Buckle up, buttercup. We have a groundbreaking episode for you today. It's always my goal when planning Shaping Fire episodes to offer you insightful information on topics that are important to you in cannabis, mushrooms, and other entheogens. It's rare though to have the opportunity to present you with a topic that is so far reaching that it will literally impact every country on the globe.
Today's episode is like that. Today, we will discuss how to replace nearly every chemical insecticide with a natural farming technique that is harmless and easy to make. If you wanna learn about cannabis health, cultivation, and technique efficiently and with good cheer, I encourage you to subscribe to our newsletter. We'll send you new podcast episodes as they come out delivered right to your inbox along with commentary on a couple of the most important news items from the week and videos too.
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And be sure to check out their Instagram accounts at plant_magic_homestead_ and of course, terp_ wizard to see what else they are up to. So go to shapingfire.com to sign up for the newsletter and be entered into this month's and all future newsletter prize drawings. 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
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Do yourself a solid and contact us today for rates on podcast and Instagram advertising. Email hotspot@shapingfire.com to find out more. 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. One of the challenges with buying autoflower seeds is that often you'll have as many different phenos as you will have seeds in a pack. That can be fun. Sure. But so many varieties in one pack is a sign of an immature seed line that hasn't been worked enough. I prefer my autoflowers to be worked enough that each fino in the pack really captures the aspects that the breeder was intending.
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After you've caught up on the latest Shaping Fire episodes, do you sometimes wish there was more cannabis education available to learn? Well, we got you. Shaping Fire has a fabulous YouTube channel with content not found on the podcast. When I attend conventions to speak or moderate panels, I always record them and bring the content home for you to watch. The Shango Los YouTube channel has world class speakers including Zoe Sigman's lecture, understanding your endocannabinoid
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system too. While there, be sure to check out the 3 10 part shaping fire session series. 1 with Kevin Jodrey, one with doctor Ethan Russo, and one with Jeff Lowenfell. And even my own presentations on how to approach finding your dream job in cannabis and why we choose cannabis business even though the risks are so high. As of today, there's over 200 videos that you can check out for free. So go to youtube.comforward/shango lows or click on the link in the newsletter.
Sometimes the topics I wanna share with you are far too brief for an entire Shaping Fire episode. In those instances, I post them to Instagram. I invite you to follow my 2 Instagram profiles and participate online. The Shaping Fire Instagram has follow-up post to Shaping Fire episodes, growing and processing best practices, product trials, and of course, gorgeous flower photos.
The Shango Loast Instagram follows my travels on cannabis garden tours, my successes and failures in my own garden, insights and best practices from personal grows everywhere, and always gorgeous flower photos. On both profiles, the emphasis is on sharing what I've learned in a way that you can replicate it in your own garden, your own HashLab, or for your own cannabinoid path. So I encourage you to follow at shaping fire and at shango lows and join our online community on Instagram.
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, 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, 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, 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 you can find more episodes of the shaping fire podcast and subscribe to the show at shapingfire.com and wherever you get your podcasts.
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transcripts of today's podcast as well. Be sure to follow on Instagram for all original content not found on the podcast. That's at shapingfire and at shangolos on Instagram. Be sure to check out Shaping Fire YouTube channel for exclusive interviews, farm tours, and cannabis lectures. Does your company wanna reach our national audience of cannabis enthusiasts? Email hotspot@shapingfire.com to find out how. Thanks for listening to Shaping Fire. I've been your host, Shango Los.