JADAM Microbial Solution

1/8/2021

There are easy ways to add microbes to your soil that won't break the bank and instead are extremely effective. All it takes is a trip into nature and using your observation skills to find these microbes. There are a few different ways to collect microbes, including putting out a collection box using cooked rice and letting it sit for a few days to allow the microbes to colonize the rice. JADAM teaches a simpler version of this that may be easier and a little more timely. JADAM teaches collecting Leaf Mold, which is decomposed leafs. This litter is covered in microbes. The leaf mold is your starting material and your inoculate for the rest of the process. Mixing this leaf mold with some minerals, food for the microbes and water, in a container, brings the birth of JADAM Microbial Solution, also known as JMS.

JMS is an anaerobic solution using leaf mold, as the inoculate, in the absence of air. This makes the process extremely cost effective because it does not require a bunch of equipment and can be done anywhere. All you will need is a container, water, potatoes, seawater or sea salt, a few other things we will discuss later and a few days.

Some people ask, ‘what about the bad microbes or all the anaerobic microbes,’ JADAM doesn't believe in a dualistic approach like most modern approaches, where there is a line dividing good and bad. JADAM believes microbes are all workers and they work together. Instead of narrowing the pool of microbes we can expand them and incorporate all, because different microbes may have an impact on different nutrients that are available. “Good and Bad,” is something we have created, and in nature microbes live in balance, all the microbes we consider bad are there and yet, they do not cause us problems until things become imbalanced. Even to much “good,” can cause problems when not in balance.

Lets talk a little bit about what you will need and how to make JMS

Materials

5 Gallon bucket
4-5 gallons of water
Potatoes
Leaf mold
Rocks (to weigh down the bag)
Paint strainer ( to hold material)
Seawater 1:30 (for 4 gallons of water 500ml)/ Sea salt can also be used
Stick (to suspend bag)
Trash Bag or other bag to cover the top

*JADAM also provides in his book the measurements of all these ingredients to make bigger batches. For most home gardeners and small scale gardens 4 gallons of concentrated JMS will be diluted 1:10, making 40 gallons of applicable solution.

Step by step

First thing you will want to do is collect all your materials.
Fill a 5 gallon bucket with water.
Add Sea water 1:30 (500ml for 4gallons of water).
Cook/boil potatoes, making them soft and malleable (I put them in a microwave for 5 mins).
Get the paints strainer and add your rocks, leaf mold, and potatoes.
Put the bag with material into the water and massage the bag to break up the potatoes until they are no longer whole and you can't see them.
The stick will go over the bucket and tie the bag to it.
Cover with plastic bag to keep it anaerobic.
Wait 24-48 hours, maybe a little longer depending on ambient temperatures.

Sit back and let the microbes do their magic and colonize the water using the minerals in the seawater and potatoes as food. There are other food sources you can use, but potatoes help maintain an even pH, without lowering it like sugar may.

How do you know when its ready?

Keep an eye on the bucket, it may take a few tries until you are able to dial in the timing perfectly for your garden. You will want to use it when the activity reaches its peak, you will see the bubbles continue to grow. This will give you about a 12 hour window to use the solution. JMS does not keep well, so use it all up. During the winter the bubbles will be smaller and during the summer it will seem more active. You want to use the solution before the foam circle that forms breaks.

Application rates

-Dilute JMS 1:10 for soil drenching
-JMS can be used undiluted in areas that do not have plants, but will burn roots of established plants if used this way, due to the extremely high numbers of microbes.
-Use JMS when preparing soil, before planting or as your planting. JMS can also be used during transition into fruiting to help make nutrients available for your crop.
-JMS can also be used weekly to help maintain soil health. Just remember that your JMS will only be as diverse as your leaf mold.

Helpful videos

14 Comments

Rick

3/25/2022 09:39:14 am

Hi. I’ve been experimenting with JMS for the past year in my indoor cannabis garden with mixed results. I feed my living soil garden a steady diet of KNF nutrients, supplemented with JMS soil drench and foliar every two weeks.

Initially I diluted at 1:20 but experienced irregular growth including leaf chlorosis, small leaves, stunted plants and irregular trichome development (entire branches would have buds with virtually no trichomes while adjacent branches displayed normal trichome development). I controlled for possible nutrient deficiencies, pathogens, soil issues (via soil testing) and concluded the culprit was JMS concentration.

After cloning and re-vegging most plants I began another series of JMS soil drenches every two weeks but this time at a dilution of 1:50. Initially my vegging plants grew normally though somewhat slowly and now I am discovering more and more twisted, soft shoots and irregular leaf morphology.

Concerned that even the 1:50 dilution is causing this, I have stopped using JMS until I can figure out the problem.

Any thoughts?

Thanks, appreciate your site and your products,

Rick,
Chicago

Mindful grower

3/25/2022 10:15:05 am

Interesting observation. I haven’t noticed this with my set up. I wonder if you pulled the JMS sooner if it would have a different impact. Good work controlling the other possible variables. Maybe even using less frequent, what could be happening is the nutrient cycling could be releasing other nutrients.

FarmerJ

8/29/2022 01:55:25 pm

Are you outdoor, or in a green house, or even inside? Are you cloth pots or regular pots? Hole in the ground?

The cloth pot market is weird, all that oxygen in the soil near the roots, but according to KNF and JADAM, there is no oxygen 3-4 inches below and JMS is made with no oxygen.

Also, with pots, water deep 3-4 times in a month, run off, before planting... once established, don't water to run off, just keep moist.

I have messed things up with undiluted JMS, but never at 10:1 or 20:1.

What is your growing medium? I literally mix clay/silt(peat) and sand together to try to create some good loam... then heavy on JMS for a good month before anything gets planted in the pot... THEN check soil pH... potatoes in JMS should keep your soil around 6.5-6.8 pH.

Don't give up, sometimes this natural way is a big wake up call to existing systems.

5/2/2022 09:59:10 am

Hi there! I'm trying to make JMS in a 5 gallon bucket, but I haven't figured out how much sea salt to add to the solution for this amount. Your recipe includes sea water, but I don't live near the sea :(

Thanks for the awesome website!

JFarmer

8/30/2022 08:06:53 am

It's 5 gallon bucket, but only fill it up 4 gallons, leaving 1-2 inches from the top.. to 4 gallons of water, it's 15g salt or 30:1 sea water..

Dale

6/3/2023 07:54:08 am

Hi use 1 tablespoon per 5 gallon bucket of Himalayan pink sea salt. I’ve had no problems with that.

Earthling

7/28/2022 01:01:45 pm

15 grams for 4 gallons. Or 15ml

8/29/2022 01:57:36 pm

It's 15g salt or 30:1 SW(17oz to 4 gallon) with 15g leaf mold soil, 30g potatoes to 4 gallons of water.

Alagie Tunkara

8/20/2022 12:55:04 am

You mentioned that JMS can also be used during transition into fruiting to help make nutrients available for your crop.
Can I mixed with JLF? As a foliar spray or to the roots? Pls tell me in 20L how many ml when my plants are fruiting

8/29/2022 02:00:15 pm

Yes. So, you can make regular JMS (undiluted or 10:1) for soil prep.. 3-4x before planting...

But, if plants are growing... use JMS 20:1 + add in a JLF of the same crop you're trying to fertilize.

So for cucumber, use cucumber leaves to make JLF, dilute 100:1 then mix it in with your JMS for cucumber plants.

But just prepping the soil (the most important part of JADAM) use just JMS + salt... no JLF

Canni_grow_757

2/22/2023 04:42:39 am

Can I add JMS to my compost pile

Terrelle Castle

3/18/2023 02:26:15 am

I am making the JMS solution and I followed the recipe. But I am not seeing ANY activity even 3 days later. No bubbles. Nothing. And the potatoes are still intact. My container isn't food grade. I am using rain water. Any ideas on what could be causing this? If I can't make JMS, there is no natural farming for me.

Brick Barn Farms

5/7/2023 10:06:38 am

I know that this is months late but there may be others with your same questions. There can be a lot of reasons that your JMS isn't showing bubbles. What temperatures are you running? Lower temps will slow down the entire process. Where did you collect your leaf mold? is there a chance that the trees the leaves came from could be sprayed with something. What signs were there when you collected your leave mold that it was active? Don't be discouraged if it doesn't work out super well. Change a variable and try again. Sometimes it's about finding what works for you and your area.

6/3/2023 08:02:51 am

I have found that putting your potatoes in a blender and adding enough water to cover them and then blend them works well. Then you want to fill the blender up the rest of the way with water and blend again. After that dump it in your paint strainer in your bucket with your leaf mold. I have never had an issue doing it this way. I also put a tablespoon of pink Himalayan sea salt in with the potatoes when I’m blending them. Then I dunk the pate strainer with the potatoes, leaf mold and sea salt in the bucket several times and then just let the paint strainer stay in the bucket. It usually only takes me 24 to 30 hours to make a good batch.