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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Bokashi Anyone?

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  • From: Steve Diver <steved AT ipa.net>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Bokashi Anyone?
  • Date: Mon, 04 Nov 2013 17:24:07 -0600

Ann and all -

My take-home message on EM is to view it as a microbial tool with multiple uses on a farm.

It can be used for application to soils and roots (via fertigation, soil drenches, or bio-sprays), to plant foliage (via foliar fertilizer blends or pest suppressive sprays), to livestock water and livestock feed (probiotic), to livestock stalls as a spray or mist (bedding and manure remediation), to livestock manures (odor remediation and pre-digestion), to manure lagoons (odors, management, conversion), and so forth.

The concept of EM in livestock-manure-watershed management is "upstream-downstream". Introduce it at the source (i.e., drinking water+livestock feed, the gut, and then poop, manure pile storage, runoff, compost or direct application, etc) and get the microbes working and interacting as a "management tool" vs happenchance. Happenchance is where you get stinky odors, messes, and runoff. Management is where you direct the microbial pathway of organic matter decomposition and ensure protection of watersheds by understanding the difference between putrefactive situations and managed aerobic & fermentative anaerobic situations, selecting from your toolbox, and implementing a set of practices -- which includes manure sheds or compost fleece blankets, aerobic/thermophilic composting where appropriate, integration of EM, and other means available to farmers.

With soil and plant systems, EM is a tool for MEND - Microbial Enhanced Nutrient Delivery - through it's contribution to soil biology mechanisms such as multiple functions, bio-digestion, nutrient cycling, etc It can be used for both nutrient facilitation (MEND) in the rhizosphere and phyllosphere and for pest suppression, especially the EM concoction recipes.

Your cost is less than $1/acre to maybe $10/acre, per application....depending.

Bokashi is a big topic to itself. The popular notion of EM Bokashi food scraps has limited applications on a small-scale, unless you shift gears and integrate EM Bokashi food scraps with an on-farm vermicomposting setup. Worms love it.

Large-scale food scrap handling -- managed via EM Bokashi -- is a great way to handle upstream-downstream handling and transport of a highly putrescent biomass material, finally serving as a feedstock at a full-scale thermophilic windrow composting operation, which could be an on-farm setup.

The kind of Bokashi I am talking about is Farm Bokashi. This can be made with EM or with IMO methods. These involve on-farm and brought-in raw biomass feedstocks, recipes, and microbial processes that may or may not undergo biothermic temperatures, depending on the system, but the end result being that you wind up with a humusy organic substrate; beneficial microbes; transformed organic matter.

Two of my lectures at the KCSA Resilient Farmer Workshops are available online, including my 2013 summary on EM/IMO. It helps to understand the context by looking at both lectures vs "just microbial inoculants".

Managing Organic Matter for Soil Health & Fertility
http://www.kerrcenter.com/publications/Managing_Organic_Matter_for_Soil_Health-and-Fertility_4-28-12.pdf

Microbial Inoculants: Effective Microorganisms (EM) & Indigenous Microorganisms (IMO)
http://www.slideshare.net/MauraMcDW/emimo-kcsa-resilient-farmer-april-2013

Let me know if that helps,

Steve Diver


moon AT ceva.net wrote:
Greetings All,
Steve, you mentioned Bokashi, can you or anyone on list report on
this and EM-1? I've not bought in to the starter,never got clear
feedback. I hear now, by the 2ed year you can see the diff.
Alison, I hope to see you present in Richmond at Va. Biological Farmers
Conf.
Ann,Va zone6-7







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