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You are listening to Shapingfire, and I'm your
host, Shango Los. Welcome to episode 118.
My guest today is Chris Trump.
Chris Trump is the world renowned master natural
farmer certified student of master Cho Han Kyu,
the creator of Korean natural farming.
He has also studied microbial analysis under doctor
Elaine Ingham.
Many consider Chris' YouTube videos explaining Korean natural
farming techniques to have been the key to
KNF's widely increasing popularity in the United States.
It is especially helpful that Chris is a
certified KNF educator who actually speaks English.
Chris has traveled to 10 countries to teach
and implement these natural farming techniques.
With a passion for reading and a research
oriented approach to nature,
Chris has fostered numerous innovations since he began
practicing natural farming on a 750
acre organic macadamia nut farm he managed with
his father from 2,008 to 2,018.
He now teaches natural farming for a wide
range of food crops, livestock and cannabis.
Chris is dedicated to working with youth and
farmers in developing nations, equipping communities with a
holistic approach to natural farming education.
Currently based in Hawaii, he is involved in
large scale agricultural consulting in the US and
conducts international educational initiatives several times a year.
Through his company, Biomay Solutions,
Chris Trump educates communities of natural farmers throughout
the world, offering financial independence,
sovereignty,
and hope through natural farming.
Chris has been a Shaping Fire guest before.
On episode 35, we discussed the basics of
Korean natural farming and its sudden rise in
popularity in the United States.
And Chris returned for Shaping Fire episode 68
to discuss using Korean natural farming foliar and
drench preparations.
Today, we'll be discussing
indigenous predatory microorganisms,
IPMO.
During the first set, we will review the
basics of preparing IMO, how to use it,
and how to upgrade your IMO to become
an effective pest preventative as IMO.
During the second set, we dig into the
supporting science and discuss best practices and common
failure points when preparing and using
and we finish the episode looking at how
IPMO works with your other farming techniques and
how to scale IPMO for large scale agriculture
as well as smaller home cultivation.
While Chris discovered this innovation 10 years ago,
he says IPMO is still very new simply
because people haven't heard about it enough to
encourage widespread adoption.
He is stoked to be explaining it in
detail for you today on Shaping Fire.
After Chris explained IPMO to me, I knew
I needed to bring you this groundbreaking technique.
Truly, if adopted widely, IPMO will change the
reality of farming around the world, including cannabis.
Welcome back to Shaping Fire, Chris.
Hey, Shango. Thanks for having me again. It's
so nice to, like, have you back. You
know, since since, you know, so much of
traveling and so many of the conventions are
gone since,
you know, since COVID and everything. And I
I I really miss some of my, like,
Goodly cannabis friends like you. I miss seeing
you all sorts all places and being able
to catch up all the time. So it's
nice to have some time to, like, have
a reason to chat.
Yeah. It's it's great. And,
I,
yeah, beyond the podcast, really enjoy connecting with
you. It's,
good to know good people. Yeah. Amen, dude.
So alright. Cool. Well, let's let's dive right
in. Now, there's gonna be a lot of
people who are here because they're interested in
predatory IMO, but they don't really know what
IMO is.
And and you and I have already done
an app a shaping fire episode,
that, you know, that talks about IMO m
o and how to do it. And, of
course, you have got, you know, very popular,
YouTube videos that explain every single step of
of collecting IMO and then and then, you
know, I don't know, up converting it through
IMO 1234.
So so, you know, for for people who
don't know IMO,
this information is available to them at, yeah,
your website, biomay dot solutions.
That said,
we need to start out with a quick
run through of IMO. So as we talk
about how to adapt IMO,
as a pesticide as it were,
we need to give people, like, a thumbnail
so that we can work with this. So
I I know that me asking you to
summarize
IMO in, you know, just a few paragraphs
is, like, impossible ask for me. But but,
yeah, will you do that anyway? Will will
will you give us a a short introduction
to IMO indigenous
microorganisms
so that we we get everybody on the
same page, and then we can push forward.
Yeah. Absolutely.
And,
Yeah. The
IMO
is,
in its best form, a snapshot
of,
the
entire community that's existing
in a wild place. And when I say
wild place, ideally, this is a,
multiple generations,
in in human time,
undisturbed land. So,
places that
didn't get, you know, pushed with a bulldozer
to make a housing complex and now have
a nice park with some
things growing in
the shrubs.
A a a genuinely,
established,
old ecosystem
is what we're going for, and a snapshot
of that balance that's been struck
over a long period of time between the
organisms
that causes the life and the plants to
thrive
or maybe the limited life in a desert
place like Mojave,
to thrive.
We go there,
and we coax onto an auger
of rice because it is, a great fungal
food, and,
many organisms can dwell there.
And we get a snapshot, a bit of
the bacteria, yeast, archaea, fungi,
etcetera.
Not so much the macro, bigger organisms,
and we
put those,
immediately
into
so step 1 is is kind of coaxing
them onto that auger. Step 2, IMO 2
would be immediately putting them to borrow a
sci fi term into cryo freeze.
We
we stop their,
development. We stop their replication
by, mixing them with brown sugar. The osmotic
pressure, the dryness of the sugar creates kind
of a
salt fish on a long sea voyage scenario
where things go
pretty,
stable
and,
and can last for a long time. So
a farmer can have IMO 2 collections on
their shelf ready to go to the next
step
for 3 plus years without ever having to
go out and collect again.
And that's that's, actually a really positive thing
for a farmer and their workflow.
IMO 34 are growing it out on substrate,
is is 3 substrates,
that that I love right now is, rice
bran and oats mixed with wood chips,
for IMO 3. And then IMO 4 is
that, plus some soil, which brings in some
macroorganisms.
That complete,
material, that IMO 4 is now shelf stable
really indefinitely
if it's kept in a dry cool place,
and that is used as a farmer's
diverse inoculum,
key being diverse,
that they can use to enliven their soil
and prevent disease and pests.
Awesome. Thank you, Chris. The only part that
I wanna expand a little bit is,
for anybody who's unfamiliar with collecting IMO,
the idea
of coaxing
microbes onto an auger of rice is probably
a little vague. And I'll tell you, listener,
that essentially what he's talking about is is
taking some cooked white rice and putting it
in a in a in a sterile
wooden box with an open top and then
setting it out in nature so that all
of the things that are, you know, in
your natural habitat land on the rice and
can start to colonize the rice,
thus coaxing these microbes onto a food source.
Is that a good summary?
Yeah. Yeah. It's it's,
the the rice is falling out of the
bottom onto the ground. So there's a little
stairway of heaven of food. From that, you
find, like, a fungally rich area so that
there's literally a stairway of rice leading up
into this box of rice, and fungi will
grow up in a week time. You'll have
some blooms that actually grow up into it.
You put some in on top, and and,
things can fall through the paper towel that
is the only barrier between your rice and
the outside world. And, yeah, it is. It's,
it's the you you,
clarified that wonderfully. Yeah. Sorry for the tech
term. Oh, it's all it's all good. You're
used to speaking with people who are who
have some familiarity with it, and and I
just wanna make sure that everybody we bring
everybody along.
So so what we're trying to do is
we're we're trying to capture
some of the prevalent
local microbes.
And then through this process of IMO 1
and 2, we essentially incubate them to have
them reproduce.
So we've we've got this inoculant that we
can use on our farm or or deck
patio or even in even indoors in a
in a indoor growing situation, but they're the
microbes that are popular
to your particular locality. So so your IMO
that that you have on Hawaii,
is gonna be different than the IMO that
I have on Vashon Island.
And and so it's it it very much
captures the sense of place of the place.
So Yeah. And and why that why that's
important, Shango? Just last,
thought,
indigenous
is important because
when you go through all this effort
to get these
microbes from, you know, across town or up
in the hills,
around your,
bioregion or just
your surrounding area, some healthier place maybe than
your farm is,
and you get it established in your farm
because it likes that barometric pressure, that rainfall,
that temperature, that soil type,
that general region,
it's indigenous to there.
It will self perpetuate, meaning you could apply
once
and 10 years from now find it there
thriving
and serving your your crop.
Whereas when we buy things from a jug
that was grown in the lab,
it's it's well known that we have about
6 months max
that that will even be found.
And,
you know, we can't really move these imos
around because of the the difference in environment.
If we took an imo that I made
here on Vashon Island and I took it
on vacation
to my buddy's place in New Mexico, well,
our our environments
are so different that all my,
indigenous microbe species were are probably all just
gonna die at his house and and and
vice versa. So it's really important for you
to be able to
have both, you know, the look in in
each locality.
Yeah. And and yours would perform on that
vacation trip. Yours would perform much like when
you buy a jug. Yeah. It would have
some benefit on the short term, but you're
not going to get that community that now
works for you, builds on its own, and
becomes actually,
a thriving soil with with very little additional
input, you know, other than, you know, getting,
plants to grow in it. Right on. Okay.
So now now we got everybody on the
same page. And and if you're, you know,
if you're already into Korean natural farming and
you already know all this stuff, well, I
appreciate your patience through this while we got
everybody along. So so now let's talk about,
like, the the primary reason
why we're talking today, Chris, which what is
is taking this IMO
and and turning it into something that that,
I've been calling predatory IMO.
I've heard you call it a couple different
things since you are the from, as far
as I'm aware, the inventor of it. Are
is that the term you're using as predatory
IMO, or or have you got a different
phrase that you prefer?
Yeah. We call it IPMO,
so indigenous
predatory microorganism.
I also love
the acronym kind of plane on the,
I IPM.
And IMO together. Yeah. In their integrated pest
management.
So so, yeah, it's,
the acronym works for me, but it is.
It's a,
entomopathogenic
fungi. So it's a it's a predatory
or insect eating fungi.
Alright. So so, you know,
mostly in second set. But throughout the show
today, we're gonna talk about
IPMO
in detail.
But but just to give people a good
context with which to put all of this
information we're about to give them in, will
you just give us a cursory explanation of
of,
explanation
of of,
what IPMO
does?
And then second,
the experience that you had
that made you realize
that the the pests
and IMO
could be brought together for a beneficial solution?
Yeah. Absolutely.
IPMO,
what it does for a farmer,
I'm here in Hawaii at the moment. I
actually,
was out right before this interview placing some
boxes
of IPMO. So,
because I have a client,
that is,
the largest
kind of
Kona coffee
producer here in Hawaii.
And they deal with a coffee borer beetle,
along with several other pests.
And they hired me to help them overcome
some of their pest and some of their
disease problems.
What our IPMO has done,
in the last 6 months, they've only been
running a program here for 6 months.
They are pest free. They're,
cute,
wonderful.
Sorry. I shouldn't say cute. He's a,
elderly man, Colombian,
lifetime kind of coffee,
expert that runs their coffee
is tickled pink. He is so stoked because
when we started, I told him he wouldn't
have to buy all these expensive products he
was buying to try and unsuccessfully
manage his past.
But now with IPMO
application,
they are pest free, and they are,
tickled pink. They are very, very happy clients.
And so when I send them my bill,
they are happy to pay it.
But,
IPMO
is a
fairly low cost,
solution
to,
managing,
several of not all,
Well,
I don't know if not all is actually
accurate because a healthy plant is also pest
resistant.
But,
IPMO
is something that
has the potential to stay established in your
farm
once applied
and give you a
reoccurring,
resistance
to or, buffer against,
really carapace insects or insects that have some
degree of exoskeleton
or chitin in their body,
which is a lot of our pests that
we deal with. Mhmm.
Especially since you're on shaping fire, and we're
primarily talking about cannabis.
Like, that's the vast majority of ours.
Yep. Yep. Yep. Absolutely.
Alright. So,
you've told me,
the cool story about
where the idea originally came to you. So
why why don't you know, I know you've
told the story publicly before, but but why
don't why don't you give it to people
because it's a pretty good story.
Yeah. Absolutely.
So I,
I started natural farming,
because
we needed a better way to farm or
a more profitable way to farm in one
of the most expensive places to farm in
the US, which is big island of Hawaii
or Hawaii in general. And,
our crop is macadamia nuts.
And,
I made
a scaled natural farming,
made a lab for our 750
acre
macadamia nut farm,
and, we were,
years into
the
successful operation of our natural farming, macadamia nuts.
And,
while running our natural farming, I I set
it up, to be by and large run
by 1 person. So all our natural farming
operations
were,
one person kind of operation.
I was doing that, plus I had a
lot of responsibilities,
as a manager.
So I was busy, all that to say.
And,
I came to our,
natural farming lab, and we were almost out
of our IMO,
which we're using to make a liquid IMO,
foliar spray of this indigenous microorganism.
And,
I went to make some more in my
material
that,
the substrate, I take that IMO 2 and
grow it out,
on, you know, £200
of,
fat rich grains,
and wood chips
had weevils in
it. My my feedstock my feedstock had weevils
in it. Weevils are these little tiny beetles,
that
get into grains, and,
they're about the size they're smaller than a
grain of rice.
And I was like, oh, no.
My grain's bad,
you know? And because I'm on an island
with limited access to things, I knew it
was gonna be like 2 weeks before
I was gonna be able to get it
ordered
and get down, you know, an hour away
to pick it up, get back, and make
some. And so that was a that was
gonna be a huge significant,
cost because that means our spray program was
gonna be put behind by a couple weeks.
And,
with our acreage and just 1 tea brewer,
500 gallon tea brewer, that was a long
time. So I said, it was I'm I'm
saying all this to say it wasn't totally,
just because I didn't I was being lazy,
but I said, you know what? Whatever. I'm
gonna make it with,
some weevils anyway.
And,
went through the normal process. I have all
these, 12 IMO collections I'm using to put
in there, IMO twos, and, made my IMO
3, and I'm mixing it,
daily, making sure it's going right. And I
saw these, like, bright white puff balls
showing,
on the surface of my IMO 3. I
can still see it in my mind's eye,
because it was really,
striking. I've done this a lot, and this
was a total change.
And,
I look at this because I'm curious by
nature. And in the center of these white
puff balls is one of the weevils.
And,
they're scattered out throughout. So the weevils are
growing white puff balls. And I'm like, wow,
that's really cool, super interesting,
but I don't have time to look into
this right now. So I continued, finished my
IMO, made a liquid IMO,
and,
that process of it going out, 20 acres
at a time
continued.
And
like a good farmer I aspire to be,
I walked through my
20 acre,
plot that had just gotten sprayed the day
before
or 2 days before, whatever it was, and,
just seeing how the trees respond. You know?
It's just something you gotta check up on
periodically.
And,
out
on the trees
in
our orchard,
in the crook of a tree, I saw
a white puffball very similar to what I
had seen in my IMO 3.
What is going on? I look closer,
and it is a,
green stink bug,
a little,
beetle creature,
which is one of our primary pests in
macadamia nuts,
something that almost took our farm under years
ago.
And I
I was like,
yes, I'm still busy. I don't have time
to, like, look into a curiosity. But now
with the connection
to what was happening there and what I'm
seeing in the orchard, now that it's transferred
here,
I'm like, oh, dang. So I did a
deep dive
of research and pursuit of what is going
on to find,
that
beetles, one of their primary insects of the
whole
kingdom of carapace insects
is fungi.
And so I deduced,
and now we know 10 years later or
more,
deduced accurately that we had
wildcrafted
a
predatory
fungi
and gotten it to
apply
onto our orchard where we were getting now,
this kill.
And,
so
I loved it. But then I was like,
well, I don't actually have to do anything.
It just keeps happening now because I have
a whole box and we're spraying it out.
And so it's like, done.
Our our pest problem is going to decrease,
and,
I just kind of left it,
to,
you know, benefit us passively,
forever.
And then,
I had a friend that needed help. He
had
a locust population descending on their farm in
Zimbabwe,
and he's like, hey. Is there anything natural
farming that will help?
And, I said no. But I did discover
this thing,
a few years ago, and, we've been seeing
great results and, walked him through it.
We did the trials there with it, and
he had a 100% kill.
Well, the farm surrounding him got devastated by
locusts.
And,
he had a full crop, went to all
the way to market. They were doing hemp,
a 100 acres of hemp there. And so
he had he had basically a shield on
his on his crop,
that was basically a minefield for locusts
of, their predator.
It's like filling the filling the tank of
piranhas and, you know,
being the,
you know Literally, I I dare you to
land on my property. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly.
So let so let's break this out just
a little bit,
for people so they can see the application
in Zimbabwe. So they had locusts.
So what your friend in Zimbabwe would have
done
would have been to
make IMO
with
the body
of a couple dead locusts
set upon
the rice in the IMO collection. Is that
accurate?
Yeah. Pretty much. You can cook it, with
the rice inside. So you can get a
handful of those locusts and put it in
the rice.
You can also put,
insects in the,
in the next stage, that IMO 3 stage,
but it is less likely that you're gonna
get what I had happen,
in unless you start with that first step,
that IMO 1. So, yeah, we've kinda we've
kind of juiced it over the step,
that I am a one. So, yeah, we've
kinda we've kind of it over the last,
10 years, and the
best practice has been to, to put
your your past into your
rice
and cook some. I I also put some
uncooked in there, so I'll cook my rice
with some in insects in there, which does
smell a little bit if your insects are
smelly.
And then,
and then I'll also take some uncooked insects
and toss them in as a as a
topping on top before we put them out.
And we're really just, putting the food source
of the guys we're trying to get to,
colonize our rice box. Right on. You're saying
you're saying, you know, hey, you molds that
love to eat the my target pest.
We we've got you we've got some of
your favorite food on top of some,
delicious rice. Why don't you kinda come over
here and colonize this rice,
and you can eat of the pred of
the insect and also of the rice, and
you can make this your house. And then
you're like, yeah. And then and then you,
incubate it from that point.
Yep. Then I then I have it as
an inoculum.
And it isn't guaranteed that where I'm gonna
put my rice box,
with this insect in it, that there is
even a predatory
fungi
to colonize it. So that's the that's one
of the things to note here.
This is,
ends up being a little bit of a
numbers game where you wanna put out 6
boxes in various locations.
And
what you can do visually is notice
when a carcass or, some carapace insect
has a
unique bloom on it, or you can really
see that the fungi is chewing on that
creature. In the collection box? In the collection
box. Yeah. So so, visually, you can kind
of verify.
Right on. So,
I'm I'm sure that,
you know, different cannabis cultivators who are listening
are thinking about this in regards
to their
own local pests right where you are in
the country you know you've got different kinds
of pests
and I know that you do a lot
of you know general agriculture
but you've been helping those of us in
cannabis for years. So,
what are some of
the pests
that you,
you know, know are are good for this
kind of process that that affect the cannabis
plant?
Yeah. Well,
I would say maybe
it is
it's best if you can get a,
one of your local pests to put in
the rice box.
Also, not
totally
necessary.
So there is,
some challenge for some people
to get a pest. Also, if you have
cannabis,
you don't necessarily
want to produce a ton of a pest
just so you can put it in a
rice box. Yeah. That's a good point too.
Yeah. So one of the things you can
do is just buy insect frass.
Insect frass is a product
that gets sold,
as a byproduct from,
insect production. So some place that produces crickets
for your local snakes or or your snake
pets or whatever,
those,
those places will sell their kind of broken
body parts of their of their, prime product,
in a bag. So you can just order
off Amazon a bag of insect trash or
pick it up at your local,
garden store,
that can be a substitute for using your
own,
actual pest. Well, that's interesting. So
are you suggesting that,
care you know, a carapace of an insect,
I'm just assuming that they're all made out
of chitin.
And if this is true,
you know, I could use some of my
insect frass from t lab in my imo
because
I don't wanna cause a plant to be
covered in, for example, mites
so that I can capture them. So I'm
like, okay. Well,
I might not want to breed mites for
my to make this pesticide,
but if I use,
you know, some kind of other insects frass
that also has a carapace, that it will
cross over to my target mite. Is that
what you're saying?
Absolutely.
Right on.
Yeah. That's that's really convenient. I hadn't thought
about that. I can imagine that actually sourcing
some of the things, especially
insects that are so small that we can't
even see them.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
And,
and speaking of insects that are so small,
you can't see them,
and
insects that are big enough to see them.
You can also grab insects,
like, maybe you don't have anything on your
cannabis plant, but,
you're growing some squash outside and there's squash
beetles all over it from, you know, the
summer,
and you could grab a handful of those
and put them on your rice,
and you're off to the races.
So
you don't have to buy insect fast. You
don't have to have your exact pest.
It is more that that,
tasty protein,
that we understand. Now there are things I'm
sure I don't understand about how nature works,
and so using
some of your actual pests could be best
practice. I would strongly encourage, if that's possible,
to do that. Use them if you got
them. Use them if you got them. Right
on. So
so those of us who have who have
followed you and your education and learned from
you for years, like I have,
We know that you are, a student of
master Cho,
and you are both educated in and are
educator of,
Korean natural farming.
Does this process
fit neatly into KNF already,
or is this more like, yeah, the IMO
collection is is KNF,
but as soon as I added the the
pest, we moved on to something else? Or
or is or is this, like, new ground
for KNF that actually fits in that in
that,
educational family easily?
Yeah. Definitely not something I was taught in
Korea, nor is there really precedent for it,
in in that education.
However,
it,
it's
not. I have,
students and friends that learned about this. They
grow cannabis
and,
they love the benefit of IMO
and have for years and learned about IPMO.
And now they just do IPMO too, like
or not 2.
They just do IMO IPMO
because,
with the insects in it, because they're getting
the benefits still of IMO because there's a
lot of other things that grow in the
rice,
in addition to,
the benefit of of some predatory fungi. So,
a lot of people that have adopted it
are just,
doing the IPMO now because,
they could kind of both. And,
I am,
cautious to say that's best practice because,
when you add something like cooked insects into
the rice, it kinda changes,
the the nitrogen
kind of density of the rice. It changes
some things, you know, depending on the insects
you use or or the stinkiness of the
insect frass. Some insect frass is pretty smelly.
Mhmm.
It could really be changing,
some of it. So I wouldn't,
outright say just do IPMO. It's better than
IMO.
But, I do know that that has become
standard operating procedure for a bunch of campus
farms.
Right on. So, before we go to our
first break,
I wanna just confirm with you.
This seems like there there isn't any reason
that we couldn't use this indoor. Right? Like
like, we prefer to be growing outdoors under
the sun and under perfect situations. That's wonderful.
But there's lots of people who don't have
an outdoors, and so they're growing in a
greenhouse or or or home cultivating in a
tent.
And is there any reason why
we could not,
cultivate a local IMO for ourselves,
you know, either using, you know, but say,
for example, spider mites are are are often
a big problem in indoor,
and throw those in there and then just
spray it indoors as well. Like, it'd be
great to be outdoors, but we don't have
to. So this is actually a solution for
indoor cultivators too.
Yep. Yeah. Foliar foliar application,
weekly
is kind of the SOP for,
for, yeah, bug free, disease free. And then
people cut that off depending on your
region of,
growth and whether or not you're you're submitting
for testing,
in the legal market.
Some places,
they're, you know,
parts per million of microbes
is,
you know, more strict than others. I know
like Colorado is twice as strict as California.
So
they're they'll stop,
that spray,
right before flower, you know? So they'll, you
know, and then other places,
you know, like Washington,
they don't have quite as strict as Colorado.
They're spraying through flower
with no,
negative results, maybe cutting off right before harvest.
So, yeah, it is definitely,
great for indoor and outdoor.
I actually have
a fun
bit,
as an alternate food source.
Then,
there's
there's this really cool thing that happens in,
in seed,
germination,
a germinating
seed,
that,
and I don't think I've talked about this
much,
publicly. So just for you, Shenga. Nice.
Germinating
seed,
in its
very beginning of its germination,
is,
so like malted grains, if you will.
That that
just beginning of germination produces chitinase protein.
So
right when a seed starts, if you have
it in the ground in nature,
it's producing
a protein
that is good food
for
predatory fungi.
So
if a if a seed is,
new to the block,
human, we'll just make a human analogy,
and they're trying to make friends with those
people that would protect them.
They would,
you know, give gifts,
that their new friends would like. So, you
know, sending my
5 year old to,
kindergarten with a box of Oreos, you know,
he's gonna be, real popular at lunch,
time as he shares with new friends.
In a similar way,
germinating seeds will put out,
nutrients
to invite,
relationships in their root zone that will be,
there for their whole lives.
So if a seed grows in this,
wild forest,
as it begins making root relationships
with fungi, which is how nature works,
it,
will then maintain a lot of those relationships
as it grows into a large tree or
shrub or whatever seed it is.
So in the early stages of its development,
it's putting out this protein that it doesn't
put out any other time.
And that protein,
then becomes kind of a
invitation
for a relationship with something that's gonna protect
it from pests.
So when I go out into nature
and look for a good spot to potentially
find
these predatory
fungi,
I also will,
if I have the opportunity, look for a
place where seeds are falling and germinating,
because
there will be
an additional food source for these predatory fungi.
So like I was just out today,
placed in an IPMO box and I found
a spot
that has Kukui nuts, macadamia
nuts,
and,
ironwood trees, which drop these little pine cones
with,
seeds in them. I was seen on the
germinating pine cone seed,
germinating pine cones, where the seeds are germinating,
fungi blooming out of the germinating pine cones.
And so I'm like, oh, cool.
And I'm placing my boxes here, 1, because
there's a bunch of fungi around, so I'm
looking for that normal kind of mycelial
mat and health. But also, I'm like, in
addition, I know that there's a ton of
this chitin protein,
happening every time one of these seeds starts
to germinate in the ground. And so,
yeah, a little bit on, how to find
also
if you wanted to grow it out, sorry,
getting verbose, but, if you wanted to grow
it out in IMO 3, having
sprouted grains,
could be a way to increase the food
source for these,
predatory fungi.
Right on. Good. And, you know, it's interesting
to hear you talk about the locations where
these seeds fall.
You know, I know that our IMO collection
is is,
you know, bio,
bio mimicking nature. But it's really funny because
when you describe it, my brain said, oh,
that's like that's like natural IMO collection. It's
like like, no, dude. That's just called
nature. You
know?
Yeah. It is. It is. It is. I
mean, in its very best, all of all
of this that we're doing is just
partnering with what with the strength and the
the power, really, that is already at play
for the health of plants in in nature.
Yeah.
Alright. So,
so let's wrap up first,
set here. So dear listeners, stay with us.
You know, if if this is of interest
to you, stick around because,
I'm totally
interrogate Chris in second set
on the finer points and how to use
it. So,
we're gonna be a quick short break and
be right back. You are listening to Shaping
Fire, and my guest today is natural farming
innovator, Chris Trump. Now without these advertisers, Shaping
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Welcome back. You are listening to Shaping Fire.
I am your host, Shango Lohse. And my
guest today is natural farming innovator, Chris Trump.
So before the break, we talked a lot
about generally what IPMO
is
and, where it came from, where Chris originally
got the idea, and then a little bit
of how to,
adapt your IMO collection for it and and
a little bit how to use it. So
if you're still here, it means that you
actually care about this and and welcome, and
we are about to get real specific with
our questions.
So,
so, Chris, let's start with this.
You know,
does the inclusion
of pest
carapaces,
so their outside shell,
influence the microbial
diversity in IMO compared to traditional
methods?
You talked a little bit about this in
the first set
that,
perhaps you would recommend,
doing traditional
IMO
alongside
IPMO
because if you're going to if you're gonna
do the version of IPMO where you cook
the pest with the rice, you're really changing
the rice. It's not like neutral rice that
will take all comers. So you're not gonna
get a really great snapshot
of the natural world around you because because
you've influenced
the rice.
Whereas
if you do the version where you just
put
the target pest
on
the rice
when you lay out the box,
you've got most of the rice
which is just neutral rice,
and and you're going to collect all comers
on the rice, but then you're gonna target
the molds that are gonna be on the
carapace, if I if I understood you correctly.
Like like like, how how do you think
the the IMO might be influenced
if you only did the IPMO?
Yeah. This is a really, really good question.
I think,
one of the things to say,
and help me stay on track, but before
I even answer that,
is how important,
some of the details of IMO are.
There are lots of ways to compost.
There
are lots of cool things we can do
with microbial life in,
you know, in farming.
But IMO is
a fairly nuanced.
Think of it as a very boutique.
You know,
the difference between Jose Cuervo
and,
absolute top shelf tequila,
like,
all of the ingredients,
you know, are similar. You know? The process
is similar,
but one will be painful,
when you wake up in the morning, and
the other will be smooth and might even,
you know, nourish your body.
The the difference between,
you know, IMO and something
where you've changed details,
is
much more impactful
than, the example I gave there with tequila.
Mhmm.
The,
the details matter in IMO.
The,
the difference between producing a bunch of bacteria
and,
really giving the opportunity for fungi to grow
out in a,
feedstock or
substrate,
is,
is just a little bit of difference. You
know? How much water you use,
you know, your, how much carbon, etcetera. So,
you know,
now going to adding this other,
Type of,
feedstock
into that first step,
really can have an effect. Now we wanna
do it because we found we can produce
a predatory fungi
and, have effect on our farm, which
affects our bottom line, gives us a healthier
crop.
So definitely we're here talking about it because
it's good.
And if I were to give you maybe
what I think could be a way that
you could, because here here's the thing. Yes,
we can say you have to do it
just like this, but natural farming, I'm constantly
faced with a balance between
quality of what we're producing
and the efficiency or, or the time in
a farmer's life, you know, and, and,
these are,
those are important things on two sides of
a scale.
You know,
and so I'm,
of the opinion
that one of the most efficient and effective
ways to do
good IMO
and still do IPMO
is,
to produce your IPMO
second stage. So you put out your rice
with your insect carapace in it
and you put it in cryo freeze,
theoretically or I mean, metaphorically,
with the sugar. And now it's inoculum on
your shelf.
When you make IMO 3, that next stage,
you can use some of that IPMO
as long as well as some regular
IMO 2
rice and grow that all out together. Mhmm.
I kind of hinted at a a feedstock,
being in your IMO 3 for,
IPMO to grow out on. And I think
that that is also,
a good option. Having a little bit of
sprouted grains
or, some insect carapace in your IMO 3
can be a great thing too.
Yes. Can totally change it, short answer.
But,
not too worried about that being,
bad,
as long as you have some
regular IMO 2,
going into your IMO 3. You know, like
a lot of hobbies, say, for example, baking,
you know, it's really important to follow the
rules very specifically
until you don't need to follow the the
the recipe anymore.
You know Right on the nose. Yeah. I
agree. I'm very ADHD, man, and I, I'm
a fantastic cook, but I'm an I'm an
I'm an awful baker
because you're supposed to follow the directions directly.
And and I'm and that is not my
strong point.
And I ran into the same thing with
IMO. The first two times I made it,
you know, I cut corners. I I tried
to improve on your teaching myself, you know,
doing it the first time.
And, I got I got garbage twice. And
then I realized, you know what? Let's just
do it the way Chris says the first
time.
And and I and I and so I
I I did it, and I struggled, and
I did it without making any changes, and
the damn thing worked beautifully. Right?
And and so,
I think it's the same kind of thing
with this. Like if if somebody is is
wasn't very interested in imo
before but now that it's a now that
it's a very healthy pesticide if you will
now they want to do it
I think it brings us back to
make
your IPMO
as intended
following the IMO recipe
and adding the predatory in or added added
at our target insect
all following the directions the first time.
And then as you get familiar with it,
you'll have more fidelity with it. And, you
know, just like a baker, you know, eventually,
you can bake stuff without even measuring stuff.
Right? Because you just know it that well.
Well, you know, I just recommend that people
start
by actually following the IMO protocol
specifically because there's so many ways that seem
minor that you can totally screw up. And
most of the stuff that we're working with,
we can't visibly see because
they're microbes and molds and stuff.
Yeah.
I I love that whole commentary, Shango. I
think you're you're dead on. And the,
yeah, I can't I can't stress enough. Like,
don't change anything
at all.
And the re I'm I'm
definitely,
particular
in,
in a lot of things. I also love
to cook. And if I'm gonna bake something,
I know. Like, I wanted to learn how
to cook meringues.
And I took time,
like,
studied the recipe, played with the, you know,
the details people put in the, and, and
I got to be great at cooking meringues.
A little bit gooey in the middle. But
if you change anything in the recipe,
including like
a dirty spoon,
you know, meringues won't won't work. And so
I I, I think I love that analogy.
I also
just a little,
detail, if I could, make a request.
That is,
we don't ever call
IPMO
a pesticide
because it isn't.
Really, it is a reenlivening
of your environment
to, the semblance of nature.
And,
we are
actually,
cultivating life. We're not trying to kill anything.
We're cultivating life in such a way that
we actually have the natural balance and
forest.
You know?
And it's because
there's the sufficient life that creates the ecosystem
of balance and,
alternating pressure,
that causes,
you know,
everything to perpetuate. So, also, there are some
things that you can run into if you
start calling things a pesticide,
and you have to talk to somebody from
the EPA and,
you know, it's,
the whole thing. So I follow that. Alright.
That's that's good. And you know what? When
I said pesticide earlier, you may have heard
me even slow down and pause. I'm like,
this isn't the right word, but I'm not
sure what to use. So Yeah. Yeah. It
sounds like using the the IPMO phrase itself
is the is the more accurate.
Yeah.
And it's And it sorry. I I'm I'm
not actually bothered by it, but also we're
we're teaching this. Right? We're Totally. We wanna
do we wanna set people up right, and
we don't want them talking to,
people as if it's a pesticide. And and
and something that I know you will get
that you and I would agree on is
we're trying to teach a paradigm here,
and it's not about pesticides and coating stuff
in chemicals
and going out there and just, like, kill
all the things including
the target. Label.
Yeah.
And so and so, you know, it's it's
it's not like we're we're not going there
and dropping a bomb. We're just we're just
sending some help to to to our teammates.
Yeah. I mean, it's,
it's that's great. I love it. Yeah. It's,
it's it's really it's it's not an issue,
except that we have governing bodies that,
and and the there's things with the same
name. If we call it a pesticide, there's
things with the same name that have nothing
in common to what we're talking about. You
know? Yeah. It's strategically
and,
like, I don't know about ethically, but but
strategically totally different
approach.
Yeah. Alright. So let's move on. You were
talking about your meringue and how if you,
if you use a dirty spoon, it'll destroy
the meringue.
Let's talk about that same thing about collection
collecting our target in insects because in in
preparing for this, I was talking to my
buddies while we were, big leafing the other
day,
And,
and and we were talking about, you know,
the difficulty or the challenge
with,
contaminating
IMO.
And we were thinking about
ways that we might contaminate
the IMO
by contaminating
the target pest.
So let's let's use the locust since, we
can pick those up with our fingers, and
we've already been talking about the locust.
Have you developed any best practices
for collecting
the locust, for example, or the spider mite,
for example,
so that,
we don't in some way contaminate
the the the target insect
and thus screw up our IPMO.
We were talking about, like, man, I really
think that when I collect these bugs, I'm
gonna wanna wear gloves.
I I think gloves
gloves would be great. There's nothing wrong with
using gloves.
I think that might be unnecessary.
Clean hands,
you know, simply
wash your hands, rinse them well, make sure
there's not a bunch of soap on them
or anything like that,
would be enough. Like,
a contamination, one of the number one contaminations,
human spring,
is,
slightly
less than well washed hand after using the
restroom.
You know? And that's, you know, that's enough
to
make people sick and Add a little e
e coli to your IMO.
Exactly.
It'll liquefy your rice. And that is,
when you see,
I am a one that's been liquefied in
the middle. It is probably,
E. Coli or a similar,
small, fast replicating bacteria.
And so that is
one IMO collection.
People are like, well, it's so like
hard to know what's good. And,
you know, there's, you know,
detail. Sometimes you say, you know,
colors can be fine, you know, as long
as it's not all one color.
But one thing I say a 100 percent
of the time, you never wanna use
an IMO
that has,
gooey middle
or or liquefied
rice or or slimy
in in any part of it because
that will never make good IMO 3. So
word to the wise, you wanna
exclude 1,
IMO one type as it finishes one way
that it looks that you're like, okay. And,
no, for sure, that's wrong.
Is gooey
middle slimy.
But,
another thing,
to avoid,
quote unquote contaminating
your
insects
would be not,
bringing much of their environment
or,
their poop.
One of the things that happens if you
harvest a bunch of living insects
is,
and you leave them in a bag for
a couple of days and they're alive,
is they will defecate in the bag and
then you have insects plus all their little
defecation
that gets pretty funky pretty quick. So,
something you can do is clean hands,
throw them in a bag, and then immediately
when you're done harvesting,
throw it in the freezer.
So throw them in a Ziploc, throw the
Ziploc in a freezer,
you'll kill them without
damaging them.
And they won't go through, you know, the
process of funking, funking up their environment.
So yeah, that's, that's kinda how I go
about it. I was out,
the other day,
in my I am growing ginger,
and, I was out there and,
I was harvesting
Japanese rose beetle because they're
devastating the leaves. And so I'm gonna make
an IMO,
an IPMO,
and,
foliar spray them,
next week.
And,
the I went in there to kinda take
off some of the bits of,
leaf and stuff that I had harvest with
because you're grabbing this beetle off a leaf
and then you're grabbing a piece of leaf
and I don't wanna put that in the
rice.
And, they're all alive, so they started flying
out of the bag. And so,
I threw them in the freezer,
and, yeah. That was that.
I I wanna point out another thing that
you said that deserves to be hit again.
You pointed out,
you know, wash your hands, sure, but make
sure there's no residual soap. And I wanna
double down on that because,
hand sanitizer is so much more common too.
And we don't want anything that kills microbes
in the IMO box.
So if you have a residual soap on
your hands, maybe you use like a thick,
liquid soap in your bathroom maybe,
or maybe you use some hand sanitizer and
that stuff, like, that stuff leaves a lot
of residue on your fingers.
And then you go and you pick up
your your, you know,
locusts or whatever. And then you put the
locusts
on top of your IMO rice.
You actually have put locust
and microbe
killing
agents from your fingers into your IMO.
And so, you know, clean hands are good.
Clean
residue residue of cleanliness
is not good.
Let there be no record of cleanliness. Yeah.
So the,
number one reason where why people fail to
make, in the canvas cannabis industry, they call
it labs, l a b, lactic acid bacteria,
which a lot of people use to
treat and prevent powdery mildew. You can totally
just use liquid IMO because it already has
labs in it. But,
people, you know, will send me pictures and
they're like, blah, blah, blah. What went wrong?
And I did this. I did all the
things you said. Cleaned my jar. I said,
did you make sure that you had no
soap scum left in your jar? Did you
double rinse it? Like, oh, no. Probably not.
That that is that is the leading reason
why people's lab does not develop is a
little bit of soap,
and you will not produce any lactic acid
bacteria.
Your milk will just go funky. And so,
yeah, it's it's,
it's there's precedent for double checking that you
don't. And so even if you have a
collection box that you've made and you've cleaned
it out with some soap,
that can go right into the wood. And
now you can have a soap filled box
that will,
inhibit
microbes,
baskets,
that have a bunch of shellac or, like,
coating on the on the wicker,
can, can,
off gas when you get it kind of
warm with,
microbe development and that off gassing can wipe
out your community.
And, and then, you know, people go through
all this effort.
Sorry, I'm going down the ways that it
can go wrong. Here are the ways that
it can go wrong.
People go through all this effort
and then get their rice right and they
got their
their bugs and then they put it in
a plastic container without any holes. And
all this life that starts going in there
now starts breathing
and producing,
buildup of water.
And,
then it rots the edges and it'll fail
every time, even though it started great because
you had all the right things.
Just the fact that it doesn't breathe will
be enough. So,
some sort of natural material,
untreated
baskets,
or,
I make little wood boxes.
That is really, really important,
when you're doing your IMO one.
So you know, most of us understand that
traditional IMO, when it's time to go and
apply it,
we will do a foliar spray,
over the tops and bottoms of the leaves
of the plant,
and,
I'm going to guess that the IPMO is
applied the same way as if it was
regular IMO. Is that accurate?
Absolutely.
IPMO can be applied if you're making IMO
for,
with the hypo, it can be applied topically.
A lot of,
pests have a ground dwelling phase or at
least a phase where they interact with the
soil.
So just having,
that predatory
fungi in your soil around your plants is
enough,
to,
actually,
especially if you can if you look into
their life cycle and they have a ground
dwelling phase,
you might not need to ever even apply
foliarly
to have a 100% prevention in your substrate.
Oh my god. I I I'm gonna guess
that fungus gnats have got a carapace.
How awesome would it be to have
a resident
of the soil be the mold that loves
to eat fungus gnat larvae?
This is this is accurate, and you can
definitely have,
prevention
from IMO. However,
you can have thriving soil
in your indoor
living soil bed and overwater the top of
it,
and still produce fungus gnats. I I know
that is possible. So beware of,
surface overwatering,
because,
you can still achieve fungus gnats if you
try hard enough even with great soil.
If you try hard enough, you can bring
fungus nets anywhere, man.
I got them in my kitchen.
So,
so
the you know, I was trying to think
of of any downsides to IPMO because it
sounds awesome. I want I already wanted IMO
everywhere in in my life and in the
nature and everything.
And IPMO
sounds great to have everywhere in my garden.
And then it occurred to me that, I
am a beneficial insects user.
Mhmm. And, you know, we're natural farmers, and
and none of us really wanna be using
chemical pesticides even if they're air quotes natural
pesticides.
We wanna encourage nature, and so I encourage
nature by adding
the pests
that eat
my pests, adding the insects that eat my
pests.
But, it sounds like if I'm going to
use IPMO, it's really a one or the
other because if the IPMO
kills my target mites, it's also gonna kill
my beneficial mites.
Yeah? Yeah. It's,
this is possible. And, the cool the good
news is if you're making
IPMO well and it is killing your beneficial
mites,
you won't have any mites.
You can you can have a great protocol
with total kill.
So that's the good news.
Another bit of good news is a lot
of these bigger
creatures,
or some of these bigger creatures have,
like bees, for example. If you take IPMO
and you direct apply it on a flying
bee or a bee on a on a,
on a flower, you can kill that bee.
But if you apply it,
all over
your flowers
and the bees come,
the next day, they will it'll have no
effect on them. We have,
a 140 hives here,
on the farm and, with IPMO
applications
around their hives to prevent,
row,
hive beetle.
There has been only positive
effect on our bees. Our our hives thrive.
Our beekeeper
loves our hives because he comes and he,
splits them or takes a bunch of bees
out of them for his other hives, other
places that are struggling,
because we're always overproducing bees.
But, however, because a bee is capable of
cleaning itself. Right. So there are creatures that
can clean themselves
and,
can can navigate,
in really healthy soils. But, yeah, you,
and we still have a
I don't know how or or exactly how
it works, but we still have abundance of
insects.
But I think that,
that leaf surface, that place where our pests
go to eat,
that soil,
I, I, I'm not totally
sure of how it all works.
But,
yeah, the the pests are no more, and
we still have a thriving ecosystem.
So, I'm gonna I'm gonna push even don't
understand. I'm gonna push even further on that.
And the answer might also be that neither
of us knows the answer to this, but
but I'm gonna push anyway.
You know, that reminds me of of, you
know, very often, especially early in my cultivation,
you know, we you know, I I used
whatever was being sold for whatever aphids or
something. And, you know, mostly, I make my
own
sauces now, but, you know, you you you
get the sauce and you you put it
on and, you know, and and it just
kills everything on the freaking plant. Right? The
good guys, the bad guys, the everybody,
which which creates this environment where there is
a,
there's a vacuum. Right? There's no there's no
good guys or bad guys, which creates an
opportunity.
And I wonder if if we sprayed IPMO
on our cannabis plants in veg and it
kills
all of the
insects, good and bad, that have got a
carapace,
is is are we creating
a weakness
in our ecosystem
that that
another type of non carapace
insect might be or not not I guess
it wouldn't be an insect yet. Non
non carapace
pest might be able to fill that space.
Yeah. I have not
experienced
a a downside
here. Mhmm.
So,
we had there's a a farm I helped,
develop in Colorado. They're in their 4th year.
Now they're,
leading the industry in in hash,
quality,
and,
they have,
it's like 1800
plants times 4 or 5. No. I have
1 biz building that's times 4 and one
that's 1800 plants. So 5.
And,
they have a protocol of just,
liquid IMO on the regular,
and,
they have a thriving like, their soil life,
has abundance of insects,
and,
they don't have pests.
I don't know why,
that is the case that theirs can still
be,
and it may be plant health. It may
be,
oh, here's something fun.
The presence
of
the,
the protein of insects
being processed with fungi,
that,
that IPMO,
having those those proteins in it
actually triggers an immune response in our plants
too, making them aware
that they may encounter an outbreak of their
pest. Oh my gosh. It increases their immune
system.
Mhmm. Woah.
Yeah. So,
and if you do if you go really
heavy with that, you can actually,
you can actually trigger
a,
extreme
fruiting
response
or flowering in a flowering plant
where you'll get an increase in,
flower and fruiting just by,
introducing them to the proteins in their pests,
and foliarly.
And that can,
cause them to be, hey,
I'm going to die soon. There's this outbreak
of pests. I need to perpetuate my species
by
fruiting,
in abundance,
and they'll double down on,
their,
yeah, their fruit production. So I've seen real
extreme flowering,
in my macadamia nuts and, also studied this,
phenomenon,
because of it,
and seen it in other crops. So it's
it's really, kind of fun that there's,
more than one dimension to all of this
and, those beyond our understanding so far as
well.
So at what point in the process would
you,
choose
to spray the IPMO, and when do you
stop? So I'm looking for when start, when
stop, and how often.
So
if your,
yeah,
If your pest is,
has a ground dwelling phase,
you're pretty safe to just apply a solid
state IPMO,
which is a little more expensive per application,
but you don't need to apply it very
often.
Your plant health's gonna go up. Their immune
response is gonna go up.
If you're,
dealing with or seeing the possibility of that
foliar,
pest,
Maybe it doesn't have a ground dwelling phase,
then a weekly application,
especially if it's already showing up. A weekly
application is kind of the SOP, so you're
fine weekly
or biweekly. If you want to go serious,
go hard.
If,
if everything's copacetic,
you know, applying,
every other week or
applying monthly,
can be a thing. I would say that
a IPMO,
if you're worried about killing beneficials,
could be something that you do,
as needed
or that you do,
monthly.
Whereas an
IMO, a liquid IMO, maybe where you don't
have that in, is something I wouldn't worry
about at all. Meaning, you could apply it
every week. You're gonna get the nutritive response.
So there's,
a nutrient
quality in IMO or liquid IMO. There's a
bunch of food in the water.
So you're feeding them. You're giving them their
probiotics.
You're preventing disease,
by coating their tissue
in
beneficial life, which outcompetes
or takes up the territory
preventing the vacuum.
Nature doesn't tolerate the vacuum. So preventing the
vacuum,
which would allow another,
something like
powdery mildew.
By applying IMO, you have this
protected leaf.
I have
in my opinion,
as a farmer that has to pay for
things,
and my bottom line matters,
if I can make this,
you know,
extremely
inexpensive
liquid application,
pest prevention, and,
plant health,
spray,
and I get to
not
pay $800
a box
for my monthly
Rove beetle or whatever,
then I'm stoked. Yeah.
That's that's kind of where I've come to.
But,
I also have experienced that the living soil
guys,
both indoor and outdoor are still have thriving,
bug ecosystems. The pill bugs are still going,
you know?
Well, maybe not as much of the pill
bugs.
Some of those get eaten too.
But you're you're you're still you're still seeing
abundant life,
and,
the,
the indoor,
soil in that Colorado farm,
when I did some,
soil analysis,
last time I was there, is the most
diverse
soil samples
I have ever looked at under a microscope.
And I've been looking under a microscope at
soil, lot
of different places and different places in the
world, different types of
crops,
and,
just stuff we put together with compost and
IMO applications
is the most diverse material I've ever seen.
And,
it's because of diverse collections. We had every
time we did IMO, there was 20
plus,
different IMO twos that went into the the
batches, and and, really, it's self perpetuated
and and stayed living. So,
Yeah. I mean, I I, Yeah. I don't
know. I don't know. The the bottom line
is I don't know the answer to what
your beneficial,
life is gonna look like and and, how
to find that balance, but I'm down to
pursue it with the community
if people have ideas. And yet you've been
doing this for going on a decade, and
you still have plenty of life in your
living soil. So it's like you might not
know why
why it's happening, but you know that it
is happening. You're you're you're you're not, like,
nuking any of these pots. You're actually encouraging
life in these pots, just not with carapace,
insects. Yeah. Yeah. And and we're we're not
we're also getting,
you know, we're not we're not seeing aphids
or or things that aren't carapace.
Mhmm.
Do you do you agree that the the
time or I'm just guessing since I haven't
done this, but is the time to stop
week 4 of flower like like most, foliars?
For me,
I think if you are not
doing, microbial
testing,
microbial testing,
you know, prevents us from
weird stuff that,
builds up,
the dust in a dirty environment causing,
a funk
to happen,
or due to humidity,
proper
decomposition molds happening
in flower,
that can make us sick.
Fresh applied liquid IMO, a balanced,
microbial community
with LAB doing the cleanup and all this
stuff that,
it just means there will be,
colony forming units. It doesn't mean,
that they're gonna make us sick. So,
the
the right before harvest or a couple of
weeks before harvest,
is,
as far as like
not having a bunch of stuff that could
affect your flavor or anything,
would be what I'd say. You don't wanna
apply it and then harvest the next day
because
without the plant being alive,
it's not working with microbes and, you know,
doing symbiosis
with them.
Now the microbes are just there without the
exits of the plant coming out there,
leaf tissue in the mornings, etcetera.
You don't have a thriving ecosystem. So you
don't wanna take a hanging plant and spray
a bunch of liquid IMO on it because
now you're you're pursuing
composting
of that plant, not symbiosis. Does that make
sense? Yeah. Yeah. I follow.
And so the the answer is is kinda
like the same way it is with everything
we spray is that when your flowers get
thick enough where you're
just making them wet and you could be
causing
molds and other things, stop.
So, you know, as soon as the flowers
are going to grab onto whatever you spray
on it and
and tuck it away inside its folds, it's
it's the time to stop spraying.
Well, I I might I might disagree
with that with that. I I I appreciate
that
you're bringing in a a concise answer for
the listener, but I, I maybe wanna leave
it a little more
vague because if you have good material, meaning
like,
a, a actual healthy liquid IMO or
good lactic acid bacteria in going in in
your watering,
that's going to actually,
often act as a cleaning agent,
tidying
and
making fresh, you know, stuff that is healthy
alive, like our bigger organisms,
they make fresh. They keep the funk away,
if you will. They are the prevention to
the bad mold.
And
so as long as you're doing it well,
you're not cutting corners. You are in fact,
producing a material,
then it's really not going to hurt a
living plant.
It's going to,
enliven and help.
And I have my best friend.
He's no longer farming cannabis, but he did
for 15 years. And,
he he sprayed right up to a couple
weeks before harvest,
on his outdoor,
for 4 seasons or 4 years,
and had
just amazing,
amazing results.
And the Colorado farm
has to cut off going into
flower because Colorado is so
intense with colony forming units that basically they're
saying you have to be producing cannabis in
a sterile manner, meaning you have to be
killing all things
or you won't pass our regs.
And so
for them, yeah, cut off. Definitely
find a way to pass those regs.
For the outdoor Washington farmer,
he's stoked that his plants are
disease free and bug free because he he's
got a a functioning protocol, and he never
had mold. Mhmm. So, yeah, it's it's,
it kinda depends on your environment and,
and really what is the material you're producing.
If you're cutting corners and you're making witch's
brew and calling it Chris's liquid IMO,
then,
yes, I would say absolutely do not spray
that at all in flower.
And one other thing, Shango, this is important.
Are you producing
a are you trying to feed your plants
with a
foliar spray
or are you trying to produce microbes with
the foliar spray? Mhmm.
So if you're putting a bunch of food
in your,
to make tea
and you're trying to break down that food
so it's plant available,
that is now
compostable material,
unprocessed
nitrogen, unprocessed
nutrients,
and those getting into the crevices of your
flowers
now need to compost or be further broken
down. That will, can putrefy on your plant.
And,
and so if you're, so this is my
big clarification.
Is it a food tea or is it
a microbe tea? If you're doing a really
great job and it's really lightweight, meaning you're
not putting a bunch of foods in it,
it's just for producing microbes,
that's there's no buildup. But if you're putting
a bunch of, like, food stuff, like, you're
adding these things that people say are a
good idea,
now that goes on, it's not fully processed.
It's gonna process on your plant material, and
it's gonna rot.
Mhmm. Wow.
I can't believe that that I've I have
interviewed so many people about spraying nutrition foliarly,
and this has never come up, that this
this this nitrogen residue on the plant is
going to
eventually compost on your plant and and create
a,
funky ass environment.
Mhmm.
Alright. Well,
might as well go to commercial. I'm not
gonna be able to top that one. So,
let's, let's continue this conversation when we come
back.
You are listening to Shaping Fire, and my
guest today is natural farming innovator, Chris Trump.
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After you've caught up on the latest Shaping
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more cannabis education available to learn? Well, we
got you. Shaping Fire has a fabulous YouTube
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When I attend conventions to speak or moderate
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Welcome back. You are listening to shaping fire.
I am your host shango lows. And my
guest today is natural farming innovator, Chris Trump.
So, Chris, during the break, I was thinking
and, you know,
I got me wondering
if if we're going to spray the IPMO
on our cannabis plants and,
the the the
the allied
fungus that we're working with is on the
plant
and,
and then it it it kills these pests,
whatever they are, and they turn into little
fungal puff balls like they did in the
IMO that we were talking about. Is this
gonna leave, like, little puffy carapaces all over
our plants?
I mean, if you have a major outbreak
of a pest and it is all over
your plants,
in some way, you're going to need to
get that off. And so
hopefully, you have enough time. Maybe you're doing
foliar watering.
But,
yeah, I mean, insect buildup in a sticky
flower
is a
Bad scene, man. Is a bad scene. Yeah.
I mean, even even overuse of,
ladybugs is a major problem for people
as far as buildup goes or as far
as
insect residue and and can cause real problems.
So overuse of,
human beneficials. But,
no, the,
excuse me, the,
the puffball,
is going to be a really short lived
bloom,
and then that will fall apart.
And,
and as far and and the
insect itself,
if it has been predated,
by a fungi,
the insect will fall apart much easier or
or
dissolve,
more likely
to happen if it has,
encountered a fungi that, that attacks it. So,
you're probably in a better
scenario,
if they've been killed, first of all,
than if they're all there,
and it's gonna be easier for,
some degree of,
you know, shaking off or or fully your
wash.
Right on. It sounds to me like there's
like there's like 3 layers of
of use. It's like number 1, ipmo is
going to be far best used as a
preventative
because then you don't have to deal
with all of the adult pests,
fuzzballed and having to, you know, clean up
the evidence. Right? So do everything as a
preventative is gonna be better. And then our
secondary is that, oh, I've I've got an
outbreak. I'm experiencing pest pressure.
And then you, you know, you're using it
as a foliar and and maybe even as
a soil drench if they've got a, soil
period of life.
And, you know, hopefully, they will,
you know fall fall off the plant I
hope it's in veg for you or or
maybe you're picking them off by hand something
like that and but at least they're dead
right
but then your third version is you've got
an outbreak. Right? You've got spider mites that
are building tents on your plants, and that's
just about being a big kid and realizing
that plants gotta be removed. Right? And so
really you're you're trying to save the rest
of the crop
by getting rid of these,
pests so that they don't spread and or
put down like serious anchor roots in your
cultivation location.
So so, you know, is this spray a
panacea?
It is. And if you if if you'd
use it as a preventative,
but if you're using it after,
you know, your pest has already taken over
your plants,
the plant very well may be done. So
so, you know, be mature about what you
expect
the the IPMO to do versus
how colonized your plants are with the enemy.
Yeah. And and the IPMO,
like,
process takes time. So if you're
in, like, freak out, you know, takeover, you're
you're probably not gonna wanna spend a couple
weeks,
3 weeks, you know, getting all set up
to be spraying I IPMO if you haven't
started yet.
Not to mention learning curve if you've never
done it before. So this is alone if
you haven't made it yet. Yeah. Exactly.
Yeah. So this is this is definitely something
as,
you know,
integrated pest management system. You know?
You know, you're you're these are these are
things you're thinking about ahead of time. What
is my IPM
for this coming crop year? You know, that
is,
the the right way to go about this.
Also, yeah, it does it does work to
kill things and,
don't isn't isn't that what's all in in
those, vape carts, Shango? They they sell them
dispensary?
Yeah, man. They're all they're all they're all
filled with
like spider mites.
Dear
lord. There's a place for that.
Someone will buy it.
Dear lord.
That's a good point, though. You said, you
know, you you might not be able to
get a solution as fast as you want.
How what what is the
the protocol cycle, if you will,
if you are using
IPMO for an outbreak. Clearly, the preventative starts
at the beginning. But but if if you're
coming to this because you've got an outbreak,
how like, let's assume that I already have
the IPMO already made, and let's say that
I'm starting to, do light foliar today.
How long should I expect it to take
for the fungus to take up,
colony
and to start, munching on all my pests?
Yeah. If you have a
total
outbreak,
and,
regardless
of what your pest is,
a
and this, you do in fact have
a actual IPMO,
then,
you can apply it,
every 4 days
for
in 3 applications
would be like a full cycle kill. You
know? So if you have different there's different
life cycles on different pests, but, hitting
pretty much the across the board pests,
if you apply it every 4 days.
Sorry. That's not right. Once a day for
4 days,
would be,
every pest would be hit in their adult
or or in,
and then,
and then you can take a break,
of 3 days and do it again.
So,
8 applications
over a period of 11 days,
would be like,
I I'm really worried. I have it on
my shelf. I wasn't using it.
We have the beginning of an outbreak. We
wanna make sure we get everything,
apply it every day for 4 days, and
then,
give it a a 3 day rest and
then do it again. So that would be
kind of your whole
gambit of pests
killed. Alright.
Do you see any benefit in doing, like,
a dip,
maybe, or or or a heavy foliar for
incoming clones?
No. I I say so the the again,
back to
SOP for natural farming using liquid IMO, provided
you're making it well, is once a week.
Mhmm. So once a week through veg.
A lot of natural farmers are,
adding,
the their the veg formula would be adding
in that FAA, fish amino acid, or that
real,
rich,
highly plant available nitrogen
that doesn't need to compost on your leaf.
So that that, that nitrogen we talked a
little bit last segment about how these, like,
unprocessed
nutrients
have to go through a processing phase.
Even like fish hydrolysate or or fish emulsion,
it's been blended.
It's been chopped up really fine, but there's
still a un
composted fish particle
that will now land on your leaf and
need to process there.
And,
whereas FAA
went through
the belly,
metaphorically of or or literally
of a microbe
completely processed, and now is the processed
version
of that same nutrient,
the amino acid kind of form.
And that really doesn't have any more processing.
It can be taken up or passed through
that,
tissue into the plant as is.
And so that that you do in veg.
So
a regular, you know, weekly application of liquid
IMO would be great. And then maybe every
other week or every week you're putting in
the nitrogen.
You don't brew with nitrogen in the liquid
IMO though. So,
also,
it may be that we're not getting a
ton of
replication
of IPMO in the water column.
So,
sorry. I'm rabbit trailing. Shango, should we stop
and clarify?
Sure. Actually, I'm gonna, I think that we
have made that point really well, and I'm
going to ask you the follow-up question, which
is,
do you see any reason why we can't
target
more than one variety of pest
in,
the IMO? So is it possible that we're
collecting the IMO and, okay, we're going to
put,
you know, pest 1 in there. But I
also have a problem with pest 2 in
my area, and so I'm gonna put that
pest
on my rice as well. And so I'm
gonna have a a double duty IPMO,
or or you are you more of the
line of no. No. No. No. 1 IPMO
per pest and then rotate them through?
Great clarifying question. I really appreciate that. So,
if you put 1
carapace
insect,
in
with rice and it gets colonized or,
gets chewed on,
that is your broad spectrum
IPMO complete,
meaning there is not
another
now that doesn't mean that you can't,
do,
potentially better
by having
your locust and your beetle both in your
rice. And,
you know, maybe it's, you know, that one
fungi really likes that, that beetle flavor, you
know, soft drink,
you know, but really,
it's it's not,
a lot of these,
entomopathogenic
fungi,
are,
broad spectrum, if you will. They they they
go for
kind of,
whatever has that protein,
and every time it when it passes them
or they
blow by on the wind and land on
it,
that is gonna go after whatever it finds
that has that protein, has their food source.
I see. Oh, go ahead. Yeah. Go ahead.
So so I get it. So you're saying
alright. So the you you know,
if you wanna add multiple pests
to your rice, like, you you can't, you
you fine. But really,
the the the picture, the context is bigger
than that. It's it's not that, oh, I
wanna target pest 1 and and target pest
2 because the ipmo isn't targeting the pest.
It's targeting chitin, which is what the carapace
is made of. So as as far as
the,
our partner fungus is concerned, they're the same
pest because they both are carrying
its food around on its back.
Yeah. And if it's a seed in early
germination,
it's the same food source.
Man, I'd be really tempted to actually spray
germinating
seeds or or or even just, like, just
after germination
to spray them with the IPMO
so that
it replicates as the plant grows.
Absolutely.
Oh, or or
even better, you put the seed in soil
that's been treated with IPMO Oh, yeah. Even
better. Thriving Yep. Thriving ecosystem Dude, totally. Which
is what nature's doing. Right? Right.
Yeah. Because then the the soil is already
housing,
our our partner fungus plus all of, like,
its helper, you know you know some biology
and yeah and it's well established at that
point so start so start building ipmo
into your soil oh god that's a great
addition to a soil recipe right there boy.
Mhmm. Yes. Gosh.
Alright. So, I you've already hit on this,
but I wanna make it really clear for
for anybody who still has this question.
IPMO
plays nicely with all the other forms of
Korean natural farming. Correct?
Yes
great I just wanted to make that nice
and clear
so
let's see here what have I what do
I still have that I have in here
oh yeah so so you know this show
is about cannabis right but but but
but but most of us who grow cannabis
love cultivating plants as well and and I
am definitely one of those people that cannabis
was a gateway to food
farming. Right? Mhmm. You know, for most of
my life, I've just been growing this one
plant that I have this special relationship with,
but, you know, as as as we saw,
you know, access to food get questionable there
a few years back, I've
dove into food farming.
And,
this is something that we can use on
on all of our food crops. Right? Is
there is there any crop that you have
come across where this is not a good
idea?
That's a pretty broad question about I just
asked you. But
Yeah. No.
I again, I I,
I have worked a a bunch in the
cannabis industry,
but,
most of my work is not. Most of
my work is with food farmers,
and
I cannot,
I can't see a downside.
Again, we're not doing anything
wild,
in as far as nature goes. Right? We're
we're just taking something that's already there
and,
and making sure it gets on our crops
that we're growing. Because
sometimes
when we are growing
wherever it is we're growing,
we've
tilled it
and it actually used to be lawn or,
we actually bought it in bags and brought
it indoors. You know, there hasn't been the
establishment of life. So really,
we're,
not afraid.
I I will say I will bring I
I think, if I can maybe,
take liberty with your question and go a
little more broad. Sure. Go ahead.
I will give a caution,
that I think is really important and I
appreciate
the trigger,
or the, the nudge
we,
we are collecting
microbes
without,
specifying,
our collection. Right? We're in in natural farming.
We're doing a,
a broad,
invite
by putting out this food and by getting
it from different places. Ideally, we have a
bunch of different places we've got our microbes
from.
And then
we're,
further cultivating it.
And when we finish IMO 3,
it dries out
and is really almost like a powder.
And if I look at it under a
microscope, what that powder consists of is a
bag of marbles that's packed with fungal spores.
So in an ideal, you did really great,
great job making IMO 3 under a microscope
now
that it's all dried. We've used up all
the water.
We have desiccated fungal bodies, meaning they ran
out of water. So they sporulated, they push
their nucleus into a fruiting head and made
a bunch of spores.
They're now sitting there waiting to be reintroduced
to water so they can wake up. But
all those spores,
are great for the forest,
but
they, we have made a concentrate
just like if you have a new cannabis
smoker
and you're, you're about to introduce them to
your dab rig. You say, now this is,
concentrated maybe
more than nature would normally give you on
your first toke. Yeah. You know? Take it
easy.
We have a super concentrate of fungi,
and fungal spores specifically in an IMO 3
or an IMO 4 that's dried,
or a liquid IMO.
And so,
there though it's safe, I've drank my liquid
IMO now,
throughout the year for,
12 years.
I've bathed in IMO and eaten IMO 2
any chance I get.
And,
and, I know many people that have.
IMO is,
really just,
if done well, a replication
of a forest floor.
That said, sorry, long,
long lead up to,
it can be,
overly,
concentrated
for an immunocompromised
person,
you know, to breathe in, to inhale a
massive amount of microbes,
albeit beneficial microbes.
The,
the reality is that
good
microbes can have a negative impact
on a person,
in various, you know, health conditions. Anything isn't
great. Right. You know? Right. So so we
have a concentrate. So I just I think
a general caution
that you are,
producing
a massive quantity. Your your the the goal
with IMO 3 is that we're really,
we're we're,
multiplying
again and again to,
produce our our microbes. I have a friend,
Pancho. He's on one of my videos on
my YouTube.
I haven't talked to him in a while,
which is definitely my fault, not his.
And,
he can't be around IMO 3 or 4
production
that dust gets in the air. He's, you
know, he's a long time rocker. He was
crazy horse, Neil Young, crazy horse.
And for whatever reason,
that has put him in a state where
he starts breathing that he itches and has
a, like
a autoimmune response.
You know? Whereas I have no negative,
effect. And so I think just in general,
though I'm not so worried about a plant,
I am concerned,
that, we just be beware
for humans, especially,
elderly.
I have encountered,
2 or 3 people in my whole journey
that IMO makes a niche and, and they're
all, you know, over 50,
over 60,
humans. And, and so,
yeah, just, that's the that's the big caution,
I guess. Sorry for the long winded explanation.
But Well, at least we at least we
understand why. And I think that I'll even
throw this in there is that even though
people,
drink their,
their preps,
to kind of, like, prove a point,
you know, it doesn't matter who you are.
You should be wearing a mask when foliaring
these things because just because you can drink
it does not mean that it plays well
in your lungs.
And so, you know, anytime doing the foliar,
if it's not just water, it is well
advised to wear some sort of mask.
Yeah. I I think, I think it goes
back to what did you actually produce. Did
it go well?
If I'm making it, I feel safe, you
know, to to breathe it in. But, but,
yeah, if you're making it for the first
time or you tried something new or whatever,
yeah, it's just a general, you know, take
care of yourself.
These are
concentrates.
Right on. Alright. So here's our last question,
Chris. So I wanna take I wanna take
you a step back from all the specificity
that we have had today
and and and think about the student who
is, considering
IPMO
for the first
time and has just listened to all of
the details that we have given, you know,
move moving from different types of science to
different kinds of, like, processes to make it.
Maybe they've experimented with IMO, maybe they haven't,
But but maybe they're they're probably feeling, you
know, a little bit overwhelmed with, like, I
really want IPMO,
but holy f. There there's a lot of
science here I have to remember, and there's
a lot of steps. And yet we wanna
we wanna support them because this is this
could really radically improve their cultivation or their
farm. And so here here's my question for
you, handing you the the mic for a
nice nice dismount.
What advice would you give to someone
just starting to make an experiment with predatory
IMO in the garden
to to help, like, I don't know,
soothe their nervousness about the complexity of it
and to kind of, like, assure them that
that they can freaking do it?
Absolutely.
So
in 8 days from listening to this,
you can foliar
a,
a liquid IPMO
and and have it be a 100%
exactly as I would do it.
It's it's it's really doable, and that would
be using your IMO 2 to make a
liquid IMO,
But you basically,
get a natural,
material container,
you know, like a box,
and cook some rice.
Actually, I have a fun,
bomb to drop.
Shango, you inviting me to do,
a,
IPMO
interview,
inspired me to
make a
IPMO how to. Oh, that's fabulous.
It does not have all this science we
talked about. I kept it super truncated and
short.
So you know? Is that on is that
on your YouTube channel? It's gonna be. I
literally just, finished the last portion of it
this morning before we jumped on the call.
That's why I was maybe gonna be late.
I got stuck in the woods.
But, but no. It's,
yeah, gonna be on my YouTube channel. It
will be, by the time they're listening to
this. So, yes, it is there. And,
yeah, it'll it'll it'll take you through just
the practical, but
you don't have to watch it to, take
the interview and, go right into it.
Literally
rice cooked al dente
placed,
just like an IMO one. And,
if that succeeds
mixing it with brown sugar, taking a handful
of that,
putting it in a
sock or something within air stones, because these
are aerobic organisms
and brewing it for 24 hours and spraying
it on. And you will have,
your IPMO foliar.
It's that simple. So,
and,
the,
downside
is,
is really not there.
You know, as long as you, go through
that process,
you're gonna be putting wonderful nutrients.
Again, I'm gonna return to something we said
in,
earlier in the
interview, and I just can't say enough.
Do not,
adlib. Do not,
do not,
shoot from the hip.
Do not come up with your own IPMO
recipe.
And that's where, cause that's the only way
you could go wrong. If you just try
and hone in on what we're talking about
and,
how to do it,
It's really accessible. And,
what I love about natural farming,
I am,
I'm a super nerd in,
this stuff. I love to learn about it.
There's a lot to learn about it.
You don't have to know
all the science
to follow a recipe.
You don't have to understand every detail
and hold all of this in your head
and heart
to have the benefit for your plants.
You just have to be good at doing
step 1 through 4
and literally just experience the benefit or experience
the outcome of,
yeah, the,
what nature is already doing.
Nature,
I love that it is more complex
than,
we understand or than our understanding.
And at the same time,
you don't have to know a darn thing
about the complexity
of nature to walk up to an apple
tree, pick an apple, and eat it, and
say this is good. Feeds me.
So that's what we're doing here. Right on.
Chris, thank you so much. I really appreciate
that that summation. It's like it's like you
don't you don't need to know everything
in order to to to participate in this.
You just need enough to do the recipe.
Very similarly, like, you know, I don't know
how my everything functions in my car but
I can totally drive
and you know I can I can learn
how to fix different parts of my car
as I go
so so chris thank you so much you
know you you educate people all around the
world and you've been doing this a long
time now, and you're certainly an ally to
the cannabis industry?
And, and just thank you for for the
time that you spend with those of us
in cannabis, and then most specifically, thanks for
spending your very valuable time with us here
today so that we can learn more about
ipmo. When I when I stumbled across it
3 weeks ago, I was like, holy crap.
I can't believe Chris and I haven't talked
about this already. And so, thanks for freeing
up your schedule to be here with us.
Thanks a lot, dude.
Yeah. Absolutely, Sango. And, yeah, thanks listeners for,
for the time you put in. If you
got this far,
I think you deserve a round of applause.
Yeah. Right on, dude. Right on. Alright, dear
listeners. So if you would like
to know more about, Chris Trump and more
maybe even more importantly, his videos,
I'm gonna give you 3 places for you
to go. The first is his website for
his business, Biomay,
which is
www.biomay.solutions.
And and Biomay is biome
i.solutions.
And if that sounds weird to you, like,
it's his his his URL is different. It's
not a dot com. It's a dot solutions.
Right? So it's www.biomay.
Solutions,
and and your browser will get you there.
So so on the BIOMAY website, you can
find out about Chris. You can get access
to all sorts of resources.
You can get the free classes. You can
find about upcoming free and paid classes,
and there are resources for how to make
the various natural fermentations
that
Chris has been teaching about all these years,
plus there are links to the YouTube videos.
So so, like, big win there at at
at www.biomay.
Solutions.
Now
if if if you
want something, like, you know, on the regular,
you can also follow his Instagram at biomei
solutions, and that's,
biomei.
Solutions
is his
profile there on IG.
And then and then if you're interested in
following Chris for for, you know, Chris himself
as a human as he travels around the
world and teaches different farmers and and and,
you know, learn some of these new,
innovations that he's coming up with, like, first
before they even become classes.
Then you want his personal Instagram, which is
soil steward,
soil steward.
And, you can follow Chris. You can comment.
Chris reads that stuff. And also there's an
entire community. There's like a, you know, 35,000
followers or something on his on his Instagram.
And it's a really nice place
to to learn and also to to interact
with other people in our community
who have who have got the best of
intentions it's a very well well behaved place
so great place to learn and that's at
soil steward
on instagram
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