Ask Me Anything with regenerative ag thought leader John Kempf | Founder of AEA

Good afternoon friends. Welcome to our Ask Me Anything session that's being hosted by eea. We're opening the transmission or the recording a little bit early webinar a little bit early to allow everyone to come in. And if you would like, we have a couple of questions that have come in in advance where people emailed in questions that we can start from. But I would also suggest if you have any questions, anything. I really rely on the audience to help guide the conversation, lead the conversation. So if there's any questions you would love to have answered, type them into the Q and A box. And I should just clarify specifically the Q and A box and not the chat. Q and A should be the furthest right on your device. I think that's the case for most devices at least, and that helps me to keep track because with the chat there can be lots of back and forth between audience members and I can lose sight of the questions that get asked really quickly. So thank you for that. I see quite a few people have joined already and we're at the hour so we're going to get started.

Let me see here. There's a couple of questions that have come through on email that we'll start.

Off with as more questions come in. I see there's already been populated pretty quickly.

The first question is from Ian Thomas. The question is Some big names still.

Commonly claim that humic acids are a.

Fungal food and should be included in.

Biological brews as a food and stimulant for fungal populations.

You have spoken very accurately about humus.

Being the end product of decomposition and therefore the concept of humic acid as a food is incorrect. Could you please elaborate on this and explain the actual benefits of using humic acid? Is it that these acids are more.

Of a condition that help conditions for.

Fungi to thrive rather than a food source?

There's other questions as well, but that's the first question.

So where is it? Here we go.

This is the book that everyone needs to that every farmer, everyone who's a serious student of organic substances and building.

Soil organic matter needs.

It's about $150 book. It is sometimes difficult to buy on Amazon, but if you go to William Jackson's website. I was very disappointed. I really wanted to interview Dr. Bill Jackson on the podcast and record some of his information, some of his knowledge.

And it was. Unfortunately he passed away before I was.

Able to do that just fairly recently in the last year or two. But this book is the full title is Organic Soil Conditioning and the subtitle is Humic Phobic and Microbial balance. It's an expensive book.

It's $150, or something like that used to be, anyway. And.

Somehow as a culture, we have developed this idea that if books are really expensive or carry a big price tag, that we're going to avoid them. And information and knowledge is one of the most valuable things that you can have. Many of you know that I've very highly and frequently recommended Don Huber's book, or not just Don's, but Lawrence Danube, the book Mineral Nutrition and Plant Disease. It's also a book with a significant price tag, roughly $100. Scholarly book. This is also a scholarly book, lots of references. It is older. Looking to see when it was published. It was published in 1993. So there's a lot of new research that has come out since this book was published. But this is still the definitive reference.

That I'm aware of, at least on.

Humic and fulvic substances. And so I highly recommend it.

I think more people should get it and become familiar with some of the.

Things that he talked about, because it is in this book that I first connected the dots to understanding that the development of humic substances in the soil profile is a function of the fat.

Content, the lipid content in plants.

And this was published in 93. But now the information has been out there for a long time, but people aren't reading it, which is a shame.

Because it is incredibly valuable.

To answer the question directly. As you can imagine by the size of the book, about 4 inches thick.

Or 3 inches thick, maybe.

The benefits and the actions are multitude. It's much more than I can elaborate.

In a brief response.

But my understanding is that they are a combination of a structure, that these humic substances provide a structural home, if you will, that really stimulates biology. And they also, in the case of fulvic acids, they improve mineral absorption and mineral transport and mineral absorption across cell membranes. There are lots of nutrient interactions and microbial interactions that. Well, let's just say maybe the best way to describe these materials. As I'm thinking about it, the word that comes to mind is a catalyst. We understand that enzymes are catalysts and.

Speed up chemical reactions.

Perhaps the best way to describe fulvic and humic materials is that they are a catalyst and they speed up the development of microbial processes and nutrient interactions with microbes. That is a big part of where.

Their value comes from.

The second question from Ian is you mentioned that all trace minerals are better.

Applied in the reduced form.

Do you see any merit in applying.

Them in the oxidized form, for example, applying manganese sulfate, if a reduced form is not available.

So I should just clarify that the correct way to state this would be to say that I believe it is most beneficial for plants to absorb nutrients or to apply nutrients in the form that plants absorb them in. So there are some nutrients, like zinc, for example, that only has one oxidation.

State, the plus two form.

And so in the case of zinc, applying zinc sulfate is a great, can be a great application, particularly the soil. And I actually think I've made this comment before, but I think that this is one of the reasons why zinc applications are relatively popular compared to manganese or iron, because mainstream growers who have really compromised soil microbial communities and compromised soil health can apply zinc and observe a crop response where if they apply manganese or if they apply iron, particularly to the soil, they frequently fail to.

Observe a crop response.

And it's not because the crop doesn't need manganese or iron.

It's because the crop doesn't get the product that was applied because of soil imbalances. So.

In answer to the question, I'll just say that our observation, our experience has been that when we apply minerals to the soil, just for the record, also manganese sulfate, the manganese in manganese sulfate, in my understanding, is actually in the reduced form.

So I'm not a chemist, but that's what I've been informed, is that the manganese and manganese sulfate is in the reduced form.

But then when you apply it to.

Soil.

And that soil is oxidized, it rapidly converts to the oxidized form. When you apply manganese sulfate to the leaf surface and it's exposed to the.

Atmosphere and to air, to oxygen, then it also rapidly oxidizes and the plant fails to absorb it efficiently and effectively.

So I missed completing my prior thought, which is that in our observation, when we apply manganese sulfate to the soil, we see the soil analysis on a.

Typical ammonium acetate or a DTCPA analysis.

We see the soil analysis increase.

So the numbers on the soil report go up.

The numbers on the SAP analysis have not ever increased that we have observed.

From putting on soil applications of manganese iron sulfate.

Actually, I shouldn't use the word never because there have been a few exceptional occasions where when the soil was really reduced. So if you had soil that was.

Saturated for several weeks after application because of high rainfall or whatever the case.

Might be in those environments, in those.

Cases, we did see increases of manganese and iron absorption from when applied to the soil, but those situations are relatively rare.

Next question is, is there anything that can be done at home to easily.

Reduce the oxidized form of these mineral amendments? Where these are all I have available to me.

Could anaerobically fermenting them achieve this? And the answer is yes. So we have. I don't have a lot of experience or observation with this, but I've heard anecdotally from growers who applied manganese sulfate.

Or iron sulfate or whatever into bokashi.

And had an anaerobic fermentation or composting.

Process, if you want to call it that.

And upon application, they observed very nice.

Crop responses of increased manganese absorption and iron absorption and so forth.

All right, so I'm going to go to some of the questions that have come through. Question from Marcus when applying a soil amendment in a liquid form on a.

Pasture, how much will plants take up through their leaves?

My goodness, that's question. It's a very big question because soil amendment can be many different things, and.

Obviously particle sizing and all of that plays a role.

But in general, I would say that if the product that we are applying, for the sake of conversation, a soil amendment would commonly be a manure or.

A compost or a rock powder.

So I'm going to assume that we're.

Talking about rock powders, whether that be limestone or gypsum or rock phosphate or whatever the case might be.

If we're applying liquid lime and we have relatively small particle sizing, 200 to.

400 mesh, or less than 50 microns.

Plants can absorb some of those particles through the leaf. And there are various mechanisms. It is not just through the stomata.

Plants do absorb larger particles through endocytosis and through other mechanisms other than just through the somata.

But the absorption through the leaf is.

Going to be relatively small, and it's going to vary based on the product that we're talking about.

But I would anticipate less than 2 to 3% of what lands on the.

Leaf surface is actually going to be absorbed by the leaf for those types of materials.

Question from Timothy could you comment on.

Municipal compost facilities using biosolids, the use of this compost in agriculture, and the potential for PFAS and other chemical contamination in farming fields?

I've considered having a guest on the.

Podcast about this topic. Let me see. It's nice to have my bookshelf right behind me.

David Lewis, in the book titled Science for Sale, is a book that anyone who has interest in learning about biosolids needs to read. And definitely anyone who is interested or.

Considering using biosolids needs to read.

The short version that you can probably.

Guess even from without reading the book.

Is that biosolids have been very well.

Documented through peer reviewed research to be.

Very hazardous for your health and to be very hazardous for soil's health and to be very hazardous to the health.

Of all the neighbors in the surrounding areas where it is applied to the fields. So my recommendation would be to avoid at all costs.

Question from Peter we are being prepared by the industry.

I like the beginning to that sentence.

We are being prepared by the industry. That's a great that's very, very true.

Far more often than we want to acknowledge or realize that we it's in.

A sense I made the comment on a recent podcast interview with Jason Mount.

Of the people who are farming the farmers and that phrase has become popular beyond what I ever anticipated.

But it's very common that there is this cultivation of fear that occurs in.

Advance of a potential problem to sell solutions that fit a certain narrative.

We are being prepared by the industry.

That tar spot on corn is going to be a major problem here in Ontario next year.

I have not applied any fungicide post.

Emerge on corn and soy for many years and did not want to start again. What can I do to mitigate this disease?

Trying to recall we actually had a conversation internally with the AEA consulting team.

I remember there were some message exchanges.

About tar spot where one of our team members reported having success just with using the standard AEA treatment protocol. If I recall correctly, the comment was made that just applications of Biokote Gold.

As an inoculant of a probiotic was.

The growers who applied that did not.

Have tar spot in those fields. So of course Biokoat Gold is not a fungicide and we can't say that it can be used to treat a.

Disease, but based on the experiences of.

Some of our agronomists, it's possible that it can be used to prevent the emergence of tar spot.

So that was I would suggest reaching.

Out to the AEA team for more information on that because I was just an observer in an online conversation, did not actually participate.

But I would say that for most diseases it is a wiser course of.

Action to avoid prophylactic treatments. Wait until there is actually a problem before you put on a fungicide application and in the majority of cases you will find that the fungicide application is not actually needed.

There's a very important reason for this because in many cases fungicide application, well.

Not in Many cases. In all known cases, fungicide applications will.

Change a plant's biochemistry and increase its.

Susceptibility to the disease that you are trying to be to serve as a preventative against.

So it actually a fungicide application preventative.

Is an oxymoron because you do not prevent fungal infections with fungicides because they actually, as soon as the fungicide wears.

Off, you have dramatically increased that plant.

Susceptibility to whatever you were trying to avoid in the first place.

Question from Jake is, if no till.

Is ideal for soil health, what about deep ripping for vineyard preparation?

And Jake, your question begins with an assumption. If no till is ideal for soil.

Health, and I would suggest that no.

Till is not universally ideal for soil.

Health for all soils, all the time.

So if soils have been very compacted.

Or have been historically mismanaged, then deep ripping can be a useful tool to.

Mitigate that historical damage, as long as we then make sure to use management practices to not recreate the same problem.

That was there originally.

So Don Huber makes this point as.

Well when he talks about developing disease suppressive soils.

No till I think is.

Well, just.

In general, we should not permit idealism.

To take the place of practicality. We have to produce practical real world results.

And in many soils, in many contexts.

In many environments, no till is a worthy goal that we should strive for and should achieve. But in some ecosystems, it doesn't make sense right from the get go.

Question from Marcus, what effect does soil.

Aeration such as with a yeoman plow, have on nutrient availability? Context is that there's no prior SAP analysis on this property. The new leaf that grew after yeoman's levels of calcium are down and the boron is up.

Well, again, this is a very open.

Ended question with lots of possible context because it's not just about soil aeration, but it's also about what is the water availability, moisture availability, and so forth.

So in general, when you aerate soil.

And you increase gas exchange, that increases oxygen flow into the soil and that tends to have an oxidizing effect. In some soils that are compacted, that can be beneficial, and in some soils that can have a negative effect.

So I would say that in most.

Soils, oxidation tends to change the soil microbial community. This is again speaking in broad generalizations.

But for most soils, that tends to.

Produce a disease enhancing soil microbial community rather than a disease suppressive one, unless that soil is really compacted and then it can actually have the opposite effect, a beneficial effect that you're looking for. Question from Anthony. Hi, Anthony.

Are there any nutritional strategies for tilting.

Plant energy to growth instead of reproduction.

For new orchard trees?

Yes, the foundational strategy is to maintain abundant levels of available calcium in the soil.

So this is not about foliar applications.

Of calcium, although those are beneficial, so.

Much as maintaining very high levels of available calcium in the soil and then also partnering that with high levels of.

Cobalt in the soil as well. And this cobalt can also be foliar applied.

And I'm of course basing this on a foundation of managing everything else. So it's not just those two, but having a particular emphasis on those two. Once you've addressed all the other bases.

Of managing magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, etc.

When we have covered all of our bases and everything else is taken care of and we then amplify the available calcium in the soil profile, that will have the same effect on plant growth.

As applying large amounts of nitrogen fertilizer.

Except that instead of having widely spaced.

Nodes, we'll have very tightly spaced nodes that on orchard trees might be 2 inches apart instead of 6 inches apart. So it's possible to produce a lot of vegetative growth that is very high.

Quality, high carbon wood with narrowly spaced.

Nodes with that abundance of calcium.

And an example, again, this would have.

To be adapted for every environment.

But an example of how we've managed that is one orchard comes to mind.

That we were asked to produce this effect on. We applied a total of 6,000 pounds of gypsum per acre over the 18 month period before planting the orchard and produced very high calcium concentrations within the mound of the tree row. Now, that was specific for that soil environment, and those amounts may not need to be nearly that high for different soils in different contexts. But that was the tool, the product that we used in the application method that we used to bring calcium availability up to that level for that one farm that we were working on. Question from John on Spectrum soil inoculant. I have a little bit of a problem with the math on this product. An acre has rounded 6 million square inches, and so I think the math works out to roughly 8 bacteria per square inch. Is that sufficient to change the soil microbiology? What is the doubling time of these bacteria? And in a perfect world, what should be the concentration of the most abundant microbe per gram of soil?

John, this is a great question, and it's a great question because it identifies one of the ways that we have been led to think about microbial inoculants.

Incorrectly from an incorrect premise.

We know that bacteria and organisms in.

The Soil exchange genetic information extremely rapidly. Stephen Herad Buhner, in his book, which of his books is it? I think it's the one titled It Might Be the Lost Language of Plants, if I'm not mistaken, he describes how when.

When bacteria are exposed to an antibiotic and they develop antibiotic resistance quite.

Rapidly in the soil profile in a matter of. I'm just going from memory here, so don't hold me to this, but I want to say it something like 10 to 14 days relatively quickly.

Then, and.

This research was specifically on single strains or single species of bacteria. They will develop antibiotic resistance within a matter of a few days to a few weeks. But then that genetic information about how to be resistant to this group of.

Antibiotics is shared with the rest of.

The microbial population of the soil profile through this process known as horizontal gene transfer.

And so there is this rapid exchange of genetic information where all of a sudden the great majority, perhaps the entirety.

Of the soil microbial population now has this genetic information and now has the capacity to be resistant to this group of antibiotics. And this is rather, if you think about it, really has the potential to be rather scary from the perspective that we have antibiotic exposure to the majority of the majority of our soil microbial communities. Any that has had manure applied where animals were fed antibiotics has now, does now have this antibiotic resistance. It's quite well documented.

So we should not think when we apply soil inoculants, whether that's in the form of compost tea or a purchased.

Inoculant, or mycorrhizal fungi, whatever the context is. Well, actually, mycorrhizal fungi are a bit different because there we are looking for specific species. There are cases where we are looking for specific species and specific colonization. There are also many cases where, particularly in the context of bacterial applications, we.

Are not looking so much that we apply a species and it establishes significant colonization and a large population displacing other.

Microbes throughout the soil profile. In some cases that might be what.

We are looking for, but from my understanding, in many cases what we're looking for is we are looking that we have a strain of organisms that has a certain genetic capability, maybe they have.

The capability of extracting and solubilizing phosphorus and making phosphorus available, or fixing hydrogen from the atmosphere, or whatever the case might be specific disease suppressive pathways.

What we are looking for is for.

Those organisms that are added to the.

Soil profile to share that genetic information with the rest of the soil microbial community. That's really the way that we should think about microbial inoculants is not about the addition of species so much as the addition of specific genetic information, because.

That'S really how these microorganisms work and function, thrive as communities. There's this constant free flow and exchange of genetic information. And that's really how we should think about these microbial additions that we're making to the soil profile, particularly in the case of bacteria. So question here from Elmer. Clover grass mixtures are nice forage and give the soil some rest between small grains and vegetables. Potatoes, how can we terminate them or any other wintergreen cover crop in a biological healthy.

An organically legal way to make room.

For the next crop? Oh yes, the conundrum. The conundrum that we all are trying to figure out. Here in the US and I presume in Sweden too, although I don't know the answer. It is not organically legal to terminate with boric acid and other forms of boron are not particularly effective. In my personal observation and experience.

There are getting to be more products available.

Like high doses of acetic acid, glacial acetic acid and so forth.

So there's different. Trying to think of what else to.

Glacial acetic acid also you could combine actually one. One practice or product or tool, whatever you want to call it that has.

Been effective in my experience in most.

Situations is a combination of acetic acid and sodium chloride. Is that organically legal? In most cases, yes. I wouldn't know for sure about yours. And it's also worth mentioning that that is only a burn off. It will burn off the top but not completely kill the crop. So I'm sorry I don't have a better answer for you. That's the best answer I have at the moment.

Question from Eugene.

Is Trichoderma a good idea to change the biology in a plum orchard with wet clay? Maybe. I don't know the answer to that. There's. There is this narrative that Trichoderma can be so aggressive that it excludes other biology. And I have some very significant question marks around that narrative because my limited observation of Trichoderma has been that it behaves as a pioneering species.

And yes, it may be dominant in the short term after application, but. But in a period of perhaps months.

Or years it is no longer as dominant a species and it makes way for other biology as well.

I would suggest though that it is best. I've talked about our idea of synergistic stacks that we don't apply just a.

Fungal inoculant, but we combine it with other things.

So think about applying a combination of trichoderma plus mycorrhizal fungi plus bacteria plus humic substances and put together this combination that has the potential to behave in a synergistic way. And there is a very high probability.

That you will get significantly better results than just with the trichoderma itself.

Question from Marcel Marcel hi John, how.

Do we control powdery mildew in strawberries and apples? I don't know the answer to this question off the top of my head. What I can say is that in our experience and actual practice, we use SAP analysis to balance nutrition and powdery mildew tends to go away. Not not just tends to go away. It does go away. Why? Is it because we have higher levels.

Of manganese and zinc and iron and copper and boron?

Maybe. Is it because we have higher levels of calcium? Maybe, I don't know, specific interactions that.

Are in play there.

All that I can say with a.

Broad generality is that as we manage.

Nutrition and optimize nutrition for plant health, powdery mildew certainly disappears. Question from I'm not going to attempt to butcher this name. My apologies.

Why is fruit fly becoming more of.

A menace and we are unable to control their damage? What is the way forward?

Fruit fly, any pest Let me the context here is that fruit, the reproductive parts of a plant, are often nutritionally.

The weakest parts of the plant simply because they require the highest nutritional concentrations. The nutrient concentrations of zinc and manganese and copper and boron and other elements are often an order of magnitude or more higher in fruits and berries and seeds than they are in the leaves.

Which means that if there is any imbalance present, if they are low in.

One or another nutrient like zinc or.

Manganese or boron, that deficiency shows up much more severely in the reproductive parts.

Of the plant than it does in the vegetation.

And because of that, because of this difference, fruit and seeds are often the last location on a plant to become.

Fully disease resistant and insect resistant.

So the pathway forward is exactly the.

Same as it is for managing, for preventing other challenges and disease and pest challenges. And that is to to balance nutrition to optimize plant immunity. And I know that's a very broad.

General answer, but that's the best answer.

I can give you.

And when that happens, you will have.

Resistance to fruit fly.

And this just a personal anecdote, recent.

Experience with this My father and my brother are both raising black raspberries, which are very susceptible to the SWD spotted.

Wing Drosophila and their black raspberry patches are separated by approximately 500 yards 4 or 500 yards distance and one of them is consumed. This this last year's production season one.

Of them lost most of their crop to Spotted wing Drosophila because the blackberries or black raspberries were secondary for them to their primary job and they didn't take care of them. They didn't manage the nutrition well. They had major problems with SWD.

400 yards away the other black raspberry.

Patch had no SWD. It was non detectable. They tested berries multiple times and couldn't find any and the only difference between the two was some geographical distance and nutrition management. So it is possible to produce resistance to the fruit fly by managing nutrition.

Question have you ever observed if foliar.

Sprays of phosphate such as monopotassium phosphate increase resistance against powdery mildew? In practice? Literature suggests that this might trigger phosphate induced resistance, but I don't know of anybody doing this in practice.

Have I ever observed this on a.

Very few, very limited occasions.

And I think the reason it is not more consistent is because of other.

Nutrient interactions that are present. So phosphorus is important. Phosphorus is very important for powdery mildew reduction, but so is manganese and if I'm not mistaken, so is copper.

So in some cases, if plants have.

Adequate levels of manganese or copper or other of the elements that are required but they're low in phosphorus, foliar application of MKP might be very effective.

But in cases where you have adequate.

Levels of phosphorus but low levels of.

Manganese and copper, an application of MKP.

Might be substantially less effective or completely ineffective at all.

Question from Jake I am a new vineyard owner trying to get up to.

Speed with AEA and regenerative ag. One question relates to spraying inputs versus drip fertigation. What are the differences and the benefits of one over the other?

So the differences are I'll speak here in very broad generalities and it may vary.

Your mileage may vary with your specific operation, but in general, if you are.

Properly set up, fertigation takes a lot.

Less labor than foliar spraying and for many farms that's a significant and a growing consideration.

Dependent on soil and soil management. It can often take as much as 2x a product volume per acre to and I'm talking now, I'm not talking.

About in the row acre, I'm talking surface acre. It can take as much as 2.

Times higher product application in the fertigation to produce the same result as you.

Produce with a foliar spray.

And in regards to timing. If you put on a foliar spray, we expect to see nutrients increase in.

The SAP analysis in a period of two to three days or less. And with a fertigation application it can take a week to 10 days because you have the whole microbial population to take into consideration as well. And the dynamics that exist there.

Those are the really big picture variables.

That come to mind right off the top of my head.

Increasingly, operations who have challenges with labor availability are opting and are finding it.

Less expensive to simply put on higher applications in the fritigation system than to put on foliar applications. There are trade offs, and sometimes there is still the need for foliars in some situations, but in general I would say both of them can be effective and can work.

Question from davis.

I.