From what I have found, Magnesium is present in many places in KNF. To demonstrate with two examples
KNF Food – Mg will be present in the fermented plant juice, and even more so if it is made from certain fruits. Plants known to contain high concentrations of Mg are:
- All leafy greens
- Bananas
- Sweet Potatoes
- Winter Squash
KNF Minerals – Magnesium is present in seawater in amounts of about 1300 ppm. After sodium, it is the most commonly found cation in oceans. Rivers contains approximately 4 ppm of magnesium, marine algae 6000-20,000 ppm, and oysters 1200 ppm
I am sure there are more places where magnesium can be solubilized for plant to uptake in KNF naturally from a well balanced soil with indigenous micro organisms.
- drake answered 6 years ago
I have written a Recipe Book for KNF Solutions.
It is relatively rough in the current edition, which is why I also sell a limited edition with free updates.
- drake answered 6 years ago
The sugar cap is not necessary for fermenting plant juice to make KNF Food. The sugar cap is used when fermenting fruit juice because fruit tends to have a higher concentration of sugars and moisture, so it needs the additional sugars to create osmotic pressure to pull the liquid out of the cells before fermenting.
The recommended sugar to plant material weight is 1:1/3-1/2, so 1 kilo of plant material would be mixed with between a third to a half kilo of brown sugar. When making from fruit, the recommended sugar ratio is 1:1, so one kilo of fruit to one kilo of sugar, with a portion of the sugar reserved to make a sugar cap.
Adding a sugar cap to less sweet plant material increases the osmotic pressure too much and retards fermentation.
- drake answered 6 years ago
Layers of mold can grow on top of KNF Food made by fermenting plant material and sometimes if they are not super saturated with sugar after the extraction of juice, they will continue to ferment and may grow a mold on top.
This is a sign that the solution is not stable and is slowly degrading. To stop it from degrading and fully arrest fermentation, equal volumes of brown sugar should be added to super saturate the solution. Every water molecule will be bound with a sugar molecule and thus when microbes go to metabolize the solution, they are retarded by the sugar and eventually become inactive.
- drake answered 6 years ago
Zinc and other Micronutrients are present in KNF Minerals, also called diluted seawater.
Seawater is typically applied as a soil drench at 1:30~1:20, or if you are using sea salt you can reconstitute it to a 1:30 dilution by mixing 1g per liter of water. The drench rate is 100gal/acre in deficient soils.
This can also be combined with other KNF Foods made from fermented plant material that are known to be high in zinc.
- drake answered 6 years ago
Somewhat counter productive when you weigh cost to benefit. KNF Police also known as lactic acid bacteria are almost omnipresent in the environments within the Milky Way. Their diversity is based on multiplying with each other in the starch rich collection water, and also partly based on the amount naturally collected from the environment.
To strengthen them, the last stage of adding brown sugar to the mix to super saturate the solution for preservation also acts to activate the lactic acid bacteria present.
- drake answered 6 years ago
This is something I have never looked at. I know once the KNF Solutions are diluted, there is enough water that it will not inhibit the LAB.
Often times I make a concentrated maintenance mix containing KNF Medicine, KNF Cleanser, and KNF Food, and though sometimes it may be tempting to put LAB into that mix, it is not a good idea in the concentrated form, but once I dilute this mix 20ml/gal, THEN I add the LAB.
- drake answered 6 years ago
ULC Microbes are predominantly aerobic (or facultatively anaerobic, which is not much different for KNF applications)!
The bubble rings form because the microbes are swimming around and they create convection currents that slowly cycle all the water up to the surface where they take in oxygen. However when the population peaks, then other things start to happen and the microbes that take over are anaerobic and they stop circulating the water. You will notice a smell change happen and this is an indicator of aerobic vs anaerobic microbes in predominance. The bubble rings are also an indicator of what the water is doing in terms of movement.
I think stirring or agitating the water may inhibit the growth of some microbes and your time table may not be the same as the static tank. One would have to use a microscope to verify this scientifically.
If you are concerned about the amount of oxygen in the water, there is a device called a Bacterial Mineral Water machine, and this is one of the better ways to get oxygen + minerals + microbes into the water.
- drake answered 6 years ago
JADAM has copyright on some certain terminology, though the recipes are free and open source and so old that they are impossible to patent, so to avoid the wrath of that terrible organization, KNF Support has chosen to call these solutions Ultra Low Cost or ULC for short.
The ULC KNF Pest Solutions all fall into the list of OMRI approved materials that can be used for organic practices in the United States of America Inc. You will have to check with your individual certifier once you start mixing things.
- drake answered 6 years ago
In terms of a spray that can be used preemptively to discourage pests without damaging your plant and at the same time staying organic, yes, what you are looking for is to mix ULC KNF Pest Solutions.
There is a way to make Ultra Low Cost liquid soap at home, or a bottle of Dr. Bronners will also work, then this is blended with a concentrated herb solution.
To make the concentrated herb solution, you want to look for a plant that grows in your area that no bugs eat. In my case I use wadelia, but other recommended plants are ginkgo or jarusalem artichoke leaves. Gather a bunch of material and stuff it into a pressure cooker, then fill it half way with water and turn it on for a couple hours until the water reduces down to about a 1/4 and becomes very dark in color.
The key then is to blend these herbs with the soap and apply all over the leaves surface making the plant very unpalatable to insects.
The ratios to combine with water are
1:100 for the concentrated herbs and
1:170 for the soap.
or in other words, if I have 1 liter of water, put in 10mL of concentrated herbs and 6mL of soap.
- drake answered 6 years ago