Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 14
Effective Microorganisms
Dr. Teruo Higa started studying microorganisms in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly at Ry-
ukyus University in Okinawa, Japan. By the early 1980s, he was perfecting his liquid cul-
ture of specific facultative anaerobic microbes that provide amazing benefits when com-
bined together in specific proportions. Facultative anaerobic means microbes that can live
both in air with oxygen, and also in low oxygen conditions. They're also called fermenting
microbes and some of them are responsible for making your bread, beer, wine and yogurt.
Now facultative anaerobic products have various brand names. Effective Microorgan-
isms, or EM, is actually trademarked by one company. Other companies have given it other
names. You can buy any brand, as long as it's manufactured based on the research of Dr.
Higa, with the microbe species in the correct proportion to one another. It would not be
nearly as useful, for example, to buy a product that only contains lactic acid bacteria. I will
refer to it as EM here, but I'm not affiliated with any of the companies that make it, and my
directions on how to use the product may differ from theirs.
There are up to 20 different microbes in the inoculant from all over the world, but when
we put them together, the magic begins. It's not something you can do at home, but you can
buy the inoculant from a manufacturer with the equipment and knowledge to put them to-
gether in exactly the right proportions and under the right environmental conditions. The
three groups are lactic acid bacteria, yeast and photosynthetic bacteria, plus some other
wild microbes that will be let into the brew.
Not that it's particularly important to us gardeners, but here's how the three different
classes work together. I'm sure it's more complex than this, but here are the basics. The
lactic acid bacteria make up the majority of the population. They protect the other two
groups by producing acids that control harmful microbes and enhance organic matter
breakdown. They can even help fungi to break down difficult-to-digest lignins and cellu-
lose.
The yeasts produce hormones, enzymes, vitamins, and antimicrobial substances that ma-
nipulate their environment and protect the photosynthetic bacteria, also known as photo-
trophic bacteria.
