GROW FOOD WITHOUT FERTILIZERS

GROW FOOD WITHOUT FERTILIZERS?

Imagine walking through an intact forest. The sun is high, and dappled light filters through the canopy, warming your shoulders. Birds are chittering and flitting about.

Some stay in the trees and defend their territory. Others come down to the ground to snatch a worm or bug. If you’re quiet enough not to be noticed, you may see a bird bathe in a puddle of water.

In the clearing, you feel the tickle of a fresh breeze with hints of summer blooms. Bees and butterflies are drinking nectar from the scattered flowers.

Some sort of beetle scurries under a pile of fallen, almost decomposed leaves, making a rustling sound. The patch of moss growing on the tree is soft to the touch. Everything is lush, vibrant, green, with splashes of color. The forest is teeming with life.

Now, notice what you don't see.

No one is spreading fertilizer. No one is feeding the trees. No one is correcting deficiencies or managing inputs. And yet everything is alive, layered, and productive. Trees grow tall and dense. Understory plants thrive in shade. Fallen leaves become soil. Nothing is wasted.

The ground beneath your feet is spongy and soft. It is not inert. It is living, structured, and in constant exchange. Fungi thread through the soil. Bacteria cycle nutrients. Roots trade sugars for minerals. Animals move biomass from place to place, accelerating decomposition and return. The forest is ecologically stable, yet incredibly diverse.

This system has been running for millennia without human intervention, producing abundant biomass, stability, and resilience. It is not fragile. It is not dependent on external inputs. It is complete.

Nature can grow without adding fertilizers. Can you?

I will show that it is possible to create a growing system that mimics natural processes, allowing plants to thrive without repeated fertilizer applications.

• “Plants require fertilizer” is a false premise

• Plants require access to nutrients, not application`

• Nature supplies access through:

  • Soil Biology

  • Circular Loops of Organic Matter and Nutrients (via animals and other organisms in the short term, or geologic events over longer periods)

    
    

Korean Natural Farming (KNF) formalizes and accelerates these natural processes. And while it does not follow or prescribe nutrients directly (NPK), the KNF system ensures plants can access everything they need:

• Plants and microbes receive broad-spectrum, consistent mineral exposure using diluted seawater. All elements found on Earth are present in ocean water.

• When genuine mineral gaps exist, KNF solves them using water-soluble minerals and Bacterial Mineral Water (BMW) technology.

• Weekly foliar applications deliver nutrients to plant surfaces, such as leaves, directly at the site and time of peak biochemical activity.

• Cultivation practices balance and maximize the availability of non-mineral elements (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen) by managing sunlight, water, and air.

  
  

Instead of growing without fertilizer, KNF is growing without applied fertilizers. Instead, it focuses on building a living soil system that supports circular nutrient loops and delivers inputs at the right times to guide growth through the plant’s Nutritive Cycle.

HOW IT WORKS

The idea that plants cannot be grown without added fertilizer is a myth. It persists not because it is true, but because modern agriculture has largely lost the biological systems that make fertilizer unnecessary.

In Nature, plants grow abundantly without applied fertilizers. They do so through circular, self-reinforcing systems that recycle nutrients, build organic matter, and make minerals biologically available. These systems run on living soil. When they are intact, fertility is generated internally rather than imported from the outside.

Farmers who grow food without fertilizers, whether on small plots or broad-acre land, share this same foundation. They begin by establishing biologically active soil by inoculating it with locally adapted microorganisms. From there, they build organic matter loops, often by integrating animals, so that biomass is continuously created, consumed, and returned to the soil.

Mineral nutrition is addressed not by targeted, prescribed feeding, but by exposure. Seawater provides access to the full spectrum of elements in a natural balance. This adds elements that might not be present in the soil.

In cases where genuine mineral shortages exist, shortages that biology alone cannot resolve, the KNF system includes precise technical tools, such as water-soluble minerals and Bacterial Mineral Water, to correct those imbalances efficiently and without disrupting the living system or mineral balances.

Korean Natural Farming is not the only way to grow food without fertilizers, but it is a complete and intentional system for doing so. By restoring soil biology, building regenerative organic matter loops, and providing balanced mineral access, KNF demonstrates that fertilizer is not a requirement for plant growth; biology is. Just like in Nature. That’s why it’s called “Natural Farming.”

WHAT ABOUT FERMENTED PLANT JUICE (FPJ)?

Don’t they contain nutrients? Don’t they fertilize?

While all FPJs do contain some nutrients, the focus of the FPJ is to direct plant growth with the hormones, enzymes, and cofactors collected in each fermented serum of plant fluid.

The concentrations present are insufficient to support fertilizer-based nutrient management. This is, I believe, a key reason why people start incorporating Jadam* inputs into their KNF practice. They want to ensure plants are fertilized.

Without a doubt, if you are growing in unnatural conditions, such as in pots indoors, you do not have a Natural System, and you do not have a Soil Foundation. Without a foundation of soil biology and access to soil, fertilization would indeed be required, and Jadam inputs, which are liquid fertilizers, would be helpful.

The problem with fertilization, specifically water-soluble fertilization, which Jadam inputs clearly are, the plants are force-fed nutrients. Plants are unable to filter out anything dissolved in the water. They absorb whatever is in the water, whether they need it or not.

In unnatural conditions, such as in pots, there is no alternative. Since plants cannot obtain nutrients on their own (through soil and soil microbes), fertilizers need to be applied.

How do you know what to fertilize with and how much?

Nutrient recommendations are based on testing done under controlled conditions and on averaged results. While this approach can be useful, those numbers do not necessarily match a specific plant’s genetics, the biology of a particular soil, or the constantly changing conditions in the field.

Fertilizer programs, therefore, rely on generalized targets applied to highly variable systems. Living soils work differently. When soil biology is active, nutrient availability is regulated continuously through interactions between plants, microorganisms, and the environment, with timing and amounts adjusted as conditions change.

Fertilizers made in batches on-site, such as Jadam inputs, cannot be applied with any certainty regarding nutrient content without detailed lab tests for each batch. Without tests, they are general guesses.

Key Points

• Fertilizer recommendations are generalized

• Recommendations are decoupled from genotype × environment × time

• Farm-made batch fertilizers are variable and largely unknown

• Biological systems regulate with precision in real time

What’s wrong with over-fertilizing?

Wouldn’t too much fertilizer simply ensure that plants have adequate nutrition? Sadly no. Biological systems are tightly regulated. Too much of an element can lead to too little availability of other elements. Balance is lost. Overfertilizing leads to nutrient imbalances, which lead directly to pests and disease.

When biological systems are allowed to self-regulate, they operate efficiently, maintaining balance while minimizing unnecessary energy and material inputs. In practical terms, higher efficiency means fewer materials are required to achieve the same, or better, results.

FOLIAR MAGIC

KNF also enhances nutrient access directly at the leaf surface, improving efficiency beyond what soil processes alone can achieve.

Plants carry out biochemical reactions not only in the soil but also on their leaves and other above-ground parts. When an FPJ formula is misted onto a plant and its leaves, the nutrients and bioactive compounds can be incorporated directly into these reactions, without first having to move through the roots and vascular system. This is far more efficient than microbial conversion and plant uptake systems.

WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER INPUTS?

Don’t they fertilize?

Inputs such as Water-Soluble Calcium and Calcium Phosphate (WCa, WCaP) do contain needed minerals. They are used at stages when plants have peak demand, ensuring efficient nutrient use rather than acting as fertilizers.

Since they are used as foliar applications, plants are able to utilize these minerals directly on aerial plant surfaces, where many biochemical reactions occur. This can reduce the amount of the mineral the plant needs from the soil.

Fish Amino Acid (FAA) contains nitrogen, but it is important to understand that FAA does not function as a nitrogen fertilizer in the conventional sense. It is not applied to supply nitrogen in bulk.

When biological systems are allowed to self-regulate, nitrogen is cycled and assimilated efficiently, reducing losses and minimizing the need for external inputs. In this context, efficiency refers to improved nitrogen use within existing biological pathways rather than increased nitrogen supply.

FAA supports this efficiency by providing nitrogen primarily in organic forms, such as amino acids and small peptides, that can be readily incorporated into microbial and plant metabolic processes. Rather than forcing nitrogen into the system, FAA strengthens biological nitrogen cycling and assimilation, allowing plants to meet their needs through improved regulation rather than increased application.

FAA is:

Produced by microbial breakdown of fish proteins

Rich in amino acids, peptides, enzymes, and nitrogen-containing compounds

Biologically active and readily assimilable

FAA is not:

A fish hydrolysate (industrial, often acid- or enzyme-digested)

A bulk nitrogen (N) fertilizer

A direct replacement for N inputs

HOW KNF IMPROVES EFFICIENCY

• Supports soil biology – KNF technology installs a high concentration of local soil microbes as a complete, fully functioning ecosystem, allowing microorganisms to regulate nutrient availability dynamically, reducing waste and excess inputs.

• Enhances nutrient cycling – KNF promotes decomposition and mineralization in the soil, closing loops and keeping nutrients in circulation.

• Direct biochemical access – Nutrients and bioactive compounds can act directly at the site of metabolism (e.g., on leaves), bypassing the need to travel through soil and roots.

• Reduces energy inputs – By leveraging natural biological loops, less external fertilizer or labor is required to achieve optimal growth.

• Optimizes timing – Plants have access to nutrients exactly when they need them, rather than being applied on a rigid schedule, which can lead to biochemical imbalances, pests, and disease. This means fewer interventions, such as pesticides, are needed.

• Minimizes losses – Nutrients are less likely to leach, volatilize, or otherwise leave the system because they are quickly incorporated by microbes or plant metabolism.

• Synergistic effects – Multiple bioactive compounds work together to stimulate plant metabolism and resilience, reducing the need for separate chemical inputs.

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WHAT WE LEARNED

• Plants require access to fertilizers, not applications of them.

• Nature supplies access through soil biology and regenerative organic matter loops.

• KNF formalizes and accelerates these natural processes.

• Instead of growing without fertilizer, KNF is growing without applied fertilizers. Plants are never over-fertilized. Nutritional balance is maintained, thereby largely eliminating pests and disease.

• Circular, self-reinforcing systems recycle nutrients, build organic matter, and make minerals biologically available. These systems run on living soil.

• Growers worldwide, from backyard gardens to broad-acre farms, successfully produce food without NPK-based fertilization by relying on biological systems and correcting deficiencies only when they occur.

• While all KNF inputs contain some nutrients, FPJ is used primarily to direct plant growth, while other inputs act directly on surface biochemistry. No input is used as an application of fertilizer.

• Weekly foliar sprays supply nutrients where and when plant biochemical reactions are peaking, ensuring efficient use.

• Inputs such as Water-soluble Calcium and Calcium Phosphate are used at stages when plants have peak demand, ensuring efficient nutrient use.

• While FAA contains nitrogen, it functions by improving nitrogen assimilation and biological efficiency rather than supplying nitrogen as a bulk fertilizer.

• KNF systems reduce the need for applied nutrient inputs by improving nutrient availability and biological efficiency.

*Jadam is a low-cost organic method that was also developed in Korea.