Unfortunately, soil biology—the key driver of regenerative agricultural systems—has been difficult to measure, except in indirect ways.  

 

That has changed in a major way with the availability of affordable DNA testing. By sequencing the DNA of the soil microbiome, we can get a precise picture of the soil’s biological makeup.  

That’s why AEA is excited to be a partner and investor in GenTrek Labs, which offers actionable soil DNA tests to farmers, gardeners, and researchers.  

 

• High level scores on the microbiome’s diversity, stability, functional potential, and risk balance. 
• Heatmaps comparing the relative abundance of microbial genera between fields, broken down into bacteria, fungi, archaea, and protists. 
• An appendix describing what exactly those microbial taxa are and what exactly they do (just in case you’re not a microbiologist).  

 

Some questions a GenTrek test can help answer:  

• Are my biological programs actually working? 
• How do my fields compare to each other? 
• Is this biological input delivering real value?
• Which intervention is the least harmful to soil biology?  

The goal is to distill the complexity of soil biology into clear, usable, and actionable insights for the field. 

Keep reading to hear from:  

• AEA’s R&D team on how they’re using GenTrek data to evaluate new products
• One of the first people to use GenTrek Labs: longtime AEA partner Greg Pennyroyal, who has big plans this year for DNA testing.
• GenTrek’s founder Laura Kavanaugh, on what it’s been like to partner with AEA 

We’ve been sharing strategies on how growers can reduce their reliance on synthetic fertilizers as prices go through the roof.  

• We’ve written on our blog.
• John Kempf has done a number of webinars on biological nitrogen management:
  • With Acres USA.
  • With the Minnesota Soil Health Coalition. 

It's not a simple topic; there’s a whole lot of information to digest.  

• We made these infographics to get across as much information as concisely as possible, and let growers know there’s a better way to manage nitrogen.
• You can click on them for downloadable versions. 

They are easily shareable on social media if you want to get the word out and help farmers survive this volatile ag economy.  

At AEA, our R&D team used GenTrek Labs' DNA testing to analyze last summer’s field trials of Revenant Charge™.

• Since Revenant Charge is designed to stimulate soil biology, GenTrek’s testing is the perfect way to understand precisely how it does.   

• Revenant Charge™ increased overall microorganism populations 
• It fostered a more diverse and more functional microbial community.
• Mycorrhizal and saprophytic fungal families were more abundant and diverse in treated plots.
• Revenant Charge selectively increased beneficial biology, not bad biology. 

Greg Pennyroyal is vineyard manager at Wilson Creek Winery. If you’re not familiar with the incredible results Greg has achieved with AEA’s regenerative program, check out the detailed case study on our website, chronicling  

• >5°C reduction in soil temperature 
• 257% increase in soil health based on Haney analyses 
• Smoother wine fermentation curve 
• Better control of powdery mildew even with 50% fungicide reduction
• And much more!  

In a former career, Greg worked in health products studying medicinal plants. In that work, he consulted with Dr. Arden Anderson to understand the effect of a plant’s microbiome on its medicinal properties.  

 

“Arden said, ‘Hey, next time you’re at Acres, I have to introduce you to this Amish kid. This kid’s on fire.’”  

 

 

“When I saw the things that John was doing, it just made sense. When things connect like that, you know you are approaching the truth. Because when you look at nature, everything connects to everything else. . . . Oftentimes, if you're on the cutting edge of everything, to quote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, ‘oops, wrong planet.’ You look around and go, ‘did I show up on the right planet here? Is this like the way things really work?’ And then when I met John, everything started to make sense.” 

 

As vineyard manager at Wilson Creek Winery, Greg first implemented a full regenerative system on a trial block: Block Nine.  

 

“Block Nine consistently outperforms the rest of the vineyard in every marker. The soil is noticeably spongier. The grapes out of Block Nine don't taste like grapes, they taste like wine. Our winemaker noticed Block Nine had a beautiful smooth fermentation curve. Block Nine is now our Regen flagship wine. We've converted pretty much the whole home vineyard to regenerative. But it was the experience that had we had a Block Nine that gave us the courage to do that.” 

Here at AEA, we can confirm that Greg has always been on the cutting edge, including: 

• using AEA products for 10 years,
• Beta testing FieldLark.ai,
• Helping develop our Integrity Grown standard for winegrapes
• Running our first field trials on Pinion™.  

He was also one of the first people to use GenTrek Labs’ DNA testing.

• Greg took samples from a number of vineyard blocks this year. 

“The fungal diversity is easily double in our experimental blocks versus our control. Archaea almost tripled. Bacteria wasn't that different, which doesn't surprise me that much, because what we have is bacterially dominated soils. So that affirms a basic theory about where we're going with these soils. But this was all just to test the technology.” 

 

Greg has big plans for GenTrek this coming year; more on that in the next section.  

 

 

“There are a couple of things that are completely unique about [AEA] as an organization and as a business. For starters, my trust is absolute. I have never felt like I was trying to be sold something that I didn't need. I'm never on guard. Whereas with almost every other business I work with, I'm like, ‘do I really need this? Or are they trying to meet some quota?’ After all this time, you have never backed off of your ethics and that is a big deal.” 

1. Disease Resistance 

“Two years ago, we had wine spontaneously ferment in the tank. That’s usually a bad thing, because wild yeast is very unpredictable, and it immediately starts to produce aldehyde and sulfites. You just smell it. But this started to ferment and it smelled great. So we just let it go. And quite frankly, it's the best Syrah we've ever made. It's phenomenal. 100% native yeast, great fermentation.”  

 

Greg suspects that by spreading pomace into the vineyard, he accidentally inoculated the vineyard with commercial cerevisiae yeast, which found a comfortable home in the vineyard’s complex microbiome. That yeast then inoculated the wine.  

 

DNA testing of the fruit’s microbiome (carposhere) will see if Greg's hypothesis is correct, and if Wilson Creek can leverage the newly native cerevisiae yeast to make future phenomenal ferments.  

Wilson Creek Winery has a 12-year-old block in which all of the vines have developed severe symptoms of Eutypa dieback.

• Eutypa usually spreads from pruning cuts down rows of neighboring vines.
• Because in this instance it appeared simultaneously throughout the whole block, Greg suspects that the disease may have been dormant in the nursery stock.
• Most people have recommended pulling out the block.  

“The question we have is, if we do a higher dose of Pinion and maybe an extra foliar or two, can we get that vine to not only outgrow it, but to go into a reductive cycle and cure it?" says Greg.

 

"If that's actually possible, then it opens up a whole other realm for managing fungal diseases, where you don't have to rip out the vine, because you can turn it around. That would be a big deal for a lot of growers, because fungal diseases are definitely on the rise.”  

 

Testing through GenTrek will determine if there are DNA markers for surviving Eutypa dieback.  

We are excited to see the results from these trials, and will share whatever Greg lets us!  

 

What stands out most to me about AEA is how early they saw where agriculture needed to go.   

 

AEA has been a true thought leader in recognizing the importance of regenerative farming and building a practical system of knowledge and products to make it successful in the real world. They have moved agriculture toward improved food nutrition, reduced chemical exposure for both farmers and consumers, and restored the natural systems that support long-term sustainability. 

Many growers don’t realize that excess fertility can be as big a problem as a lack of fertility.

• This is especially true of market gardeners, who tend to apply compost routinely, regardless of their soil’s desperate cries for help, telling them to cut back.  

On our blog, AEA Agronomist Katie Meyer questions conventional wisdom on fertility in market gardens.

 

"Fertility excesses, not deficiencies, underlie many of the weed, pest and disease pressures growers experience today," Katie writes. "And unless growers rethink how they interpret soil tests and how they time and scale fertility, these pressures only intensify as production increases." 

 

She identifies problematic patterns to watch out for, essential nutrients for disease prevention, and an alternative way to think about compost. 

We got this roller coaster pair of texts from Green's Fruit Farm in Central PA: 

 

April 22: "In other news, we lost all of our peaches and 80% of the apples in the freeze yesterday"

 

April 29: "We are seeing a strong secondary bloom. Other neighboring orchards are not seeing this. I am thinking that this could be a result of our work with AEA last year and this spring. I will keep you posted, but it’s exciting to see the flowers!"

[pictured]

 

 

Seeing an entire season's crop perish in the span of a few hours is absolutely heartbreaking. It's equally thrilling to help growers with a nutrition program to help their crop withstand freezes.