it eats them!!!

Total cost: milk $7 organic milk, rice $1lb, large mason jar (optional) $5 total:$13 est. if you cant find whole unpasteurized milk its OK!!!

Best video: Korean Natural Farming How to : LAB - YouTube

IMO1:
What your going to need: Rice, water, a couple containers, paper towels and a rubber band/tape.

  1. Place about a half pound of rice into a rice cooker or pot. whatever you have to cook rice.
  2. Cook rice for about 5-10 min only. It doesn’t have to be fully cooked. The rice can also be soaked for a few hours/overnight same as LAB.
  3. Take your crunchy rice and place it in a container with a paper towel lid.
  4. Place your vessel somewhere in your yard/greenhouse near your cultivation area. preferably somewhere shady and where you’ve seen mold or other MB.
  5. More waiting! after 3 days to a week your collection should be moldy and active!
  6. Take your collection and mix it with equal parts brown sugar. This causes the bacteria to go dormant until ready to use. this is technically called IMO2.

And there you have it!!! IMO1 and all of its various stages are essential to keeping your plants and soil happy and healthy! NF experts have proven that plants grow better when they are introduced to the MB in the are before they become established. IMO2 is later mixed with other ingredients to make an awesome growing substrate known as IMO4. But I have used straight IMO2 inside of my transplant holes, before watering down, with amazing success.

Total cost: Rice $1 per lb, brown sugar $3 est. total: $4 est.

Best video: How to: IMO 1 KNF - YouTube

Plant Ferments Jadam style:
What your going to need: Your plant material, Jadam principles for this, use the same thing your growing. ex. if your growing tomatoes make plant ferments out of the whole tomato plant and fruits/flowers a tomato plant has all the nutrients needed to produce tomatoes. Water, bucket, and leaf mold, IMO2 or some kind of material with ton of MB.

  1. Take your plant material and place it in your bucket. The smaller the material the faster the fermentation.
  2. Completely cover your plant material in water. Filtered water works best, or at least let your city water sit in the sun a few days to burn of chlorine.
  3. Add your MB to the mix and give it a stir.
  4. Wait… I know its a lot of waiting!!! But if your patient after a few weeks your water should change color and your plant material should look completely degraded.
  5. Strain your liquid and store in a cool dark place!
    And there you have it!!! Another cheap easy and effective plant input! Using the Jadam principle of putting back what we take, we perpetuate a cycle of returning unused nutrients where they’re needed the most, our plants. Ferments can also be tailor made to a specific nutrient ex. Alfalfa is high in nitrogen, making it a good option for a high N fertilizer. Ferments can be applied as a soil drench at a max of 1-500 and a foliar spray diluted 1-1000.

Total cost: IMO collection $3 est. Plant material shouldn’t cost you anything… Total:$3

If there is anything you think I missed, I know I did, or would like to add a little please do!!! I will be editing when possible to include IPM regiments sprays and predators!!! would love to make this an open source forum for all things NF!!! please check out my instagram: @puravida619 for awesome pics and detailed instructions on a ton of NF stuff!!!

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I love that you started this thread. This forum has a huge focus on extraction so it is good to get the cultivation talks up and running. I am new to NF teks but am planning on implementing them soon. I have been doing a lot of composting lately in preparation :slight_smile:

I have worked in the hydro retail industry before and what I learnt there was invaluable! The main thing I learnt is that almost all bottled nutes are exactly the same and the additives that people sell are a pathetic excuse of a cash grab trying to get monies from uneducated growers. Now I am a firm believer that keeping it simple in hydro will give you the best results, no need for bullshit and expensive additives. Controling your environment well will give more benefits to your plants than anything you can buy in a bottle no matter how fancy the label or how much you paid for it.

As for outdoor growing I think that the NF methods are far superior to the current commercial agricultural methods that are employed across the world. The solution to a farmers problems is not sold in a bottle but there are a lot of problems that are sold in bottles! The simple fact that commercial ag practices promote chemical fertilisation and pest control which acts to degrade and deplete the soil of MB should be enough reason for anyone to avoid these practices but that’s not how the world works :frowning: hopefully with the sharing of knowledge people will be educated and avoid these bad practices, and together we can help build the worlds soil rather than destroy it.

Also the simple fact that NF teks produce the best flowers is another great reason to avoid commercial ag practices.

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This was the main reason for starting the thread! I’m glad that natural farming practices are gaining popularity in the cannabis community. Feel free to post any specific recipes for your compost!

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As I am new to the concepts I don’t have any verified recepies as of yet, I have been taking a very casual attitude towards my composting anyway hahah I stick to the basics of no citrus, meats, onions, garlic or wood products in the compost because I read these things are no good. Feed wood to mycelium not to the compost heap :wink: other than that almost everything I can find from kitchen scraps to yard clippings (as long as not too tough and woody) goes in and I let whatever microbial life that finds its way in do the rest of the work. So far seems to be going well but the true test will be to see how the plants like it

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Natural Farming Pest Prevention and Treatment

Modern gardening and farming has developed many various methods of killing and preventing pest’s. The majority of these contain dangerous chemicals that are harmful to humans, animals, and even the plants themselves! In this addition I will cover a few of the natural methods to kill and keep pest’s out!

Predatory Insects:
Nature is a system of checks and balances. Every pest that exists has a predator looking for a meal! Ladybugs are among the most well known and commonly used. Ladybugs and their larvae eat a wide variety of pest’s. Their favorite being aphids, but ladybugs also eat spider mites and moth eggs to name a few. Lacewings are another commonly used predator insect that eats a wide variety of pest’s, both in the larvae and adult stages. Predatory mites are another commonly used predator incredibly effective against all cannabis mites. A little research of your pest will usually lead you to the best predator! There is an endless list of beneficial garden bugs, even spiders!!!

Companion Planting
Most modern farming and gardening, is a system of creating polycultures, or planting large groups of the same crop. This causes not only disease problems, that are easily transmitted between host plants. But also the attraction of pest insects! Pest’s almost always have a preferred host plant, or type of plant, they will favor in the garden. There are a few ways we can actually take advantage of this natural selection. Planting less favorable plants, like herbs, pest’s become confused and leave your production plants alone! Certain bugs actually hate certain herbs. For example, mites don’t like dill, so planting some in the garden could help keep them away! Finding a more favorable plant, or bait plant to keep in the garden, is another companion planting strategy. This helps keep pest’s off your plants and stay where you know they’ll be.

Jadam and KNF style pesticides
When prevention has failed, and pest’s continue to give you problems, there are a few pesticide sprays and some immunity boosting feeds to help your plants cope! I will post the names uses and recipes below to make it a bit easier. The recipes for these will be listed below.

OHN
Oriental Herbal Nutrient or OHN is an immune boosting feed, and can be a systemic pesticide. OHN is usually a blend of at least 3 beneficial herbs, most commonly Angelica root, cinnamon sticks and garlic, who’s natural immune boosting or anti pest properties are concentrated in an easy to feed liquid form. However, OHN can be made from any herb known for immunity boosting or anti pest properties!

What you’ll need: your starting herbs, beer, brown sugar, a scale, jar’s (preferably the same size) gallons (one for each ingredient) paper towels, rubber bands and vodka. Note: It is important you process each herb separately. It is also important to try and use equal parts of everything. Your end product should be 3+ seperate jars of equal volume! Or close enough…

  1. You have to determine if your ingredients are dry, cinnamon sticks, licorice root, etc. Or wet ingredients, garlic, fresh herbs, etc. Because both require slightly different handling!
  2. Re-hydrate your dry ingredients. Take your dry ingredients and add them to an empty jar. If more than 1 dry ingredient is being used try and use equal amounts! Add beer to the dry ingredient, filling the jar halfway. Allow to sit 24hrs.
  3. After your dry ingredients have been re-hydrated. We must prepare them for fermentation. Weigh out your dry ingredients+beer jar, by zeroing out an empty jar on the scale, and then placing your full jar to determine the difference in weight! When you have determined the weight of the ingredients+beer, weigh brown sugar in equal amount to your ingredients+beer. Ex. 400g of ingredient+beer 400g of brown sugar. Slowly add the brown sugar only until the jar is 3/4 full!!! Extra sugar can be put aside for later use. Give it a good mix to make sure the brown sugar is evenly distributed into your ingredients+beer. Cover with a paper towel or other breathable cloth.
  4. Prepare wet ingredients for fermenting. Take your ingredients and crush or chop it finely. Add it to your jar and determine the weight of your ingredients. It is best to use an equal amount of wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Ex. Dry ingredient jar total weight 800g, wet ingredient total weight 800g. The amount of wet ingredient at this point should be half the total needed weight. Add an equal amount of brown sugar to your wet ingredient and mix! When fully coated, the wet ingredient should be placed in your jar and capped with a paper towel or other breathable fabric.
  5. Ferment all of your jar’s together in cool dark place for 5 to 7 days. You should notice your wet ingredients releasing a lot of liquid. This is what is wanted.
  6. Now it is time to add the vodka or other high proof liquor! This is done to slow the fermentation process and to help draw out the beneficial properties of the herbs, into a liquid. Slowly add vodka to your ingredient jars, while giving them a good stir, until the jars are full to the top. Cover the jars with their lid or other non breathable material.
  7. Now the jars must sit for 2 weeks until you can extract your finished OHN for the first time. It is crucial that you open the jars and stir the mix daily!
  8. You are finally ready to extract your finished OHN for the first time, of five. Take your ingredients and strain them. Separately into gallon or other container. Be sure only remove about 1/3 of the liquid! After you have your 1/3 of OHN in finish gallon, refill the jars the top with vodka. If your wet ingredients are not making enough liquid be equal to your dry, remove some of the ingredient to allow more liquid be added.
  9. Repeat steps 7 & 8 for at least 3 more times, max 5. Note that each ingredient needs its own finish gallon. Each time you extract can be added the last to insure equal potency.
    And there have it! Each individual ingredient is mixed together into watering. Dilute a minimum of 500-1 with water for root drenches and 1-1000 for foliar max! OHN is awesome boosting plant immunity keeping bugs off in the first place!
    Best video: Korean Natural Farming How to : OHN - YouTube courtesy of our friend Chris Trump!!!

LAB
LAB’s recipe was listed in previous post. The benefits of using LAB can come from both soil drenches and foliar feedings. Soil drenches. Get LAB into the vascular system of the plant and helps boost immunity from within! Foliar feedings do the same but with the added benefit, LAB will actually eat PM and other mold pathogens!

Neem and Karanja
These natural additives easily found online as well as most grow stores. They are systemic and give plants pesticide properties from within. They can found in either pulp, cake, or oil. The pulp and cake are easily mixed into the soil to help plants absorb the benefits through the roots. This is a time release type of use. The plant constantly has pesticide properties its system! The oil of these two can be used to make foliar sprays to treat serious infestation. Neem is effective against wide variety of soft bodied insects.

Jadam Wetting Agent
Jadam wetting agent or JWA, is essentially natural liquid soap that is easy to make at home. JWA can be used to replace any household cleaner and even personal hygiene products. The benefits of JWA in the garden are, to spread your foliar feeds evenly onto the leaf surface. Its use in pesticides is to help coat pest’s in your essential oil sprays and help suffocate them. JWA can even be used alone but is more effective when paired with essential oil sprays.

What you’ll need: heat resistant container (preferably plastic) 30gal, caustic potash 7lbs, water 22gal, canola or other cooking oil about 5gal. This makes a huge batch! But this is the recipe that is given. I’m sure with proper calculation this can be modified for smaller batches.

  1. Add aprox. Half a gallon of water into your 30gal mixing drum. Slowly add your entire 7lbs of caustic potash mixing in carefully, try to avoid splashing. DO NOT USE YOUR HANDS! this mix is corrosive and will burn you!
  2. After your caustic potash has dissolved. Slowly add your entire 5gal of oil. Again avoid splashing. Mix together with an electric mixer or other high powered mixer. Continue to mix until it looks like a watery mayo!
  3. Let the mix sit for a minimum of 3 days, or until separated and a layer of fat sits at the top. If it didn’t separate mix the entire thing again until it looks like watery mayo and try again.
  4. Gently mix the fat back into the liquid while slowly adding about 5gal. Of water. Mix until the fat is mixed in well. Do not over mix the liquid into a thick cream.
  5. Continue mixing and adding the remaining water. Make sure you are mixing all the way to the bottom. Continue mixing after all the water has been added. The mix should become clear over the next 24hrs.
  6. Store in air tight container. JWA has no expiration date.
    And there you have it! JWA should be used every time you spray your plants with anything. JWA can be diluted 150-1 With water when spraying. JWA can also be added to soil drenches in clay soil, and other water resistant substrates, to help water penetrate.

Essential Oil Sprays
Essential oil sprays or EOS are simple pesticides easily made from herbs known for their anti pest properties. Alone these sprays can be effective. But when paired with JWA they become an unstoppable team! EOS begin killing the pest on contact, and JWA makes sure the pest stays coated!

What you’ll need: Herbs known for their anti pest properties, mesh bag, water, a large pot, container for finished product.

  1. Chop up your herb, the smaller the better. Try and use at least 1lb of material.
  2. Place your herb into a mesh bag, add about 1gal of water and boil on the stove. Mix your ingredients frequently.
  3. When your mix has come to a rolling boil, turn the heat down and maintain a slow boil for a min. Of 5 hrs. Extra water may need to be added, watch it closely.
  4. Remove your mesh bag and allow the excess to drip out into your mix. You can give it a squeeze to get it out also.
  5. Allow to cool before bottling!
    And there you have it! EOS can be paired with JWA in equal parts at a dilution of 100-1 in water. Spray plants weekly to prevent pest’s. Spray daily to help control a current infestation. Spray when lights are out to prevent burns.

Again if you think I missed something or would like to add something yourself please feel free!!! Also check out my Instagram @puravida619 to see pictures and even more detailed instructions on a variety of NF tek!!!

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I’m sure they’ll enjoy it!!! If you need any references on good books to read, I know plenty with free pdf downloads on google! Good luck to you! I hope you yield amazing terpy buds!

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Feel free to archive and upload.

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I didn’t know it was possible… Will attempt!

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JADAM Organic FarmingmThe way to UltraLowCost agriculture.pdf (8.5 MB)

This is the complete guide to jadam low cost agriculture! Full of great info and recipes pertaining to natural farming as a whole. More books to come!

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pub_pp_1.pdf (551.3 KB)
This one is called “Common Sense Pest Control” the title should be self explanatory. It gets interesting around chapter 3!

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LocallyAvailableResourcesRadovich.pdf (2.1 MB) this one is from a Hawaiian university! It has a ton of good info pertaining to natural farming practices!

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They look like awesome books I’ll have to take a look at them. There is also Cho’s Global Natural Farming PDF that was put together by Indian students I believe and is a great summary of KNF methods and has some recepies in there too.

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I would be extremely reluctant to use a freshly cultured product like that if state regulations regarding microbial testing were in play. Radovich is a friend, haven’t seen him for a bit, but I’ve no doubt he’d agree.

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I tried to upload but it’s a large file… Still attempting to upload.

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The ferment is not usually active after it’s finished. Besides microbes usually die off after 24-48hrs when exposed to oxygen/sunlight. I’m growing outdoors in full sun. When it comes to personal use, I’d rather have microbiology, that already exist in my body. Than a chemical, the government has “approved” for human consumption (most of which are dangerous when combusted, and become carcinogenic).

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Many recent approved chemicals over the past few decades are derived from the same sources you seek to exploit, microbial fermentation. Generalizations are problematic whether you use a labelled product or create your own ferments from the local microbiome. For instance, I’d be willing to bet some of your rice ferments will unintentionally culture aspergillus flavus. That said, I am not trying to discount that considerable functional potential exists within the formulas you describe, but if I were farming cannabis in a regulated atmosphere, I’d be very careful in implementation.

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Thanks for the insight! This is all useful info when it comes to natural farming. One of my next steps is to get a microscope to closely monitor the micros in my ferments! I’m not too sure if I’ve harbored any pathogens, but I haven’t had issues in 3 seasons. I was aware of the risk, but usually my ferments smell of rotten milk! I also add a bit of LAB to everything to help insure the the dominance of the ferment.

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Too big of a file… Will try to make a link for it!

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Im experiencing a case if PM would like to read some of the books you have links to.

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Does this work with indoor garden?

How do I apply the feeds? Will I also need to buy liquid nutrients for my plants?