Ask Me Anything with John Kempf - April 9

All right, so, uh, first question here is from Dennis. Could you please explain the basic difference between the intended use of a biological versus the intended use of a biostimulant? I know the lines are often blurred, but I'm thinking about the concept whereby more is not better. All right, Dennis. And Dennis also has a follow-up question here, but I'll start with this question first. So it's worth creating a distinction saying there is there's a regulatory framework and then there's practical application framework. Uh, the reg— there are certain regulatory frameworks for what gets called a biostimulant. Um, and I think generally many biologicals, unless they are registered for disease control or something like that, many biologicals are, are called biostimulants from a regulatory perspective. It's interesting that that wasn't always the case. That's why there's this historical language shift. So the way that I think about— maybe I'll say it this way. I think of biologicals and biostimulants as being in several distinct categories. I'm just going to run through this mentally. First, there is a biological inoculant for the rhizosphere, for the soil. Second, there is a biological inoculant that is an appropriate fit for plant foliage. Sometimes a single product can overlap and be an appropriate fit for both, but there are also distinct microbes that are best or that are exclusive only to soil, say mycorrhizal fungi, for example, or exclusive to, to leaf foliage like phytosanitary bacteria and others, a variety of different species that are only effective when applied, or that are only colonized and live on plant leaf surface as far as we know, or as far as I understand right now. So there are those different groups of microbial inoculants in, in two distinct categories. One is for plant foliage application, one is for soil and rhizosphere application. And then you have biostimulants. And, uh, here in this particular use case, and I'm trying to describe this, I'm going to say biostimulants other than inoculants, other than living microbes. So these might be stimulating materials such as humic substances, such as seaweed, such as amino acids and organic acids of all types, and on and on the list goes. From a practical application perspective, I tend to categorize those in terms of plant biostimulant or microbial biostimulant. You have some of these biostimulant products which produce a very strong plant response and others which produce a very strong microbial response. And if, again, you have a few that are cross-categories that do both. And the reason I'm creating this distinction is because the way we design our products and our nutrition programs at Advancing EcoAgriculture is you, you get, you get the most effective synergistic effects when you grow cross-domain and you create this synergistic stack that covers each of those domains, that covers each of those modules, if you will. So, and you could even, you could even create further distinctions. In the case of the soil microbiome, you could talk about fungal inoculants versus bacterial inoculants. You could speak about fungal biostimulants versus bacterial biostimulants versus protozoa biostimulants. And the, the— what is unique about biological agriculture versus the historical or recent history— shouldn't call it historical, but the contemporary agriculture of today— is that when you're working with chemistry, it's relatively uncommon to get geometric effects where 1 1 something more than 2. It doesn't happen often if you're using soluble ions and using chemistry fertilizer, if you're using ammonium sulfate, urea, what have you. The only place that that really happens, if you use those soluble ions in conjunction with plants to treat plants and not soil. So, in many cases, you can put on these soluble fertilizers as a plant treatment and you're harnessing the photosynthetic engine and you produce a disproportionate response. But when we're talking about soil application, it's not common to produce this disproportionate response with fertilizers. And it can be— I don't want to say it's easy, but it's also not that difficult to create a disproportionately large response with biology. Our observation has been that the greatest success occurs when you stack things together from different categories and you create these synergistic stacks. So if you have a, let's say, a bacterial inoculant plus a fungal inoculant plus a bacterial and fungal biostimulant plus a plant biostimulant, so you now have you've now touched all 5 of those different categories. And again, sometimes you have some products which are fairly cross-categories, such as, let's say, folic acid, for example. And, but when you touch all those categories and you create this synergistic stacking effect, now you have a much greater probability in biological systems of producing this disproportionate response, this geometric response where 1 plus 1 is something very different from 2. It's, it can be 11, it can be 15, it can be 5. It's, it's unexpected results. And so that's, that's the way that I think about biologicals versus biostimulants. Dennis has a follow-up question. Could cover crops be treated with Revenant Charge or Soil Primer as a method of fall application? And the answer is for sure not soil primer. Um, I don't, I don't know. We haven't tried either of those as a seed treatment. I would much prefer the use of Seed Flare and BioCoat Gold. Um, the— I'm con— my reservation— Revenant Charge, maybe, but we have no experience with it. So I have a lot of hesitation around that when I think of what it— based on what I know and understand about its various mechanisms and modes of action. Revenant Charge with the sugar content is just too sticky. It'll create sticky seed and everything else that's a mess that you don't even want to deal with. But also, I would be— the microbiome that is native on the seed coat and within the seed We don't want to— it's not harmful to add to that with BioCoat Gold or to enhance that with SeedFlare. I don't want to mess that up too much by adding sugar to it. So Revenant Charge doesn't contain sugars, and I'd be less concerned about that than I would be about Rejuvenate. But I don't think a seed treatment is the best fit for it. I would prefer to use SeedFlare as a seed treatment and then do a soil broadcast application of Revenant Charge. Or soil primer. Question from Dave Hobson, a couple of questions. Our planter is set up to put starter nitrogen on top of the ground 2 inches off the row. Will this be far enough from the seed to avoid having nitrogen interference with the roots in that critical 1 to 3 week period of ear and kernel row development with irrigation? Or does this need to be reconfigured to place that nitrogen in a true 2x2 configuration to ensure placement is off the seed and avoid the early nitrogen exposure? Dave, it depends a little bit on your soil. When you think about the nitrogen application on top, I don't know your context, but if you have sandy soil, as you could imagine, and you put on irrigation or rainwater, the nitrogen is going to diffuse out in an upside-down V a little bit, but it's mostly going to go relatively straight down. If you have heavier soil, then yes, you get a lot of sideways diffusion. And distribution. And excuse me, I do think it would be valuable to go down a couple of inches to be below the seed or parallel to the seed. The second question: the past 2 years we have used 10 gallons of Liquid 28 with 5% of the mix being molasses and 5% corn steep liquor per acre. Out the back of the planter as our starter. What is your recommendation given the comments on UAN or ammonium sulfate for the sulfate part of the starter? So the UAN is a good material. The— and I think that's a good material that's well placed at that point. I would consider you could either liquefy ammonium sulfate or you can use ammonium thiosulfate. Either one of those can be a good sulfur source. Ammonium thiosulfate is probably the easiest and most straightforward to add to that mix. And you just add in enough to get a 9:1 or a 10:1 nitrogen to sulfur ratio. Um, third question: relative to the second 40-pound or 40-unit application at side dress, you mentioned using urea. Is that correct? Yes, I am. I do prefer to use urea for that second application. Um, and then the follow-up question is: the melted urea won't give the same response soil applied? Uh, I'm interpreting your question here. I think if you're asking, the melted urea won't produce the same plant response if it's applied to the soil as it would apply to the plant? Yes, it will produce the same response or even bigger response when applied to the soil compared to Liquid 28. So there's two possible interpretations of that question there, and I try to answer both of them. So the follow-up question is, so what is your recommendation for the side dress? My recommendation is for urea for the side dress. I prefer urea rather than liquid 28 or 32. We see bigger crop responses from that, and I would again add thiosulfate to that, or a form of sulfur of some type. Along with the carbohydrates and the carbon and molybdenum. You also need to include molybdenum in that mix, by the way. You need to put in at least a pint per acre of rebound molybdenum. And it's— this is something that I can't really— I didn't perhaps emphasize enough in some of the webinars that I've done recently on nitrogen management. But molybdenum is the enzyme cofactor for the nitrate reductase enzyme. It's required by both soil biology and by plants. Dramatically improves your nitrogen use efficiency of the crop when you have adequate molybdenum levels. So that's, that's a fairly critical application that should— every nitrogen application should include rebound molybdenum. Question here from Steve Schultz: we have some very sandy soils with organic matter less than 1.5 that has potassium levels less than 100 parts per million. We have historically been using potassium chloride with beef compost to supplement because we have fairly high removal rates as well with either silage or forage. What is the best method and amount of potassium supplementation for a corn silage crop going forward using your regenerative methods? I don't own the license to them, just to be clear. Um, we've been advised to stop potassium applications But I am worried about our soil being able to mineralize enough potassium to keep plants healthy and sturdy. We did use limited amounts of foliar K potassium acetate last year but don't have enough quantified results to make a decision. This is pivot irrigated ground. Also on the same ground, we will try to graze standing corn this fall/winter with a fall cow/calf pairs, trying to scheme my supplementation strategy. We are thinking of using a split row planter with sunflowers to provide protein as well as building an understory of hairy vetch. Any advice on what you can grow with the corn without seriously suppressing yields? All right, two different questions there. I'll come back to the corn question, but potassium applications. So I think you are correct to have reservations about removing potassium applications on very sandy soils. You didn't provide what your CEC levels are, but if you have potassium levels that are less than 100 parts per million, many sandy soils just simply don't have large amounts of potassium and they don't mineralize it very well. So you have, you didn't give your application rates of your historical potassium chloride application, but we have, both the pricing of potassium sulfate and potassium chloride varies. It's not always a perfect analog one to the other, but we ran into this scenario where we had this— we were given this idea that we need to replace potassium sulfate with potassium chloride on a pound-for-pound potassium replacement basis that made the potassium sulfate look very expensive. So this is now going back— I don't even know the exact time frame, but probably 15+ years ago. We started experimenting with instead of replacing potassium sulfate, or excuse me, replacing potassium chloride with potassium sulfate on a pound-for-pound basis of potash, we instead started replacing it dollar for dollar. And wouldn't you know it, if you replace potassium chloride with potassium sulfate on a dollar-for-dollar basis, in many cases historically, you're ending up with putting on in the neighborhood of about 30% or so less pounds of potassium with the potassium sulfate. And yet, we almost always, in our historical data, it's been some time since I looked at this data or thought about it, but from memory, I would say greater than 90% of the field situations that we observed, we got a yield response, a positive yield response from switching from potassium chloride to potassium sulfate. Even though we were putting on less potassium, fewer pounds of potash. So that would be my recommendation. And then the foliar potassium acetate can be a good material. We also have our Holo-K at AEA, which works in some settings, in some contexts. I don't know if this is the right one for it, but foliar Plants do respond generally very positively to foliar potassium acetate, and depending on the soil in the context, potassium sulfate might also be a fit. Potassium sulfate to the soil is probably going to be your lowest cost and greatest plant response, would be my guess. Actually, let me just finish that thought before I go on to the next one. The reason for my last comment is because If you have very sandy soil with limited potassium supply, the crop is going to need substantial poundage. And there aren't— there isn't the same degree of efficiency gains to be gained with potassium as there are on light sandy soil as there is on heavier soil of soil application versus foliar. On heavier soil, I think this research was originally done by Patrick Brown at, uh, in California, and I'm— the exact numbers are escaping me right now, but I want to say he was reporting in the neighborhood of a 2.5 to 3 pound equivalency, that 1 pound of potassium applied foliar was the equivalent of 2.5 to 3 pounds applied to the soil. But that math does change a little bit based on soil type. Some soils can deliver potassium much more efficiently than others, and on your soil It is, if you have light sandy soil, you do need a physical, a minimum physical poundage and quantity of potassium. All right, coming on, moving back to the corn question. I would suggest that you look, without going into too much detail on this, look at the research that has been done by Bob Recker in Iowa, by Lauren Steinlage, by Jason Malk in Indiana. Stockcropper Zach Smith in Iowa. There's a number of people who are experimenting with wider row spacing, either doing double 60s, 7-inch rows, 60 inches apart. The short version is they are growing corn in wider row spacing, and there have been lots of experimentations with different populations and sizing, but they're growing a wider row spacing with a larger population within that row or set of rows, and that allows enough sunlight to move down through that they can grow cover crops, they can grow forages. And there's, there's a number of people who've been doing really great work in this space, but they're essentially producing a full corn crop with limited to no yield drag, and in some cases Even seeing, I know Ed Bass from Bass Hybrids spoke at an event. We spoke at an event together in Iowa here a couple of weeks ago, and he was describing how they're consistently seeing a yield response, not a yield drag, but they're seeing a yield response consistently from COVID crop incorporation into wide-row spacing corn. So that's definitely something to take a look at. Question here from Leon. I grew up in a family greenhouse business. We're considering getting back into owning and managing a greenhouse operation. One of my main concerns getting back into this occupation is disease and pest management. Was wondering if any of your information has practical solutions that are applicable in horticultural greenhouse environment for disease and pest management and/or prevention. Leon, the, the short answer is yes. Um, years ago I did quite a bit of work on developing a potting media to grow very high quality transplant seedlings and vegetable seedlings that didn't have all the disease susceptibility, pest susceptibility, that were already loaded with microbial inoculants, that had appropriate nutrient ratios, weren't loaded up with excess of nitrogen and excess of potassium and so forth. And that went quite well. We don't really advertise it very widely, but we do still have that potting media and make it available, and we still have growers that use it in very large volumes. Azure Standard, for example, uses it to produce all of their vegetable seedlings. And So I spent a lot of time working with media formulations and thinking about nutrition management in a greenhouse context and environment. So there's a few thoughts. One is the traditional media is saturated with potassium and often with nitrogen that produces all kinds of plant challenges, and it doesn't have nearly enough calcium and phosphorus, and trace minerals are almost entirely ignored. So we addressed all of those things with a different media design. And of course, when you start adding things to media, it rapidly becomes much more expensive. But also, all of a sudden, we had media that had built-in nutrient reserves and energy reserves. There was no longer the need to add time-release fertilizer like Osmocote and so forth. And we had this extended release where we were able to grow very large flowers or strawberries for months and months at a time without additional external fertilizer applications because there was this inherent biological fertility that was held within the media. But then, of course, the other consideration is that in a greenhouse environment, it is so easy to supplement within the irrigation water, within the watering system, and also within the spray system. The reality is we have much better tools available today. I don't know how long ago it was that you were in the greenhouse space, But we have much better tools available today from a disease control and insect control perspective with biology management and attrition management than we did even 5 years ago. We have, in the context of disease management, we now have a product called Pinion that has actually been tested extensively this last winter in greenhouse environments on all kinds of houseplants and all different types of horticultural production, number of different operations across the country have been trying it. And here's a material that's completely benign. It's registered as a biocontrol, but it's not a pesticide in the classical sense of hydrocarbon-based pesticides. And it's— excuse me— it's proving to be completely effective at disease control. So, the reality is there are not many people yet in the horticultural space that I'm aware of that have really gone down the distance of figuring this out on scale for horticultural production, but it is absolutely possible. It's a question here from Mike. I've been implementing the nitrogen use efficiency protocol for a few years now, and I've also been using the Haney soil test on a bimonthly basis. This past season, I applied 190 units of synthetic nitrogen upfront broadcast after using the nitrogen efficiency protocol with the mindset that if I was successful in having the microbes convert this nitrogen into a complete protein, then there is no benefit in side dressing. What I stumbled upon was my total available nitrogen reading on the Haney soil test showed I only had 40 units of available nitrogen from start to finish. This reading never changed throughout the whole season. My hypothesis was that this nitrogen was converted to a complete protein bound to carbon and was thus insoluble yet still available, and the Haney test was not picking it up. I witnessed no signs of nitrogen deficiency throughout the whole season. The one caveat I'm taking from all of this is that I can use the Haney soil test to show whether or not I was successful in having the applied nitrogen converted to a complete protein. The one question I have is whether this would also be true if it was an amino acid or the ammonium form of nitrogen. Wow, Mike, there's, there's a lot to unwrap here. Lots of question marks. So my understanding is that the ammonium form of nitrogen would show up on the Haney analysis. So I think that answer to your question is— to your last question there is no. And the question about whether amino acids are picked up on the Haney analysis, that's, that's really a question of Rick Haney. I don't know. I think the answer is yes. In fact, I'm quite confident the answer is yes, but the Haney analysis details are not my domain of expertise. So I would defer to Rick on that. But I, yeah, I have lots of questions about your observation and your experience. What were soil moisture levels like? Did you have periods of saturated soils? Did you have extended periods where the soils were really dry? What were the moisture levels like when you pulled your soil samples for Haney analysis? Because this is the approach that you're taking is an interesting one. I would suggest that you can still, if you applied 190 units of N, I think that is, it would be interesting to understand how much of that you still have left over in the soil profile. And if there are perhaps other soil analysis that can reveal that, it'd be interesting to know what your crop contained, how much, how many pounds of nitrogen were in the crop. What we've been, as we've been working with foliar applications of urea and with split applications, side dress and planting and so forth, it's not difficult. We have, I'd say the majority of farmers and growers who use that approach are at 0.75 pounds of nitrogen per bushel of grain or less. Um, and I don't know the— I'm hesitant to put an exact number on it, but a significant number at 0.65 pounds per bushel of nitrogen or less. And that is pounds of applied nitrogen. So 0.75 pounds of applied nitrogen per bushel of grain or less. And, um, And if you incorporate cover crops or compost, some other additives to the mix, we have— there's also a set that are at 0.5 pounds of nitrogen that they can credit from, or that they know where nitrogen credits are coming from. So I think if you're putting on 190 units of synthetic nitrogen up front, that to me is still— that's a pretty high number. I think you can still get that down quite substantially. Question from Weston: How early in a plant's life can pinion be applied, and how long would that protection last? Ah, Weston, love that question. I don't know. I don't know. We have, we have two observations now, two field situations where an application of pinion the prior year on a perennial crop appears to have carried over into the following year, just as changes of the plant's microbiome, changes of plant expression, where there appears to be greater disease resistance the following year after application. So in the case of perennial crops, it appears that perhaps with, with penion applications, we can actually change the plants to have some longer carryover, long-term carryover effects. But the, the challenge with— and so the answer of how early can it be applied, it's not a toxic material. You could theoretically apply it within a week or two after germination. How long will that last? I don't know. We haven't tried it. Um, haven't tried it quite in that way. And the, the, the challenge also, and I've, I've spoken about this in the presentations I did about pinion this winter. But pinion is turning out to be a very broad-spectrum, very high-horsepower material. However, because pinion's— all of pinion's different modes of action are essentially activating the plant's own pathways, activating plant immune pathways, activating genetic pathways, altering the plant microbiome expression. And then of course, there are all kinds of interrelated effects there that are occurring between the plant microbiome and the plant genetic expression itself as well. There's lots of different things that happen, but all the degree of effectiveness, the degree of response is heavily influenced by the plant's oxidative stress. So the greater the exposure to oxidative stress, the disproportionately smaller the response to pinion is theoretically going to be. This is theoretical, but this is— we know that there have been instances where one grower applied pinion and got 10 weeks of protection against a certain disease on a specific crop. And another grower a few hours away needs to put on 4 applications to get the same effect that one grower got from one application. And it's because of the variations in oxidative stress that their plants were exposed to as a result of environment and rainfall and, and, uh, what their soil was exposed to, their degree of soil microbial recovery, and so forth. So it's— I think it's just important to point out and for us to remember that your mileage is going to vary. And it's kind of this interesting catch-22 of the healthier your soil, the more robust your microbiome, and the less oxidative stress your plant is under, the greater the response you're going to get from pinion. So that's a different way of saying that early on in the transition, you're going to need more. Theoretically you might need more frequent applications to produce the same effect than someone else might need, or that you might need a year or two down the road. There's a question here from Jameson Brown. Hi Jameson. Do potassium silicate foliar applications provide plant-available silicon? I've seen that potassium silicate is effective for controlling powdery mildew, but it is unclear if this is because of the silica improving plant health or the high pH directly killing the mildew. So that would be a good question for Field Lark, Jameson, if you want to dig deeper into the various mechanisms. The short answer, as I understand it, is that yes, the silicon that is in potassium silicate is incorporated directly into plant cells and into cell membranes. And that is its mechanism for effectiveness. And also, if I'm not mistaken, I think silicon applications applied as a foliar in the ionic form, such as potassium silicate, Aren't particularly effective at being translocated and moved around inside the plant. So, it is incorporated into plant structure. So technically, you could say it's plant available, but I don't think it moves around very far from wherever it lands. When budget limits soil amelioration, is it better to partially treat the whole area or focus on fully fixing a smaller area? Instead of broadcasting, is it better to band ameliorants to create a local zone of balanced soil that cross can then access? Assuming that you mean that plants can then access. Um, it depends on the problem. It depends on the problem. It depends on the degree of economic response that can be expected from solving the problem. So for example, if your entire soil systemically is low in cobalt or low in selenium or low in boron, then in most cases you produce a large enough economic crop response to justify treating the entire thing and just treating the bulk soil environment and correcting whatever deficiencies exist. Same holds true of zinc, number of different trace minerals. But if we're talking about a calcium application, you have high CEC soils and you're growing wheat in Washington or Oregon, and it takes— mathematically, it takes 5 tons or 10 tons or 15 tons of limestone to correct soil pH and calcium issues, then no, of course that doesn't compute. That doesn't work mathematically. So how do you solve that? In that scenario, I would suggest— this is a real-world example that lots of people experience— in that scenario, I would suggest banding applications at planting or before planting with a strip-till unit if that is feasible and makes sense, because then you can create a localized zone, and that is where you produce the economic response. So really, I would suggest you should think about it in terms of economics. What produces the economic crop response and gives you a pathway to longer-term remediation? Last question, what do you consider are the most effective and practical steps to improving soil microbial communities? And are there any common myths to watch out for? I could talk about this one for a while. I won't, but. What are the most effective and practical steps for improving soil communities? Number 1 is plant species diversity, plant family diversity. Um, soil microbial community doesn't thrive well in a monoculture. Um, or maybe a better way to say it would be that it becomes very specialized in long-term monocultures, which usually isn't associated with optimal soil health. At least not from an agricultural perspective. And so plant species diversity, I would say, is number one. And then you can add microbial inoculants when seeding. That is the greatest ROI application that we see consistently for across almost all types of applications. Putting on a plant— putting on a microbial inoculant at seeding is critical. And then what are the myths to watch out for? Well, there are 2 big ones. One, one is 2 big ones that I see. One of them is targeted towards compost tea applications, and one of them is towards, towards purchased inoculants. The one myth is that putting on a purchased inoculant at small application rates of a few pints or a quart per acre— actually, in this case, this myth is also extended to compost tea— is that whatever you apply out there is meaningless and it's going to be consumed by the native soil ecology and microbiology, and it will disappear in a matter of hours or days or weeks and have no effect. I beg to differ. And I would suggest that the evidence also has a different perspective because you look at the history of the use of mycorrhizal fungi or of the use of rhizobium bacteria. I mean, it's, it's common industry standard practice to inoculate legume seeds with one single strain of bacteria, rhizobium. Of course, a specific rhizobium strain or species that is selected for the, for the particular crop. But we put on this application, and we expect to see nodulation. We consider this visual confirmation of the inoculation being successful. And we also know that when we grow a legume crop in the exact same soil over multiple cycles, that over time the inoculation becomes less necessary. But still beneficial to the point where almost universally most legume seed is treated today. So, and that's an application of tiny amounts of a single species inoculant that is effective. So that's one myth. Another myth is, well, I kind of already addressed it with Rhizobium, but Another myth is that a purchase inoculant with only a few strains cannot be successful. Rhizobium is Exhibit A. Mycorrhizal fungi inoculants are Exhibit B. There's a number of others. Yes, single species, single strain. It's not ideal. It's not how nature works. Generally, it works in consortiums and in communities. But single species can be impactful, and they can make a difference. And products with only a few strains in them can also be very impactful. And then there's also on compost teas, I think another common myth is, and this, this applies to both compost tea and, and purchased inoculants. Most compost teas and most purchased inoculants do not address 95% of the soil microbiome. Why? The very simple reason is that the majority of the microbiome can only be propagated in the presence of living plant roots. Not in a compost pile and not in a laboratory unless the laboratory is growing plants to propagate microbes. And there are some laboratories that do. That's how BioCoat Gold, some of the materials and source materials in BioCoat Gold get propagated. So, um, actually growing plants in compost piles and doing those types of things as the second stage of inoculant development, I think, are very important. Question here from Thomas: I'm breeding squash on less than ideal soil, sandy and low pH, 5.2. Moscata, butternut, etc., does well, but Maxima, Cucurbita maxa, is ridiculously fragile, like collapsing post-first fruit when the soil runs dry. Before losing any hopes on Maxima, I have this special one. In 2026, I'm planning to use BioCoat Gold on the seeds of my composite cross population to reveal early in-season biological intelligence capacities, the ability to foster partnerships with biology. Using Biocoat Gold as a magnifying glass of those capacities. Do you think it's a correct look at Biocoat Gold abilities? Um, yes. Hmm, Thomas, this— I enjoy— one of my fascinations of the things that I would like to do but will probably never get to in this lifetime is, is, uh, looking at plant breeding and, uh, the opportunities with plant breeding. So I don't know what breeding direction you have gone, what selection criteria you have been selecting for, but it can be very valuable to look at the ability to colonize with biococcola. I know this is something that Bass Hybrids has been looking at, and they found that to their surprise, some varieties didn't show good effects of mycorrhizal colonization. And intriguingly enough, and this is where we're constantly learning, constantly new things to, to refine, but intriguingly enough, the varieties that didn't form effective colonization with mycorrhizae— not just BioCoat Gold, by the way, but also other mycorrhizae that they tested it on— was one of the varieties that had the, the richest native microbiome. Vectored inside the seed, and then it had its own very robust microbiome. So there's lots of interesting things for us to keep learning about. Question here from Mark: I have a question about frost and boron use at a higher rate of 3 pounds to the acre. I think you were talking about in a previous podcast. Also, we are trialing Pseudomonas fluorescens with potassium silicate for frost protection on turfgrass in Australia. Do you have any suggestions or thoughts in regards to this? Um, I think you're on the right track with potassium. I don't know if potassium silicate is the right source. Well, let me say it this way: I would suggest that in addition to potassium silicate, you also need to make sure that you have adequate potassium levels nutritionally inside the plant, which the potassium silicate may or may not provide. Pseudomonas fluorescens as a crystallization or nucleation material. Can be interesting to look at. Don't have a lot of experience with this, but, um, why do you need frost protection for turf grass? That's kind of the first question that comes to mind is— I obviously, I have no, um, I have no knowledge of your context, but Maybe it's a tropical grass or something like that, but usually when I think about turf grass, it can handle cold quite readily. If it's that susceptible to frost damage, then it's probably overloaded with nitrogen, would be my guess. But there's obviously something that I don't know about the situation. In terms of boron applications, the threshold that we're looking for is 3 parts per million boron for 1,000 parts per million calcium. And yes, that will substantially increase your, your freezing susceptibility. It's a question here from Darryl. How would you transition a coastal Bermuda hay meadow from synthetic nitrogen to biologically supplied nitrogen? Since nitrate fertilizers are best for vegetative growth, is that the best source to use on coastal Bermuda in spite of its additional water requirements? Water is frequently an issue. Darryl, I would— I've spoken at several of these webinars where I've talked about a nitrogen application protocol, and I would treat it similar to a corn crop in terms of I would bind the nitrogen with humic substances, add sulfur, add molybdenum, add some carbon to it. And spread it out over time. And that process— and then also in parallel with that, use microbial inoculants that have the ability to fix nitrogen, obviously applied separately, not in the same tank. And that's, that's really the pathway, is providing an on-ramp for biology while you slowly provide an off-ramp for the chemistry nitrogen. And then you're, you're in a high-temperature environment. So the reality is whatever form of nitrogen you apply, large amounts of it are going to oxidize and convert to fairly rapidly. And I wouldn't— I don't think it's necessarily— I'm trying to think. Coastal bermudagrass, if I'm not mistaken, I'm pretty sure it's a C4 photosynthetic pathway plant. If that is correct, then its optimal ratio for optimal yield and optimal health and performance is not going to be 100% nitrate. It's more likely to be somewhere in the neighborhood of about 60 to 70% ammonium and the remainder in nitrate. And that's of course completely disregarding and not considering biological nitrogen supply. Question here from Carlos, uh, farm, a pistachio orchard in Central California, Central Valley. Soil has extremely high sodium and the well water does as well. I inject sulfuric acid into the well water to lower water pH. I have also balanced my calcium and magnesium. It seems as if though the sodium is still a problem. Is there a solution to this situation? Yes. Yes, Carlos, there is a solution. And this is, this is the, uh, this is obviously, of course, as you know, a very common widespread shared problem in, in the region. Um, so there are, there are two levels, two, two types of solutions. One, is we know that there are different soil additives and soil amendments that can help remove and leach sodium out. And we— there's all kinds of people, a common recommendation is to apply gypsum. There's common recommendations to apply humic substances. And then we've experimented extensively with a microbial inoculant called Spectrum DS. And we get the most, the greatest effects when we combine all three of those things together. It's definitely a case of 1 1 1 equaling something more than 3. If you put on gypsum plus humic substances plus Spectrum, you get a much greater response than you do from applying any of those products alone or applying them at different times. So that's, that's one piece that I would look at. But then the other piece I would look at Um, I was— the story was shared with, um, a grower in your region. I don't know if you would care to be named or not, so I'll keep the name to myself for right now. But a fairly large vegetable farming operation that you would immediately recognize, and they started— they were working with Green Cover Seed to incorporate cover crops. They were doing cover crops around tomatoes and I forget the full spectrum of their crop lineup. I want to say tomatoes and peppers and perhaps some melons and some other things. I'm no longer entirely sure, but they grew a diverse mix of COVID crop species, 8+ species for 2 growing seasons if I have my story straight. And I want to say for 2 growing seasons, I'm not talking the entire season. I'm talking they grew a single cover crop in the winter months between their vegetable crops. and following the second crop, there was a reduction in sodium levels following the first crop, and there was a further reduction in sodium by upwards of 80% in the soil following the second cover crop. And I've spent a lot of time talking about and thinking about quorum sensing and how these diverse species of plants produce a diverse— produce a quorum-sensing microbiome. That can actually change plant— can change soil chemistry and can change soil nutrient balance. So that was quite a remarkable response. And if you want to dig deeper, Carlos, I would suggest having a conversation with James Johnson in Arizona, who has some of the most difficult water quality that I have ever observed. And that he's also had his water quality looked at by many irrigation technicians who've shared that perspective. And he is also growing pistachios, um, and actually his pistachios in Arizona in an arid environment have— I almost want to say they're now without irrigation, have been for several years, um, as a result of the COVID crops and the sheep grazing and the things that he are doing. So I think that would be a conversation that would be very worthwhile having. Question here from Dallas. I've observed that even with high-quality biologicals, it is incredibly difficult to break into that established stool and reestablish the same high-functioning symbiosis we see when planting cane. This seems to be a primary driver of the ractune yield decline and perhaps a reason why sugarcane is often left out of the regenerative conversation. In your experience with perennial grasses or multi-year systems, how do we solve this holy grail of reinoculating in an existing stool? How do we effectively deliver a new biological workforce into a legacy rice system without the clean slate of a tillage event or a new planting? Do you see any future in the regenerative space for these cropping systems? Um, yes, there are people who are working with sugarcane who have figured this out. I think Your observation is correct, but I think you're asking the wrong question, Dallas. I think the, the question is not how can we inoculate, how can we reinoculate and reestablish the same high-functioning symbiosis. The real question is how can we keep from losing it in the first place? That's the question. We answer that question, we don't need to reestablish it. And I think the answer— well, it depends on the operational context, of course, but herbicide and fungicide applications play a significant role, and the proportion of sugars that gets sent out through the root system to sustain biology also, also plays a role. But the big role is pesticide applications. If we can change how we're managing diseases and how we're managing insects so that we are— get effective from particularly diseases, we get effective control of diseases with nutrition management, and we reduce fungicide applications or eliminate fungicide applications, and we eliminate herbicide applications, that's the pathway to no longer needing to reestablish inoculation. Follow-up question from Jameson: How can we treat hard water for use in foliar sprays if we don't have an RO water purifier? You have two options. Option A is to collect rainwater. Option B is to buy an RO water purifier. You don't have one, get one. Um, that's, that's how you treat hard water. I mean, sure, there are things you can do by adding acidifiers to water and things like that, but, um, the crop response is not the same as when you work with clean water. All right, we've got time for one more question. Um, got a question here from Becky Painter. Can you please explain in greater detail why putting too much fresh, non-decomposed organic matter on top of or mixed into soil soon before planting ties up nitrogen and causes the burn, and how that can be prevented? Can more nutrients like molasses, fish emulsion, or milk be added to that mix to increase the available nitrogen so the microbes don't run out? Is it a carbon-to-nitrogen ratio problem? Isn't organic matter good for the soil? Is it lack of microbes to turn it over? All right, so Becky, I wish I knew more or had more context for specifically what problems and challenges you are encountering and how that— how you're encountering them. But the short answer is, um, there are two different things that can happen. One is, yes, you can have a carbon to nitrogen ratio problem where, let's say, if you let rye residue— let's say rye gets too tall before it's roller crimped and you have a broad carbon to nitrogen ratio. That broad C:N ratio can absolutely tie up nitrogen in the soil as in the process of that residue decomposition and a process of root biomass decomposition. And that can create a nitrogen deficiency in the following crop in the short term at the beginning of the growing season, right when it's needed the most to get things started in a healthy manner. So that can happen. That may be slightly different from the question that you're asking though, There's another possibility, which is if you have fresh— if you have narrow carbon and nitrogen ratio material, let's say you have a lush green cover crop that's at a vegetative growth stage and you incorporate it into the soil shallowly in the top couple of inches, there is a short-term effect where— and this is something I don't have a ton of personal experience with, I'm just passing on observations and experiences from other growers. The, the general consensus is that you have a plant, you have two planting windows. Either A is you till it and you plant immediately, or B, you have to wait to allow some of that residue to decompose and to break down for a period of 5 to 7 days, and in some cases longer. There is variations based on what you're incorporating and soil moisture levels and so forth. But what can happen in that context is you've just incorporated rich green organic matter into the soil and soil biology, particularly bacterial populations, are going to consume that very, very rapidly. And so you get this bacterial population explosion. You essentially, you have this fermentation that occurs in the soil and that rapid digestive process will temporarily bind up minerals and nutrients. And I think this is something that Urban Westers spoke about in my podcast interview, some of the work that they're doing in Europe. There's lots of interesting— if this, if this effect is concentrated enough in a small amount, small enough volume of, of soil, then it will actually— first of all, it completely changes the microbiome in that concentrated zone. but it will also actively go after pests and diseases, insect larvae, pupae, eggs, nematodes, and so forth. It will actively go after pests in that environment. And in that process, it's also tying up a lot of nutrition, not just nitrogen, but calcium and other elements that are contained within microbial cells. So that, that is also a process that can occur. So I want to say thank you to all of you for submitting your questions, for being here for the hour. I hope you've found the information valuable and useful. And if I didn't get to your question, or if you have any other further follow-up questions, I would say there's, there's 2 options. One is sign up for Field Lark. Go to fieldlark.ai. We've developed that AI specifically to be able to answer lots of people's questions. So please dig into that. And you can also sign up for our newsletter and submit any further questions. And I'm sure this, this spring season, I'm no longer traveling as intensely as I did this last winter for conference season. And I'll have these Ask Me Anything sessions frequently and respond to your questions. So thank you all for being here. And here's to a great growing season. May the— may your rainfalls be timely, and may diseases and insects go to another place that is not in your field, and may you have a happy growing season. Thank you all.