Effective Micro-organisms

[IsaanAussie]

Try googling Korean Natural Farming for IMO information. There are a few things you can add to your compost and bokashi formulations to make fertiliser to replace chemical NPK. The issue with most compost is the nutrients are not plant available until the microbes have done their job. By fermenting compost that process happens before the compost is used.

When things slow down in my composting I find it is usually moisture related to little and the microbes go to sleep and too much a chance to for things to go anaerobic and putrify. Since I changed to this probiotic excess moisture doesnt seem to matter as this strain of LAB works under either condition. It must be more acidic I suppose, but by incorporating CRH in the mixing things seem to balance. My manure compost starts at about pH5 but by the time it is finished it is sitting at 6.5.

[loong]

Thanks for the info IA.

I went to the Land Development Department office in Khon Kaen the other day. They were low on stock, but they gave me enough vetiver grass to get started and also 10 Kg of sunn hemp seeds.

They are very keen on farmers using more organic methods and reduction of chemical use. They have now developed their own versions of EM, called LDD1 to LDD12 (in Thai, Paw Daw 1 - 12). They gave me some free samples of LDD1 and LDD3 to try. These are in granular/powdered form. Surprisingly, they also have a small instructional booklet in English (Soil Biotechnology for Increasing Crop Production in Thailand). The English is not perfect but good enough.

I didn't establish whether additional orders of the LDD range would be free or not.

I'm still learning and experimenting with EM and bokashi at the moment, so will not be in a hurry to play around with the LDD micro-organisms, something for a later date when I have more spare time and more organic materials.

[IsaanAussie]

You got it Loong, it is all about learning. Perhaps understanding is the real goal even if the knowledge base is a bit thin. Once I got a feel for using microbes rather than checking against numbers in chemical ferts NPK's my perspective changed.

The proof was in the pudding for me. I have had some very good results lately but when my daughter visited this week and her gift was a pH test kit I could actually test stuff and was pleased to find the results were as they should be.

[loong]

Yes, it's all about learning and experimenting.

There is a lot of stuff on the internet, but mostly commercial sites that sell bokashi bran or other innoculants. It can be difficult and time consuming to sift out the interesting stuff.

Do you buy in materials (eg seed cake) to mix in your composts/fertilisers IA ? Or do you just use your pig manure and other things from your farm?

At the moment I am mainly using vegetation from on site, buying in rice bran and some cow manure. I also pick up a few bags of free rice husks when getting the bran. I really have no idea of the nutrient content of what I am producing.

Obviously, I also buy in the EM and molasses. I have come across 3 different brands of liquid EM so far, the original at 90 Baht and others around 60 Bt. I was in a "Do Home" store last week and they sell the original EM at around 74Bt litre. They also have 10 L size, but I wouldn't need that much.

For anyone with just a small garden that wants to experiment, they also have a smaller bottle and small bags of carbonised rice husks (9Bt). Expensive if you need a lot, but ideal for someone who wants to try out on a small scale.

Seems like it is just IA and I keeping this thread going. There were a few more contributors at the start. Has anyone else persevered? It would be interesting to hear about others' experiences.

[IsaanAussie]

I do buy in materials. I get rice hulls from the local mill by the pickup load and buy rice bran in town. Lime, gypsum, dolomite and rock phosphate will be the next ingredients needed for fertiliser and most of the constituants for feed. I grow aquatic plants, duck weed and azolla on the pond but in limited amounts. I hope to be able to at least substitute some farm grown protein and nitrogen. Cassava meal I can make by buying the roots.

The manure based compost is not in short supply and forms the base for most fertilisers being worked on. Worm castings as well and I plan to increase that capacity as soon as possible. I have our rice straw baled by will hit a limit when the gardens get going properly.

Mixed bag really.

[Oleg14]

Anybody know where can i get it on Phuket?

[loong]

Anybody know where can i get it on Phuket?

By "it" I assume that you mean EM.

I don't know Phuket, don't even know if there is farming done there.

If there is a store that sells fertiliser, the chance are that it will also sell EM and molasses.

Otherwise, if you have a "Do Home" store, they should have it. Maybe in the gardening section of Homemart?

[IsaanAussie]

Anybody know where can i get it on Phuket?

Sure do! The local bus station. I send stuff all over the place by bus.

[IsaanAussie]

Time for an update on the fertiliser front. I have made up some fertiliser which consists of my manure compost (used semi matured) this was mixed with the 3 limes and rock phosphate and moistened with a 1:1 LAB probotic and water. This comes out of the mixer into feed bags and left to ferment for 7 to 10 days. I was a little surprised that it didnt get as hot as I expected but enough heat was generated to dry the mix.

Waiting on the hammermill finally getting here to grind it up and then start looking for a pellet maker. I hope that there will be enough potassium from the manure everything else should be adequate. Target fertilising our rice around tillering time.

This time of year is perfect for soil building as everything decomposes so quickly and the soil is diggable. Rice straw is brilliant for this and I am using all the grass cuttings, clay, compost, and three different EM type solutions. Progress has been slow because the straw bales I leave out in the rain as usual produce heaps of straw mushrooms and the wife sells them in the shop. Yesterday she was baled up by a sizable snake as she looked for mushrooms so I hope the enthusiasm will wane and I can get on with spreading more partly rotted straw.

The process is to cut the weeds and dose with EM then cover with straw, then manure and compost, then a layer of clay based soil. Drench with EM. Three weeks and dig all that in and start again. So far so good.

[stevehaigh]

Anybody know where can i get it on Phuket?

there is a place in town, turn into town (east) at the central traffic lights, drive past FC phuket, stay left at the Y split by Thai Hua school, go another 100m or so and look for a 7/11 on your left. the shop is about 20m after the 7/11. they only sell garden chemicals, seeds, potting bags, etc, no plants.

[WtFugarwe]

I have always considered EM to be pop science. Microbes require oxygen and EM is anerobic. I take about 4 kilos of finished plant based compost in cheesecloth, suspend in a 32 gallon plastic trash can,fil it with water., then suspend the hose of an aquarium pump for aeration i the water. I add molasses to feed the microbes and they reproduce in multiples.

[drtreelove]

On 10/7/2014 at 4:32 AM, WtFugarwe said:

I have always considered EM to be pop science. Microbes require oxygen and EM is anerobic. I take about 4 kilos of finished plant based compost in cheesecloth, suspend in a 32 gallon plastic trash can,fil it with water., then suspend the hose of an aquarium pump for aeration i the water. I add molasses to feed the microbes and they reproduce in multiples.

In my opinion this statement is flawed and gives a wrong impression, confusing EM (effective microorganisms) with AACT (actively aerated compost tea) .  

Both of which are cultured for the "microbes" content, but with different combinations of organisms for different purposes. All EM is not created equal, as with compost, compost extract and compost tea.  Both EM and compost derivatives have aerobic and anerobic components. 

 

Dr Elaine Ingham's Soil Food Web School has the compost/AACT cultivation down to a science with microscope analysis of exactly which organisms are present in the mix and which are desireable or not for soil and plant health. There are many formulas that have come out of this general approach, with bacterial dominant and fungal dominant microbe mixes cultured for specific purposes. 

 

Dr Higa's original EM formula is what the concept of EM and many EM formula's are based on, and which is primarily a "bio-digester" used for sewage and manure decomp and odor control, to accelerate crop residue and turf thatch decomp, pond water algae control, and other purposes.