Ask Me Anything with John Kempf - November 14

Hey, welcome friends. Thanks for joining us right on the spot of the hour. We're still a minute early, but many of you have been kind enough and gracious enough to send in some questions in advance. And so given that we generally tend to have more questions than I have time for, I'm going to dive straight in and get started. So thanks all for being here. If you have any questions, you can type them into the Q and A box down below on the right. And we have our team here as well. That is also helping me to moderate the questions. We are looking for questions that are focused on agronomy, good agronomic topics, questions, challenges, things that you're trying to figure out. Any products. I kind of would think this would probably go without saying based on our behavior on the last couple of ask me anythings, but any questions related to international distribution, product registrations or investment information, this is not the right venue for those questions and those conversations. Please direct those directly to our EA team. And yeah, lots of I really appreciate the interaction and the questions that all of you have brought historically and continue to bring. So thank you for that. We're going to have some fun with this. So diving right in. First question, a couple of questions here from Mike Holste. If a corn hybrid has a higher rating for test weight, does that mean it will be more responsive to foliar micronutrient and mineral application? Oh Mike, that's an awesome question. I don't know the answer to that. It As I understand it, a tendency for a higher test weight or higher reading means generally that cells within the kernel will be smaller and therefore the kernel is denser and also that it is more completely and thoroughly filled with carbohydrates. So there's associations to the the speed with which black layer develops. There's a number of physiological factors that contribute to this, but this is purely speculation on my part. I do not know this for sure. This is just speculation. I want to be very clear, but I would speculate that there might be an association with with better absorption of specific micronutrients, perhaps manganese and boron in particular. But that is just speculation and I don't know that. But it would be interesting to test that and see what we could discover. To your second question, also, could a higher disease tolerance rating for a particular disease indicate a stronger utilization and absorption of certain micronutrients? Quite likely. Again, this is just speculation, but this one has Based on our experience, I have much more experience here and a much higher degree of confidence in the probability of this being the case, generally when you have plants that are more disease resistance, it it means that genetically they are better at absorbing some of the trace minerals that confer resistance. And also sometimes it means they are not as good at absorbing nutrient excesses. They don't have a proclivity for absorbing nutrient excesses. So some of the corn varieties and apple varieties, I know this is true for a number of different crops. Sometimes it means that you they don't absorb excess of nitrogen and potassium that leads to a disease predisposition. So that's something to keep an eye open for as well. And another factor that is that often shows up and this is correlated is that many, in many instances the more disease resistant varieties tend to also have larger root systems, which corresponds to better trace mineral absorption as well. If so, would your seed treatment product, seed flare, enhance disease protection later in the reproductive and fill stages after pollination by giving a colostrum type effect? Hypothetically, yes, because again, not because it has a direct disease protection effect, but because it would facilitate the development of a larger root system that would theoretically be better at absorbing more nutrients later on. So I'm not making any disease claims for being able to say that seed flare would be able to produce disease protection, but I think it could create the conditions with root system development for that process to be facilitated naturally within the plant itself. Last question from Mike. Does biocoat gold include species of microbes that break down silicon into the plant available form? And is diatomaceous earth silica already bioavailable? I'll answer your second question first. As I understand it, the silicon in diatomaceous earth is bioavailable to microbes, but not to plants directly, or at least not significantly. So I think it does need to be dissolved by biology first, metabolized by biology first. And there are many different microorganisms that facilitate silicon solubilization. And the challenge with me saying that bioco gold does X, Y or Z then constitutes a claim that we then have to substantiate from a regulatory perspective. So I have to walk that tap dance quite carefully. But it is when we use plant SAP analysis, we see increases in silicon absorption from the soil and we tend to be able to correlate those with biological activity. And the majority of our crops are not the majority, but practically all the crops that we do consulting work with do have biocoat gold applied to them. So you can draw your own conclusions from that question here from Tucker Robertson, in my experience has not been enough to articulate declines the analytical advantages of SAP over traditional tissue analysis. They must see it for themselves, but that means they must make the investment. I think there's a shortage of readily available media that presents practical breakdown of tissue testing failing to catch deficiencies and SAP analysis actually doing so. Can AEA produce something like this side by side contrasting analysis from both tools on the same crop and an AEA rep succinctly digesting the results to emphasize the measurable performance of SAP analysis as a superior tool? That's an interesting ask, Tucker. You know, it's. Sometimes you get so deeply embedded in something. We, we have integrated it so deeply into our operation that we forget that other people perhaps don't have that visibility and don't have that perspective. Something like a decade ago, I think Nova Crowd Control published a couple of several articles where they described the, the differences that they saw when they were developing this technology with side by side comparisons of tissue and SAP analysis every seven days on a strawberry crop and a couple of different crops. So we have, we have some of that data as well, although the more recent data that we have is not so much checking side by side over the course of an entire season. We have a bit of that, but not much. But we have a lot more laboratory comparison data where we are seeking to establish consistency and repeatability and reliability of tissue analysis versus SAP analysis and comparisons between laboratories. So yeah, it's an interesting ask. It's something that we will take into consideration and of course we also have to take into consideration that technology is evolving rapidly and SAP analysis might become obsolete at some point in the near future as well and be replaced with better technologies. Question from Ari, do you have advice on how to control spongespora subterranean and potato moptop virus? I think the biggest problem is in fields where there are high, there is a high humus content. We conducted SAP leaf analysis during the summer and every field was very low in sodium and molybdenum. Nitrate levels are high even where humus content is over 2%. So I think sodium is probably not a consideration for you. I would look first to molybdenum and there's some interesting work in the literature that's back in the 60s on associating viral expression with molybdenum and with selenium, if I remember correctly. Maybe. No, it was molybdenum. It was actually done in India. So there's, there's some interesting work out there to take a look at. That might be worthwhile. Question from Krista, could you talk more about your experience adding humic acid or humates to manure, whether solid or liquid. I'm interested in the positive effects this practice may have on runoff in our Chesapeake Bay watershed. Do you think it's something that will become a standard protocol? Well, it's a question of political will and desire and motivation. The. It's something that could become a standard protocol. It is not expensive to adopt and utilize, but it's also for farmers who are already. It is not expensive. And there are significant value add benefits in that. It. When you add humic substances to manure, it captures the nutrient content and the value of that manure, stabilizes it and increases the dollar value of that when it is applied to the field. So there are, there are substantial, there's substantial economic value in adding hum. Humic substances to manure. But the. It's an extra step. It takes time. If you're adding it at the beginning in the barn when the manure is flushed out into a manure pit, or if you're adding it once everything is in the pit, it is an extra step. And that's something that some farmers struggle with. So I think there's a lot of opportunity there and I'd be happy to dig into that a bit more deeply. But I think it's. It's quite incredible. I still remember the first, the very first experience was with liquid hog manure in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania where an AEA customer was asked by a neighboring farmer if he could spread hog manure on his alfalfa fields. And he was somewhat reluctant because he knew what happens when hog manure is spread on fields. But the neighboring farm needed a place to get rid of manure from a nutrient management planning perspective. And so he permitted the. He permitted and gave him the permission for an application. He applied the first load and the odor drifted through the neighborhood. There was a very intense odor. And when he was done with that load, they're driving right past the. The buildings, the barn and the house on the way to leaving the fields. And he took out a bucket of humocarbon, asked him to mix that into his tank or into his liquid manure pit before finishing the job. So he mixed in 5 gallons of humocarb into. If I remember correctly, it was 50,000 gallons of liquid manure. So 1 gallon to 10,000 gallons and he just dumped it in, agitated the. The pit and then continued with the spreading job. That application. The very next load, the odor was gone. You couldn't smell it. There was no longer smell going through the neighborhood the following day where the first load had been spread, the soil surface was covered with dead earthworms. Because of the electrolyte content, the salt content that was in the manure and the where the remaining loads have been applied, there were no dead earthworms. So those are values to biology in addition to and and separate from all of the nutrient retention value that humic substances deliver, binding, ammonium and keeping nitrogen stable, etc. So there's a lot of potential with stabilizing manure applications. Question from Jordan In a no till system, can the roots of perennial cover crops like winter rye tie up nitrogen needed by the cash crop? Yes, they can. Not just roots, but the crop biomass itself, particularly when the termination method doesn't fully disrupt the root system below that depth. Or is this more likely caused by the allelopathic effects of rye or both? Well, let me answer the question this way and say that the as I understand it, the allelopathic effects of rye can be reversed with a nitrogen application. So yes, rye does have some allelopathic effects and it also does have significant nitrogen tie up effects as well. And then to your follow up question, if nitrogen tie up is likely, what foliar spray products might effectively address this deficiency? If foliar sprays prove insufficient, are our main options to either switch entirely to annual cover crops or incorporate tillage to break down? So Jordan, the the the question or the the answer is you need to develop a and I'm looking at this from a macro perspective. You need to develop a soil biology, a soil biome that is capable of delivering abundant levels of nitrogen for the rye and for the following crop as well. And that is entirely possible. That's from a big picture macro perspective. In the short term, as we're in the transition to getting to that point, then the pathway is to use can be to use foliar applications of urea or even to use side dress applications or in the planter might be appropriate in this type of A setting as well. Question from Mark Williamson when farming wine grapes in a VSP trawler system, a vertical shoot position trawl system, I pull SAP analysis and correct deficiencies as I see them through foliar applications. As the season progresses, what I end up seeing is a buildup of minerals and nutrients in the old leaves as the growing season unfolds, it often gets to the point where I have excessive as defined by CHL's Optimum Value Scale levels of nutrients like manganese, zinc, iron, magnesium and the old leaves from an entire growing season's worth of spraying. However, I still need to apply more foliar products to correct deficiencies in the upper canopy and new leaves simply because they're higher up on the trellis and have received less overall spray in the growing season. Is there a danger or detriment to the plant if I end up with excess of nutrients like iron, manganese, molybdenum, etc, building up in the old leaves? Oh, hey Mark, you ask an awesome question and I struggle because I want to give succinct answers, but I also want to, to provide or to describe the root causes. So to answer your question directly, there is a very low danger and very little detriment if plants end up with excessive levels of some of these trace minerals in the older leaves. It is very valuable and necessary to keep the old leaves level, or excuse me, the new leaf levels where they need to be. However, this dynamic of, of nutrients not moving from old leaves to new leaves, well, is a dynamic of plants not having good water movement and good water flow because of perhaps high heat conditions, but really fund, most fundamentally because of plants getting the majority of their nutrients as simple ions and not from the microbiome. And this, this is a way bigger conversation than I, than I have time for right now. There's some new realizations and new dis. New to me, discoveries that have come up over the last several months. But the short version is that nutrient mobility from old leaves to new leaves, or really anywhere in the plant is, can behave very differently from what we have been told historically when it is facilitated by microbial endophytes. So in other words, you could have calcium and manganese and zinc and iron in the old leaves that appears to be climbing higher and higher. And if you have good endophyte populations inside the plant, along with good water flow, those bacterial endophytes will facilitate nutrient transportation from the old leaves to the new. So if you have nutrient stagnation and where nutrients are not moving around, well, that can be a reflection, not can be, is a reflection of a limited microbiome. So there's some fascinating new pieces here that I want to talk about more in depth at some point in the future. But that's, I'll leave you with that for the moment. Question from Alex on a write up in Acres, the last the August issue of Acres usa a small write up on tar spot in corn and I explained it as a function of manganese oxidation in the leaves. Can I expand on the conditions or management decisions that cause that? Can you give some advice on any certain nutritional or biological steps that can be taken to prevent tar spot in northeast Indiana. I've observed that this disease does not spread rapidly every year despite the experts warning and conditions say that they are conducive for its spread. Also, what effects do commonly used folio fungicides have on the disease susceptibility of the plant after their window of effectiveness wears off? Well, you guys are awesome. You just ask awesome questions. Alex the Again, I struggle to give a a a quick and easy answer here to describe the function of manganese oxidation. I've written a couple of introductory blog posts on this topic, but this is the foundation of this work is Olivier Husson's work on redox homeostasis in plants and in soils. And so there is that 80 page peer reviewed article that is heavy reading but is so incredibly insightful in describing how nutrients can can be oxidized within plants. But to reflect on the way that I answered the last question, it is again, at least in part, perhaps in large part, a reflection of a dysfunctional biome of healthy endophytes in the plant that can solve for a lot of the situation. And I would be happy to go in more depth or in more detail, but I want to be respectful of all the other questions that I have coming to respond to as well. And so perhaps this is a topic for us to respond to in more detail in a blog post or perhaps in a follow up webinar. And actually I would say for the moment, please reach out directly to the AEA team and let's have that conversation directly one on one, while we consider what we can produce for for everyone. But your last question is a very good one. What effects do commonly used foliar fungicides have after their window effectiveness wears off? And as I understand it, I'm speaking of course here very broadly because there's different modes of actions for different fungicides. But very broadly, as I understand it, the majority of the fungicides that are applied increase disease susceptibility after their window of effectiveness. So plants are actually significantly more susceptible immediately after infection than they were before the application was made. Immediately after application, sorry, after effectiveness wears off Question from John Rosani how closely space do plants have to be from each other in order for quorum sensing to occur? It's not a function of distance, it is a function of mycorrhizal and microbiome interactions in the root system. So that can be oak trees that are 100 yards apart but linked through other trees can be plants can be yards apart. It's not really a function of, of linear distance. It's a function of connection. Would a diverse row of plants spaced 18 inches from a crash crop have a beneficial effect? The question is, do their root systems interact and intersect? That's really the question. Could a diverse cover crop be grown with the goal of creating a diverse endophyte population for a cash crop? Yes, absolutely. And it should be designed with that intention and that outcome in mind. If so, how long would the endophytes remain available in the soil? I don't have a definitive answer for you. Christine Jones last summer indicated that the microbiome effects from one crop carrying over to the next. There is a carryover effect, but that they do degrade over time. And I would expect that degradation would be slower in the winter months than during the summer months because you have less microbial activity turnover. But how long does it last exactly? Is it two months? Is it six months, six months? We don't know for certain, but we are now able to measure that definitively and hope to have a definitive answer at some point in the near future. Question from Yan for high rates of photosynthesis, what is the fastest way to increase carbon dioxide concentration for plants in a soil low in organic matter, low in soil life, and accordingly low in soil carbon respiration? Well, it depends on what boundaries and restrictions you give me around the fastest way. One fast way that was experimented with historically was to broadcast dry ice. That doesn't really make sense. Another fast way is to just add sugar. Add molasses and sugars in your irrigation system or fertigation system, and you will get a rapid release in carbon dioxide. So there's, there's a lot of context that is missing to, to answer your question, but adding soluble carbohydrates, adding carbohydrates that decompose a little bit more, slowly adding starches to soil. It depends a lot on the, in the crop context and what is economically feasible about what the possible tools might be in rangeland environments. You. In, in. In some ecosystems where there are very limited economic resources, the, the most efficient way, the most economically efficient and effective way is to use foliar applications of nutrients to increase the photosynthetic engine efficiency of the plant and to just gradually sequester more carbon over time. It's like a flywheel that you are slowly increasing the momentum and the speed and creating a lot more inertia. Question from JP we're in arid Arizona looking for tips to reduce sodium and bicarbonates in our soils. Our soil is around 100 parts per million of sodium drip irrigate row crops and trees. Soil is typically 8 plus 2 8.2 pH or higher if not treated with organic wastes. This is a very JP this is a very specific question and it is one that we do have an answer to. We've been experimenting a couple of our colleagues have been experimenting with some products specifically to solve this problem in the last year. I haven't received a recent update on what their optimal results were, but this is something that we can help with. So reach out to our team here at AEA and we will try to get you some satisfaction some products that are actually effective without nuking your soil Question from Serafina we have 160 acre pivot water from a perennial creek that can be salty and has contributed to high salts in the soil. We have a 20 acre test area that we bale grazed one and a half years ago now has great residue, has all microbes when viewed microscopically but the plant growth above ground is spotty thick and luscious in some spots but even then short and stunted. Seraphina I would guess your question is similar to related to the last one, perhaps high levels of high soil levels of sodium and bicarbonates. And if you want to measure that, the one soil test that measures bicarbonates is a saturated paste analysis that is run by Logan Labs. Perhaps other labs run it as well. I don't know. But a saturated paste analysis actually measures for bicarbonates and I would speculate that it's probably sodium and bicarbonates are causing the variability that you're observing. And it's something we have observed before, particularly on sandy soil. It's it shows up on soils that have low levels of of biologically active organic material. Question Question from Christopher Berman I was listening to a webinar with Nicole Masters presenting about how compacted soils can cause a buildup of ethylene and that salicylic acid can be used to reduce the detrimental effect of our impact of the ethylene buildup on crops. Have you had any experience of this at ae? Any thoughts? Suggestions? Further insights oh boy. Christopher this is something that I've played around with quite a bit historically and the challenge with playing with salicylic acid is that it is highly variable. Plant response is highly variable. It's a dose that will produce a very beneficial crop response in one context and ecosystem will produce a toxic response in another. So it is and or actually let me give you a more extreme example than that. A a dose that will have a beneficial Effect in one ecosystem is 10 times more than what you need in another ecosystem. I'm not talking small variations here of 20 or 30 or 40% that can occur with nutrients. You can go from beneficial effect to toxic effect very easily and in the exact same range application range in different ecosystems and settings. So worth playing around with but utilized with caution. Question from It's a follow up question here from Peter. I farm in southwestern Ontario and this is the first year we've had to deal with tar spot. We learned that variety selection is very important and where we grow a cover crop ahead of the corn crop seem to make a difference as well. Peter, I would speculate that the COVID crops you grew ahead of the corn crop or cover crops which had a reducing effect had a reducing microbiome and increased manganese availability. That's what I would suspect to be the case. And this is now the second question we've gotten on tar spot. So this is something that we will need to provide more details on perhaps in another setting. All right, so I apologize, it took me a bit longer than I expected. Those were the questions that were submitted in advance and I'm going to try to move through the questions that have been submitted here in the Q and A fairly quickly as well. There's a question here on mangoes, what is my opinion on mangoes and other orchard plants? Many people apply water stress to induce flowering. There was a question last time on manganese or excuse me, on mangoes that I think potassium nitrate can be used to induce flowering as well if I recall correctly. So I would prefer to use other triggers, nutritional triggers to, to trigger flowering instead of water stress because water deprivation will have other nutritional effects. And I don't know, I'm not intimately enough familiar with the physiological cycle of of mangoes. But the question that I would ask is what is happening during that water stress period that might influence future fruit quality? Are they developing buds? Getting adequate levels of calcium and other nutrients would be the reservation that I would have about using water stress to facilitate that physiological response. Question from Casey we live in an area with a large invasion of annual grasses such as bluegrass and cheatgrass. So far the best control has been a pre emergent herbicide. What other non chemical options are there? Casey, there's a great deal that I don't know about your farming ecosystem. If annual grasses are a concern, then I'm assuming you're growing annual crops, not perennial crops and so forth. That would of course be one of the ultimate long term macro answers is to change the cropping cycle. But the I'm speaking with very broad generalizations here, but grasses generally tend to show up when you have low levels of bioavailable calcium. And I'm not talking about total calcium in your soil profile, you can have generous levels of total calcium and very low levels of bioavailable calcium. So again, there's a lot of context and nuance that I'm missing here, but I would suggest considering a possibly adding soluble calcium amendment such as gypsum, B seeking to increase calcium bioavailability in the soil with additions of boron and C utilizing cover crops that have a microbiome that increases calcium supply. And you can connect with our team at AEA for a recommendation of what those cover crop species might be and then also D the fourth answer is using microbial inoculants that facilitate calcium release. So it is a combination of usually these these annual grass weeds are usually a combination of three problems. Three contributing factors, a dysfunctional calcium supply, a dysfunctional microbiome from a calcium delivery perspective, and frequently I'd say better than 90% of the time soil compaction issues as well. And soil compaction in this sense does not necessarily mean that you have a hard pan or a compacted layer. It can mean that, but it can also mean that your soil is simply very compactable and doesn't have good aggregate structure and good aggregate stability. So there's. Those are the three pieces that I would pay attention to. Question from Oliver In a previous webinar I heard you mention issues with market gardeners using compost. Could you say more about it in ways that it could be remediated? I know someone who has livestock that are very holistically pastured and he said his compost doesn't have as many issues with salts. So the concern is that if you constantly add large amounts of animal manure based compost, you end up with soils that have excess of levels of potassium and excess of levels of nitrogen, which is inherent in the manure and inherent in the compost. And those excessive levels of nutrients create disease and insect susceptibility in exactly the same way that excessive levels of soluble fertilizers do. Excess of nitrogen and excess of potassium are the root cause of many disease and insect susceptibility challenges. So if you have challenges with cabbage loopers or flea beetles if you need to, if you're constantly struggling with plants that are susceptible to insects, it's quite likely because of excessive levels of nitrogen and potassium that are coming from the animal manure based compost. Question from Eric As I move to more regenerative ag, I seem to find a lot of information regarding changing biology to promote nitrogen and potassium availability. Excuse me, phosphorus availability, but much less so for potassium. I ask because I appear to be seeing potassium deficiency in my soybeans over the last three years. The problem appears to be growing. Where can I look for more information? Eric this is a very good question. There is not a lot of discussion about using biology to promote potassium supply because often it tends to happen almost without effort. The majority of farms that we work with and that we hear about who are on this transition potassium supply tends to be a non issue. The exceptions to that are when you have soils that do not have large reserves of potassium in the geological soil matrix. So if you have very sandy soils, for example, or if you have soils where the the original parent material, the original parent rock material doesn't have significant potassium reserves, the way to determine that is to run a total digestion analysis and to see what your reserve levels of potassium are. So that's part one. Part two is soil biology. Soil biology's ability to constantly solubilize and supply potassium for a crop is also connected to manganese supply. If you have severely low levels of manganese in your soil, that might also be a limiting factor. Those are the first two places that I would look. There are other possibilities as well, but are much much lower in probability, although still possible. If those two possibilities don't seem to describe your situation, then be happy to have more in depth and detailed conversations about your specific context to see how we might be able to solve that for you. And also the reality is that on some sandy soils that have a lower nutrient holding capacity, let's say you have a CEC less than 10 for sure. If it's less than 8, you may be in a position where you need to apply some potassium levels over time and for sure one thing you cannot afford to have happening is to have low potassium levels costing you yield and quality. Question from Mr. Anonymous or Mrs. Anonymous how soon would gypsum release its calcium and sulfur in a normal year in Michigan if it was applied in the spring before planting. Can gypsum be spread in the winter and get results? Yes, you can spread it in the winter and get results. The release period is of course temperature and water supply and weather dependent, soil temperature dependent and so forth biology dependent. But in general gypsum tends to be fairly rapid release. It's also particle size consideration as well. Gypsum tends to be fairly rapid release where you start Getting release for 10 to 14 days post application and you get a pretty good peak, pretty good up curve and the peak starting about 30 days after application and then peaking about 45 days after application. And all of the numbers that I just gave you were growing season conditions and soil temperatures. If you apply early in the spring on frozen soil and obviously all of that is going to be delayed. Question from David Cole. Our farm was two feet underwater for approximately three hours. What nutritional damage would you expect we will see in the soil due to extreme water and flooding? None. None. Because it was limited to three hours. It is when Jerry Hatfield actually did some really interesting research on this a number of years ago. I'm reasonably sure it was published, but was also something that he and I have talked about extensively in personal conversations. And there is some variation depending on soil aggregation, depth of aggregation and the ability to hold for a soil to hold and store large amounts of electrons. But the tipping point threshold was somewhere around 72 hours. For some soils as much as 96 hours. But for most soils somewhere around the 72 hour mark. The biology has depleted all of the oxygen that was in the soil environment is depleted all the oxygen in the soil that is saturating that environment. And now they begin depleting electrons and using electrons as an energy source. And then from that point forward that is where you get rapid crop yellowing and changes in the soil microbiome that are less than optimal. Question from Ed I grew up blueberries, other berries and fruit trees. We live in Idaho where the peach is around seven and have been in the process of aciding by the soil through organic means, particularly for the blueberries. What do you recommend to accelerate this process and any of your products that would assist? So our products are not designed to be soil amendments biology. Some biological inoculants can assist in this process. But without knowing more context about your soil mineral balance and levels, simply using elemental sulfur is is a very. It's. I know it's a mainstream recommendation, but it's a very appropriate recommendation. Avoid the use of aluminum sulfate at all costs. But elemental sulfur and if you're out in Idaho so you might have access to a product that's called it used to be called Heart of Nature. I think it is Heart of Nature sulfur that might be a worthwhile product to look at as well. Question if plant growth is a function of energy and not of time, could a nursery man microdose nutrition through mist accelerate plant growth potentially reducing years off production of stock plants? This Mr. Anonymous I suspect I know who Mr. Anonymous is here I suspect. I know I'm going to give you a hard time after this. And can 100 of nutritional meats be supplied this way with AEA products? Yes they can be. AEA products can supply 100 of nutritional needs and yes you can microdose nutrition through mist. And yes it will accelerate plant growth and you have to get it exactly right because when you are fully spraying nutrients, plants have much less agency to selectively absorb some nutrients and not others as they do with the root system. So you can get similar results, perhaps not quite to the same degree, but you can get similar results with constant spoon feeding of nutrients to the root system instead of foliars. But the plants have a lot more agency for homeostatic regulation of what nutrients they absorb. Question from David Wallace. If gypsum is used to reduce magnesium base saturation percentage, will it also reduce potassium base saturated base saturation? David? Not it can, but usually has much less of an impact. So yes, it's possible for potassium to reduce gypsum. Excuse me, it's possible for potassium. Am I going to say it the wrong way twice? It is possible for gypsum to reduce potassium percent base saturation if the levels of gypsum are high enough and potassium is high enough. Yes it absolutely can bring potassium levels down. Question from Jacob. Do you think it would be possible to provide 100% of a grain crops nitrogen requirement using foliar nitrogen? If soil applied nitrogen is required, what form is best? What form responds best to the AEA nitrogen efficiency program? Jake, I have my, my perspective on outlook on life generally is there's anything is possible always you just, you just had to figure out the pathway to achieving what would otherwise appear to be difficult outcomes. So is it possible to provide 100% of a grain crops nitrogen requirement using foliar nitrogen? The answer is yes it is. But how many application passes do you want to make and what is optimal? So it is theoretically possible but I think it's, it's probably wiser to expect to get depending on the crop that we're talking about, the grain crop and local soil conditions, environmental conditions, growth stages. Probably wiser to try to get somewhere between 40 and 60% of its total requirement as foliars during a transition period. I really, I really value the use of foliar nitrogen during a transition and reducing nitrogen applications. Why? For the very simple reason that as you're going through a transition period we are trying to build the soil biome to be able to supply more of the crops nitrogen requirement and the best way to shut that down is by applying nitrogen to the soil. But in the meantime, the crop still needs nitrogen. So there needs to be this, there's a weaning process, this, this on ramp of biology and this off ramp of applied nitrogen that needs to match up with each other. And foliar applications of nitrogen are one of the better tools to facilitate this because a foliar application of nitrogen doesn't have the same degree of negative effect on the nitrogen fixing capacity of soil biology as a soil application does. So that's, that's the way I would answer your question. If soil applied in is required, what form is best? There are several good purchased forms, and again, context varies here, but ammonium sulfate is good, urea is good. Liquid 28 or 32 can be good when they are stabilized. What form responds best to the AEA Nitrogen Efficiency Program? Really, any, any of the liquids, whether they are ammonium or nitrate or urea, respond well to the nitrogen Efficiency program. My personal preference is urea. And the greatest crop response with the fewest pounds of actual N is urea. And that is important because it means if you replace, if you replace liquid 32, that is primarily ammonium and nitrate, with liquid urea, dollar for dollar, so you're actually, you're applying fewer units, fewer pounds of nitrogen with urea as urea than you would be applying with ammonium and nitrate, you will actually get the same or bigger crop response pretty consistently with the urea application as you will with an ammonium nitrate application. So that's something to be aware of. It's not accurate to think of it exclusively in terms of pounds of nitrogen because urea has a much greater energy use efficiency than ammonium and nitrate does. And so you can apply less units and get a greater crop response. And then of course, the most efficient form by a significant margin is amino acids, but they also have this significantly higher price point as well. Question from Eugene. How can I control aluminum toxicity in a blueberry crop? Two answers. One is build a very good microbiome that is very good at solubilizing and releasing silicon. And when you have a good biome, I would particularly encourage you to inoculate with ericoid mycorrhizal fungi if you haven't already. And be sure to address silicon. It's easy to overdo silicon and blueberries, so you have to use it with caution. But the combination of a good microbiome and good silicon nutrition and I would expect to see aluminum levels drop. Question from John Walsh. Hi John. We have a dairy farm in the UK and very heavy clay soil. Where do you think is the best place to start when starting down our regenerative journey, I find it hard to get the best advice in the uk. Can you do a webinar on tackling clay soil? That's a good question, John yes we can. Or we can address it somehow. And we have a previous resident of the UK on our team here at aea, so I would suggest you reach out to Kish Johnson as well and would be happy to have a conversation about possibly working together with you in the future in the near future. Question from Richard Starting no till drilling of small grains for the first time and I need to drill spring wheat next spring a good portion of my acres into stubble from this year's wheat crop. What can I do to prevent fungal attacks on the seedlings and young plants? No fall tillage has been done this year. Richard I would like to understand what fungal attacks you might be anticipating or what you might be expecting, what might be common in your in your region. If the challenges are Pythium vasarium, all of the routine common challenges that are out there, I would suggest using a microbial inoculant seed treatment and I'm very partial to the use of biocoat gold. And this is instead of having an antibiotic effect, you are having a probiotic effect where you have these beneficial microorganisms that essentially outcompete potential pathogens and have this effect of preventing fungal diseases from taking over. Question from Renzo White flies have increased a lot the last few days here in the southern hemisphere in citrus are also decreasing pseudococcus and I'm not familiar with this last organism by this name Assyria perchasi. Is there any relation among them with nitrogen? Are are they more sensitive or any more sensitive to nitrogen among them? Renzo I don't have an answer for you off the top of my head because I'm not familiar with one of the organisms that you're asking about. So I'd be happy to have a follow up discussion. But I don't know the answer to your question right off the top. If you wanted to know till question from Mrs. Anonymous once more, if you wanted to know till and avoid herbicides, how would you turn a fallow field with the usual weeds such as lambs, quarter marestail, pigweed grasses into a profitable cash crop field in the Midwest? Well, if I really wanted to be profitable I wouldn't be planting cash crops, but that's my personal opinion. If you wanted to no till and avoid herbicides. I would look at the There's a podcast episode about to be released with Frederick Larson. I will look at Rick Clark's work, I will look at Brian McGuire's work and I would reach out to them for advice and input. There's a lot of farmers shouldn't say a lot, but there's an increasing number of farmers who have been successful at managing organic no till without herbicides. So look to those resources. Question from Sally how do I decide whether to apply gypsum? My calcium SAP is always in the optimum range, but Haney soil analysis show 476 and 554. In other words, they're showing magnesium higher than calcium. How much and when? Well, I wouldn't use the Haney analysis to determine whether my soils need gypsum. Instead I would recommend the use of a CEC percent based saturation analysis because that analysis is very good at accurately showing you your calcium to magnesium balance and whether gypsum might be a useful tool. Question from Jameson we are seeing a combination of apple scab, peach leaf curl and woolly aphids. Does this combination indicate any deficiencies or imbalances? Yes it does. Multiple ones. It indicates low levels of a couple of the metals boron, zinc, manganese, copper, cobalt. Those are the ones that I would address. Apple scab and peach leaf curl are just fresh in my mind. Those are relatively easy to solve. When I say relatively easy and as I would guess those will probably go within, those can be resolved within the first year or two prevented with nutrition management. The same is true of the woolly aphids as well. Those are probably actually easier than the other two or faster. Question from Gievan does template assisted technology water treatment have any benefits to irrigation water with high bicarbonate levels? I'm not familiar with it and I don't know. Don't have an opinion. Same question for citrus based water softeners. Same answer. Sadly. Something worth digging into. I'd love to learn more about them, but I don't know. Question from Rick Been working with AEA and made my first application to blueberries this fall. Before this application I got a SAP analysis. Everything looked pretty good. My bushes are growing good but my production is bad. What are your thoughts Rick? I don't have enough information to have very many thoughts. If you're bushes are looking good but your production is not good, then it's worth asking the question do you have enough new vegetative growth and are you pruning well I would I would ask questions about pruning management and I would ask questions about overall vigor. Do you have enough overall vigor? Because if you have those two things then you should also have good production. Question from Joseph Two part question specific to large surviving American chestnuts, but I would like to extrapolate it to all significant native tree species in decline due to disease. Have you experienced situations where foliars and microbial applications are able to reverse fungal cankers, Specifically chestnut blighted on American chestnuts? I have never tried on chestnut blights on American cankers. Excuse me, on American chestnuts. However, we have been successful in reversing and stopping crown gall on walnuts and bacterial canker on stone fruit. And it's escaping my mind right now about whether crown gall is bacterial or fungal in nature. I want to say it's fungal but I could be mistaken. One of the same for butternuts and other jug species. So yeah, I think perhaps crown G. Americon are on walnuts. That might be something that is something we do have experience with and something that might be worth digging into. Are there mineral or bio stimulant applications associated with healing the cambium layer or the regeneration of older tissue? Yes, manganese is very important, as is silicon. But manganese is critical for accelerating the formation of I am blanking out on the technically correct terminology right now, but essentially forming a scab. Manganese is critical for facilitating and speeding up that process. Question from Ed Kelly on viral expression. But I'm as I'm skimming it, I'm not quite sure I'm understanding the question. The question that you're asking, Ed, please explain what is meant by viral expression. What is the science that establishes the presence of viruses in the soil? It seems to run counter to biological principles as well as to the AEA science that points to low biological activity, limited microbiome and optimum nutrient availability in any disease expression. So Ed, I'm. I'm not quite following what you're asking. I don't really haven't spent a lot of time thinking about viral expression in the soil biome. Although I'm sure that there are abundant viruses in the biome in the way that I've used that term in the past of viral expression. I've been referring specifically to viruses express themselves in plants. So mosaic virus for example, or any of the common viruses that infect plants. There is some historical literature which indicates that when plants have generous levels of molybdenum and some of the other high atomic weight ultra trace elements that viruses no longer express themselves to the same degree and no longer quote, unquote, become pathogenic or express themselves as a disease in plants, does that actually mean that the viruses are no longer present? Does it just mean that they are no longer active, are no longer expressing themselves? What does it mean exactly? I don't know the answer to those questions. How much frost protection can nutritional applications add to say, a citrus crop? How long would this protection last between applications? So our, my historical rule of thumb has been that we can gain about 6 degrees Fahrenheit from whatever a crop's natural frost susceptibility point is, we can lower that by about 6 degrees Fahrenheit with nutrition management. And that effect, like if you build up the and maintain the nutrient levels and the sugar levels of a tree as it goes into dormancy, that effect lasts, lasts all winter and goes into the following spring and, and through dormancy break the following spring. So it's not particularly just a temporary effect. Now if you haven't built up that profile in the tree over an extended period and you're trying to do a late season recovery and just do a flash effect, how long will that last? I don't know. I would expect that it will also be weeks or perhaps months as you're going into dormancy. Well, in fact it can be for up to months as well because we have had many growers that do one or two applications late in the season and they have winter long benefits from that application if the plant is not dormant. If you have an actively growing plant, then I would expect the benefits to last until the the plant response from that foliar application drops off again. That can be a matter of days or weeks or at most months, depending on what's happening in the rest of that ecosystem. Question from Tucker. I'm familiar with AEA nitrogen efficiency protocol in regards to organic production, where nitrogen is coming from amino acid sources, marine hydrolysates, etc. Does the importance of luxury levels of molybdenum change since the fertilization is not bulk inputs of nitrates? With, with a slight clarification to the way you asked your question, Tucker, the answer is yes. So it's no longer as important to maintain luxury levels, but it is still as important as ever to maintain adequate levels. And so I'm making that distinction between luxury levels and adequate levels. And the reason for that is because part of the benefit of these organic forms of nitrogen is their plant, their high degree of plant utilization efficiency, which is facilitated by molybdenum. And so if you don't have molybdenum, then those organic sources of nitrogen that you're adding can actually be degraded and can be turned into lower molecular weight nitrogenous compounds. So you do still need some adequate molybdenum levels in an organic ecosystem. Question from Kevin hi Kevin, there's research out of Germany on micro cracking on cherries where they did four to eight applications. Foliar applications with calcium had zero effect compared to the control. However, when they did one foliar while they turned on the rain simulator and foliar calcium at the same time, they are seeing a 50% reduction in cracking. Does AEA have any experience with this and what are your thoughts? Apparently the fruit cell wall is better at absorbing calcium while the fruit is wet. So we have a lot of experience in reducing rain cracking and cherries and other fruit in general. And it's generally true that not just the the fruit wall, but a plant leaf surface one of the the best pathways to get good foliar absorption of nutrients is to make sure that the application stays moist on the leaf surface for as long a period of time as possible. So I think it's it's generally true that fruit cell walls, leaf cell walls, et cetera, are going to be better at absorbing calcium or any element while they are moist. I hope that answers the question you were asking. Question from Michelle I heard from you that acetic acid can trigger bud development and this can can this cause a hormonal imbalance as well? And for what reason does this happen? Is it only for acetic acid or can this be also for other types of acid foliar fertigation have different effects? Michelle, this is you're asking a lot of good questions, but there appears to be a little bit of a language barrier. I'm having a having trouble tracking with some of your questions. The short answer is that organic acids such as acetic acid acetic acid is specifically triggers a plant stress response or can trigger a plant stress response that triggers reproduction. And if you want to dig deeper into this topic, the information is actually quite readily accessible. Just go to Google Scholar and do a search for acetic acid bud initiation and I think you will find the information you're looking for in a very straightforward manner. Question from Stephen I'm located in northeast Ohio. I'm in the process of converting soybean fields into perennial pastures. Yay. Way to go Steve. I've currently planted wheat this fall. After soybeans have been harvested. I'm considering broadcasting clovers into the wheat in the spring with the intent of planting a full perennial mix. Once the wheat is harvested. Do you have resources to outline the best practices for these types of transitions and what do you think about the process that I'm already in? Steve, I would suggest that you reach out to the team at Green Cover Seed to get some guidance on the best pathway forward for the system that you're in. You know, it wasn't all that long ago that winter seeding frost seeding applications were considered to be common for the type of transition that you're typing, that you're attempting to make. Depending on what type of perennial pasture ecosystem you want to go into, that might be appropriate or it might not, but something for you to at least consider and think about. And I'm not the, I'm not the domain expertise on that. I would refer you to the team at Green Cover Seed. Question from Tucker. Are there any protocols for on farm brewing of tiny inoculants to expand their capacity and to make those spent dollars go further? No, there are not. And tiny O strongly discourages that practice, although I know there are a few farmers who've done some of that. But the reason for that is you can be, you can almost certainly expect that when you put a microbial inoculant into a brew that the populations are going to change, that a selection of species are going to dominate and outcompete other species and you will end up with something very different that you go into the field with from what is originally in the parent container. As far as vermicompost extracts and other brews go, I feel that every farm should have its own on site brewing system that is utilized liberally. I think that it puts a lot of power and knowledge in the farmer's hands. I think I generally agree with you. The challenge that I'm sure you've encountered in having conversations with many growers is that there's a couple of challenges that come to mind. One is that it's something that many growers simply don't have the bandwidth for or the desire to engage with. And the, the other concern that I have is that the output can be highly variable and inconsistent. So one farm might have access to good quality resources and vermicompost and can produce some very nice crop responses. And another farm might invest a great deal of time and energy and resources for very minimal to no responses. So variable. The, the outcomes produced can be highly variable. Are there any other things that can be done to help with buying weed besides avoiding excessive potassium? Well, you can plant crops that suck potassium out of the soil. And you can also plant crops that solubilize a lot of or cover crops that solubilize lots of calcium. Both of those things would help. Question from Sean, have you any experience with the use of boron and cobalt in pastures containing legumes such as white or red clover? I'm seeing very low mellic three born and cobalt and pastured soils that I'm testing. All soils would have a very high rainfall, 36 to 48 inches per year. Yes, Sean, have lots of experience applying those two elements and others to legumes and overwhelmingly positive results. Cobalt applications, we use photomag quite a bit in this context. And cobalt applications can rapidly increase nodulation and turn the interiors of the nodules of very this very nice cobalt red or pinkish color. Because cobalt is the foundational element of cyanocobalamin, methylcobalamin, vitamin B12, which is the key enzyme cofactor for rhizobium to be able to fix nitrogen effectively. One of them. So nickel is also involved and molybdenum is also involved. So you think about the three that I just mentioned, Cobalt, nickel, molybdenum can dramatically improve nitrogen fixation by legumes and improve nodulation, and yet they're very seldom applied. But yes, if you're growing legumes, I'm very much in favor of addressing boron and cobalt along with other trace elements as well. Question. From juniper on the oriental fruit fly, Hesta targets fruit crops, leading to heavy economic losses. There is a specific nutritional profile that is associated with the fruit fly and it is the nutrient profile that shows up on level one, level two of the plant health pyramid. So I would refer you to that resource. And also it can take, it can take a bit of time because you have to effectively transfer those nutrients and get elevated levels of those nutrients not just in the plant leaves, but also in the fruit. You have to get them to be effectively transferred into the fruit. Question from Eric. We were extremely dry this fall, but we finally received moisture. Is it too late to gain a benefit from the soil primer program this fall? No, no, no, no, no. Absolutely not. The greatest benefits from soil primer come during the coldest times of the year. And I actually put together an audio clip on this. And Phil, we need to connect because this needs to go out pretty quickly. But the greatest benefits, the greatest effects from soil primer and the greatest effects of building long term stable humic substances occur when the soil is cold. And there's a bunch of fascinating soil physics around this that I explained in a clip that we need to put out there. But the short version is that when soils are colder, reactions slow down and the result is you get longer chain molecular compounds being built, whether these are in geological deposits or whether they are in soil building organic matter humic substances. If you think about humic acid deposits, lignite deposits, if you go to the fur north deposits in Alberta with black earth humates and so forth, they are very dark black and have a high humic substance content. If you go south, closer to the equator, southern U.S. you end up with materials that have this amber honey color and they have a higher proportion of fulvic, what used to be called fulvic acid or lower molecular weight compounds. And the same thing happens in soil formation as well. So the greatest benefit from soil primer is during the winter months when it's cold. That's when you build stable humic substances that really build organic matter very effectively and very well. Question from Scott. How are we doing here? Eight minutes past the hour. We've got 10 more questions and then I'm going to call it a wrap. I'm attempting to reduce synthetic fertilizers on broad acre row crops. Beans, corn, cotton, incrementally over the next few years. What are your thoughts on banding dry fertilizers 3 to 6 inches below the root zone prior to planting? Is banding a feasible way to accomplish this? Yes, it can be. Would this be less harmful to soil biology due to being so concentrated, reducing the rates versus broadcasting 100% of the dry fertilizer, or more harmful due to such concentration? Scott, you ask a great question. There was one of the pioneers of the strip till ridge till movement was an agronomist in Michigan named Don Shriver. He wrote several fascinating books. One is titled Agriculture in Transition. Another is titled Soil in Transition. And in one of his books on one of his chapters on fertilizer placement actually might not have been Don Treever. Might have been William Albrecht. I forget one of those two said that the art of fertilizer placement is placing fertility so that plant roots can most easily avoid it. And we knew very little about the microbiome in those days. We knew that it existed to some degree. But it's intriguing to me how we have learned how accurate some of those old wisdoms were. So I would say that banding and concentrating a band and reducing application rates as a result of banding is definitely something to pursue. And also I would suggest planning to side dress. And so I would suggest putting applying a minority of of the crops nitrogen requirements a significant minority, some in the neighborhood of 10 to 15% of the crops nitrogen requirements at planting or before planting and then side dress the majority of it. Let's at 30 to 40 days post planting that's when you'll get the greatest crop response and the most nitrogen use efficiency for the smallest units of nitrogen applied and build the microbiome the fastest so it's waiting to apply it until the crop actually is there and can utilize it and needs it. That is the best way to reduce your nitrogen applications and produce the greatest crop response. It's a great question Scott. Thank you. Question from Tucker do organic forms of nitrogen and phosphorus, such as the various formulations of marine hydrolysates, make nitrogen fixing and phosphorus solubilizing microbes just as lazy as the synthetic forms of nitrogen and phosphorus do? That's an awesome question, Tucker. And as I understand it, there are distinct differences between nitrogen applied as organic nitrogen, and I'm using that term very broadly, organic nitrogen, to include all of the peptide and protein and amino acid forms of organic nitrogen that are found in manure and compost and marine hydrolysates and so forth, amino acids, etc. It's my understanding that generally those do not have as direct a negative effect on nitrogen fixation. I suppose if you added enough of them, I'm sure you can get to a threshold where they probably would, but it would have to be I would expect it would be a fairly significant threshold. In the case of phosphorus, There is also a threshold that can be reached the phosphorus. In the case of compost or animal manure, the phosphorus tends to the phosphorus tends to not be soluble, quote, unquote soluble. And so there are limited negative effects to biology from phosphorus and animal manures and compost. But in the marine hydrolysates, phosp acid is used as a stabilizing agent and therefore is very readily available. And if you were to apply significant amounts again, there's a threshold here, but if you were to apply large amounts of marine hydrolysates that are stabilized with phosphoric acid, then yes, I would expect those to shut down mycorrhizal fungi and other phosphorus solubilizing organisms. And there is also a threshold effect and I've observed this in market gardens and in several settings and southeastern Pennsylvania, Chesapeake Bay area where there's a lot of manure applications when phosphorus levels in the soil reach a certain threshold. And this is somewhere in the neighborhood of around 200 on a P1, 200 parts per million on a P1 analysis, 400 parts per million on a P2. Somewhere in that range, the total soil levels of phosphorus become high enough that they will suppress the expression of mycorrhizal fungi and phosphorus solubilizing bacteria as well. So that's not a prevailing condition, but it's much more common than you might think. Question from Richard what's the best AEA product for small grain seed treatment? A combination of seed flare and biocode. Question from John what effect does applying Bacillus subtilis biweekly through deprecation have on the soil microbiome? Would it negate the effect, the benefits of other bacterial inoculants used? I wouldn't think that it would necessarily negate the benefits of other bacterial inoculants. But there's the good news is, John, we now have ways of easily being able to measure that by being able to measure the microbiome with the Bacillus subtilis. Without it and with the microbiome you can measure all of those variables. So you can connect directly with the AEA team to find out how we can measure that. Any experience? Question from John Any experience with sulfur burners for bicarbonate reduction in water? Yes, we do have experience and really like I can, I can endorse them. I really like what we see from a soil biology effect and, and from a water quality perspective as well. Question from david. Hi John. We've been taught about the different qualities and performance in terms of plant health and production that nitrates are often detrimental to plant health. Urea is a fair product since less energy is needed for compound conversion and amino acids are the best form of nitrogen. However, both urea and amino acids, we are taught, contain reproductive energy types of nitrogen versus growth energy types of ends such as nitrate. How do we balance the plant energy if we desire to use amino acids as an end source to make sure that we still have enough growth energy and not tip the plant too much towards reproduction? David, I'm not sure what crops you might be growing, but unless you are growing salad greens or some crop that is exclusively vegetative, it's. I don't think, I think this is a none issue unless you've actually observed it and experienced it. If I guess, I suppose what I'm saying is if your question is a hypothetical, I don't think it's accurate. If you've actually observed or experienced this, then that would be an interesting conversation. But if this were actually happening then, and you wanted to make sure. That you have generous levels of vegetative growth, then I would consider driving that in addition with other elements, particularly calcium. So it's not a question exclusively of just nitrogen and forms of nitrogen. It is a question of what are the other elements that are in this balance as well. You can drive vegetative growth and avoid going excessively reproductive with, with other nutrients. But I. Yeah, would be, it's possible. But this, this doesn't seem like a very common scenario. Certainly not one that I've observed. Are banded applications of soil amendments such as lime better than even spread? Does banding create more heterogeneous soil conditions that allow plants to select nutrients as needed? So banded applications of soil amendments like limestone are better economically in some crop settings and in some soil conditions than others. If you are growing wheat on soil that has a CEC of 25 and a pH of 5, 5 and calcium of 50% base saturation, you cannot economically afford to broadcast enough limestone to fix the soil. And in my opinion neither should you try. But what you can do is you can band limestone in the furrow app planting and shift that crops microbiome and shift the local soil profile. And what will frequently happen is again depends on soil geological context. But with surprising frequency the soil calcium levels and ph levels will self regulate and they will balance at levels that are disproportionately higher that cannot be explained just by the product that was applied. So it's not always appropriate to try to fix these problems with a hammer. We need to look at these non linear solutions where we put on a small amount of calcium or we put on a small amount of boron, or we use a certain type of COVID crop and or we put on a specific microbial inoculant and we get a much bigger increase in calcium availability on a soil analysis and in the crop than can be accounted for based on the product that was applied. That's a very common phenomena. Very common. And we have one last question from John. Hi John. As water supplies get tighter in California, do you have any idea what the lower limit may be for water use on stone fruit and almond crops? We've increased our water use efficiency, but not sure we can to the point of what our limits will be. Why? John, this is a great question. I don't have an answer for you in terms of acre inches of water off the top of my head. However I, I made mention at the beginning of this webinar of some of the things I've been learning in the last several weeks and months about Water use efficiency and, and nutrient mobility from a microbiome perspective. And I'm not sure quite at what point I'll be prepared to talk about this publicly because it is as revolutionary as James White's work and Olivier Husson's work and Gerald Pollock's work. The reality is kind of an amalgamation or a unification of all of those, of what is happening inside the plant. And one of the things that I've talked about is that plants become much more water use efficient in terms of extracting new, extracting nutrients and, and water from the soil when they are associated with mycorrhizal fungi and have an strong associated microbiome. We've talked about how plant leaves lose less water when they have this waxy cuticle on the leaf surface. And you take factors like that and there are, there are literally dozens of contributing factors. But there is another significant factor which I'm just coming to fully appreciate and understand, which is that microbes inside the plant can move nutrients and water and sugars throughout the plant in the absence of free water flow. And this is very important because it completely changed. Oh, and one more thing. All of the, I shouldn't say all, but many of the very important physiological functions of plants that we thought that we understood, we now know we have understood wrongly because they have been studied in the absence of plants having a good microbiome. And I'll give you one quick relevant example, and that is stomata, leaf stomata opening and closing. The speed at which they open and close has been thought to be regulated by potassium supply, amongst other things. And they're considered as being opening and closing relatively slowly, which they do in the absence of endophytes. But when you have. Now there's a specific term, and it's escaping me right now, there's a specific term for this, this basin at the, at the base of a stomata. When that cavity is filled with beneficial endophytes, the speed of stomata opening and closing increases by orders of magnitude, as I understand it. So you get this very rapid increase in stomata opening and closing. So rapid, in fact, that the stomata and these endophytes that are in the cavity at the base of the stomata succeed in capturing the carbon dioxide that plants will release during photorespiration. They will succeed in capturing oxygen and other plant metabolites that plants are releasing and utilize them. And you no longer have the same degree of energy loss from photorespiration. All of this to say that we have. I've said that many of us don't know what healthy plants look like anymore. That when we have plants that have this abundant microbiome nutrition, they begin behaving differently. We've just uncovered a whole new layer. Or I've just. Other people have known this. Other people on our team have been studying this for a while, but I've just become familiar with this whole other additional layer, an additional dimension of what it means to have endophytes and a healthy biome colonizing a plant, and they begin behaving completely differently. And I expect that the actual water use requirements for a plant that is colonized by healthy microbiome is somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 to 40% of the water requirement of a plant that isn't colonized by a healthy biome. So there's still a lot more to be uncovered and to be learned about there. But I'm quite optimistic about what we're learning in these early stages. So I want to say thank you all for joining and participating. I know that I had a team of people here helping me to moderate the questions in the background as well, because I'm not able to get to all of them. But feel free to reach out to our team here at Advancing Eco Agriculture with any questions that we missed and would love to connect with you. Thanks for all that you bring to the world and may you have an awesome growing season. Thank you all.