ADVANCED FPJ FOR KNF

Colorful FPJs

ADVANCED FPJ FOR KNF

Advanced inputs for specific challenges

THE BASICS

Korean Natural Farming (KNF) is not a set of recipes. It is a system. Using systems-level thinking, the best approach is to start with core fundamentals and then expand into more complex, nuanced elements.

We began this series on How to Start KNF by installing a Soil Foundation with Indigenous Micro-Organisms (IMO) so that plants make associations with soil biology and live in their Natural State, able to obtain their own nutrition from the soil on demand.

To direct plant growth, we learned a simple formula for weekly plant misting. The key was selecting the appropriate Fermented Plant Juice (FPJ), the active ingredient that directs growth, then applying it at the proper time and observing the plant's response. The remaining ingredients balanced the basic formula.

Once we have a Soil Foundation and a working knowledge of how FPJs operate, we add the intermediate inputs, such as Lactic Acid Bacterial serum (LAB), Water-Soluble Calcium and Calcium Phosphate (WCa, WCaP), and Fish Amino Acids (FAA).

These inputs are based on the needs and biochemistry plants use around the Nutritive Cycle, the progressive lifecycle of plants. We learned how to create these inputs, how to use them,

when they are appropriate to use, and when not to use them.

Your observation skills should now be well developed. You should know how to make KNF inputs, evaluate their quality, understand their purpose, and use them correctly. With these foundational skills, you're ready to begin working with advanced KNF inputs.

ADVANCED INPUTS FOR SPECIFIC CHALLENGES

We start by working with inputs outside the familiar FPJs used for the Nutritive Cycle. Specialty FPJs are specifically designed for targeted needs. They are added to the basic misting formula as the active ingredient. Instead of targeting a stage of growth, these specialty FPJs target other issues that need correction.

CAUTION

You should always test an unknown FPJ carefully before you use it broadly. Consider using an advanced FPJ you haven't used before as an experiment. Add it to your basic formula and test it on a single plant first.

INSTRUCTIONS HERE …coming soon

Specialized Inputs

When I was learning from Master Cho, he taught that the FPJs were used as signals to direct growth, to tell plants what to do. Beyond the nutritive cycle, they could be used to correct growth patterns.

Preventing or reducing flower growth was one concept I discussed with him. I was a commercial tea grower and, as such, was interested in leaf tip growth, not flowers. The tea would bloom every winter as the solstice approached, triggered by the shortening daylight hours. Flowers and seeds are not good for tea production.

Master Cho explained that we can use biofeedback loops to trick plants. If I gave the tea an FPJ made from the tea flowers, it could signal to the tea that it had already bloomed and reproduced, thus returning the tea bushes to vegetative growth.

I’ll get back to my experiments using flowers and the reproductive, cross-over phases in a moment. They can be problematic and need some explanation. My discussions with him helped me understand how FPJs direct growth and led me to set up my first experiment.

Miracle

I had a miracle berry bush. If you are not familiar with them, they are a bush with bright red berries. The berries have almost no flesh. They are mostly seed and skin. When you suck on one, everything you eat or drink for the next 30 minutes to an hour tastes extremely sweet. You can suck on a fresh lemon and taste the sweetest lemonade you’ve ever had.

Because they have almost no flesh, attempts to commercialize them as sweeteners have been unsuccessful. You need fresh berries. I love these berries, but my bush was not producing any. It was a few years old. I was getting flower buds to start, but they never fully developed.

I noticed that the growth pattern was tight. The nodes on the stem were very close together. The leaves were packed together tightly, and there was no air circulation. To me, it looked like the bush needed to open up. As a scientist, I knew this was controlled by the hormone gibberellin.

I also knew that gibberellin can be purchased. It is used by vineyards to expand grape bunches so they don’t grow tightly, making them less likely to mold. Instead of researching where to buy gibberellin, I decided to not spend money and try KNF. The hormone I needed I found in another plant on my property.

According to Master Cho, I needed to give the plant what I wanted it to do. I wanted the miracle berry bush to open up and have a longer internode (space between the nodes, the notch where leaves, buds, or branches sprout). I looked around to see what plants had that pattern of growth.

I found a vine. It was likely lilikoi (passionfruit), but it doesn’t matter. It was not toxic, not tannic or allopathic, and it had the right pattern: long spaces between nodes and a very open growth pattern. I made a batch of FPJ from the vine, added it to my basic formula as the active ingredient, and sprayed it on the miracle berry.

Right away, I started seeing a different growth pattern. The tips of the bush started to expand outward. The nodes began lengthening. After a few months, the bush had opened up considerably, and flower buds were forming properly. Flowers were finally opening. Soon I had my very own miracle berries.

It’s important to note that I gave this bush a single application of a basic formula using the vine FPJ as the active ingredient. It never reverted to its old habit and became a large, productive bush. The change was permanent after a single application.

For review:

Basic Formula

• 2 parts FPJ (Fermented Plant Juice)                                 For Desired Growth Pattern

the FPJ is the active ingredient

• 2 parts BRV or BV (Brown Rice or Banana Vinegar)              Ionic Buffer

• 1 part OHN (Oriental Herbal Nutrient)                           Tonic, Immune Support

Mix only when ready to use

Dilute 1:1000 with chlorine-free water

Spray lightly, like a mist, about 1 hour before sunset, once per week

Rescue: Black Fruit FPJ

One FPJ that Master Cho specifically mentioned is made from black fruits as a rescue formula. Often, when a tree aborts undeveloped fruit, the fruit turns black and falls off. These black fruits can be used to make a Rescue Formula.

I found a guava tree variety I wanted at a tree nursery sale. The tree I picked out already had a couple of fruits forming. Unfortunately, the windburn from the trip home caused these young fruits to turn black, and they were about to fall off. It ended up losing all its leaves as well.

I remembered what Master Cho said about making a Rescue Formula, so I took the two black fruits and made an FPJ from them. They were immature, black, hard, and I only got a few drops of FPJ from them.

Since FPJs work on a biochemistry level, that was enough. I mixed up a very small batch of the Basic Formula with the black fruit FPJ as the active ingredient.

A farmer friend who knew what I was doing came over about two or three weeks later. We decided to check on how the guava sapling was doing.

It was looking dead when I sprayed it, so we were looking for a dead (or near-dead) tree in the nursery. When we couldn’t find it by looks, we had to start looking at the tree tags.

To our great surprise, that poor guava tree was one of the bushiest and healthiest in the nursery. It hadn’t just come back to life; it was invigorated. We didn’t find it at first because we were not looking for a lush sapling. We were looking for one with bare branches.

This Rescue Formula can be used on trees that are prematurely dropping fruit to rescue them and restore fruit production. You will never get a good yield from black fruit FPJ, but you don’t need much.

You do not need to know why your fruits are dropping. Try this Rescue Formula. It may be all you need to do.

Regrow FPJ

Now I always keep a Rescue FPJ (black fruit) on hand. I also keep a Regrow FPJ on hand. I use it to bring back plants, bushes, and trees from dormancy or near-death.

Whenever you cut a tree or shrub, and it does not want to die, it will send up straight, fast-growing shoots. It wants to get some leaves up for photosynthesis to get energy to regrow.

I collect the tips of these re-grow shoots to make a Regrow FPJ. It has a little bit of ‘panic’ in the biochemistry, making this a powerful FPJ. This input is “I don’t want to die!”

CAUTIONARY TALES: FLOWER EXPERIMENTS

Inspired by Master Cho’s discussion of stopping flower production using flower FPJ, I conducted several experiments using flowers and flower buds over the years.

I found that working with flowers, the reproductive stages of plant growth, are highly variable and sometimes problematic. This subject thus deserves some specific discussion. I will highlight some of my experiments here.

My First Experience with the Power of Flower

I had several “pet” plants on my deck. One was an unusual succulent that had beautiful yellow flowers. It bloomed early in the year, and the flowers lasted about 4 months.

I was spraying my deck plants with a growth formula right when these yellow flowers had just begun to bloom. There was a slight overspray of the growth formula that hit the succulent for less than one second, just a few drops of mist. The flowers were all gone by the next day, and the plant did not bloom again until the next year. So sad!

A Side of Hibiscus

Experimentation illustrated that the stage of flower development is extremely important when using flower FPJs. I use banana flower buds because they are abundant in my climate and safe to use. They are recommended by Master Cho. He also recommends false locust, but most commonly a mix of vegetative and green fruit FPJs for the cross-over phase.

Since his recommendations for this phase of growth are so limited, I wanted to see if other flowers would work.

I conducted a small trial of hibiscus flower FPJ, from flowers that were open and fully mature. I sprayed a basic formula using this flower FPJ on one side of a large hibiscus bush, about 2 feet of the bush, which had a diameter of 8-10 feet.

Hibiscus generally flowers year-round, although production tends to wax and wane. I wanted to see if the flower FPJ would promote higher, more consistent flower production.

I was very, very wrong. Immediately, all flowers from the entire bush fell off. On the far side of the bush, away from where the spray was applied, the flowers began to form again after a few months. However, the side that had the direct spray, including where it was hit with over-spray, did not flower again for almost a year.

The result here illustrates what Master Cho was first explaining to me, that flower production can be halted or stalled by using a flower FPJ. This highlights why it is recommended to trial an FPJ on a single plant before widespread usage. I was smart enough to try on only one bush.

I knew when designing this trial that flower buds would be a more appropriate choice than mature flowers. I later trialed hibiscus flower buds with similar results. Hibiscus flowers at any stage, it would appear, are good at shutting down flower production, not enhancing it.

Changing Genetic Expression

Another experiment did more than influence flower production. I had a cayenne chili bush that was coming out of dormancy into its second year of production. It barely had any leaf growth, but was already starting to form flowers and fruit.

Thinking it needed to recover leaves and energy production before it started producing fruit, I decided to try to inhibit flower production for a little while, as I had with my tea bushes. My experience with hibiscus flowers also showed that flower production could be prevented.

I used the flowers from the chili bush, made a small amount of FPJ, and sprayed it back on the chili. The results I got were far from anything I expected. In this case, the flower FPJ caused a drastic change in the chili’s genetic expression.

Cayenne chilies are known to be long and thin, a very distinctive shape. After I sprayed it with the flower FPJ, the bush did not stop producing flowers and fruit.

Worse yet, the fruit started growing short, only half to a third as long as normal, and they also started to grow thicker, especially near the stem. The shape did not look like cayenne chili.

This was not a case of mistaken identity. I knew the bush was cayenne because this was its second year. It was one of my all-time favorites, growing a high yield of long, brightly colored cayenne chilies the year before. It was also the only chili bush I had at that time, so there was nothing to cross-pollinate with.

It continued to grow short, squat chilies for the entire growing season. After coming out of dormancy the next year, the chili shape remained short and squat. A single application of flower FPJ had permanently changed its genetic expression.

LESSONS LEARNED

Any FPJ dealing with reproductive stages is tricky. It's like dealing with teenagers. They are hormonal and unpredictable. What to do?

Banana flower buds are safe for all plants and highly stable. If you have access to banana flower buds, use them. This is the only flower I use, unless I am doing an experiment.

If you don’t have banana flower buds, the only flower I’ve seen recommended by Master Cho is False Acacia flower (Black Locust, Robinia pseudoacacia). He describes them as promoting flower bud formation after the change-over period and increasing the sugar content of fruits.

The best time to collect them is when they begin to bloom, just before bees visit them for honey. Flowers that are the most fragrant are more effective. When this FPJ is matured for 6 months to a year, it is much better.  

If you do not have access to either of these flowers, his recommendation, often the only one cited in his publications, is to use a mix of vegetative and green fruit FPJ.

I have additional information in this article.

Here is an FPJ During Reproduction Table

SPECIALTY FPJ (Off-Label) SUMMARY

Most people learning KNF learn how to use FPJs following the Nutritive Cycle, the natural life cycles of plants. The formula is to give plants an FPJ from the next phase of life.

You now know that you can extend the use of FPJs in unlimited ways. Give plants an FPJ from a plant that is doing what you want your plant to do. The skill is following patterns of growth.

For example, you now know how to make a Rescue and a Regrow FPJ. Any growth issues you experience may be corrected by following the pattern:

Give plants what you want them to do.

We have also seen that the reproductive cycle can be problematic. For the flower-set stage, use false acacia, banana flower buds, or a mix of a vegetative and a green fruit FPJ.

The next installment will cover advanced mineral inputs.