Microbes 1 → 4: Bamboo Grove to 150 kg per 300 Pyeong

How do you grow the forest's microbes into something you can spread on a field, and what does it do there?

After the qigong break the camera clip changes (about 30 s of real time missing near 4426 s). Cho lectures from his own slides: photos of bamboo-grove mycelium and castings, the rice box, a Hawaiʻi basket version, IMO2, IMO3, IMO4 heaps, and a Korean greenhouse before and after. The slides carry no readable numbers. An audience member asks which stage he meant, and the interpreter checks the water step with Cho in Korean.

• IMO1 (bamboo grove starter) — Hard-cooked, firm rice (not sticky) in a lunchbox-type box, buried under bamboo. Hawaiʻi version on the slide: rice in a woven basket among dried leaves. Cho, from slides.
• IMO2 — IMO1 mixed with an equal amount of sugar, 1:1 (the interpreter said brown sugar).
• IMO3 — Cho: dilute IMO2 1,000 times and use it to bring rice bran to the right moisture. No rice bran: flour or corn flour mixed half and half with dried banana leaf, or steamed, dried, powdered sweet potato or banana. Interpreter only: moisture 65–70%, about 5 gallons of water per 60 lb of material; put Food (FPJ), Cleanser (brown rice vinegar), IMO2 and seawater (Minerals) or Mineral A in the water; turn when the pile reaches 110–120 (°F, units not said), generally once a day. Make it on a soil floor, seven parts shade to three sun, under cover from the weather, covered with a mat of dried, woven sugarcane leaves; nothing synthetic.
• IMO4 — Cho: IMO3 mixed half and half with soil from your own field or paddy, wetted and fermented again; he adds that half has to come from the mountain. Spread 150 kg per 300 pyeong (about ¼ acre). Feed up to 50% of animal feed. Bed prep shown: no weed scraping, a light rotary till, IMO4, then spray soil treatment solution (SOS); mulch over it outdoors.
• Soil treatment solution (SOS), promised as 'the recipe' — Not dictated on this page. The handout's soil-foundation column (토양기반조성) lists IMO4, Cleanser (brown rice vinegar) 1:500, Food (FPJ of mugwort and water dropwort) 1:500, Medicine (OHN) 1:1,000, malt (beer or sweet-rice-drink lees) 1:500, seawater 1:20–25, Mineral A 1:1,000; about 1 ton of liquid per 300 pyeong as the standard, soaking the top 20 cm; in drought add only more water.

1. A small starter, propagated, can bring five acres back to normal

   Cho compared it to the five barley loaves.

   ▶ 1:14:28 As spoken

2. In a bamboo grove, earthworms gather under mycelium clumps, and their castings are the best organic fertilizer

   The castings take a crumb structure.

   ▶ 1:15:20 From the slides

3. Chewed bamboo root gives sweet juice for 15 minutes; microbes love sweet, so they crowd into bamboo groves

   That is why the starter is collected there.

   ▶ 1:16:18 As spoken

4. IMO1: firm cooked rice in a box, buried under bamboo

   Slides show the box and a Hawaiʻi basket version.

   ▶ 1:17:13 From the slides

5. IMO2: IMO1 with an equal amount of sugar

   ▶ 1:18:51 From the slides

6. IMO3: IMO2 diluted 1,000 times moistens rice bran

   Cho said rice bran; the room heard rice hull or mill run. Substitutes: flour or corn flour half and half with dried banana leaf; powdered sweet potato.

   ▶ 1:19:18 As spoken

7. IMO3 moisture 65–70%; about 5 gallons of water to 60 lb of material

   Interpreter's figures, after checking the water step with Cho in Korean.

   ▶ 1:22:42 As spoken

8. Turn the IMO3 pile at 110–120 (°F), generally once a day

   Interpreter only; units not said.

   ▶ 1:24:04 As spoken

9. Microbes grow best at seven parts shade to three parts sun, on a soil floor, out of the weather

   In Hawaiʻi, cover with dried sugarcane leaves woven into a mat; nothing woven from synthetic fiber.

   ▶ 1:24:29 As spoken

10. IMO3 put straight on the field has no strength yet

    ▶ 1:27:44 As spoken

11. IMO4: IMO3 mixed half and half with soil from your own field or paddy

    Cho adds that half has to come from the mountain; without it you can't make it.

    ▶ 1:28:08 As spoken

12. Field soil goes in because microbes are jealous: strangers fight, relatives are welcomed

    The field microbes come out to fight and find cousins and uncles already there.

    ▶ 1:29:00 As spoken

13. Organic farming takes one to two years to bring soil back; natural farming materials take two months

    ▶ 1:32:04 As spoken

14. True organic farming is sunlight, air, water, soil, crops and people in organic harmony

    Using organic materials is 'organic-materials farming'; using a little less chemical and calling it organic is 'a lie'.

    ▶ 1:33:35 As spoken

15. IMO4 can make up to 50% of animal feed with no problem

    ▶ 1:37:34 As spoken

16. Spread IMO4 at 150 kg per 300 pyeong (about ¼ acre)

    Slide: a greenhouse bed covered in white IMO4. The interpreter first said 300 kg.

    ▶ 1:37:58 As spoken

17. IMO4 forms a white film over the ground and weeds can't come up through it

    Outdoors, mulch over it: direct sun kills the microbes. The greenhouse bed shown had no mulch.

    ▶ 1:38:25 Shown in the room

18. That bed was poor soil; on rich soil the growth comes out black, not white

    ▶ 1:39:40 As spoken

19. Bed prep: no weed scraping, a light rotary till, IMO4, then soil treatment solution

    Interpreter: 'like a chicken scratching the surface'.

    ▶ 1:40:24 As spoken

20. After two years of this, you won't need anything else

    Cho: microbes are high-grade protein and high-grade calcium, so the crop does fine on that alone.

    ▶ 1:42:18 As spoken

21. Inside the greenhouse the same soil swelled up after soil-foundation building

    Cho: dough without yeast stays hard; with yeast it becomes castella sponge cake.

    ▶ 1:43:03 Shown in the room

22. After 4 years of natural farming, a 180 cm stick goes all the way in anywhere in the cucumber greenhouse

    Microbes and small animals did the deep tilling a tractor can't.

    ▶ 1:45:03 Shown in the room