Mikrobioma preparation

The steps

1. Collect the plant part that carries the target microbes, at the plant's most active stage and time of day. Early morning is the book's default. Record it as a batch in the field tool.
2. Clean with chlorine-free water, removing loose soil but keeping the soil that clings to the roots (the rhizosphere). Rural water is usually chlorinated; use well water, rainwater or dechlorinated water.
3. Grind a few grams in 100 mL of chlorine-free water with one adjuvant, usually raw honey or molasses.
4. Incubate on the farm, covered, in the dark and without stirring, at the temperature and for the time Anscari sets for that strain. Most strains take 2 to 4 days.
5. Extract 1 mL with a syringe from a set height above the bottom of the container, where the target microbes concentrate.
6. Dilute to 6CH: six 1:100 steps, shaking vigorously at each one (see Dilution and succussion). The last step is scaled to the volume the application needs (see the calculator).
7. Apply the same morning, at 1 part 6CH to 99 parts water, around 7 to 8 AM. See Timing for when in the season.

Anscari's estimate: about 25 minutes of hands-on time per batch each week, plus travel. Never use a strain taken from the same crop you're treating.

Worked example: rosemary

The one recipe the book specifies completely. Rosemary doesn't grow wild in Kansas, but the steps show every setting a recipe needs.

Recipe cards

Plant part and stage are from the book. The Kansas stand-ins (marked) are the project's proposals and need Anscari's approval. Family notes flag the rule against using strains from the crop's own plant family, which still needs clarifying for corn, wheat and soybeans.

Dilution and succussion

What "CH" means. Each CH step dilutes 1 part into 100: 1 part of the previous step plus 99 parts chlorine-free water. Six steps make 6CH, a dilution of 1 in 10¹² (one part per trillion) of the original extract. The book calls the vigorous shaking at each step dynamization; homeopathy's word for it is succussion.

How to do it

1. Line up clean glass containers, one per step, labeled 1CH to 6CH. Use a fresh syringe or pipette for each transfer so nothing carries over.
2. 1CH: add the 1 mL extract to 99 mL of chlorine-free water. Cap and shake vigorously.
3. 2CH to 5CH: move 1 mL of the previous step into 99 mL of water, shaking each time. Only the last one or two steps grow with the size of the job; the calculator below works out the exact volumes.
4. 6CH: move the calculated amount of 5CH into the calculated volume of water and mix vigorously. For tank-sized final volumes, ask Anscari how he dynamizes at that scale; a sprayer's own agitation may be what he uses.
5. Record every step in the batch record: volumes, strokes, times.

Open questions for Anscari

• Strokes per step. The book says "vigorous agitation" but gives no number. The calculator has a blank for it.
• Large final volumes. How to dynamize the last step when it is tens or hundreds of gallons.
• Holding time. How long a finished 6CH stays effective. The book says to apply within a short window.
• What is in the finished 6CH. The lettuce chapter says 10⁴ to 10⁶ live microbes per mL remain at 6CH; the earthworm chapter says live cells do not remain at 6CH. The project will settle this for our own preparations with plate counts at each step.
• Dose basis for dryland crops. The book gives 600 L per hectare for maize and 500 L for wheat. We read these as the total applied volume containing 1% 6CH, but that needs confirming.

Batch calculator

Sizes the 6CH batch for the area you're treating, lays out every dilution step, and schedules the preparation backward from the application time. Nothing is saved; it works offline once the page has been opened.