In this Podcast Extra, John Kempf joins the Soil Strategies podcast, hosted by Roy Thompson of the South Dakota Soil Health Coalition, to break down a radically different operating system for agriculture that transitions away from traditional NPK mindsets toward biological agronomy .
The powerful role a healthy microbiome plays in supercharging a plant’s native genetic expression for ultimate disease and insect resistance.
Why conventional soil tests have historically been utilized primarily as fertilizer sales tools rather than agronomic guides . He is also the host of the Regenerative Agriculture Podcast . This led him to study plant physiology and soil health deeply, helping him build a scientifically established, systems-based approach to plant nutrition that moves beyond electrolyte agronomy and leverages biological soil function . AEA believes in testing instead of guessing, relying on rigorous laboratory data to measure what the soil can actually deliver before making recommendations. Through a unique line of products—including biological seed treatments, well-designed foliar nutrition, and their highly effective broad-spectrum disease-resistance product, Pinion—AEA empowers farmers to reduce synthetic inputs, optimize photosynthesis, and transition smoothly into highly successful, resilient biological systems.
Podcast Transcript
0:01 – 0:02
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to
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another episode of Soil
0:04 – 0:04
Strategies.
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Today's guest really doesn't
0:06 – 0:07
need much of an introduction in
0:07 – 0:08
the soil health space,
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but we're honored to have John
0:10 – 0:11
Kempf with us, founder of
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Advancing Ecoagriculture.
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John is an agronomist,
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entrepreneur,
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sought after speaker,
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and the founder of Advancing
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Ecoagriculture, or AEA,
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where they work with farmers
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globally to improve crop
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performance through balanced
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nutrition,
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plant physiology,
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and biological soil function.
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He is also the host of the
0:30 – 0:31
Regenerative Agriculture
0:31 – 0:32
podcast.
0:33 – 0:34
With fertilizer prices remaining
0:34 – 0:35
volatile,
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more producers are re
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-evaluating how to think about
0:38 – 0:39
nutrient management.
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John has helped growers around
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the world rethink how plant
0:42 – 0:44
nutrition actually works,
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moving beyond strictly NPK
0:46 – 0:48
mindset toward understanding how
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biological function and nutrient
0:50 – 0:51
balance influence crop
0:51 – 0:52
performance.
0:53 – 0:54
And often that shift in
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perspective doesn't just change
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how much fertilizer is applied,
0:58 – 1:00
it changes how efficiently the
1:00 – 1:01
crop is able to use what's
1:01 – 1:02
already there.
1:03 – 1:04
Today we're going to explore
1:04 – 1:05
nutrient management and discuss
1:05 – 1:07
how excess or imbalanced
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fertility can sometimes even
1:09 – 1:10
create a yield drag.
1:11 – 1:12
John, welcome to Soil
1:12 – 1:13
Strategies.
1:13 – 1:14
Hey, Roy, thanks for having me
1:14 – 1:15
on.
1:15 – 1:16
You're going to pack a lot into
1:16 – 1:17
this conversation, aren't you?
1:19 – 1:20
Only if we can.
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When we when we get you on the
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on the phone, we are excited to
1:23 – 1:25
to dive into some of these big
1:25 – 1:26
topics.
1:26 – 1:28
So in setting setting the stage,
1:28 – 1:29
many of us were taught that
1:29 – 1:31
yield is primarily driven by the
1:31 – 1:33
synthetic amendments, the NPNK.
1:34 – 1:36
And I think I speak for many
1:36 – 1:37
producers when you basically
1:37 – 1:40
just tell the co -op what you
1:40 – 1:41
want for a yield goal.
1:42 – 1:43
and they proceed to give you
1:43 – 1:44
your recommendations.
1:45 – 1:47
It's sometimes real tough to be
1:47 – 1:50
profitable when prices go where
1:50 – 1:50
they have,
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just like the spring.
1:53 – 1:55
What would you say was the point
1:55 – 1:57
when you began to see things
1:57 – 1:58
differently and realizing that
1:58 – 2:00
the paradigm of N, P, and K,
2:01 – 2:03
more on approach, if you will,
2:04 – 2:04
was
2:05 – 2:06
incomplete.
2:07 – 2:09
Well, we had this interesting
2:09 – 2:10
experience on the family farm
2:10 – 2:11
where I grew up, where
2:12 – 2:14
it was specifically related to,
2:14 – 2:15
initially, to pesticide
2:15 – 2:17
applications. The more intense
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pesticide applications became,
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this was, we were on a fruit and
2:19 – 2:20
vegetable farm, we were putting
2:20 – 2:22
on fungicides every five days.
2:23 – 2:25
And it seemed the
2:25 – 2:27
Disease pressure was constantly
2:27 – 2:28
getting worse. The more product
2:28 – 2:29
we applied, the worse the
2:29 – 2:30
problems became year over year.
2:31 – 2:32
And we
2:33 – 2:34
were on a similar trend with
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fertilizer applications.
2:35 – 2:36
Of course,
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fruit and vegetable operation,
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drip irrigation.
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When we first started,
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it was common to apply three to
2:43 – 2:44
five pounds of a water -soluble
2:44 – 2:45
triple 20 through the irrigation
2:45 – 2:46
system every week.
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Ten years in,
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we're at 20 to 25 pounds to get
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the same results.
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Wow.
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That's just a microcosm of the
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exact same things that we see
2:54 – 2:55
happening in production
2:55 – 2:56
agriculture. And it was just
2:57 – 3:00
The entire model is based
3:00 – 3:03
on completely disregarding
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plant health and the
3:05 – 3:07
contributions of soil biology,
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which arguably we
3:09 – 3:10
didn't understand the details of
3:11 – 3:12
historically as well as we do
3:12 – 3:13
today,
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but we also didn't care to look
3:15 – 3:16
because the vested interests,
3:16 – 3:17
the economic interests
3:18 – 3:20
were aligned with
3:21 – 3:23
the use of fertilizers and
3:23 – 3:24
pesticides and so forth.
3:24 – 3:26
So anyway, it's been an
3:26 – 3:27
interesting pathway, but the
3:27 – 3:29
conclusion that I've come to and
3:29 – 3:29
the realization that I've come
3:29 – 3:31
to is there's
3:31 – 3:32
a completely different model of
3:32 – 3:33
agronomy and plant nutrition.
3:34 – 3:35
It's now very well established
3:35 – 3:35
scientifically.
3:36 – 3:37
It hasn't yet
3:38 – 3:41
broadly migrated from the
3:41 – 3:42
scientific domain
3:43 – 3:44
into production scale
3:44 – 3:46
agriculture because it's a
3:46 – 3:47
different operating system.
3:48 – 3:48
It's like
3:49 – 3:51
It's not like asking someone
3:51 – 3:52
who's using a computer or a
3:52 – 3:54
phone to add an additional app
3:54 – 3:54
on their phone.
3:55 – 3:57
It's like switching from Android
3:57 – 3:59
to iOS or even more
3:59 – 4:01
fundamentally switching from
4:01 – 4:02
Windows to Mac OS.
4:03 – 4:04
It's a completely different
4:04 – 4:04
operating systems.
4:05 – 4:06
There's different applications.
4:06 – 4:07
There's different ways of
4:07 – 4:07
thinking.
4:08 – 4:09
And
4:10 – 4:12
my operating system analogy is
4:12 – 4:13
quite crude because there are
4:13 – 4:15
still a lot of parallels between
4:15 – 4:16
those two operating systems.
4:16 – 4:17
Whereas when you start,
4:17 – 4:19
when you transition from
4:20 – 4:22
what we use in an agronomy
4:22 – 4:22
framework,
4:23 – 4:24
When you can transition from
4:24 – 4:26
electrolyte agronomy to
4:26 – 4:27
biological agronomy,
4:28 – 4:30
there is very little overlap
4:30 – 4:33
between the two in the way the
4:33 – 4:34
operating system works.
4:34 – 4:37
So it really is, it's a very
4:37 – 4:38
different approach and one that
4:38 – 4:40
is beginning to be quite well
4:40 – 4:42
understood both scientifically
4:42 – 4:44
and also how to implement it
4:44 – 4:45
practically.
4:46 – 4:47
But
4:47 – 4:49
there's going to probably have
4:49 – 4:51
to be more pain yet from a
4:51 – 4:52
fertilizer economics
4:52 – 4:53
perspective.
4:53 – 4:55
before this becomes more broadly
4:55 – 4:56
adopted.
4:56 – 4:57
Yeah. And I like what you said
4:57 – 4:59
there. I think pain is actually,
4:59 – 5:01
unfortunately, that's what we
5:01 – 5:03
need to experience before we
5:03 – 5:04
start asking questions.
5:04 – 5:05
And go
5:06 – 5:07
ahead. Well, there's this
5:07 – 5:08
interesting aspect of human
5:08 – 5:10
psychology that for most people,
5:11 – 5:12
there are exceptions,
5:13 – 5:14
but broadly speaking, the
5:14 – 5:16
majority of us are averse to
5:16 – 5:17
change.
5:17 – 5:18
And we imagine
5:19 – 5:22
the perceived pain of changing
5:22 – 5:23
in
5:23 – 5:25
most cases to be greater than it
5:25 – 5:25
actually is.
5:26 – 5:29
So we only become open to change
5:29 – 5:31
when the actual pain of not
5:31 – 5:32
changing becomes greater than
5:32 – 5:34
the perceived pain of changing.
5:35 – 5:38
And so unfortunate reality for
5:38 – 5:39
most of us is we have to
5:39 – 5:41
experience a fairly substantial
5:41 – 5:42
amount of pain to be motivated
5:42 – 5:43
to change.
5:43 – 5:44
Yeah,
5:43 – 5:44
absolutely.
5:44 – 5:45
That is so true.
5:45 – 5:47
And I know that's the case in my
5:47 – 5:48
life. I mean, I felt the same
5:48 – 5:49
way. I didn't start asking those
5:49 – 5:50
questions.
5:50 – 5:52
until financial pain became a
5:52 – 5:53
very real thing.
5:53 – 5:54
And, and my human health story
5:54 – 5:56
is goes right along with that
5:56 – 5:58
too. I had to experience my
5:58 – 5:59
health plummeting before I
5:59 – 6:01
started asking questions about
6:01 – 6:03
the nutritional side of, of what
6:03 – 6:04
I was putting in my body.
6:04 – 6:06
And it, it, it goes so much
6:06 – 6:07
along with the soil health
6:07 – 6:08
journey because health really
6:08 – 6:10
does begin in the soil.
6:10 – 6:10
And, uh,
6:11 – 6:13
Just, I'm going to jump way
6:13 – 6:14
ahead on my questions.
6:14 – 6:15
I'm just, since I'm on that
6:15 – 6:18
topic, how does true soil health
6:18 – 6:20
impact nutrient density of our
6:20 – 6:21
food and of the crop that's
6:21 – 6:22
being grown?
6:24 – 6:25
Well, nutrient density can be
6:25 – 6:26
thought of in different ways.
6:27 – 6:28
Sometimes nutrient density,
6:29 – 6:31
particularly historically, has
6:31 – 6:31
been
6:32 – 6:34
described or associated with
6:34 – 6:35
mineral density.
6:35 – 6:37
What is the density of cobalt
6:37 – 6:38
and selenium and iodine and
6:38 – 6:40
nickel and boron and zinc and
6:40 – 6:41
manganese and copper, et cetera.
6:41 – 6:43
And that's certainly important.
6:44 – 6:47
And the concentration of many of
6:47 – 6:49
those elements has certainly
6:49 – 6:51
reduced in some cases
6:51 – 6:52
substantially over the last
6:52 – 6:54
decades and centuries.
6:55 – 6:56
But then there is another aspect
6:56 – 6:58
of nutrient density, which is
6:58 – 6:59
phytonutrient density.
6:59 – 7:01
And that is the concentrations
7:01 – 7:02
of
7:02 – 7:04
these plant immune compounds
7:04 – 7:07
that are just broadly called
7:07 – 7:08
phytonutrients, such as
7:08 – 7:10
resveratrol and anthocyanins and
7:10 – 7:11
so forth.
7:11 – 7:13
that are foundational to many
7:13 – 7:14
different plants' immune systems
7:14 – 7:15
and also enhance our own immune
7:15 – 7:16
systems.
7:16 – 7:17
And also within those
7:17 – 7:18
categories, you can
7:18 – 7:20
have
7:21 – 7:24
compounds that have the opposite
7:24 – 7:25
of nutritional value.
7:25 – 7:26
They can be considered anti
7:26 – 7:27
-nutrients,
7:28 – 7:30
such as phytates in beans,
7:30 – 7:31
or
7:31 – 7:32
right
7:32 – 7:35
now my mind is blanking out, but
7:35 – 7:37
tannins in oak, and there's an
7:37 – 7:38
awful number of these different
7:38 – 7:39
compounds that
7:40 – 7:41
are there as digestion
7:41 – 7:42
inhibitors
7:42 – 7:43
limit the
7:44 – 7:46
quantity of those
7:46 – 7:48
foods, grains, seeds,
7:48 – 7:50
forages that are consumed
7:50 – 7:52
by livestock and people.
7:52 – 7:53
And then, of course, we think
7:53 – 7:54
we're really smart and we
7:54 – 7:55
process those foods and just
7:55 – 7:57
consume more of them, which
7:57 – 7:59
we're learning is quite
7:59 – 8:00
detrimental to our health.
8:00 – 8:01
But the bottom line is that
8:02 – 8:04
the concentrations of those
8:04 – 8:05
phytonutrients and
8:06 – 8:08
their composition can
8:08 – 8:11
vary substantially based on
8:11 – 8:12
genetics,
8:12 – 8:13
based on environment,
8:15 – 8:16
But in large part,
8:16 – 8:18
I would say the majority of the
8:18 – 8:20
variability can be described by
8:20 – 8:22
changes in the microbiome.
8:23 – 8:24
The healthier the microbiome,
8:24 – 8:25
the more robust, the more
8:25 – 8:27
diverse microbiome,
8:28 – 8:30
the more optimal the
8:31 – 8:34
phytonutrient composition and
8:34 – 8:36
concentration becomes for human
8:36 – 8:37
consumption or animal
8:37 – 8:38
consumption.
8:38 – 8:40
And you get more of the
8:40 – 8:41
phytonutrients, this I'm
8:41 – 8:42
speaking, of course, very
8:42 – 8:43
broadly categorically, and
8:43 – 8:44
there's lots of nuance here,
8:45 – 8:47
Generally, you get more of the
8:47 – 8:48
phytonutrients that enhance our
8:48 – 8:50
health and livestock health,
8:50 – 8:52
and you get less of the
8:52 – 8:53
phytonutrients that are
8:53 – 8:54
detrimental to our health
8:54 – 8:57
when you change the microbiome
8:57 – 8:59
profile so that the plant itself
8:59 – 9:00
is healthier.
9:01 – 9:02
That's fantastic.
9:02 – 9:04
And when the microbiome of the
9:04 – 9:05
plant is healthier,
9:06 – 9:08
that makes the entire plant
9:08 – 9:09
healthier. For instance,
9:09 – 9:10
disease pressure.
9:10 – 9:12
When the plant is healthier, you
9:12 – 9:13
don't seem to have all the
9:13 – 9:14
disease pressure, correct?
9:15 – 9:16
Well, you can.
9:18 – 9:20
That's a question that really
9:20 – 9:21
would deserve a 10 -minute
9:21 – 9:22
answer.
9:22 – 9:24
But the short version is,
9:26 – 9:27
let me give you an analogy of
9:27 – 9:28
our human bodies.
9:28 – 9:29
We've come to understand that
9:29 – 9:30
our bodies
9:30 – 9:33
contain something like 9 or 10
9:33 – 9:35
times more bacterial cells than
9:35 – 9:36
they do human cells.
9:37 – 9:38
And when you think about that in
9:38 – 9:40
terms of genetic information,
9:40 – 9:41
that's a different way of saying
9:41 – 9:43
that our microbiome contains
9:43 – 9:45
essentially an order of
9:45 – 9:46
magnitude more genetic
9:46 – 9:47
information than
9:48 – 9:50
our human DNA does for disease
9:50 – 9:51
resistance.
9:52 – 9:53
Obviously we're not insect
9:53 – 9:55
resistant when speaking about
9:55 – 9:55
us, but the
9:56 – 9:58
same concept also holds true for
9:58 – 9:58
plants.
9:59 – 10:01
Plants also contain close to 10
10:01 – 10:02
times more
10:03 – 10:05
bacterial cells and just, I'll
10:05 – 10:07
just broadly say microbial cells
10:07 – 10:09
inside and on the plant and
10:09 – 10:10
throughout the plant's entire
10:10 – 10:12
vascular tissue, then there are
10:12 – 10:13
plant cells. So there is this
10:13 – 10:15
incredible genetic
10:15 – 10:18
capacity and capability for
10:19 – 10:20
disease resistance and for
10:20 – 10:21
insect resistance, if it is
10:21 – 10:23
allowed to express itself.
10:24 – 10:25
And so the short version,
10:26 – 10:27
we actually,
10:27 – 10:29
this is one of the mechanisms,
10:29 – 10:30
the pathways that we harnessed
10:30 – 10:31
with
10:31 – 10:33
Pinion, which is a product we
10:33 – 10:34
released. We've been testing it
10:34 – 10:34
for the last couple of years.
10:35 – 10:36
We released it last year.
10:37 – 10:39
But pinion, as of this point,
10:39 – 10:41
pinion has been tested on over,
10:41 – 10:43
I think we're at this point,
10:43 – 10:44
we're approaching four dozen
10:44 – 10:45
different disease and crop
10:45 – 10:46
combinations.
10:47 – 10:49
And it is outperforming
10:49 – 10:51
conventional fungicides in every
10:51 – 10:53
test situation at this point.
10:54 – 10:56
Wow. And it's incredibly broad
10:56 – 10:57
spectrum,
10:58 – 10:58
but it's not.
10:59 – 11:00
And what gives it that broad
11:00 – 11:01
spectrum benefit is that it's
11:01 – 11:02
not a single ingredient
11:02 – 11:03
approach.
11:04 – 11:05
It's not a single mechanism or
11:05 – 11:06
mode of action.
11:06 – 11:08
Instead, what it's designed to
11:08 – 11:08
do
11:08 – 11:11
is supercharge that plant's
11:11 – 11:13
native microbiome genetic
11:13 – 11:15
expression and allow that
11:15 – 11:16
microbiome to
11:16 – 11:18
express its greatest degree of
11:18 – 11:19
disease resistance.
11:20 – 11:22
So that means the challenge with
11:22 – 11:24
a product of that approach is
11:24 – 11:25
that your mileage will vary.
11:26 – 11:27
One grower will have a different
11:27 – 11:28
experience from another grower.
11:28 – 11:29
But the fact that we're
11:29 – 11:30
outperforming conventional
11:30 – 11:33
fungicides on every treatment at
11:33 – 11:34
this point
11:34 – 11:34
is
11:35 – 11:36
than I expected, to be honest.
11:36 – 11:37
That's a pretty remarkable
11:37 – 11:38
result.
11:38 – 11:39
Absolutely.
11:39 – 11:41
And there's probably benefits
11:41 – 11:42
that you're not even
11:42 – 11:43
understanding are coming from
11:43 – 11:44
that product because the
11:44 – 11:46
microbiome takes care of such a
11:46 – 11:48
broad spectrum protection.
11:49 – 11:50
I mean, it might not even be a
11:50 – 11:52
fungal issue, but it might be a
11:52 – 11:53
healthier plant all the way
11:53 – 11:55
around. So therefore, you're not
11:55 – 11:56
getting some of the other
11:56 – 11:57
pressures that it might be
11:57 – 11:59
coming in contact with, because
11:59 – 12:00
it's just got that much better
12:00 – 12:01
of an immune system.
12:01 – 12:02
It absolutely is.
12:02 – 12:03
We've been able to measure this
12:03 – 12:04
on several different crops.
12:04 – 12:05
But you know, what's so
12:05 – 12:06
intriguing is,
12:08 – 12:09
let me see,
12:09 – 12:11
I just lost my train of thought.
12:11 – 12:12
Where was I going to go with
12:12 – 12:13
this?
12:15 – 12:16
Yeah, yeah.
12:17 – 12:18
Well, no, that's no problem.
12:18 – 12:20
The microbiome of the plant is
12:20 – 12:21
such an important part.
12:21 – 12:23
Just like for us, that is where
12:23 – 12:25
90 % or 80 % of our immune
12:25 – 12:26
system is housed.
12:26 – 12:28
So how can we best take care if
12:28 – 12:30
if we start thinking of, of the
12:30 – 12:33
plant is not just being or the
12:33 – 12:34
soil even is just being a
12:34 – 12:36
growing medium, but yet having
12:36 – 12:37
an interaction with a growing
12:37 – 12:38
plant,
12:38 – 12:41
How can we best start caring?
12:41 – 12:43
What are some practical steps to
12:43 – 12:44
start caring about the health of
12:44 – 12:46
our plants beyond just thinking
12:46 – 12:48
of doing a fungicide pass or an
12:48 – 12:50
insecticide pass or putting on
12:50 – 12:51
enough NP and K?
12:52 – 12:54
There's this really interesting
12:54 – 12:56
phenomena or observation that
12:56 – 12:58
emerges when you begin studying
12:58 – 12:59
the plant microbiome very
12:59 – 13:00
closely.
13:01 – 13:02
After a little while, it starts
13:02 – 13:04
becoming very difficult to
13:04 – 13:06
determine where the plant ends
13:06 – 13:08
and the microbiome begins.
13:08 – 13:10
And you begin realizing that in
13:10 – 13:11
fact,
13:11 – 13:13
there is no separation, there's
13:13 – 13:14
no distinction between them.
13:14 – 13:15
And in fact,
13:15 – 13:16
James White at Rutgers
13:16 – 13:18
University has clearly pointed
13:18 – 13:19
out that without their
13:19 – 13:20
microbiome,
13:20 – 13:21
plants
13:22 – 13:24
lack many fundamental abilities.
13:24 – 13:26
They even lack the ability to
13:26 – 13:27
send their root systems down.
13:27 – 13:29
A growing root tip will turn
13:29 – 13:30
brown and dead.
13:30 – 13:31
die without its associated
13:31 – 13:32
bacteria inside.
13:34 – 13:35
So it's many of the very
13:35 – 13:38
fundamental things that we have
13:38 – 13:39
thought were plant determined
13:39 – 13:41
are actually determined by their
13:41 – 13:41
microbiome.
13:42 – 13:44
And we
13:44 – 13:45
have all
13:46 – 13:47
of these different compounds
13:47 – 13:49
that we refer to as
13:49 – 13:51
phytohormones, such as
13:51 – 13:53
cytokinins and gibberellins and
13:53 – 13:55
abscisic acid, on and on the
13:55 – 13:56
list goes.
13:58 – 13:59
It becomes really intriguing
13:59 – 14:00
when you start paying attention
14:00 – 14:02
to the microbiome, all of a
14:02 – 14:03
sudden you
14:04 – 14:06
start realizing we have this
14:06 – 14:07
broad group of microbes that we
14:07 – 14:08
call PGPRs,
14:09 – 14:10
plant growth -promoting
14:10 – 14:11
rhizobacteria.
14:12 – 14:13
And the
14:14 – 14:16
reason they're given that
14:16 – 14:19
moniker is that they synthesize
14:20 – 14:21
these quote -unquote
14:21 – 14:23
phytohormones and contribute
14:23 – 14:24
them to the plant.
14:25 – 14:26
And similarly to what I was
14:26 – 14:27
describing a bit ago when you
14:27 – 14:29
asked me about nutrient density,
14:29 – 14:30
I was describing phytonutrients.
14:31 – 14:33
And you start
14:34 – 14:37
the question emerges of how much
14:37 – 14:39
of these phytonutrients and
14:39 – 14:41
phytohormones are actually
14:41 – 14:43
synthesized inside plant cells
14:43 – 14:43
and
14:43 – 14:45
what proportion of them are
14:45 – 14:47
synthesized by the
14:47 – 14:48
microbiome.
14:49 – 14:51
And it becomes apparent that
14:51 – 14:52
in
14:53 – 14:54
ecosystems where the microbiome
14:54 – 14:55
is thriving,
14:56 – 14:58
it appears that the majority is
14:58 – 14:59
being contributed by the
14:59 – 15:00
microbiome.
15:00 – 15:02
which becomes really fascinating
15:02 – 15:04
because it means all of a sudden
15:04 – 15:06
you can change a plant's genetic
15:06 – 15:07
expression based on the
15:07 – 15:08
microbiome that it is associated
15:08 – 15:09
with.
15:09 – 15:10
You can have a plant that is
15:10 – 15:12
cytokine and dominant and has
15:12 – 15:15
short nose spacing and turn a
15:15 – 15:17
tall leggy soybean into
15:17 – 15:19
something that compares a dwarf
15:19 – 15:20
soybean just based on the
15:20 – 15:21
microbiome that it's associated
15:21 – 15:22
with. And of course I'm giving
15:22 – 15:24
extreme examples, but there
15:24 – 15:25
certainly are
15:25 – 15:27
there are changes in plant
15:27 – 15:27
expression,
15:28 – 15:30
what we would call phenotype
15:30 – 15:31
expression or epigenetic
15:31 – 15:32
expression based on the
15:32 – 15:33
microbiome that a plant is
15:33 – 15:34
associated with.
15:35 – 15:37
So it becomes really interesting
15:37 – 15:39
to wonder and to think about,
15:39 – 15:41
okay, where are the boundaries
15:41 – 15:42
really? What are the differences
15:42 – 15:44
between the microbiome and the
15:44 – 15:45
plant? So to come back and to
15:45 – 15:46
answer your question,
15:47 – 15:49
how do we manage the microbiome
15:49 – 15:49
better?
15:49 – 15:51
Well, the first,
15:52 – 15:53
You know, the first rule of
15:53 – 15:54
medicine is, first of all, do no
15:54 – 15:55
harm.
15:55 – 15:56
And it's
15:57 – 15:57
pretty straightforward.
15:57 – 15:58
We've got to stop killing them.
16:00 – 16:01
Forget about
16:02 – 16:04
trying to add inoculants and do
16:04 – 16:06
compost teas and do all these
16:06 – 16:07
various things if you're
16:07 – 16:08
constantly going to destroy
16:08 – 16:09
them. So I
16:09 – 16:11
would say the things that have
16:11 – 16:12
the most negative effect
16:13 – 16:14
on
16:15 – 16:17
the microbiome broadly and
16:17 – 16:19
its ability to function are,
16:19 – 16:21
one is bare soil that's exposed
16:21 – 16:22
to the sun.
16:22 – 16:24
You get enzymatic
16:24 – 16:26
degradation and shutdown at 110
16:26 – 16:27
degrees Fahrenheit, and you can
16:27 – 16:28
have that to a depth of four to
16:28 – 16:30
five inches in most soils when
16:30 – 16:32
you have bare soil exposed to
16:32 – 16:32
the sun in the middle of the
16:32 – 16:33
summer.
16:34 – 16:34
The second
16:35 – 16:37
is fungicide applications
16:37 – 16:37
specifically.
16:39 – 16:40
And the third
16:40 – 16:42
is excessive levels of
16:42 – 16:43
electrolytes.
16:43 – 16:45
When you have high levels of
16:45 – 16:46
electrolytes, and I'm using that
16:46 – 16:47
word specifically instead of
16:47 – 16:49
fertilizers because not all
16:49 – 16:50
fertilizers are electrolytes,
16:51 – 16:52
but it is the electrolytes
16:52 – 16:54
specifically that interrupt the
16:54 – 16:57
electrical signaling that occurs
16:57 – 16:58
within the
16:58 – 17:00
plants, between cells, between
17:00 – 17:02
plant cells, and between plants
17:02 – 17:02
and microbes.
17:03 – 17:05
And when you short -circuit that
17:05 – 17:06
signaling by having excessive
17:06 – 17:07
electrolytes,
17:08 – 17:09
that essentially,
17:09 – 17:11
it's not inaccurate to say that
17:11 – 17:13
that prevents this microbiome
17:13 – 17:14
and plant signaling interaction
17:14 – 17:15
from happening.
17:15 – 17:16
So
17:16 – 17:19
your most common electrolytes
17:19 – 17:22
in inside plants, magnesium can
17:22 – 17:23
also be an electrolyte.
17:23 – 17:25
It is less common so in soils.
17:26 – 17:28
But other than that, the common
17:29 – 17:30
electrolytes in plants and in
17:30 – 17:32
soils are sodium,
17:32 – 17:34
chloride, potassium, and
17:34 – 17:35
nitrate.
17:35 – 17:36
And if you have
17:38 – 17:40
high levels of potassium and
17:40 – 17:42
nitrate or sodium or chloride
17:42 – 17:44
inside a plant or in its root
17:44 – 17:45
system,
17:45 – 17:47
then you are absolutely going to
17:47 – 17:49
sabotage the ability of the
17:49 – 17:50
microbiome to support that
17:50 – 17:51
plant.
17:52 – 17:55
And is that what draws us to put
17:55 – 17:57
more on? Because that is exactly
17:57 – 17:58
what we're relying on to create.
17:59 – 18:01
So we put nitrogen on and the
18:01 – 18:02
field greens up, it gets darker
18:02 – 18:03
green.
18:03 – 18:06
Is that just because of the
18:06 – 18:08
nitrogen or what is happening?
18:08 – 18:10
Because when we see a result
18:10 – 18:11
from nitrogen, what's actually
18:11 – 18:12
happening there?
18:13 – 18:14
Well, there's a number of things
18:14 – 18:15
that are happening.
18:15 – 18:16
I guess you are getting a
18:16 – 18:17
nitrogen
18:18 – 18:19
response where you're getting
18:19 – 18:21
increasing chlorophyll content
18:21 – 18:22
as a result of higher nitrogen
18:22 – 18:23
levels. You're also getting,
18:24 – 18:25
in
18:25 – 18:26
many cases, you're getting a
18:26 – 18:28
flush of CO2 release because the
18:29 – 18:30
nitrogen, particularly if it's
18:30 – 18:31
in the form of nitrate, is
18:31 – 18:32
oxidizing
18:32 – 18:34
organic matter that's in the
18:34 – 18:36
soil and you're getting this CO2
18:36 – 18:37
flush.
18:37 – 18:38
So you're getting a response
18:38 – 18:39
from both of those in
18:39 – 18:41
conjunction. But I think the
18:41 – 18:42
question that you're getting at
18:42 – 18:44
is what happens when you do that
18:44 – 18:45
is, you know, you create a
18:45 – 18:46
dependency,
18:46 – 18:48
particularly if this happens
18:48 – 18:49
early on in the plant's life.
18:50 – 18:53
When we apply
18:54 – 18:55
a
18:56 – 18:57
high concentration of
18:57 – 18:58
electrolytes, water -soluble
18:58 – 19:00
fertilizer or high salt index
19:00 – 19:02
fertilizer in close proximity to
19:02 – 19:03
the root system,
19:03 – 19:06
you prevent effective microbial
19:06 – 19:07
colonization of that root
19:07 – 19:08
system.
19:09 – 19:10
And what happens is the root
19:10 – 19:11
system starts getting
19:11 – 19:12
established,
19:12 – 19:14
starts growing and expanding in
19:14 – 19:15
size.
19:16 – 19:19
And if there is a 10 to 14 day
19:19 – 19:21
delay in establishing microbiome
19:21 – 19:22
colonization of that root
19:22 – 19:23
system, which is very common
19:23 – 19:25
with high salt index
19:25 – 19:26
fertilizers,
19:27 – 19:28
the microbiome
19:28 – 19:31
never quite catches up for the
19:31 – 19:32
rest of the growing season.
19:32 – 19:33
No matter how fast it
19:33 – 19:34
proliferates,
19:34 – 19:36
the root system is always one
19:36 – 19:37
step ahead. The root system is
19:37 – 19:38
expanding faster than the
19:38 – 19:40
microbiome is expanding.
19:41 – 19:42
And so you create
19:42 – 19:44
You've essentially created this
19:44 – 19:45
dependency for the rest of the
19:45 – 19:46
plant's life.
19:46 – 19:47
And,
19:47 – 19:49
you know, many years ago, back
19:49 – 19:51
in the 1930s and 40s,
19:51 – 19:52
William Albrecht at the
19:52 – 19:54
University of Missouri had this
19:54 – 19:55
famous quote.
19:56 – 19:58
He said, the science of
19:58 – 20:00
fertilizer placement is about
20:00 – 20:02
the art of placing water
20:02 – 20:03
-soluble nutrients so that plant
20:03 – 20:04
roots can avoid them.
20:05 – 20:07
And it made me laugh.
20:07 – 20:10
He was in some ways, he was a
20:10 – 20:11
hundred years ahead of his time,
20:11 – 20:12
eight years ahead of his time in
20:12 – 20:14
recognizing the impact that that
20:14 – 20:16
had. Another quote of his was
20:16 – 20:17
that
20:16 – 20:18
plant nutrients or
20:19 – 20:20
nutrients should be available,
20:20 – 20:21
but not soluble.
20:22 – 20:23
Wow.
20:23 – 20:24
And if we had followed that
20:24 – 20:25
direction that he gave us, those
20:25 – 20:27
insights that he provided, we
20:27 – 20:28
would be in a very different
20:28 – 20:29
space today, because it is
20:29 – 20:31
absolutely possible to provide
20:31 – 20:33
nitrogen and potassium and other
20:33 – 20:35
elements and forms that are
20:35 – 20:36
planned available,
20:36 – 20:37
but that are not electrolytes.
20:37 – 20:38
Sure,
20:38 – 20:39
sure.
20:39 – 20:40
That's fascinating.
20:40 – 20:42
That is really fascinating.
20:42 – 20:45
And so if we can start breaking
20:45 – 20:46
away from that, what's a good
20:47 – 20:49
place to begin testing whether
20:49 – 20:50
or not we have been over
20:50 – 20:52
-applying or how can we start
20:52 – 20:54
backing away on some of those
20:54 – 20:55
inputs that are causing this
20:55 – 20:56
problem?
20:57 – 20:58
Now
20:59 – 21:01
you
21:01 – 21:03
start getting into a question of
21:03 – 21:06
data and measurement but also a
21:06 – 21:08
question of what makes sense.
21:11 – 21:12
Essentially,
21:12 – 21:15
the conceptual framework is if
21:15 – 21:17
you have soils that have,
21:17 – 21:19
as in the soils on the farm that
21:19 – 21:20
I was managing when I was in my
21:20 – 21:21
teens,
21:21 – 21:23
we had this increasing trend
21:23 – 21:25
where we needed to increase the
21:25 – 21:26
applications of fertilizers just
21:26 – 21:28
to maintain results, not to get
21:28 – 21:29
better results, but just to
21:29 – 21:30
maintain results.
21:30 – 21:32
So we had created a state of
21:32 – 21:33
dependency.
21:33 – 21:35
If you want to transition away
21:35 – 21:36
from a state of dependency,
21:36 – 21:37
that means
21:38 – 21:39
providing an off -ramp
21:40 – 21:42
for electrolyte -based nutrition
21:42 – 21:44
while simultaneously providing
21:44 – 21:46
an on -ramp for biological
21:46 – 21:47
nutrition.
21:48 – 21:49
And depending on your scenario
21:49 – 21:51
and soil context and so forth,
21:51 – 21:54
that might mean in one situation
21:54 – 21:56
it might mean reducing your
21:56 – 21:58
electrolytes by 10 % in the
21:58 – 21:59
first year
21:59 – 22:01
and increasing biology to
22:02 – 22:03
fill that gap.
22:03 – 22:05
In another scenario, it might
22:05 – 22:07
mean reducing electrolytes by 40
22:07 – 22:08
or 50 percent in the first year
22:08 – 22:10
and using biology to fill in
22:10 – 22:11
that gap.
22:12 – 22:14
But the level of
22:15 – 22:16
exchangeable carbon that you
22:16 – 22:18
have, the level of biological
22:18 – 22:19
activity, there's lots of pieces
22:19 – 22:20
that contribute to your ability
22:20 – 22:23
to provide that on -ramp while
22:23 – 22:24
you're providing the off -ramp.
22:24 – 22:25
And I think
22:25 – 22:27
one of the most important
22:27 – 22:28
aspects
22:29 – 22:29
that
22:30 – 22:32
there are two kind
22:33 – 22:35
of foundational pieces that
22:35 – 22:36
facilitate
22:37 – 22:39
an off -ramp from electrolytes.
22:40 – 22:42
And those are,
22:43 – 22:43
number one,
22:44 – 22:46
spacing out applications, not
22:46 – 22:47
doing everything front -loaded,
22:47 – 22:48
spacing things out over the
22:48 – 22:50
course of the season as much as
22:50 – 22:51
possible,
22:51 – 22:53
planning for two or three
22:53 – 22:53
applications.
22:54 – 22:56
And because that does a number
22:56 – 22:58
of things. One is obviously it
22:58 – 22:59
reduces the concentration of
22:59 – 23:01
electrolytes at any one given
23:01 – 23:02
window in time.
23:03 – 23:06
And the second aspect is to
23:07 – 23:08
the degree that it makes sense,
23:09 – 23:09
making some of those
23:09 – 23:10
applications as foliar
23:10 – 23:11
applications instead of soil
23:11 – 23:13
applications, because you get so
23:13 – 23:15
much greater efficiency and
23:16 – 23:17
crop response from a smaller
23:17 – 23:19
quantity of applied nutrients.
23:19 – 23:21
And again, you are not applying
23:21 – 23:22
electrolytes to the soil in
23:22 – 23:24
nearly the same concentrations.
23:24 – 23:25
Plus you're harnessing the
23:25 – 23:26
photosynthetic engine, which has
23:26 – 23:27
all kinds of efficiency gains.
23:30 – 23:32
There's, those I think are the
23:32 – 23:33
foundational two pieces.
23:33 – 23:34
And then of course,
23:35 – 23:36
using laboratory data to
23:36 – 23:37
actually measure what's
23:37 – 23:38
happening and what's going on.
23:38 – 23:39
I think
23:40 – 23:41
one of the foundational pieces,
23:42 – 23:43
you know, we've been pretty
23:42 – 23:43
successful as a company.
23:44 – 23:45
We've worked on, we work on a
23:45 – 23:46
lot of acres and
23:47 – 23:49
one of the foundational aspects
23:49 – 23:51
of that success is we
23:52 – 23:54
never guess about something when
23:54 – 23:55
it's possible to measure.
23:56 – 23:57
And so there is this,
23:57 – 24:00
this ongoing kind of ideological
24:00 – 24:01
conversation
24:01 – 24:03
from people who have different
24:03 – 24:05
points of view who say that,
24:05 – 24:07
well, if you transition to
24:07 – 24:08
regenerative agriculture or
24:08 – 24:09
biological agriculture, whatever
24:09 – 24:11
nickname you want to give it,
24:11 – 24:14
you would expect to have a yield
24:14 – 24:16
drag or a yield loss and the
24:16 – 24:16
world is going to starve.
24:17 – 24:18
Well, that's a whole other
24:18 – 24:19
ideological conversation in and
24:19 – 24:21
of itself. But if
24:21 – 24:23
you have a yield reduction,
24:24 – 24:25
it is not because
24:25 – 24:27
regenerative agronomy or
24:27 – 24:28
biological agronomy doesn't
24:28 – 24:29
work.
24:29 – 24:31
It's because you messed up
24:31 – 24:32
somehow.
24:32 – 24:34
It's just, it's straightforward.
24:34 – 24:35
It is bad agronomy.
24:36 – 24:38
Um, our, our expectation and the
24:38 – 24:39
growers that we do not expect to
24:39 – 24:40
see a yield drag.
24:40 – 24:43
We expect yields to maintain at
24:43 – 24:45
a constant rate or increase
24:45 – 24:47
while we are simultaneously
24:47 – 24:48
reducing inputs.
24:48 – 24:51
It's a very common experience
24:51 – 24:52
for us and for the growers that
24:52 – 24:53
we work with. And it's because
24:53 – 24:56
we don't make recommendations
24:56 – 24:58
for dramatic reductions in
24:58 – 24:59
fertilizer applications without
25:00 – 25:02
the data to know and to support
25:02 – 25:03
that the soil can actually
25:03 – 25:04
deliver.
25:05 – 25:06
Very good.
25:06 – 25:07
That's exactly,
25:08 – 25:10
sounds to me that's exactly your
25:10 – 25:12
heart behind starting AEA in the
25:12 – 25:13
first place is to give farmers
25:13 – 25:16
an opportunity to get away from
25:16 – 25:18
the electrolytes, get on to a
25:18 – 25:20
biological system and keep their
25:20 – 25:21
farm viable and more resilient,
25:22 – 25:23
build resiliency.
25:23 – 25:24
Well,
25:24 – 25:25
the reality is
25:26 – 25:27
I grew up on a farm.
25:27 – 25:28
My father was a farmer.
25:28 – 25:29
Both of my grandparents were
25:29 – 25:30
farmers.
25:30 – 25:32
I'm in the Amish community.
25:32 – 25:33
We have this incredibly rich and
25:33 – 25:35
strong agriculturalist tradition
25:35 – 25:37
and culture.
25:39 – 25:40
And we
25:42 – 25:44
very clearly got the sense that
25:44 – 25:45
we were the we were the ones
25:45 – 25:46
being farmed.
25:47 – 25:49
And I think that's very true
25:49 – 25:50
today. It's becoming more
25:50 – 25:51
obvious to people.
25:51 – 25:53
Sometimes a comment that I
25:53 – 25:54
shared with Jason Malk on his
25:54 – 25:55
podcast years ago.
25:56 – 25:57
It is the people who are farming
25:57 – 25:59
the farmers who have a vested
25:59 – 26:00
interest in maintaining the
26:00 – 26:01
status quo.
26:01 – 26:02
And you know,
26:03 – 26:06
many producers today feel stuck,
26:07 – 26:08
they feel trapped because
26:08 – 26:09
there's a recognition,
26:09 – 26:10
they're trapped for whole lots
26:10 – 26:12
of reasons, economic reasons,
26:13 – 26:14
and
26:15 – 26:17
the recognition that this
26:17 – 26:19
is a very different
26:20 – 26:22
mental model, this is a very
26:22 – 26:23
different approach, it requires
26:23 – 26:24
different knowledge, different
26:24 – 26:25
information, it is more
26:25 – 26:27
knowledge intensive, it's more
26:27 – 26:28
management intensive,
26:29 – 26:30
and so there seem to be lots of
26:30 – 26:32
challenges and hurdles within
26:32 – 26:33
that.
26:34 – 26:35
Therein also lies the
26:35 – 26:37
opportunity. Therein lies the
26:37 – 26:38
opportunity for independence
26:38 – 26:40
from the people who very
26:40 – 26:42
deliberately and gradually over
26:42 – 26:43
the course of six or seven
26:43 – 26:45
decades have gotten the entire
26:45 – 26:47
farming community into the
26:47 – 26:49
position of being feudal serfs.
26:49 – 26:51
It's like if the farmers are the
26:51 – 26:52
ones being farmed, they are
26:52 – 26:52
captured.
26:53 – 26:53
And so if,
26:54 – 26:56
and this, this capture is
26:57 – 26:59
a result or part of the capture
26:59 – 27:01
mechanisms is the high input
27:01 – 27:02
expenses. So if you want to
27:02 – 27:03
continue using those, recognize
27:03 – 27:05
that you are voluntarily signing
27:05 – 27:06
up to remain captured.
27:06 – 27:07
Yeah,
27:07 – 27:08
right.
27:07 – 27:08
That's exactly right.
27:09 – 27:10
And I know I've seen that
27:10 – 27:12
firsthand too. It's so easy,
27:12 – 27:13
depending on where you're going
27:13 – 27:15
with your soil tests and your
27:15 – 27:17
recommendations, it's so easy to
27:17 – 27:19
be convinced that we need to do
27:19 – 27:21
this amount of pounds per acre
27:21 – 27:24
of NPNK. And that is so
27:24 – 27:25
true. It's tough to be
27:25 – 27:27
profitable when you're
27:27 – 27:28
constantly chasing that.
27:29 – 27:29
Yeah. Soil tests have
27:29 – 27:31
historically been used primarily
27:31 – 27:32
as fertilizer sales tools.
27:33 – 27:34
That's the reality.
27:35 – 27:36
I mean,
27:36 – 27:39
we can look at the past history
27:39 – 27:41
dispassionately, and we can also
27:41 – 27:42
recognize that part of the
27:42 – 27:44
reason, there are a number of
27:44 – 27:46
foundational contributing
27:46 – 27:48
factors to why agriculture has
27:48 – 27:49
gone down
27:49 – 27:50
the pathway it has,
27:51 – 27:52
agriculture in general, agronomy
27:52 – 27:53
in particular,
27:54 – 27:55
economic reasons,
27:56 – 27:57
intellectual property protection
27:57 – 27:58
reasons, and so forth.
28:01 – 28:04
The bottom line is if you dig
28:04 – 28:06
into the data, if you dig into
28:06 – 28:08
the research that didn't get
28:08 – 28:10
popularized, got published but
28:10 – 28:11
not popularized,
28:13 – 28:14
the data for fertilizer
28:14 – 28:16
applications doesn't look all
28:16 – 28:17
that good.
28:18 – 28:21
I still remember the...
28:23 – 28:24
It's been several years ago now,
28:24 – 28:26
but I had Rick Mulvaney from the
28:26 – 28:27
University of Illinois here on
28:27 – 28:28
my podcast.
28:29 – 28:30
And
28:30 – 28:32
he and his colleagues published
28:32 – 28:33
several
28:33 – 28:35
relatively incendiary and
28:35 – 28:36
inflammatory papers.
28:37 – 28:39
One of them was titled The
28:39 – 28:40
Potassium Paradox.
28:40 – 28:42
And so they did an exhaustive
28:42 – 28:44
literature review of
28:45 – 28:46
all of the peer
28:47 – 28:49
-reviewed published papers
28:50 – 28:52
potassium chloride applications,
28:52 – 28:54
marita potash applications.
28:55 – 28:55
And
28:56 – 28:57
it's been a few years since I
28:57 – 28:58
read this and had this
28:58 – 28:59
conversation.
28:59 – 29:01
But if my memory serves me
29:01 – 29:02
correctly,
29:02 – 29:03
there were something like 900
29:04 – 29:07
studies that
29:07 – 29:09
they put together into this
29:09 – 29:10
review paper.
29:10 – 29:11
Everything they were able to
29:11 – 29:12
find,
29:13 – 29:14
potassium chloride showed a
29:14 – 29:17
positive yield response 16 % of
29:17 – 29:18
the time.
29:18 – 29:19
Oh my goodness.
29:20 – 29:21
16%.
29:21 – 29:22
across,
29:23 – 29:24
as you can imagine, across 900
29:24 – 29:25
papers, there is a tremendous
29:25 – 29:27
diversity of soil types and
29:27 – 29:29
cropping scenarios involved in
29:29 – 29:30
that scenario.
29:30 – 29:32
A 16 % positive yield response.
29:32 – 29:34
And yet it's the most popular
29:34 – 29:35
potassium fertilizer that's out
29:35 – 29:36
there.
29:36 – 29:38
And there are many listeners of
29:38 – 29:39
the podcast who told me that
29:39 – 29:40
that was one of the most
29:40 – 29:41
important
29:41 – 29:43
podcast interviews that they had
29:43 – 29:44
ever listened to, because you
29:44 – 29:46
realize that the published
29:46 – 29:48
literature itself does not
29:48 – 29:49
support the widespread
29:49 – 29:50
application of commercial
29:50 – 29:51
potash.
29:51 – 29:52
And yet everybody does it.
29:54 – 29:57
And it's about the same, maybe
29:57 – 29:59
the literature maybe wouldn't
29:59 – 30:00
back it up as much for
30:00 – 30:01
phosphorous, but phosphates are
30:01 – 30:03
kind of in the same line, aren't
30:03 – 30:03
they?
30:04 – 30:06
They're in a very similar line.
30:07 – 30:08
I mean, the literature also
30:08 – 30:09
suggests,
30:10 – 30:11
depending on if you're applying,
30:11 – 30:13
I mean, the most common applied
30:13 – 30:15
form of phosphorous is DAP,
30:15 – 30:16
and then there's also
30:16 – 30:18
orthophosphates, various more
30:18 – 30:19
expensive liquid phosphorous
30:19 – 30:20
forms.
30:21 – 30:22
The majority of commercial
30:22 – 30:24
applied phosphorus depends a bit
30:24 – 30:25
on your soil pH and the form of
30:25 – 30:26
phosphate that you're applying,
30:26 – 30:28
but DAP has a pH of 9.
30:28 – 30:30
You apply it onto most acidic
30:30 – 30:31
soils or into most soil
30:31 – 30:32
conditions,
30:33 – 30:34
and that phosphorus is going to
30:34 – 30:35
be complexed
30:36 – 30:39
in as little as 3 -5 days
30:39 – 30:42
to as much as 3 -5 weeks.
30:43 – 30:45
It can be greater than 90 % can
30:45 – 30:46
be complex and tied up and is no
30:46 – 30:47
longer available.
30:48 – 30:48
And at that point,
30:49 – 30:50
once that happens,
30:51 – 30:52
and it happens in a very short
30:52 – 30:53
period of time in most soils,
30:54 – 30:57
it is in the exact same form as
30:57 – 30:59
the six to 9 ,000 pounds of
30:59 – 31:00
phosphorus reserves that you
31:00 – 31:02
already have in your soil.
31:02 – 31:05
So it is no more available than
31:06 – 31:07
what you already had an
31:07 – 31:08
abundance of.
31:08 – 31:11
All you have is a disconnect in
31:11 – 31:12
there and the biology needs to
31:12 – 31:13
be cycling it, correct?
31:13 – 31:15
The biology needs to release
31:15 – 31:17
what you applied in exactly the
31:17 – 31:18
same way as it needs to release
31:18 – 31:20
what was already out there.
31:20 – 31:22
And then if you put on a high
31:22 – 31:23
dose of soluble electrolytes in
31:23 – 31:24
close proximity to the root
31:24 – 31:25
system, that's not going to
31:25 – 31:26
happen very well.
31:27 – 31:27
Yeah,
31:27 – 31:28
right.
31:29 – 31:31
That's that is something that I
31:31 – 31:33
think if we as farmers really
31:33 – 31:35
could wrap our minds around,
31:35 – 31:38
we could see a tremendous
31:38 – 31:40
increase in profitability simply
31:40 – 31:41
by not
31:41 – 31:43
even completely cutting out if
31:43 – 31:44
you need to prove it to yourself
31:44 – 31:45
first, but starting to cut back
31:45 – 31:47
on some of these synthetics.
31:48 – 31:49
You know, years ago,
31:50 – 31:51
I'd
31:51 – 31:53
heard this phrase before several
31:53 – 31:54
times, but it was something
31:54 – 31:56
about the way Ben Taylor Davis
31:56 – 31:57
said it to me when I interviewed
31:57 – 31:58
him on the podcast.
31:59 – 32:01
He said, farming is about
32:01 – 32:04
optimizing the utilization of
32:04 – 32:05
three free things.
32:07 – 32:07
Water,
32:08 – 32:09
sunlight and carbon dioxide.
32:10 – 32:11
Wow.
32:11 – 32:13
Those three things we get for
32:13 – 32:15
free. And if we can optimize the
32:15 – 32:16
utilization of those three free
32:16 – 32:18
things, that's how we produce
32:18 – 32:19
the highest yields, the least
32:19 – 32:20
expensively.
32:20 – 32:22
And he just he nailed it.
32:23 – 32:25
He hit that on the head so hard,
32:25 – 32:26
because when you start thinking
32:26 – 32:27
about it in that way,
32:28 – 32:30
earlier in our conversation, I
32:30 – 32:33
spoke about the benefits of FOIA
32:33 – 32:35
applications and optimizing the
32:35 – 32:35
photosynthetic engine.
32:37 – 32:39
I learned something by accident
32:39 – 32:39
many years ago.
32:40 – 32:41
when
32:42 – 32:44
we started having these
32:44 – 32:46
situations
32:46 – 32:47
where putting
32:48 – 32:50
on well -designed foliar
32:50 – 32:52
applications produce completely
32:52 – 32:53
disproportionate responses.
32:54 – 32:55
We would put on a foliar
32:55 – 32:56
application of,
32:57 – 32:57
I'm
32:58 – 32:59
just making up a scenario here,
32:59 – 33:01
but a few ounces per acre of
33:01 – 33:04
actual ingredient of let's say
33:04 – 33:05
zinc and manganese and copper
33:05 – 33:08
and magnesium combinations and
33:10 – 33:12
I still remember this one crop
33:12 – 33:14
in, it was an alfalfa crop in
33:14 – 33:15
Pennsylvania,
33:15 – 33:16
it's a couple hours east of
33:16 – 33:17
where I live,
33:18 – 33:20
that we, in a single cutting, we
33:20 – 33:21
doubled the plant biomass per
33:21 – 33:22
acre,
33:22 – 33:24
doubled the dry matter per acre.
33:24 – 33:25
And you looked at the nutrient
33:25 – 33:26
levels, the nutrient levels were
33:26 – 33:28
higher on a dry matter
33:28 – 33:28
percentage,
33:29 – 33:30
on a percentage basis, but they
33:30 – 33:33
were more than double because
33:33 – 33:35
when you combine the dry matter
33:35 – 33:36
increase with the percentage
33:36 – 33:37
increase, it was a substantial
33:37 – 33:38
increase in
33:39 – 33:40
nutrition
33:41 – 33:42
that we had not applied.
33:42 – 33:44
There was no calcium in our
33:44 – 33:45
foliar application, but the
33:45 – 33:46
quantity of calcium that was
33:46 – 33:49
absorbed from the soil was three
33:49 – 33:50
times greater where we had put
33:50 – 33:52
on the foliar application.
33:52 – 33:54
Wow. How do you explain that?
33:54 – 33:55
Right.
33:55 – 33:57
And the explanation is that
33:58 – 34:00
when you get the
34:01 – 34:03
foliar design right,
34:04 – 34:05
when you get it correct relative
34:05 – 34:07
to what the crop actually needs,
34:08 – 34:09
not what produces a growth
34:09 – 34:10
response,
34:10 – 34:12
Not necessarily nitrogen,
34:12 – 34:13
phosphorus, whatever.
34:13 – 34:13
It's not something that produces
34:13 – 34:14
a visual growth response, but
34:14 – 34:16
when you optimize it
34:16 – 34:18
to increase the plant's
34:18 – 34:18
photosynthesis,
34:19 – 34:20
all of a sudden the plant's
34:20 – 34:22
sugar production can go up
34:22 – 34:23
dramatically.
34:23 – 34:24
We've measured this extensively,
34:25 – 34:26
and anyone can measure it.
34:27 – 34:28
The LICOR instruments, the
34:28 – 34:29
instrumentation to measure plant
34:29 – 34:30
photosynthesis are readily
34:30 – 34:31
available.
34:32 – 34:33
They're expensive, but they're
34:33 – 34:33
available.
34:33 – 34:35
You can increase the plant's
34:35 – 34:37
rate of photosynthesis by 3 to
34:37 – 34:39
4X pretty easily with a well
34:39 – 34:41
-designed foliar application.
34:41 – 34:42
So now that means on
34:43 – 34:44
an acre of alfalfa, instead of
34:44 – 34:47
producing, let's say, 50 pounds
34:47 – 34:48
of sugar per day,
34:49 – 34:51
you've just increased it to 150
34:51 – 34:53
to 200 pounds of sugar per day.
34:53 – 34:54
So
34:54 – 34:55
not only does that reflect
34:55 – 34:58
itself in a plant growth and dry
34:58 – 34:59
matter increase,
34:59 – 35:00
but
35:00 – 35:02
a disproportionate amount of
35:02 – 35:03
that sugar is going to go out
35:03 – 35:04
into the root system and feed
35:04 – 35:05
soil biology.
35:05 – 35:07
And all of the extra minerals
35:07 – 35:08
that
35:08 – 35:11
were absorbed by that plant were
35:11 – 35:13
contributed by a biology that
35:13 – 35:15
was now being fed from the plant
35:15 – 35:16
root exudates.
35:16 – 35:17
So I
35:19 – 35:21
came to realize, and again, we
35:21 – 35:23
were putting on ounces per acre
35:23 – 35:24
of product.
35:25 – 35:27
And I came to realize that when
35:27 – 35:29
we design foliar applications
35:29 – 35:30
well,
35:31 – 35:32
we harness the plant's
35:32 – 35:34
photosynthetic engine and we get
35:34 – 35:36
this disproportionately larger
35:36 – 35:37
response. We put on a small
35:37 – 35:39
amount of material and we get a
35:39 – 35:40
much larger response out than we
35:40 – 35:41
would otherwise expect.
35:42 – 35:44
And that's because of harnessing
35:44 – 35:45
that engine.
35:45 – 35:45
So
35:45 – 35:48
that is where I see
35:48 – 35:50
significant opportunity.
35:50 – 35:51
And I forget exactly how we got
35:51 – 35:52
into this conversation
35:52 – 35:54
originally, but I think the
35:54 – 35:56
understanding foliar
35:56 – 35:57
applications and harnessing them
35:57 – 36:00
well is you buffer what is
36:00 – 36:01
interesting,
36:01 – 36:02
essentially
36:02 – 36:03
We started talking about this
36:03 – 36:04
about
36:04 – 36:06
harnessing three free things.
36:07 – 36:08
Yes. You harvest,
36:08 – 36:09
you harness,
36:09 – 36:10
or you do a better job
36:11 – 36:14
of utilizing those three free
36:14 – 36:16
things with better
36:16 – 36:17
photosynthesis.
36:17 – 36:18
Sure.
36:18 – 36:20
And most of the time, that does
36:20 – 36:21
not mean more nitrogen.
36:21 – 36:23
Most of the time, nitrogen is
36:23 – 36:24
not the limiting factor to
36:24 – 36:25
better photosynthesis.
36:25 – 36:27
It's iron or magnesium or
36:27 – 36:28
manganese or something else.
36:28 – 36:30
It's very subtle.
36:30 – 36:31
nitrogen in commercial
36:31 – 36:33
production agriculture because
36:33 – 36:34
nitrogen gets consistently over
36:34 – 36:35
-applied relative to everything
36:35 – 36:36
else.
36:37 – 36:39
Yeah, that is so fascinating.
36:40 – 36:41
And what you just mentioned, the
36:41 – 36:43
free things, I think of
36:43 – 36:44
atmospheric nitrogen and what
36:44 – 36:46
does it take for a plant to
36:46 – 36:47
cycle atmospheric nitrogen?
36:48 – 36:49
And how much atmospheric
36:49 – 36:50
nitrogen is above every acre of
36:50 – 36:51
land?
36:51 – 36:53
Well, something like 78 ,000
36:53 – 36:54
pounds above every acre or
36:54 – 36:55
something like that.
36:55 – 36:56
But the way to think about it,
36:56 – 36:58
your question is appropriate,
36:58 – 36:59
but the way to think about it is
36:59 – 37:01
what actually captures
37:01 – 37:03
atmospheric nitrogen into and
37:03 – 37:05
makes it available to plants,
37:05 – 37:06
again, is the microbiome.
37:07 – 37:08
We think of
37:09 – 37:11
the moment we start having a
37:11 – 37:11
conversation about nitrogen
37:11 – 37:14
fixation, everyone's thoughts go
37:14 – 37:16
to rhizobium and legumes
37:16 – 37:20
and the association
37:20 – 37:21
that they have with rhizobium.
37:22 – 37:23
But the reality is
37:24 – 37:26
Rhizobium is only one of dozens
37:26 – 37:28
of species that fixes nitrogen.
37:28 – 37:30
We have azotobacter and
37:30 – 37:31
azospirillum and on and on the
37:31 – 37:33
list goes of microbes that
37:34 – 37:35
have the capacity to fix
37:35 – 37:36
nitrogen
37:36 – 37:38
without legumes in the absence
37:38 – 37:39
of legumes. And what is
37:39 – 37:41
interesting is these other
37:41 – 37:42
microbes don't just live in the
37:42 – 37:43
rhizosphere.
37:44 – 37:45
They also live on plant leaf
37:45 – 37:47
surfaces and inside plants.
37:48 – 37:49
That is fascinating.
37:49 – 37:50
I never realized that.
37:51 – 37:54
You can have a plant that is
37:54 – 37:56
colonized by nitrogen fixing
37:56 – 37:56
bacteria.
37:57 – 37:58
And this is some of the work
37:58 – 38:00
that Walter Goldstein has been
38:00 – 38:01
doing at the Mondawmin
38:01 – 38:02
Institute, and he's been
38:02 – 38:03
collaborating with James White
38:03 – 38:04
to document this.
38:05 – 38:08
They are developing these corn
38:08 – 38:09
varieties
38:09 – 38:12
and propagating these old corn
38:12 – 38:13
genetics
38:13 – 38:14
that are,
38:15 – 38:16
and they're specifically
38:16 – 38:18
selecting these varieties to
38:18 – 38:20
have a microbiome that has the
38:20 – 38:22
ability to fix its own nitrogen.
38:22 – 38:24
And they've been very successful
38:24 – 38:25
at achieving that.
38:25 – 38:26
by
38:26 – 38:27
not
38:27 – 38:29
feeding the crop nitrogen,
38:29 – 38:30
making sure that it doesn't have
38:30 – 38:32
free nitrogen and excessive
38:32 – 38:33
electrolytes while it's being
38:33 – 38:34
propagated.
38:35 – 38:37
That is so fascinating to me.
38:37 – 38:39
That's, that's exciting to think
38:39 – 38:41
of the future of what might be
38:41 – 38:42
coming down the pipe
38:42 – 38:44
in soil health communities and
38:44 – 38:46
hopefully more widely known.
38:47 – 38:48
It'll become more widely adopted
38:48 – 38:50
when nitrogen becomes expensive
38:50 – 38:50
enough.
38:50 – 38:51
Yeah,
38:51 – 38:53
yep. which makes me wonder what
38:53 – 38:55
that point is going to be.
38:55 – 38:57
I know I did have some producers
38:57 – 39:00
reach out to me that is that
39:00 – 39:01
knew I did some compost extracts
39:01 – 39:02
and things like that.
39:02 – 39:03
And, and
39:04 – 39:05
one guy that even plants my corn
39:05 – 39:06
was saying, I think I'm going to
39:06 – 39:08
do that. I didn't buy my starter
39:08 – 39:09
fertilizer this spring or this
39:09 – 39:11
last fall. So I'm going to do a
39:11 – 39:13
biological starter for my corn
39:13 – 39:15
this year, like like I'd been
39:15 – 39:16
doing. And that's just really
39:16 – 39:17
exciting to hear that.
39:17 – 39:20
Because that's just in my small
39:20 – 39:21
community, at least one guy
39:21 – 39:22
that's starting to think a
39:22 – 39:24
little bit differently about it.
39:24 – 39:25
and because they got high enough
39:25 – 39:26
for him.
39:26 – 39:29
We could talk for truly days.
39:29 – 39:31
And I think we wouldn't run out
39:31 – 39:32
of things to talk about.
39:32 – 39:33
I want to be respectful of your
39:33 – 39:35
time. You've been very gracious
39:35 – 39:37
with us. And I'm so appreciative
39:37 – 39:38
of that.
39:38 – 39:39
I have four,
39:39 – 39:40
four questions that we can end
39:40 – 39:41
on.
39:41 – 39:43
And, and you can be as quick as
39:43 – 39:45
you want. They can be one word
39:45 – 39:46
answers if you want.
39:46 – 39:48
And I know it's sometimes tough
39:48 – 39:49
to do that. But
39:49 – 39:51
I decided to call this side,
39:51 – 39:52
deep
39:53 – 39:54
roots practical application.
39:55 – 39:56
And just kind of getting to the
39:56 – 39:58
root of kind of four pillars
39:58 – 39:59
here.
39:59 – 40:01
And the first question is, if a
40:01 – 40:02
grower wanted to improve crop
40:02 – 40:04
performance without simply
40:04 – 40:05
increasing inputs, where would
40:05 – 40:06
you encourage them to focus
40:06 – 40:07
first?
40:08 – 40:08
Two things,
40:09 – 40:10
seed treatments of effective
40:10 – 40:12
biologicals, such as our BioCoat
40:12 – 40:13
Coal, which I have a lot of
40:13 – 40:14
experience with.
40:14 – 40:15
And second,
40:15 – 40:16
well -designed foliar
40:16 – 40:18
applications later in the
40:18 – 40:19
season.
40:19 – 40:20
Perfect. Perfect.
40:20 – 40:21
That's fantastic.
40:22 – 40:23
Looking ahead, question two,
40:23 – 40:25
looking ahead, what do you think
40:25 – 40:26
will separate the most resilient
40:26 – 40:28
and profitable farming systems
40:28 – 40:30
from the rest? What's going to
40:30 – 40:31
make the operation more
40:31 – 40:32
resilient?
40:33 – 40:34
Not just growing commodities.
40:35 – 40:38
It will be necessary to add
40:38 – 40:39
further value.
40:39 – 40:41
It will be necessary to develop
40:41 – 40:42
a relationship with the end
40:42 – 40:43
customer.
40:44 – 40:45
You know, there's all of this
40:47 – 40:49
complaining about
40:50 – 40:52
how small a fraction of the
40:52 – 40:53
consumer retail dollar the
40:54 – 40:55
American farmer receives.
40:55 – 40:57
Well, maybe we should take a
40:57 – 40:58
look
40:58 – 41:00
at what fraction of a new pickup
41:00 – 41:02
truck the iron ore miner
41:02 – 41:02
receives,
41:03 – 41:04
because that's exactly the
41:04 – 41:06
mechanism and the way that most
41:06 – 41:07
American farmers are behaving
41:07 – 41:09
is they're behaving as raw
41:09 – 41:09
materials producers.
41:10 – 41:11
So compare your income to the
41:11 – 41:12
other raw materials producers.
41:13 – 41:15
The money has never been and is
41:15 – 41:16
never going to be in raw
41:16 – 41:17
materials commodity production.
41:17 – 41:18
It's going to be in value
41:18 – 41:19
adding.
41:19 – 41:21
Very, very good answer.
41:22 – 41:24
Question three, what is one idea
41:24 – 41:26
about plant nutrition that you
41:26 – 41:27
believe will become much more
41:27 – 41:29
widely understood in the next
41:29 – 41:29
decade?
41:33 – 41:34
Well,
41:36 – 41:38
I've said in the past that the
41:39 – 41:40
history of agronomy has been
41:40 – 41:41
based on chemistry,
41:42 – 41:43
understanding chemistry, whether
41:43 – 41:45
that's nutritional chemistry or
41:45 – 41:46
product,
41:47 – 41:48
fungicide, insecticide,
41:48 – 41:49
biochemistry, and so forth.
41:50 – 41:51
The future of agronomy is going
41:51 – 41:53
to be in a combination,
41:53 – 41:55
combining chemistry with biology
41:55 – 41:56
and biophysics.
41:57 – 41:58
There's an emerging
41:58 – 42:01
understanding of the impact of
42:01 – 42:04
redox and what that means from a
42:04 – 42:04
biological management
42:04 – 42:06
perspective. The reality is
42:06 – 42:08
agronomy has historically been
42:08 – 42:09
framed in terms of chemistry
42:09 – 42:11
because that's the one thing we
42:11 – 42:12
were relatively easy,
42:12 – 42:14
we were able to measure in a
42:14 – 42:15
relatively straightforward way.
42:16 – 42:17
We weren't we didn't have the
42:17 – 42:19
technology to measure biology 20
42:19 – 42:20
years ago like we do today.
42:21 – 42:22
So I believe the future of
42:22 – 42:24
agronomy is going to be based on
42:24 – 42:25
a biological approach.
42:25 – 42:27
And that's certainly becoming
42:27 – 42:29
already becoming more widely
42:29 – 42:29
understood.
42:30 – 42:30
Yeah, absolutely.
42:31 – 42:32
And you're a huge part of that.
42:32 – 42:33
We so appreciate you bringing
42:33 – 42:36
that to the world because it's
42:36 – 42:36
so important.
42:37 – 42:39
And finally, I actually changed
42:39 – 42:41
my final question because I want
42:41 – 42:44
to kind of hone in on this one.
42:44 – 42:45
Where do you think the biggest
42:45 – 42:46
disconnect is
42:46 – 42:48
between how farmers observe
42:48 – 42:49
their fields and
42:50 – 42:51
how agronomy recommendations are
42:51 – 42:52
made? Where's the disconnect
42:52 – 42:56
between the soil and the
42:56 – 42:57
farmer?
42:59 – 43:01
Well, maybe the question to ask
43:01 – 43:03
is, are the farmers observing
43:03 – 43:04
their fields?
43:04 – 43:05
It's a great question.
43:08 – 43:10
I'll answer the question this
43:10 – 43:11
way.
43:11 – 43:12
One of the things we
43:14 – 43:15
started
43:15 – 43:16
In 2013,
43:17 – 43:19
we started analyzing all the
43:19 – 43:21
recommendations that we made to
43:21 – 43:22
growers for
43:22 – 43:23
their ROI.
43:24 – 43:26
What was the ROI of a seed
43:26 – 43:28
treatment inoculant versus a
43:28 – 43:29
foliar application in different
43:29 – 43:30
settings and different contexts?
43:31 – 43:32
And so
43:32 – 43:33
every year at the end of a
43:33 – 43:34
growing season, we'd have this
43:34 – 43:36
list of hundreds of growers that
43:36 – 43:37
we had worked with, and we would
43:37 – 43:38
rank
43:38 – 43:40
the relative success of their
43:40 – 43:42
crops and their agronomic
43:42 – 43:43
performance on a scale of 1 to
43:43 – 43:45
10. And we would put these
43:45 – 43:46
various groups together and we
43:46 – 43:47
would compare the differences
43:47 – 43:48
between the two groups
43:48 – 43:50
and talk about a revealing
43:50 – 43:51
exercise. We learned so much
43:51 – 43:52
about agronomy.
43:52 – 43:53
We repeated that exercise year
43:53 – 43:54
after year after year.
43:54 – 43:55
But after several years,
43:57 – 43:58
the differences that emerged
43:58 – 43:59
were no longer agronomic.
44:00 – 44:01
They were management related.
44:02 – 44:03
And what was interesting,
44:04 – 44:05
I put together this webinar and
44:05 – 44:06
it's one of my early podcast
44:06 – 44:07
episodes as well.
44:07 – 44:08
What are the characteristics of
44:08 – 44:10
exceptional farm managers?
44:10 – 44:11
just get exceptional results?
44:13 – 44:14
And one of the characteristics
44:14 – 44:16
that I think is often overlooked
44:16 – 44:16
is
44:17 – 44:18
the most
44:19 – 44:20
successful farm managers
44:21 – 44:24
really honed in on what are the
44:24 – 44:26
factors that made them money,
44:26 – 44:27
that determined their financial
44:27 – 44:28
success,
44:30 – 44:32
and they refused to delegate
44:32 – 44:35
that knowledge of managing those
44:35 – 44:37
factors to anyone, not to an
44:37 – 44:38
agronomist, not to a vet, not
44:38 – 44:40
to... They made sure that they
44:40 – 44:42
understood those factors very
44:42 – 44:43
well.
44:43 – 44:44
So
44:44 – 44:45
on
44:45 – 44:47
one of the examples that I've
44:47 – 44:49
used in the past when discussing
44:49 – 44:51
this is on cherry production.
44:51 – 44:53
Historically, when cherries were
44:53 – 44:55
largely exported and still even
44:55 – 44:56
to this day to a degree,
44:58 – 45:00
the factors that determine a
45:00 – 45:01
cherry grower's profitability
45:01 – 45:03
are size and firmness.
45:04 – 45:05
That's it. That's what it comes
45:05 – 45:06
down to, size and firmness.
45:07 – 45:08
And the
45:09 – 45:11
most successful growers refuse
45:11 – 45:12
to delegate the knowledge of how
45:12 – 45:15
to produce large, firm cherries
45:15 – 45:16
to their advisors.
45:17 – 45:18
They want to know it themselves.
45:20 – 45:21
And there are far too many
45:21 – 45:23
growers today who want to
45:23 – 45:25
delegate all of the specialty
45:25 – 45:26
knowledge to their advisors.
45:27 – 45:28
They don't know themselves.
45:28 – 45:31
And so they don't know enough to
45:31 – 45:33
refute bad recommendations.
45:34 – 45:36
And the reality is we have much
45:36 – 45:37
of agronomy today.
45:40 – 45:41
I would suggest the majority of
45:41 – 45:43
mainstream agronomy is applying
45:45 – 45:47
nutrients that are in unhealthy
45:47 – 45:49
forms at the wrong time.
45:50 – 45:53
The majority of disease and
45:53 – 45:54
insect problems and the majority
45:54 – 45:56
of fruit quality problems, the
45:56 – 45:57
majority of why we have poor
45:57 – 46:00
pollination and all kinds of
46:00 – 46:03
kernel and seed size challenges
46:03 – 46:03
are
46:04 – 46:05
because of excess
46:05 – 46:06
of the wrong things being
46:06 – 46:07
applied at the wrong times.
46:08 – 46:09
It's not that potash isn't
46:09 – 46:10
necessary.
46:10 – 46:11
It's essential.
46:11 – 46:12
It's required.
46:12 – 46:14
But you put, you have the plant
46:14 – 46:15
have elevated levels of it
46:15 – 46:16
during the bloom and pollination
46:16 – 46:18
period, it will cost you yield.
46:19 – 46:20
You will have a yield drag
46:20 – 46:21
effect
46:21 – 46:22
from nitrogen and potassium
46:22 – 46:23
being
46:23 – 46:24
applied at the wrong time.
46:25 – 46:27
And majority of crops are
46:27 – 46:28
experiencing that today.
46:30 – 46:31
Mike 1 That is really
46:31 – 46:32
interesting. That is a very
46:33 – 46:33
Very good answer.
46:34 – 46:36
It's it's people that I never
46:36 – 46:37
really thought of that people
46:37 – 46:39
that are delegating the most
46:39 – 46:40
important parts of their
46:40 – 46:41
operation.
46:41 – 46:43
I know I've I've heard it before
46:43 – 46:46
that if we make our living from
46:46 – 46:47
the soil isn't it in our best
46:47 – 46:48
interest to know what's going on
46:48 – 46:49
in it.
46:49 – 46:51
And I think that is if
46:52 – 46:53
we're relying on the soil, we
46:53 – 46:54
need to make sure that
46:54 – 46:56
everything we're doing to it is
46:56 – 46:57
paying us back
46:57 – 46:59
and not taking our money.
46:59 – 47:01
It comes down to the Pareto
47:01 – 47:01
principle.
47:01 – 47:03
20 % of the things you do
47:03 – 47:04
produce 80 % of the results.
47:06 – 47:09
And yet for us as farmers, we
47:09 – 47:11
spend 80 % of our time focused
47:11 – 47:12
on the
47:13 – 47:13
wrong things.
47:14 – 47:15
And so
47:16 – 47:17
to come back to the question
47:17 – 47:18
that you asked,
47:19 – 47:21
these, the top
47:21 – 47:22
producers,
47:22 – 47:23
the people who are getting the
47:23 – 47:24
best results,
47:25 – 47:26
they actually pay close
47:26 – 47:27
attention. They are out there,
47:27 – 47:28
they are observing.
47:29 – 47:31
They're observing, it's like one
47:31 – 47:32
of,
47:32 – 47:34
best apple growers that I know
47:34 – 47:36
is he's consistently between 2
47:36 – 47:40
and 3x the regional average on
47:40 – 47:41
apple production, just
47:41 – 47:42
consistently has been for years.
47:44 – 47:45
He makes it a priority to spend
47:45 – 47:47
two hours every day walking
47:47 – 47:48
through his orchard,
47:48 – 47:50
just observing, just paying
47:50 – 47:51
attention.
47:51 – 47:53
And that has paid him immense
47:53 – 47:54
dividends.
47:54 – 47:55
Yeah,
47:55 – 47:56
absolutely.
47:56 – 47:59
That observation is key in
48:00 – 48:01
making sure that your money is
48:01 – 48:03
going to work for you and not
48:03 – 48:03
just being wasted.
48:04 – 48:06
And also just that things are
48:06 – 48:07
functioning as they should.
48:08 – 48:10
And that is fantastic advice.
48:10 – 48:12
That is a wonderful place to end
48:12 – 48:12
our podcast.
48:13 – 48:14
I wish I could talk for another
48:14 – 48:15
two hours with you, john.
48:15 – 48:17
But I know you have way more
48:17 – 48:18
important things to get to.
48:19 – 48:21
But I so appreciate all your
48:21 – 48:23
time. And where can people go to
48:24 – 48:25
find I know I mentioned the
48:25 – 48:26
Regenerative Agriculture
48:26 – 48:27
Podcast.
48:27 – 48:28
They can come and check that
48:28 – 48:29
out. They can get hours and
48:29 – 48:30
hours of content from you there.
48:31 – 48:33
Is there any other way they can
48:33 – 48:34
connect with you?
48:34 – 48:35
Lots of places.
48:35 – 48:36
I'm on a number of different
48:36 – 48:38
social media platforms, but I
48:38 – 48:40
think the most important place,
48:40 – 48:41
the team that I work with every
48:41 – 48:43
day is the team at Advancing
48:43 – 48:43
Ecoagriculture.
48:44 – 48:45
You can find us on our website.
48:46 – 48:47
I teach a lot of webinars that
48:47 – 48:49
have been put on YouTube and
48:50 – 48:51
I don't know, we might change up
48:51 – 48:53
that strategy because now AI is
48:53 – 48:54
being trained on all of our
48:54 – 48:57
content. So we might take that
48:57 – 48:58
private behind
48:58 – 49:00
a subscriber wall or something
49:00 – 49:01
like that on the website, just
49:01 – 49:02
because it's
49:03 – 49:05
interesting when if
49:05 – 49:07
one person tries to learn
49:07 – 49:08
everything that we put out
49:08 – 49:09
there, kudos to them.
49:10 – 49:11
It's going to take them hundreds
49:11 – 49:12
of hours of learning, and we
49:12 – 49:13
respect that and admire that and
49:13 – 49:14
promote that.
49:15 – 49:18
But AI and just making that
49:18 – 49:19
information available
49:19 – 49:21
more readily available to people
49:21 – 49:21
who don't really fully
49:21 – 49:23
understand the full context can
49:23 – 49:24
be challenging.
49:24 – 49:25
So there's lots of places to
49:25 – 49:25
find our information.
49:26 – 49:27
And yeah, please reach out to
49:27 – 49:28
us. Owen.
49:29 – 49:30
You do need to try pinion.
49:30 – 49:32
You need to try that because if
49:32 – 49:33
you can replace synthetic
49:33 – 49:35
fungicides, it's a big deal.
49:35 – 49:36
We'd love to have you experiment
49:36 – 49:37
with it. So thank you all for
49:37 – 49:38
listening.
49:37 – 49:38
Absolutely.
49:38 – 49:39
Well, thank you again, John.
49:39 – 49:40
We so appreciate it.
49:40 – 49:42
All of our listeners are better
49:42 – 49:42
for having heard this
49:42 – 49:43
conversation.
49:43 – 49:45
So thank you so much again for
49:45 – 49:46
your time.
49:46 – 49:47
The team at AEA and I are
49:47 – 49:49
dedicated to bringing this show
49:49 – 49:50
to you because we believe that
49:50 – 49:52
knowledge and information is the
49:52 – 49:54
foundation of successful
49:54 – 49:55
regeneration. systems.
49:56 – 49:58
At AEA, we believe that growing
49:58 – 50:00
better quality food and making
50:00 – 50:01
more money from your crops is
50:01 – 50:02
possible.
50:02 – 50:03
And since 2006,
50:04 – 50:04
we've worked with leading
50:04 – 50:06
professional growers to help
50:06 – 50:07
them do just that.
50:08 – 50:09
At AEA, we don't guess.
50:09 – 50:11
We test. We analyze.
50:11 – 50:13
And we provide recommendations
50:13 – 50:14
based on scientific data,
50:15 – 50:16
knowledge, and experience.
50:16 – 50:18
We've developed products that
50:18 – 50:19
are uniquely positioned to help
50:19 – 50:20
growers make more money with
50:20 – 50:21
regenerative agriculture.
50:22 – 50:23
If you are a professional grower
50:23 – 50:25
who believes in testing instead
50:25 – 50:26
of guessing,
50:27 – 50:28
someone who believes in a
50:28 – 50:29
better, more regenerative way to
50:29 – 50:30
grow,
50:30 – 50:33
visit advancingecoag .com and
50:33 – 50:34
contact us to see if AEA is
50:34 – 50:35
right for you.
