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Raise Microbes, Moles Drain the Soil: Macadamias +20% a Year

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang, Founder of Korean Natural Farming (Janong)

Master Cho spoke Korean, with an interpreter. We translated every Korean line again and checked it, so you read what he said, not only what the room heard.

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This part runs from 56:58 to 1:13:44 of the session video. Keep watching and the next part plays on.

From a drawing of a plant, Cho traces the food chain under it: the leaf feeds the root, root waste feeds microbes, microbes feed earthworms, earthworms draw moles, and mole tunnels air the soil. He tells how Chris Trump's waterlogged macadamia orchard in Kohala came back that way, and how a paste of soil and Microbes (IMO4) healed trunk wounds. Then soil is the crop's mother, and Tanya leads a qigong break.

What he taught

The lesson

How do microbes, worms and moles fix a waterlogged orchard without cutting the trees?

The setting

Cho points at his slide of a plant with sun, leaves, roots and soil life. The Chris Trump story is told without slides. The page ends with a five-minute qigong break (about 4118–4424 s).

Recipes and rates
  • Trunk wound paste (macadamia) — Cho's Korean: soil, with Microbes (IMO4), plus rice bran and glutinous (sweet) rice cooked as porridge, mixed and put on the wounds. The interpreter said 'IMO4 and rice hull, and the rice, make porridge'. No amounts given.
  • Draining a waterlogged orchard — Raise the microbes in the orchard so earthworms and moles come and open the soil. No product or rate given here.
Key points
  1. 150,000 to 200,000 microbes live on one square centimeter of leaf

    A third of them are lactic acid bacteria and yeast. The interpreter gave only 150,000.

    ▶ 57:35 As spoken

  2. The leaf makes sugar and starch from sunlight and sends it down the stem into storage

    Shown on Cho's plant diagram.

    ▶ 58:07 From the slides

  3. Crops pass waste through their roots, and it feeds the life in the soil

    Microbes crowd in to eat the root waste; earthworms come to eat the microbes; moles come to eat the earthworms.

    ▶ 58:48 As spoken

  4. Mole tunnels let air into the soil, and roots love oxygen

    Cho asked if Hawaiʻi has moles; the room spelled it out.

    ▶ 1:00:35 As spoken

  5. Chris Trump's dying macadamia orchard had standing water on its floor

    Leaves dried and yellowish, chlorophyll weak. Waterlogged ground kept air from the roots. Cho told them not to cut the trees.

    ▶ 1:01:47 As spoken

  6. The fix: raise the microbes, and the moles come and drain the water for you

    ▶ 1:02:14 As spoken

  7. After that, the macadamia harvest rose 20% every year

    Cho: 'What that was, was making the environment the plant grows in.'

    ▶ 1:03:18 As spoken

  8. Wounds on big trunks healed after a paste of soil, IMO4, rice bran and sweet-rice porridge

    Cho: the idea came to him on the spot, from God shaping man out of soil.

    ▶ 1:04:47 As spoken

  9. Soil is the crop's mother, as the womb is the baby's

    Restore the soil and the crop grows well.

    ▶ 1:06:23 As spoken

  10. Modern farming puts poison in the soil, then sprays pesticide when the crop dies

    ▶ 1:07:43 As spoken

Hold it loosely
  • The 20% yearly rise is Cho's figure from memory; no records were shown.
  • No amounts were given for the trunk paste; Cho's 'rice bran' and 'sweet rice' are our reading of unclear Korean.
  • Cho likens trunk wounds to skin cancer and calls conventional food poison; these are comparisons, not tested, and we don't repeat them as advice.
For your farm
  • Look at drainage before cutting a failing tree: standing water keeps air from the roots.
  • Feeding the soil life assists drainage; worms and moles open the ground.
  • A leaf feeds the soil through its roots; keep the chain from leaf to microbe to worm intact.
  • Soil with Microbes (IMO4) and a little cooked grain can be tried on trunk wounds.

What the room didn't hear

Where the English in the room left out or changed what Master Cho said in Korean.

  • ▶ 57:44

    The room heard 150,000 microorganisms reside in 1 cm area of the leaf.

    Cho said 150,000 to 200,000 of these organisms live on one square centimeter of leaf.

    The upper figure was dropped.

  • ▶ 1:01:53

    Cho said They said they would cut the trees down. I told them not to. Look, water is standing here on the ground.

    The decision not to cut the trees never reached the room. 'Cut down' is our best reading of unclear Korean.

  • ▶ 1:05:01

    The room heard So we mixed soil with IMO4 and rice hull, and the rice, make porridge, and mix together.

    Cho said Soil with IMO4, and on top of that rice bran and glutinous (sweet) rice as porridge, mixed in and put on.

    Rice bran, not rice hull; the sweet rice was lost. Cho's Korean is not fully clear.

  • ▶ 1:05:56

    The room heard But after he came home, all of a sudden it hit him: God created us with the soil.

    Cho said I went without any idea, and right there it came to me in a flash: how God shaped man from soil. I did it, and the tree lived.

    The idea came on the spot, not after he went home.

Next to Master Cho's books

  • Goes further

    Macadamia orchard revived, yield up every year In 2018 Cho tells the same rescue as dissolving IMO4 in water and spraying it around the roots. Here his fix is drainage by raising microbes so moles come, plus a soil-IMO4 paste for trunk wounds, and a 20% yearly rise.

    2018/Cho - advanced hawaii/cho advanced 2018 3-2 @ 1:28:37 (translated)

  • Agrees

    Microbes per square centimeter of leaf, a third of them LAB and yeast In 2018 he gives 100,000–150,000 per cm² with a third of them the same group; the range shifts a little between talks.

    2018/Cho - advanced hawaii/cho advanced 2018 3-2 @ 2:06:50 (translated)

  • Agrees

    Soil is the crop's mother In the 2017 fruit seminar: a healthy baby comes from a healthy mother, and mother and soil are the capital.

    2017/Advanced Cho/advanced fruit/IMG_3443 @ 0:44:45 (translated)

“Everything in the universe grows by God's harmony and providence, not by the technology and machinery people have developed.”

▶ 1:01:12

“What we did is we made the right environment for the crop to grow. That's all we did.”

▶ 1:03:33

“Where do you think the crop's mother is?”

▶ 1:06:23

In this part

  1. 56:58The leaf, the root and the life under it
  2. 1:01:36Chris Trump's macadamia farm: drain the soil, don't cut the trees
  3. 1:04:09Healing trunk wounds with soil and Microbes (IMO4)
  4. 1:06:23Soil is the mother
  5. 1:08:38Break: qigong with Tanya

Transcript

English translation, checked against the Korean as spoken.