Making JADAM Wetting Agent (JWA) from Perla Soap

JWA can be made from Perla (brand) soap.  Since Perla is essentially a soft soap, JWA can be made from it. Perla is a natural soap that is used by people with sensitive skin.  It is marketed here in the country as a laundry soap for more than 50 years. The following procedure makes around 150ml of JWA.

Materials Needed

• Perla (brand) soap; Only Perla brand soap will quality as pure potassium soap; Buy 3 bars but you will only be using 2.5 bars.  You can easily cut the soap bar using a knife.
• Filtered or Distilled Water (soft water); 1 liter (Do not use mineral water).  If you do not have soft water, use rainwater.
• Jar that can hold more than 1 liter of water

 

Procedure

1. Cut the Perla soap into smaller cubes
2. Place the cut cubes into the jar
3. Pour the 1 liter soft water
4. Let it stay for 1 day and stir occasionally to dissolve Perla in water
5. Once fully dissolve, let it stay for a few days (1 week), the soap solution will separate into light and heavy.  The light part (this is the transparent part and will float at the top of the solution) is your JWA.  
6. Carefully pour the transparent soap to a new container ensuring as much as possible not to get the heavy part (this is the murky part of the solution)

DO NOT throw away the murky part of the solution.  This is still soap but may not be ideal as JWA as it is heavy.  Use this for washing utensils and as you would use a liquid soap.

Dilution Ratio / Usage

 5ml to 30ml JWA to 1 liter of water.

JADAM Wetting Agent (JWA)

 

JADAM Wetting Agent (JWA) is a liquid potassium soap.  JWA is defined as a surfactant/emulsifier and is widely use as a method of controling pests. JWA is a natural and biodegradable soft soap consisting of potassium salts of fatty acids resulting from the saponification of coconut oil (any vegetable oil) with Potassium Hydroxide (KOH).

Soft soaps have been used for hundreds years as they are simple to make, environmentally safe, detrimental to pests and easily broken down by microbes and therefore turned into nutrients for plants.

JWA works by direct contact with the pests where the fatty acids penetrate their bodies and disrupt the cell membrane causing dehydration and death. JWA can control issues such as aphids, mealybugs, mites, leafhoppers, scale insects, caterpillars, thrips, whitefly, powdery mildew and more.

Avoid spraying during a sunny day as it can cause burns. Do not use on sweet peas, nasturtiums, delicate ferns and use with care on seedlings, transplants and flowers.

Test on a small patch if concerned about plant sensitivity.

No expiry date.

 

Materials Needed

• Coconut Oil (or any vegetable oil) – 5.625 liters 
  
  
  
• Potassium hydroxide (KOH) - 1 kg 
  
  
  
  
• Filtered or Distilled water – 0.781 liter; 6.250 liter water; 18.750 liter water  
• Heat resistant plastic container with air tight lid (that can hold 40 liters of water)
  
• Blender or Drill & Paint mixer
• Scale and container for measurement

Procedure

This is a recipe for 31.406 liter JWA (1.0 kg of KOH, 0.781 liter Initial water, 5.625 liter Coconut oil, 25 liter added total water (Can be scaled up or down):

1. Using 1 kg of KOH, add the 0.781 liter of water and mix them in the heat resistant container, close the lid and swirl the container around until the KOH is fully dissolved. Be careful as this reaction releases a fair amount of heat.
2. Measure out exactly 5.625 liters of coconut oil and add it to the container with the KOH and water.
3. With the drill and paint mixer, or blender, mix the solution until it reaches the consistency of a thin mayonnaise.
   
   
   
4. Close the lid and let the container sit for 3 days, it should harden and feel like butter if not, repeat step 3.
   
   
   
5. Add 6.250 liter of water and blend it slowly with your mixing tool making sure there are no clumps left stuck at the bottom or on the sides.
6. Add the remaining 18.750 liters of water and stir manually with a stick, close the lid and let it dissolve completely for 24 hours.
7. Store the solution in an airtight container. It has no expiry date.

 

Dilution Ratio

(0.005 to 0.030 : 1) 5 to 30 ml of JWA to 1 liter of Water

 

Common Measurements

Other common quantity measurements are calculated below: 

Estimated Quantity (in liters)	100.5	10.05
KOH (in kg)	3.2	0.32
Coconut Oil (in liters)	18	1.8
1st Water Mix (in liters)	2.5	0.25
2nd Water Mix, after 3 days (in liters)	20	2
3rd Water Mix, after slow mixing to dissolve soap lumps (in liters)	60	6

 

Organic Standards Compliance  

Is the use of KOH in making JWA allowed under organic standards?  

Since JWA is a liquid potassium soap, it is allowed under Philippine organic standards.  It complies with the Philippine National Standards on Organic Agriculture that listed Potassium Soap among the list of permitted crop protectants.  (Annex A:  List of Permitted Crop Protectants, Growth Regulators,  and Seed Treatments for the Production of Organic Food, Philippine National Standard (PNS), PNS/BAFS 07:2016, p. 29).

It also complies with USDA National Organic Program (NOP) as determined by the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI) [https://www.omri.org], a competent authority in USDA NOP, which made the clarification in a letter sent to JADAM headquarters [https://en.jadam.kr).

 

Estimated Cost

The estimated cost per liter of JWA at current prices (4 April 2022) is PhP44.00/liter (Forty Four Philippine Pesos per Liter).  This is a higher estimate of cost where water is costed based on Distilled Water (Wilkins) is used (around P14/liter) in the preparation for JWA.

Soil Food Web (SFW) - Core Biology

Soil Food Web (SFW) is the description of the complex process of how various microorganism  interacts with each other and in the process naturally fertilizes the soil for plants to grow and for carbon to be sequestered in the soil.  The SFW describes the biology that makes the nitrogen cycle work.  SFW as a concept is derived from the researches of Dr. Elaine Ingham and has been continuously enriched by other soil scientists and farm practitioners in the field of agriculture.

The core biology in the SFW are the following:

1. Bacteria (of Domain Bacteria)
2. Archaea (of Domain Archaea)
3. Fungi (of Domain Eukarya)
   
4. Protozoa, notably Amoeba, Flagella, Cilia (of Domain Eukayra)
5. Soil nematodes (of Domain Eukarya)
6. Microarthopods (of Domain Eurkarya)
   

RedHill Compost Pile

RedHill Compost Pile is an adaptation of hot compost pile by Dr. Elaine Ingham using the waste product of Copra cooking.  It uses coconut husks in place of  chicken wire and coconut shells at its base to promote aeration of the compost material.  The compost material is made up of  coconut husks, cut grasses and weeds, cow and carabao manure (whenever available) following the brown-green-brown-green piling order.  This adaptation do not do the "turning-over" of the compost pile on a regular basis as it is impractical in a farm without machinery.

Materials Needed:

• Coconut husks - brown material
  
• Coconut shell - brown material
  
• Freshly cut grasses and weeds - green material
• Dried grasses, banana leaves, paper - brown material
  
• Cow and carabao manure (whenever available) - green material
  

Procedure:

1. Use coconut husks to make a circular shell of the compost pile.  The radius of the circular pile is approximately 4 feet or a circumference of 25 feet.
   
   
   
   
2. Place coconut shells at the base in order to provide aeration to the compost pile from the bottom.  The height of the coconut shells to act as base is approximately 1 ft.
3. Place green compost material after the base material.  These are the freshly cut grasses and weeds, and cow and carabao (water buffalo) manure.  The height of the green compost material is approximately 1.5 ft to 2 ft.
4. Place the brown compost material.  These are the dried grasses, dried banana leaves, paper, coconut husks, coconut shells, tree trimmings and the like.  The height of the grown material is approximately 1.5 ft to 2 ft.
5. Repeat the process in No. 3 and 4 until the pile reaches a height of around 4 to 5 ft.  The preferred top material to use is coconut husks (brown material) in order for the pile to look beautiful and not appear to be an open waste pile.  This is intended for neighbors not to use the pile as their waste disposal site. 
   
   
   
6. Before capping the compost pile material with coconut husks, sprinkler the material with Jadam Microorganism Solution (JMS) or Effective Microorganism Activated Solution (EMAS).  Around 10 liters of JMS or EMAS maybe used.
   
   
   
   
7. Leave the pile for 4 to 6 months until the inner material is fully decomposed.
8. Afterwards, harvest the decomposed material for use as replacement for vermicast in nursery, or as compost material to be mix with soil on the farm plots, or as compost slurry (concentrated compost tea) for hydroponics solution B (complete fertilizer, trace elements, humic acids).
   
   
   

Caution:  

DO NOT construct the compost pile near farm sheds and houses due to risk of fire.