Mo-Mo Rice: 90-Day Growth Record After Transplanting

As the season moves into late autumn, the Start of Winter is almost here (by the time this article was published, the Start of Winter had already passed). Scrolling up and down through my past articles, I noticed that they almost always begin by describing the season, the weather and the solar terms. Why do I always naturally want to open with the turning of the four seasons and the warmth and cold of the earth? Probably because I want to convey the atmosphere of life here to friends who are not by my side, and to use words to tell the people reading that nature influences me so intimately right now.

From lazing in bed along with the sun, when the lingering warmth of the bedding makes it harder and harder to tear myself away, to the way my grandma's vegetable stall is finally no longer all round pumpkins, long loofahs and chubby bottle gourds, but begins to show all kinds of tasty leafy greens: mustard greens, rape greens, spinach, Taiwanese lettuce, bok choy... Even when they are pitted and scarred from insect bites, they are still so delicious. Once the northeast monsoon arrives, the rift valley is swept wildly by the north wind; if you don't find something to wrap around your head, it will make your hair hurt in no time. Even on sunny days you can't be too greedy for His warmth, or the autumn tiger will surely bite you hard. And so, from the solar terms and the seasons, every layer of life naturally changes: it changes my food, it changes my clothing, and even my time spent staring blankly unconsciously stretches longer because of the pleasant autumn temperature…

Mo-Mo Rice has been growing along very smoothly, from swelling at the booting stage, to the green heading stage, to flowering, pollination by the wind, and then beginning to fill with milk and droop its heads. Everything is a display of the power of nature. As a tiny person, I can only do my utmost, constantly using my limited understanding to copy the wonder of the Creator. But there are still so many questions and so much room to grow. Sometimes I feel very guilty toward the people who support Mo-Mo Rice, but even more, I am grateful from the bottom of my heart that they were willing to help me move forward when I was still muddling along at the beginning. The previous batch of Mo-Mo Rice had limited yield, and there were more people ordering than there was rice. I had originally made a long thank-you list in my notebook, thinking that if there was any left over I would give it to the people who had once taken care of me, but in the end I barely had enough even to keep some for myself to eat. Eating Mo-Mo Rice at every meal to sustain my life, I feel not only joy but even more treasuring.

While the rice in the field was busy heading and the roselle was blooming, I went again to Happiness Farm in Sanzhi, New Taipei City.

Besides wanting to express my thanks to Dr. Li in person, on my previous visit to Happiness Farm to learn seedling tray raising, I discovered that Dr. Li was experimenting with grass-leaf composting – microbial cultivation. He mentioned to me a British biology PhD, Dr. Elaine Ingham (who is said to have also begun joining the ranks of natural farming). I am grateful to these deeply scholarly people, who let me understand a little more of the universe-like vastness of the natural world in a scientific way. There is a video of Ingham on YouTube called "Soil not Dirt". In the video she roughly mentions certain key points that match what is described in Grandpa Kimura's book. She explains that in healthy soil, so-called nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium and other elements can hardly be detected, so where do the things plants rely on to grow come from? The doctor says the key lies in the world of microorganisms. In the breathing and excreting within the cycle of life and death of microorganisms, nutrients needed by plants are released (of course, some also make plants sick). Different kinds of soil contain different kinds of microorganisms. A soil ecology with certain characteristics will suit the growth of a certain specific microorganism, and thus form a growing environment for a specific plant (crop). But human intervention for all kinds of reasons (pesticides, fertilizers, tilling, long-term flooding...), accumulated over time, will change the ecology of microorganisms and ultimately cause it to collapse. Dr. Li described pesticides and fertilizers as being like medicine for humans: when you take medicine with certain specific ingredients, it can quickly but briefly break the body's balance, but over time it is actually slowly dismantling the body's original self-healing ability.

I often chat with the local elders about natural farming, and the question I am most often challenged with is this: if you keep only taking from the soil without giving back, how can that conform to the common sense of nature? The older generation of farmers spent a lifetime answering that if the soil is not fertilized, it will only become more and more barren, and this seems beyond doubt. But now Dr. Elaine Ingham has reminded me that perhaps the key is that the way we give back to the soil is wrong. Perhaps we use pesticides, industrial chemicals and organic fertilizers to wrongly kill beneficial microorganisms; perhaps we use the wrong farming methods, compacting the soil with huge machinery and unintentionally creating an environment unfriendly to microorganisms; perhaps we use unnecessary materials and the wrong composting methods, instead producing a bunch of microorganisms that make plants sick (anaerobic).

Perhaps we need to observe more carefully, imitate the Creator's methods and obey natural laws, and perhaps in the end we will find a truly perfect balance. I secretly guess that it is a kind of non-action, because nature already possesses everything needed.

In the short afternoon I spent with Dr. Li this time, it was as if someone stretched out a hand in front of me and pointed to a giant door, and behind that giant door was a new world that needs to be seen with a completely different vision. Although that new world is currently all written in English. I read the literature slowly and with difficulty, and often in the midst of hard reading and looking up words I have the illusion of being back in my graduate school days, so I put down the pencil in my hand and the notebook that has become a mess from looking up words, give a bitter smile at those tormented memories of the past, and unrealistically fantasize that if I were a plant, could I then naturally feel which guys have gathered around my roots, and what changes have happened to the stem and branches and leaves of my body? Even more, I love to fantasize: if I became a plant and abandoned human language, could I then speak the language of Mother Earth?

Sometimes I really cannot understand our human science: is it a kind of cleverness, or a kind of foolishness that spins a cocoon around oneself? This time, I once again examine the soil beneath my feet, and relearn the language of nature with the limited, tiny methods of humans.

Postscript:
I later decided to use the money I earned as a porter to buy a microscope, costing roughly the same as a new smartphone or camera. I often mock myself that this new toy is really not easy to get the hang of compared with an iPhone; before using it, you actually have to read so many "instruction manuals."

Then, pre-orders for the second batch of Mo-Mo Rice of year 101 have begun. I sincerely thank you, the reader (you), for your support, and I wholeheartedly look forward to your leaving a message in the pre-order form so that we can connect each other's lives through exchange : )