-
ICMag with help from Landrace Warden and The Vault is running a NEW contest in November! You can check it here. Prizes are seeds & forum premium access. Come join in!
Bokashi for beginners: what is it, and what can it do for me?
- Thread starter mad librettist
- Start date
http://www.csu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/136685/bokashi_bucket.pdf
This link contains information already discussed here but has a simple picture on the last page showing what you can and cannot bokashi that helps to reference.
This link contains information already discussed here but has a simple picture on the last page showing what you can and cannot bokashi that helps to reference.
Anybody still reading this thread?
I make my own bokashi bran, using bulk wheat bran or rice hulls as the carbon source.
Works great, but I am puzzled about how to dry it. If the microbes are sensitive to heat and prefer an anaerobic environment, that seems to eliminate heat and air as drying methods, and without heat and air... how am I supposed to dry it? Yet you're not supposed to keep undried stuff for more than a couple weeks, right?
Thus far I have just been using the wet stuff in our bucket, and using way more than is necessary in order to exhaust my supply before a few weeks elapses.
Love EM-1 and Bokashi, but the fact that it's SEKRIT PROPRIETARY TECHNOLOGY makes it a PITA at times.
I make my own bokashi bran, using bulk wheat bran or rice hulls as the carbon source.
Works great, but I am puzzled about how to dry it. If the microbes are sensitive to heat and prefer an anaerobic environment, that seems to eliminate heat and air as drying methods, and without heat and air... how am I supposed to dry it? Yet you're not supposed to keep undried stuff for more than a couple weeks, right?
Thus far I have just been using the wet stuff in our bucket, and using way more than is necessary in order to exhaust my supply before a few weeks elapses.
Love EM-1 and Bokashi, but the fact that it's SEKRIT PROPRIETARY TECHNOLOGY makes it a PITA at times.
Herb Tarlek
Member
Get yourself a tarp maybe 8 x 8 and spread it out on a nice sunny day. A full day in the sun is plenty of dry time. Remember to agitate it a few times through out the day. If it is still moist don't worry it will still store fine at around 20 to 25 percent moisture. I believe that a bit of moisture helps its in storage. I have my bran in a 5 gallon bucket for 6 months now and it is as good as day one. If it smells like cider vinegar your all good.
Herb Tarlek
Member
I just buried a full bucket that sat in my yard all summer 3 to 4 months many 90 degree plus days. I wonder if it will still compost like it should. I swear i could still smell it and I buried it 1.5 feet down. I must say that the Bokashi compost was a bit scary when you first uncover it after 8 or 10 weeks. The pile is infested with insects millipedes, worms, potato bugs, all sorts of creepy crawly stuff. It almost looks like the pile is breathing. I couldn't bring this stuff into my indoor worn bin way too much foreign bug life. But it is some of the richest compost I have seen. I just left it buried within proximity to my vegetable plot. It is amazing how lobster and crab shell can breakdown in such a quick time. I would figure around a 90% full material breakdown. Still saw a couple of orange peel pieces. I'm curious if anyone has ever treated their plant waste material with Bokashi bran. Throw it in a garbage bag and let it rest for a month or so.
Isn't sunlight anti-microbial? And isn't fresh air not the optimal environment for anaerobic microbes? That was the point of my initial post, if it was unclear. I know *how* to dry things in the sun, but since both sun and air seem inhospitable to the microbial life I'm trying to cultivate on the bokashi bran, I am wondering how else to dry it.
OK, I guess I won't worry about it. Note that the recipe on the Teraganix site doesn't specify how one might dry the stuff after making.
rrog
Microbeman really knows his stuff on the EM-1 deal as well as from other sources like Vinnie Pinto, et al. and I believe that when he creates the AEM he uses light for the development of the PNSB strains (Purple Non-Sulfur Bacteria) that are included in various versions of EM-1 - specifically the agriculture formulas.
CC
I read a couple of great posts from MM where he described the difficulty of making your own EM-1.
I'm trying my hand at this and thought I'd just collect locally dominant strains and make a simple LAB serum to inoculate the bran. My understanding is that my locally acquired EM will work to at least get the process started, then the indigenous soil microbes finish it.
That's my hope, anyway. Does MM sell the stuff?
I'm trying my hand at this and thought I'd just collect locally dominant strains and make a simple LAB serum to inoculate the bran. My understanding is that my locally acquired EM will work to at least get the process started, then the indigenous soil microbes finish it.
That's my hope, anyway. Does MM sell the stuff?
rrog
One source for EM-1 is TeraGanix and there are different formulas and related products you can look at.
What is often done is to take an amount of EM-1, add a carbohydrate like molasses and water and you let that ferment to a pH below 3.8 and that process is discussed here "How to Make Activated EM-1 (AEM)" and there is much more information to look read and review.
HTH
CC
One source for EM-1 is TeraGanix and there are different formulas and related products you can look at.
What is often done is to take an amount of EM-1, add a carbohydrate like molasses and water and you let that ferment to a pH below 3.8 and that process is discussed here "How to Make Activated EM-1 (AEM)" and there is much more information to look read and review.
HTH
CC
Herb Tarlek
Member
You make good points, but my Bokashi bran is awesome and I dried it in the sun on a 85 degree day. My Bokashi turned crab and lobster shells into great compost in 8 weeks.....Peace and good luck. I am not a scientist but I play one on the internet....just like most ya'll.
