How I feed my Banana Plants, prevent weeds, and build soil at the same time- A short discussion on soil microbiology and microbial amendments

I conducted most of the laboratory soil and plant tissue analysis for this research.

IMO4- Stands for indigenous micro organisms (in the 4th phase of development) is a form of indigenous microorganism inoculated compost made from agriculture by-products, high in carbohydrates, and a moderate concentration of plant available nutrients.

Korean Natural Farming sounds like a really cool idea and it also produces results.

But,

In short, our data showed that regular mulch or decomposing organic matter has the same effects as the highly touted and comparatively labor intensive IMO4.

How can regular mulch have the same effects on plant growth and soil health and a supposed microbe rich IMO4 concentration? You might ask...

Essentially what is taking place is the mulch microbes are out competing the IMO4 microbes. The IMO4 microbes becoming food for the mulch microbes is the reason we see good plant growth results when adding IMO4.

So, What can we conclude?

JUST ADD MULCH

Get green waste however you can and consistently add it to your soils.

Here is how I feed my rare Hawaiian Banana collection while keeping down the grasses and building soil for future generations of bananas.

This what the bananas look like in an unmanaged state (too many hours spent at school and not on the farm)

A little weed whacking and de-leafing. All green waste piled around banana clumps as Green manure

Now time for some cardboard to prevent those grasses from poking through the mulch

Cover Cardboard with mulch

We even plant food right in to the mulch! In this banana clump there is some Diakon radish and Okinowan Purple Sweet Potato

If you made it this far, thank you very much for taking the time to look. Follow me and introduce yourself to see more of our Permaculture food forest development project onThe Big Island of Hawaii