How Soluble Phosphorus Applications at Planting Create Yield Drag

Good afternoon friends. Welcome to our webinar where today we're talking about how soluble phosphorus applications app.

Planting create yield drag.

And this is, this is the direct opposite of most conventional wisdom or popular wisdom. We're going to cut straight to the point. This, this webinar has a single point there, there, there is a, a single key takeaway that I want for all of you to keep in your minds. And so the approach for the last eight or nine decades regarding plant nutrition has been to seek to provide abundant soluble nutrients right in the planting zone, right in the root zone so that the young seedling would be exposed to abundant nutrition immediately as soon as it emerges, as soon as the root radical emerges to get that seed off to a very good start. And so there have been very good intentions, but the intentions have been ill informed or misguided. We now know across all of these different kingdoms, plants, people, animals, etc that optimal nutrition at the ceiling stage is not just a function of chemistry balance. But perhaps most important, not perhaps entirely.

Most importantly is biological nutrition and the microbiome.

And of course this is where chemistry.

Nutrition and, and chemistry based fertilizer applications really fall short.

So this is still very early days. As I was starting out in the, this is 20 years ago on my father's farm. We were growing vegetables and it's very common for us the, the fertilizer formulation that we were using as a transplant.

Solution to transplant seedlings out into the field or, or when we were direct.

Seeding was a water soluble powder with a. We, we experimented with several different formulations.

We had a 10, 50, 10, we.

Had a 1248, 8 and as you can hear, all of those formulations were very high in soluble phosphorus. With the, our, what we had been trained in and what we understood was that having high levels of soluble phosphorus is required for building a large robust root system and for getting seedlings off.

To a very fast and vigorous start.

Well, flash forward a few years and we soon learned as I started a study and learning about mycorrhizal fungi, learning about other organisms, bacterial organisms, I soon, it soon became very clearly obvious that these soluble forms of phosphorus that are.

Being applied at planting or in close proximity to the seed of the root.

System completely destroy and prevent the plant.

From being colonized by mycorrhizal fungi and these other organisms. That's right, you heard me say that correctly.

They completely, at least it's worthwhile having a qualifier here. And the qualifier is that there is, there is a period of time. So one of, one of the challenges with the soluble phosphorus applications. And this is true even if we're applying orthophosphate or monoammonium phosphate or monopotassium.

Phosphate, or phosphoric acid, or some of.

The forms of phosphorus that are considered clean. Even when we are applying clean sources.

Of phosphorus, they still react and bind.

Up with the soil mineral profile relatively rapidly.

Phosphorus is quite reactive as a triple negatively charged anion reacts very strongly with aluminum, with iron, and also with magnesium.

And calcium, which are four of the.

Top five most abundant nutrients in the earth's crust.

And there are all kinds of papers that have been published in the literature describing how these various forms of phosphorus interact with various soils at different soil.

Ph factors and different soil types and so forth.

So there's quite a bit of variability. You can do a quick literature search to see if you can find something that matches what your soil conditions are. But the short version is simply that these soluble forms of phosphorus, when they are applied to soil, usually are reacted with soil minerals and almost entirely complex and no longer available to plants anywhere from about a 10 to 11 day window up to about 20 to 30 days. So you have this effect where the soluble phosphorus that you applied remains available.

To the plant somewhere between 10 and 30 days.

And some soil conditions and some types of phosphorus. There's a good argument to be made.

Or a good case to be made for it being even less, and that is described in some of the literature.

I'm not going to go into that. But the point that I want to bring here is that in so you have this window of time and as long as you have that water soluble phosphorus. So in that 10 to 30 day window, as long as soluble phosphorus is present in the root system, that soluble phosphorus will prevent the association of mycorrhizal.

Fungi and of phosphorus solubilizing bacteria and plant growth promoting risobacteria.

There are a broad range of organisms that are greatly suppressed and shut down from colonizing the rhizosphere when soluble phosphorus is present, for the very simple reason that the plant in this seedling stage wants to utilize as much sugar energy.

As possible for growth.

And so in a setting where there isn't a surplus of soluble phosphorus, this plant will release sugars as rude exudates as a food source, and also with the associated chemical signatures and triggers to trigger the germination of mycorrhizal fungi spores. And the plant is actively recruiting, the scientifically correct term is recruiting. It is recruiting soil microbial organisms to come colonize the root system and, and to supply it with nutrition and in ex, in exchange it will provide them with sugars and the materials that they.

Need to successfully reproduce.

So you have this beautiful symbiotic relationship. Well, when you have abundant levels of soluble phosphorus along with soluble nitrogen and.

A bit of potassium and some of.

These other elements, the plant doesn't need.

The mycorrhizal fungi and it doesn't need the phosphorus solubilizing bacteria, it the plant growth promoting rhizobacteria.

And it doesn't feel the need. It feels as if though it is in a hydroponic environment, it is in a, in a resource rich environment, a nutrient dense environment where there is an abundance of freely available nutrients. And because there is this abundance of freely available nutrients, it doesn't need to expend any energy, it doesn't need to provide any sugars to the soil microbial population and instead it will use those sugars for growth. What the ceiling doesn't know of course, is that the soluble phosphorus that has.

Been applied along with the other nutrients, but particularly the phosphorus in this case.

Is going to disappear in a week or in three weeks and then it's gone. It doesn't know that that's coming down the road. It is just sensing the environment that exists right now and recognizing that it has abundant levels of solubh phosphorus and it doesn't need to expend sugars for.

Soil biology in order to get more.

And so what happens is the plant begins growing rapidly, it begins expanding its root system to access these soluble nutrients as much as possible and it begins building vegetative biomass. And let's just say that you have a corn seedling that is now three weeks old and it's at about the, depending on weather conditions and when it was planted, let's say it's at the.

V3, V4 stage somewhere in there.

And so it has built a fair amount of vegetative biomass, its root system.

Has really expanded significantly.

And all of a sudden the last remaining bit of soluble phosphorus that was applied as a row starter becomes fully complexed and it's gone. And the plant doesn't have any of the mycorrhizal association or any other fungal.

Populations and bacterial populations that are needed to supply it with nutrition.

And now this plant is scrambling and it is scrambling to I now now needs to go through the recruitment process that it could have gone through three weeks prior to. And as it's going through this recruitment process, it's sending a lot of sugars out as red exudates as I've described. But this is also the stage when the plant again using corn plant as.

An example, but this is true of.

Soybeans, cantaloupes, cucumbers, achini, across the board, many different crop species. Many of these annual plants, these annual crops will begin setting the reproductive buds.

That will eventually be harvested as a.

Crop in the first 14 to 21.

Days after germination or after seedling emergence. So it happens very early in a plant's life.

And so now you have this plant that has a, a temporary crisis of not having enough nutrition at the same time that it's setting reproductive buds. And this sets up that plant to have where this soluble phosphorus application creates a, at a critical point of application, it creates a phosphorus deficiency and a nutrient deficiency that results in having an.

Effect that reduces yield and creating yield drag. But that's just half the story.

The other half of the story is that this plant, when, when you have, let's say that you apply a, you plant a crop that does not have.

A phosphorus soluble phosphorus starter in it.

And instead you include other nutrients like.

Magnesium and sulfur and zinc and manganese and copper and cobalt and boron, perhaps a touch of calcium, minor touches of potassium, a slight dose of nitrogen.

But you, you do not use any soluble phosphorus.

Perhaps use materials like AEA's Holofast that provides phosphorus that is plant available but not water soluble.

You know, this is a phrase that William Albrecht used frequently seven or eight decades ago. He said that fertilizer should be plant.

Available but not soluble.

And that's what we have sought to.

Develop with many of our product formulations.

So now when you have a seed and a seedling that is planted in an environment without soluble phosphorus, and it is successful in establishing a community with mycorrhizal fungi and bacteria and other organisms that plant, when you get later into, let's say you get into the grain fill stage. At the grain fill stage, if you were to conduct a microbiome analysis of that root system, are you just to stain and test the root system for mycorrhizal colonization, the goal for optimal plant nutrition? There's some variation between plant species and context, of course, but a foundational threshold should be to look for 60% mycorrhizal colonization. In other words, you want 60% of the overall root biomass to be colonized by mycorrhizal fungi. And you can successfully achieve this or even higher levels when you do not.

Have soluble phosphorus applied in the furrow at planting.

But if you don't have 60% colonization. Let's say the plant is only, only starts recruiting mycorrhizal fungi three to four weeks after emergence. And now you never get to 60%.

Colonization of that root system for the.

Rest of the growing season. You might only get to 15% or 20%. So now soil biology is unable to ever quite catch up because the, the plant continues to grow and the plant growth is growing more rapidly than the soil microbial community can catch up with. So the, the mycorrhizal fungi and the microbial community is always playing catch up to where the plant is already at, because the plant is four weeks ahead. And what this does, so what a. When you apply soluble phosphorus in the furrow at planting, that creates a soluble phosphorus dependency for the rest of the plant's life. And not just soluble phosphorus, but also all of the other nutrients that mycorrhizal fungi can supply. And this can work and does work in vegetable systems. If, as on the farm that I was growing up on, we were fertigating nutrients through the irrigation system three or.

Four days a week and sometimes five.

Or six days a week, and when you're doing that, and when you're just using the soil as a substrate and managing it hydroponically, then none of this matters. But if you are not doing that, if you do not have the capacity.

To spoon feed the plant for its entire life cycle, then that means it.

Is very valuable to create this microbial synergy right at planting or right at seed germination that maintains itself for the plant's entire life cycle. Because if what happens, I feel like I'm making my point, but perhaps I'm not making it clearly enough. What happens is when you get to the grain fill stage, mycorrhizal fungi and these other bacteria in the soil profile can access nutrients and make them available to the plant in the absence of free soil water. So if you have dry conditions in your soil, There used to be. Some of my mentors, Michael McNeil and others who've farmed in Iowa for five or six decades, used to say that in the, in a corn production system, you could go for at almost any point in the growing season, their soils and crops, their overall ecosystem, was able to go for four weeks without rain without having a negative impact on Yield.

This is 60 Years Ago.

Today, if they go for a single.

Week without rain, they're in a drought.

What is different? One of the things that is different is there's.

We could talk about soil structure and water infiltration. All those pieces, all of which are relevant.

But one of the pieces that is different is at that point in order, not just did they have the soils that had the ability to infiltrate and hold water and, and move water, percolate water through the soil profile, but they also had mycorrhizal fungi that could access water in dry soil conditions and make.

It available to plants.

So when the, the, the conclusion, the summary bottom line, if I had to wrap it down into a single point, is that if you apply phosphorus at planting, you create a dependency on soluble water soluble nutrients.

For the rest of.

The plant's life, particularly during the grainfield stage. And you can resolve all of that by experimenting and testing with not putting.

On soluble phosphorus at planting.

So that's the, that is the action step that I would recommend. I mean there's when our, with our integrated nutrition management systems we apply no soluble phosphorus at planting. We haven't for a decade and a half and we do not see any negative yield responses.

In fact we see positive yield responses.

And I've had conversations with many growers who have questioned this advice over the years and started experimenting yield. Even growers who were using very clean orthophosphates and polyphosphates, very clean phosphorus sources simply started conducting experiments, conducting trials and evaluating phosphorus starter application versus no starter applications side by side on a field scale. I have not yet heard of a single instance where the phosphorus starter outperformed a starter without phosphorus, not one. And so this is, this is something that is. I think this is a foundational part of developing biological nutrition management is we first the fundamental rule of. Of medicine is first do no harm. And we have to first begin by.

Doing no harm to our soil microbial populations.

So that's the key point. There are basically there when you put on phosphorus applications at planning, you create yield drag in two ways, at least.

Two ways that I know of and.

That I think I understand. The first is that you create an energy drain on the plant right at a right as it is setting buds for the future harvest three to four weeks after planting. The second yield drag is that you create dependency on water soluble nutrients during the fruit fill or grain fill period later on in the plant's life when it is usually dry and when nutrients.

Are usually not very readily available unless they are being spoon fed and fertigated.

So those are the two major pieces that of how soluble phosphorus contributes to.

Yield drive for a crop as I understand it.

So with that I'm going to switch to Q A. If you have any questions, please type them into the question Q and A box at the bottom and I will.

Try to go through and answer all them as well as I'm able.

Question from Andrew Would you say crops, specifically corn and soybeans, are less drought tolerant today versus 40 years ago? Well Andrew, there are different aspects to drought tolerance. I would suggest that there are some plant varieties and some some genetics that.

Are perhaps more drought tolerant today.

But again, well, I don't know. I've seen it go both ways. The perhaps the best way to describe it is that there is required to be a a crop genetic and soil match and if you get the the right varieties planted onto the right soil, they can be very drought tolerant today.

Even as the they were 40 or 50 years ago.

But I'm speaking very broadly with very broad brushstrokes here and I know that.

There'S obviously a great deal of variation from farm to farm with different soil types.

But broadly I would say we have much more drought susceptible soils today. Not crops, but soils. We have much more drought susceptible soils.

Today than we did 40 or 50.

Years ago, largely just because of the way that they have continued to degrade.

With many of our cultural management practices.

And you know, it is is interesting there are one of the one of the pushbacks that I get to that comment occasionally is that, well, we have much more widespread no till adoption today than we did four decades ago and or longer.

And it is true that we do. But most of those no till soils.

Have extremely poor water infiltration and very poor water percolation.

They don't handle water very well at all.

So no till by itself without other parts of the system like cover crops.

And maintaining living root systems and so.

Forth, no till by itself is not enough to regenerate soil health and maintain.

Good water management water percolation through the soil profile.

Question from Justin Is SAP analysis a.

Good tool to check phosphorus levels in.

The plants and is it better to.

Check young or old leaf? The answer is yes. SAP analysis is a good tool and I would suggest checking both the old.

And the young leaf because phosphorus deficiencies.

Will tend to show up in the old leaves. First.

Question from Mr. Anonymous what dry land corn yields are.

Possible in the Midwest when cutting all the detrimental inputs and using your ideal program? Well, the answer is how much rainfall are you going to get and which region are you talking about?

Depending on rainfall region, soil type, etc, we have gotten anywhere from 170 to 280 bushel corn throughout the Midwest and some dry land regions even.

And I know of a few instances that are pushing 350 without any of the detrimental inputs. Those are the exceptions, obviously not the rule, but it's certainly possible.

Question from Dennis Will existing high soil.

Phosphorus levels interfere with mycorrhizal recruitment? The answer is yes, they can.

The threshold and I need to go back and verify this. Now that we have Laura Cavanaugh's technology.

Available to measure soil microbiome, we need to actually validate this and verify a bit more closely.

A decade and a half ago I.

Was told that the threshold is 400 parts per million phosphorus on a P1.

Analysis, which is the equivalent of about.

If I recall correctly, about 200 parts per million on a Malik 3.

But the short answer, so that is.

That is fairly high, but that those.

Levels can certainly happen when you apply a lot of compost in the manure.

Historically so, or if you just have high phosphorus foundational geological material to begin with.

And so yes, it is possible these same effects that I've been describing from soluble phosphorus fertilizer can also occur from a manure application. If there is a manure application in.

Large amounts that has a lot of soluble phosphorus applied right in close proximity to planting before that phosphorus gets complexed, you can have the same effect.

Question from George My grandfather told me that all the phosphorus you need is.

Leftover carbon in leftover carbon matter from the year before. How true is this, George? The answer is you can easily measure that and verify whether that's actually true or not with tissue analysis, residue analysis and so forth. And it depends, it depends on your soil type. It depends on how well the previous crop was able to absorb phosphorus either from fertilization or from what's in the soil parent geological material. I wouldn't be willing to speculate on that. It's certainly possible, but it's not necessarily true.

Question from Doug John Is this for.

All row crops like soybeans and winter wheat? The answer is yes. But it's not just for row crops, it is for all plants.

It's equally true for vegetable crops. And you know, I, I'm, we did a very poor job of data collection.

On some of our historical studies and so that we, where we collaborated with.

Farmers and so I'm hesitant to even talk about some of our experiences because.

We, we don't have enough data yet. We're going to, we're needing to go back and replicate some of the stuff that we did historically.

But going back eight or nine years.

Ago or maybe longer than that, at.

This point we conducted some side by.

Side comparisons where inferrow applications on corn were primarily magnesium based instead of phosphorus based. And we got the biggest and the most robust root systems from those applications, from the magnesium centric applications rather than from the phosphorus centric applications.

And the the SAP analysis lab that we work with conducts all types of.

Hydroponic experiments to develop desired values and thresholds for nutrients. And so they will grow various plants.

In hydroponic solutions where the the solution.

Nutrient concentration is completely controlled.

And they've reported repeatedly that the plants that have abundant magnesium levels have by.

Far and away the largest, most robust root systems and not those that have high phosphorus levels. So this is, this is something to pay attention to.

Question from Aries so what would you suggest for us to use from AEA.

For a corn starter and watermelon starter in South Georgia?

I'm not willing to answer the question specifically because I don't know enough about.

Your local context of soil and so forth.

But speaking broadly kind of as a as a foundational piece I would make as a general rule, many of our protocols include the use of biocode Gold.

As an inoculant for mycorrhizal fungi and for these beneficial bacteria that we need.

In the rhizosphere and perhaps materials such.

As rejuvenate and sea stim etc that I can't call a biostimulant.

And then if there is a need for phosphorus, one of the better ways.

To get phosphorus that is plant available but not soluble is to use holofos. And for for specific recommendations I would ask that you please reach out to the AEA team and get into a detailed conversation with them and they can make recommendations that are specific to your context with your soil type. I see the questions are piling in here, so I'm going to try to step up the pace a little bit.

A question from John Does a dry 2x2 application have a similar effect on.

The plant as Infero liquid treatment does? The short answer is yes, it does.

Exactly the same DAP Diamonium Phosphate 1846 O has a pH of I think.

11 or 12 if I recall correctly.

And ties up in the soil extremely.

Fast.

Again depending a bit on application rate. But I read a lot of this research. This is now 10 years or more ago and if I recall correctly, diamonium phosphate can be completely tied up in the soil profile in a matter of a week.

It is it's very rapidly insoluble and provides no further benefits to the crop after that point.

MAP is much better, but it can.

Still have this effect that I'm talking about.

And so actually we should ask the question. One of the questions that's worth asking is if you have a soil type that isn't capable of supplying the crop.

With adequate phosphorus, how should you address that? How do you address that if you.

Have soils that require phosphorus applications? The the number one ideal would be to apply phosphorus in a form that.

Is plant available but not soluble.

Perhaps. Perhaps this means mixing rock phosphate in.

With livestock manure before broadcasting it, which by the way can improve its effectiveness by about 4x. That would be one of the ideal forms. Or perhaps you applied in the form of compost.

Then the next step, if you have soil parent material that doesn't contain phosphorus, perhaps there is a need to apply some rock phosphate to your soil depending on ph conditions.

Again, there's a lot of variables that play into this.

If none of those applications make sense, then perhaps there is justification for the.

Use of MAP monoammonium phosphate as a broadcast or perhaps even bend it in a furrow. But if that is the case, you.

Do not want to apply it at.

Planting in the root zone.

So you can remove it by space, or you can remove it in time.

Apply it three, four, six weeks after planting, apply it later in the plant's.

Life, and apply it farther away from the root system to allow the plant to establish that critical mycorrhizal fungi association.

Right from the beginning.

So either remove it in time or.

Remove it in proximity, or both would be ideal.

Question from Joel. Will late quantities of manure create a.

Phosphorus dependency like in commercial phosphorus sources? Will they inhibit the health of beneficial fungi? Joel, this is a good question. I may have partially answered it already.

But I'm not entirely certain what you.

Mean when you say late. Does late mean after planting? Does it mean in the fall before planting? Could mean either of those two things.

But I'm going to assume for the moment that it means three to four weeks after planting. And the the answer is dependent. Dependent on rate. So if you apply a very large.

Rate where you flush the soil, or shouldn't say flush, but where the soil has an abundance of soluble phosphorus three.

To four weeks after planting, that can still be problematic.

But it's not as problematic as it is right at planting. So I hope I understood your question correctly there.

Question from Jared. Any thoughts on fishbone meal as a source of phosphorus? Bone meal, either fish or otherwise, is.

Generally a fairly good form of phosphorus and something that can provide a good phosphorus source.

But bone meal phosphorus delivery is mediated by biology.

A little bit like Rock phosphate.

So with rock phosphate and with these.

Less soluble forms of phosphorus, we are actually relying on, we're depending on mycorrhizal fungi and other organisms to solubilize phosphorus and supply to the plant. And so to your question, Jared, is there anything that it should or shouldn't be combined with?

It should be included as a part of a system that includes the inoculation.

Of these organisms that can solubilize phosphorus and make available to the plant.

Question from David. Do you see non GM corn and.

Soybeans more able to handle a drought than their GM counterparts?

Don't know.

Don't have an opinion on that one. Possibly, but unnecessarily.

It's challenging to speak about GMO corn.

And beans with a broad umbrella because there are so many genetic variations.

Question from Adam. Why are there so many mainstream corn.

Trials that show small amounts of P planting to have a positive yield response?

What should we be applying in reverse.

Cover crop and no till system? Oh, Adam, you asked a great question. You asked a great question, one that I missed addressing.

So why do some mainstream yield plots.

Or as you point out, many mainstream.

Corn trials show a positive yield response.

To phosphorus out planting?

Well, the simple answer is because their soils are dead. That's part of the answer. The other part of the answer is compared to what? What are those small amounts of phosphorus.

At planning compared to? Are they compared to no starter at all?

Are they compared to biological stimulation? Are they compared to starters that have magnesium and trace minerals in them?

That's the question that that is worth asking.

So they may not show up as.

A yield drag, but compared to what?

Question from Beau Clauson. Hi Bo, Would you still see the same negative results by applying a little.

Phosphorus in a 2x2 or y drop application away from early root growth? Yeah, I think I already answered this question. You can.

2X2 is too close. It needs to be further away than a 2x2. It could be placed deep in a strip till zone at the bottom of a strip tool zone or something like that. Or it can be applied laterally farther.

Away from the root zone. Either of those would be more beneficial than putting it right in the 2x2. Or a better way of saying it is not more beneficial but less detrimental in the first three weeks of plant life.

Question from Jonathan explained what a clean phosphorus is and whether reactions or interactions.

Between iron, magnesium and calcium as it pertains to phosphorus.

It's a bit much for me to get into right now, Jonathan, but look up the chemistry interactions.

The Information is readily available online.

The short answer is that phosphorus is highly reactive and loves to bind very quickly with the three that you mentioned, iron and magnesium and calcium, but also with aluminum. So phosphorus reacts very quickly with aluminum.

Because phosphorus is a triple negative. Aluminum is a triple positive or can be. Iron can be a triple positive.

So it's particularly strongly associated with those two and phosphorus complex us very quickly.

And very with those elements as a result.

So a clean phosphorus is a phosphorus that doesn't have high levels of contaminants, cadmium, toxic elements etc but also that.

Is.

Sometimes poly or orthophosphate are referred.

To as clean phosphorus sources because they react less slowly with the soil chemistry.

Question from Renauld, is applying a micronutrient.

Directly on seeds at planting a beneficial procedure? Yes, in the right amounts. Check out our.

Webinar prior to this.

One where we released a new product called Seed Flare that is designed for exactly that.

Question from Robert what are your thoughts.

On a starter phosphorus that has been complex with humates or other carbon source?

The question is, is, is it has it truly been complex and buffered out.

So that it no longer suppresses biology?

If the answer is yes, then I.

Would be in favor of using that material. It's a question again of do you.

Have something, do you have a material.

That is plant available but not soluble?

In my experience certainly the, the humic substances help but they're not enough in and of themselves. We found that the best results came.

From using as in the case of the way our holo phosph is designed is we are actually complexing a rock phosphate material to make it available but not soluble. Rather than starting from a soluble material, we are beginning from an insoluble material.

Question from Jerry how does cover crop.

Termination after planting affect the seed growth? Jerry, you ask a great question, but it's, it's true. Too broad a question. There's too many variables for me to offer a reasonable answer. I would need to know a lot more about specific crops being planted and the COVID crop being terminated, the timing of termination, et cetera, et cetera. There's too too many variables there for me to give you a good answer.

Question from Bob Henderson I was going to use some 52010 in the furrow with compost extract.

Would you Suggest dropping the 52010?

Some of you are asking me to get into specific consulting here which I'm.

I'm not willing to do because I don't, I don't know anything about your context. I don't know anything about your soil, the crop that you're planting, and, and the local dynamics.

So as a general rule of thumb, I would be in favor of dropping.

The 5, 2, 0, 10. But if you need a.

If you have soil, let's say you.

Have sandy soil that doesn't have the ability to supply phosphorus to the seedling, or that even where the biology has limited ability, then you need to replace it with something. Maybe you replace it with holofoss, maybe you include biocoat gold in addition to the compost extract.

So you have to look at this more of an, an integrated approach. And if you want specific insights and answers to that, I would suggest that.

You please reach out to the AEA team and we'd be happy to make some recommendations for you.

Is foliar NPK a good source at.

The beginning of the season? Yes, it can be. Obviously you have a much smaller plant.

But foliar nutrients, including phosphorus, do not suppress.

In fact, they have the opposite effect. From what I've observed, they actually enhance microbial colonization because the plant is able to photosynthesize better and produce more sugars.

Would you say it would help soil microbes to include products that include microbes.

Or is it better to build up your local populations?

In my opinion, from what I've observed, the answer is both. You should both consider adding biology as.

Well as seeking to build what is already there, obviously.

And the reality. Yeah, you need both. Because when you think about the concept.

Of building populations, that means you need to provide them with an optimal environment.

And the same is true when you apply an inoculant.

You also need to provide them an optimal environment. If you apply an inoculant into a harsh environment, your mileage is going to be limited.

Question from Doug.

Set up to put up a dry product with the seed in the trench with the wheat seed. What product would you suggest in a system like this? I need more information, Doug. Please, please reach out to our team and we'll get something specific.

One of the, the least, the least undesirable soluble product is MAP monoammonium phosphate.

Which is I think 11520.

But then there are other options available.

In the marketplace today that are less soluble, like bone meal and like some pelletized rock phosphates and so forth. That may also be. That may be a much better fit for you depending on your soil conditions. But it depends on what your soil PH is and what your soil microbial populations are, etc.

Question from Ed.

Hi Ed.

In the UK, we have many soils.

In which phosphorus may be unavailable because of ph, high calcium, high iron.

We do see phosphorus deficiency in our.

SAP analysis in crops on these soils.

Do you think applying biology next to.

Or on the seed is the best answer to this? Either phosphorus solubilizing bacteria or even Johnson sue extract? Yes, Ed, I think that what we've observed to be the most successful, we have many soils similar to what you're describing here.

And the. The combination of mycorrhizal fungi and phosphorus.

Soil bacteria, phosphorus solubilizing bacteria.

The combination of those two things plus.

Microbial stimulants has produced the greatest crop response for us.

But we also, we have one product.

That hasn't been released publicly yet, we've been testing it for the last four or five years that is producing responses.

Significantly greater than even that combination in.

Terms of releasing phosphorus and making it available. And I would invite you to reach out to our team because we are looking at getting products access to the uk, getting them through the registration process and this is something that we could possibly have available for you there, perhaps even sooner than here because of registration and regulatory hooplas.

Question from Daniel.

How to. How do we avoid buying seeds with an epigenetic dependence on phosphorus? That's a good question for you, Daniel. How do you avoid buying seeds with an epigenetic dependence on phosphorus? Maybe that means you start growing your own. Maybe that means you develop relationships with the people who are growing your seeds and request them grown in that way. Question from Jerry. How can we mitigate high phosphorus concentrations in our soil?

Depends on how you got there and what your soil calcium levels are, soil pHs, etc. If you are well above the threshold.

Of 400 parts per million phosphorus that I described, one of the things that.

You might consider is planting a series.

Of crops that are very good at absorbing phosphorus and removing phosphorus in the soil profile. Perhaps you grow a series of potato crops or beets. There's. There's different things to, to look at, but.

You, you could also seek to.

Simply tie it up by putting on a limestone application of calcium carbonate. But your soil ph is going to determine whether that makes sense or not.

Question from Andrew. In your blueberry program, there are no.

Phosphorus applications in it. Is there ever a need for applying phosphorus and blueberries or strawberries? Sometimes, yes, depending on soils. Depending on the context, we frequently make recommendations for phosphorus. It just depends on the context. Question from Joel. Hi Joel. What value do traditional P1 levels have? Since we want biology to access unavailable nutrients, does it even matter? Total nutrient digestibility shows plenty of phosphorus. Good question, Joel. I was asked to do a presentation, I forget four years or maybe five years ago at the ACRES conference on.

How we observe SAP analysis levels of.

Nutrients in plants to correlate to soil analysis. And I think I then also shared that same information in a webinar. I forget exactly what what it was titled Maybe Soil Analysis 2.0 or something like that.

But the short answer is that we.

Find zero correlation between phosphorus levels as reported on a soil analysis and phosphorus in the plant. So we find many soils where we have good biology that the plants, the crops are showing abundant levels of phosphorus even when the soil analysis, a P1 or a malic extraction might not show adequate phosphorus, but the biology is there and is able to release it and make available the crop.

And then when you do a total nutrient digestion analysis, you see that this soil actually has more phosphorus than will.

Be removed in the next 400 years. But it simply doesn't show up on the P1 or doesn't show up on the Melek 3 extraction, but the biology can get it. And so I suppose that's perhaps a long way of saying that I give much more credit to the total nutrient.

Digestion plus biology and or maybe a.

Better way of saying it is I give much more credit to actual crop performance as measured on a SAP analysis in that context than I do to the to the Bray. One.

Question from Jordan. Do you think early phosphorus needs are over exaggerated, especially considering corn seed contains.

Phosphorus and phosphorus uptake is not very high from emergence to V6?

Jordan, your question triggers a thought I.

Was going to mention and I missed it.

A great deal of the phosphorus.

The.

A great deal of the apparent phosphorus.

Response that shows up on crops is because they are planted too early into cold wet soil. That's it.

That's a great deal of the problem. If you just simply delayed planting until soil temperatures were warm enough, all of a sudden your phosphorus deficiency symptoms disappear. And you think about that. What does it mean to plant? Why would phosphorus be deficient in cold soil?

Well, duh, it's because you don't have good biological activity in cold soil.

So if you simply wait until your soils are warm enough and seeds germinate and grow quickly and you can stimulate biology quickly in warmer soils, all of a sudden your benefits to the supposed.

Benefits to phosphorus application at planting disappear and you don't have phosphorus deficiency symptoms.

And so to the question that you.

Ask, yes, I do think phosphorus needs are over exaggerated. They are, they are. Phosphorus needs show up because many Crops are planted too early.

Question from Roger Will soft rock phosphate.

Or colloidal phosphorus in the planting media create these dependency issues? No, not as I understand it.

Question should an onion root look like.

The roots in the pictures of your presentation? Well, it would have a slightly different architecture being an onion root. Of course not. It wouldn't have a radical as the corn seedling does.

But in terms of having soils aggregated on the root system, yes, it should.

Look the same way.

And if it doesn't? One of our consultants did some interesting homework looking at the effect of a.

Couple of different insecticides and fungicides and there are some.

Now you don't think of this effect.

As occurring from insecticides, but there are some insecticides that will dramatically change root architecture and change the association with biology. And when you are able to take those insecticides out of the system, onion roots start looking completely different and no longer look like white hair.

Question from John how do we manage.

To optimize for phosphorus solubilization?

Are there any general trends that aren't context specific?

I've read a buckwheat's ability to contribute. Wonder how much this is the plant itself or its rhizosphere.

Good question John. There are two plants that are known for solubilizing phosphorus.

They are buckwheat and oats.

Both of them are known to be fairly effective. And from my perspective you cannot disassociate.

The plant and its rhizosphere. They are, they are one, one continuous hole.

When you really start looking at the risosphere and the interactions between biology and plants, there comes a point when you.

Ask the question where does the plant begin in the biology? Where does the biology end and the plant begin and vice versa. And it's very hard to tell. They there, there is no disassociation between them.

Question from sue have you done any.

Research into phosphorus applications of phosphorus content in the crop?

Sue?

I suppose you could say that we do this research in every crop cycle and every field that we work on because we are pulling SAP analysis on every crop and we're looking at the context, the history of what phosphorus was applied and then what the crops nutrient absorption is. So I suppose broadly you could say that yes, we are doing that in practice from a practical application perspective all the time and we have a fairly thorough data set that shows how phosphorus absorption of phosphorus levels inside the plant correlate to levels of other nutrients.

Perhaps not.

That's not exactly the answer you're looking for because obviously it's not a question that's related to fruit or grain harvest and what the nutritional content is there, but we have a fairly extensive data set that I think would would lend itself to the question that you're asking.

Question from Chris can stimulating brix levels.

Through calcium carbonate sprays at planting at the fruit fill stage resolve this kind of yield? Dragon the answer is no, it cannot.

Question from Marco I noticed that applying.

Zinc chelated with lsa. For some reason my brain is not recognizing LSA and amino acids with phosphorus in a 1 to 10 ratio. I'm guessing that's 1 part zinc to 10 parts phosphorus totally changes the absorption probably by stimulation of phosphatase and acid phosphatase enzymes. Do you have suggestions for Mediterranean soils with a PH greater than 8 and exchange bases totally dominated by calcium and high levels of active limestone?

Marco the the observations that you're sharing are similar.

Zinc.

There is definitely a known synergistic relationship.

Between zinc and phosphorus. That's actually one of the things that I should have mentioned and missed. But we this is one of the reasons why zinc is often considered a standard part of many starter applications because there is a synergistic relationship between zinc and phosphorus. And when you have adequate levels of zinc in the soil profile or in the furrow that is applied at planting, it will greatly enhance phosphorus absorption from the soil microbial community.

So to to your question to the question that you asked. Marco thank you for applying supplying some.

Of that additional context and information. But there's, there's one important piece of.

Information that's missing and that is what is your soil's total nutrient digestion value of phosphorus?

What's the total supply of phosphorus in the soil profile?

If it is relatively low then which.

Is very possible in limestone based soils.

Then you will probably need to look.

At adding some forms of phosphorus to build up the soil reserves. Perhaps that looks like combining rock phosphate with compost or with manure during the composting process to provide inexpensive phosphorus that can build some soil reserves.

If that is not the case, if.

You do have generous levels of phosphorus in the in the soil reserves but you have very poor availability, then your.

Answer the answer that I've been providing.

All along, a microbial answer of mycorrhizal fungi and phosphorus solubilizing bacteria is exactly what you need and it will be the most effective solution that you can find.

Follow up question from Jerry could you.

Talk about the value of growing your seed under the same environment with or without phosphorus fertilizer?

Jerry I don't know, you know, I've.

Given so many presentations over the last three months that I sometimes feel like I'm repeating myself over and over. But.

Epigenetic characteristics, characteristics that carry from the parent generation to the following generations.

Are amplified by biology. They're greatly amplified by biology and the I don't, I don't have the luxury of time going into a great deal of detail, but what I've been describing is optimal for seed production that you.

You need to supply phosphorus that is.

Plant available but not water soluble and that's how you're going to get the greatest expression and the optimal expression of phosphorus solubilizing bacteria, mycorrhizal fungi and other organisms associated with that follow on seed.

Question from Jeffrey Are most phosphorus products.

Water soluble or how do we know such an agri liquid fertilizer? The short answer is that how can I answer this? Yes, practically most liquids, the great majority of liquids if you, if you ever.

See if you look at the forms.

Of liquid, if they're orthophosphate, polyphosphate, if it is a liquid material, even the several the dry materials that I talked about are almost universally soluble in water.

Question from Kurt does the timeline for.

Reducing the use of soluble phosphorus applications need to coincide with a decrease in annual soil disturbance? Will a spring application of biocoat golden.

Spectrum on spring wheat have carryover benefit.

On fall winter wheat seeded with no soluble phosphorus applied on the same acres?

Kurt, this is a very good question and the answer is that maybe this.

Isn'T quite.

Slightly different framing here, but the answer is that there doesn't need.

To be a transition time.

We work with many growers who go from using a lot of water soluble phosphorus in the fur planting to using none in the very the very first.

Set of protocols that we put together, the first set of recommendations that we put together with only positive responses. So there doesn't need to be a transition period of years.

Now, with that being said to the.

Second part of your question about will biocoat gold carry over and other microorganisms carry over from from one planting to the next. The answer is that it's twofold.

One, if they, if it doesn't, then you could argue that the microbial inoculant isn't effective or that you are not changing the environment, you're not providing an.

Environment for them to thrive and to proliferate because if you have the right.

Environment and you get a successful inoculation, then without question that that should carry through. And the second part of the answer to that question is when you think about rhizobium inoculation on legumes.

We put Rhizobium monoculin on clover seed and soybean seed every year because it's cheap. It's a very cheap insurance.

Even when we are planting these legumes into soils that have had legumes previously.

And.

Would you would expect those rhizobium to be present it is still added.

Because it's cheap insurance and it's very effective.

And many growers are using the same.

Approach with Bioco Gold and other inoculants. They're they, they have demonstrated that they're effective and they just apply them on every application because they are the single greatest ROI application they can apply.

Question from Cole where can we find more information?

The idea that DAP is complex in as little as a week Google Google Scholar specifically if you can't find that on Google generally but that was in the peer reviewed literature and I'm sure that it's out there. It's, it's plenty of information if you go look for it.

We There's a follow up question from.

Marco on bone phosphate which I've already answered earlier spoke about bone phosphate earlier.

Potassium phosphites. Phosphite should not be used as a form of phosphorus because it is incorporated into the plant's structures, DNA etc where.

Phosphorus is used but it is not physiologically active. And I know there was some research.

That was conducted by several colleagues.

I'm not sure it ever made it into the peer reviewed literature but they.

Found that when they were using phosphates.

For disease or excuse me, phosphites when they were using phosphites for disease control.

They got the optimal crop response when they blended the phosphite with phosphate at.

A 1 to 4 ratio. In other parts 1 in other words.

1 part phosphite to 4 parts phosphate. Otherwise they ended up creating a functional phosphorus deficiency in the plant when the.

Plant utilized phosphites as a P source. So I do not consider phosphites as a source of physiologically active phosphorus.

Question from Kurt I plan to strip till 10340 and UAN before planting corn.

Please don't do that. Please don't do that. Call us and we'll make recommendations for you on how you can I mean.

I, I when when growers tell me they're going to strip till 10340 and UAN before planting corn you can cut your inputs significantly and get a yield.

Response by doing something different than that. Just simply by timing it differently. Don't put it on before planting corn, put it on three weeks later, four weeks later, complex it, reduce the application rate. So get a much greater crop response. Question from John. Following up on the question on the two by two, I said that distance will help. How far away would you recommend? It'll depend on your soil structure. Do you have sandy soil, clay soil, etc.

And also on the crop and its root architecture. I want it to be far enough.

Away that the plant roots will not reach it in the first month. So how big is that root system going to become? And remember, that answer is going to change once you have good biology. So does that mean it needs to be 5 inches away, 10 inches away? Far enough away to not reach it in a month? Some of these questions are duplicates of what I've already answered before. So I'm skinning, skimming through them.

Question from Paul.

If phosphorus has already been applied at planting, what are some options to build the mycorrhizal system with the plant? So what I would propose, and again, depending on if the capability exists for this.

I would evaluate when I would.

Think the phosphorus availability is going to greatly decrease from the depending on the product that was applied on soil conditions. And then I would come in with a mycorrhizal fungi inoculation such as Biocode Gold and feed the plant with a sugar source. The combination of those two things should help to increase colonization very quickly.

Question from Jerry.

Will planting oats help dispose of extra phosphorus?

Well, the oats are very good at extracting phosphorus.

Buckwheat is as well. They're. They're very good at extracting phosphorus and absorbing into the plant. So the question of disposing of it depends on what you then do with the oats afterwards if you export them off the soil. And yes, it will certainly help with that.

Question from Bryce, what would you suggest.

When planting early spring crops such as lettuce or spring cereals, when soils are still cool? It's a great question, Bryce. Glad you asked. I have less experience on lettuce.

Remember that it's possible to apply phosphorus that is plant available but not water soluble.

It's called Holofoss.

We make it specifically for this reason and I didn't, we didn't have this webinar.

You haven't heard me talk about holof a whole lot. Because the purpose of this webinar is not just to be an infomercial, but.

It is possible to supply plant available.

Sources of phosphorus that are not water soluble and this is the place for them.

When you have these early spring crops.

Where soils are still cool, this is the place where you can apply these materials and get a very nice crop response.

Question from John Warmerdam hi John, Excess of nutrition seems to change root growth.

On seed crops at planting.

Does something like excess of nitrogen at.

Planting also change the mycorrhizal relationship and lead to deficiency of other minerals? The short answer is yes.

I've been framing this conversation specifically around.

Phosphorus because it is one of those that packs a very direct negative punch to mycorrhizae and other organisms.

But the same is true of excessive soluble nutrients for also it's mostly true. It's first as I understand it when I look at the microbial interactions and.

And the SAP analysis data that we have and the crop interactions, the number.

One and number two biggest negative impact.

Soluble nutrients at planting are phosphorus and nitrogen.

Later on the One of the other biggest negative impacts on on overall yield is but not not for the same reason is excess of potassium at.

Planting or sometimes even later in the plant life.

So excessive phosphorus and nitrogen and potassium at the wrong time create a significant yield dragon and you know this this speaks to There's a blog post that I wrote a year or two ago where I described the law of the.

Maximum as compared to the law of the minimum.

The law of the maximum agronomy states.

That it is the nutrient which is an excess supply which creates the efficiencies.

Of something else that has the greatest.

Limiting impact on yield. And.

It'S kind of striking. We, we have lived in an era of abundance of freely available when I.

Say freely available, readily available and comparatively inexpensive nutrients. We could readily buy nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium very inexpensively.

And when we apply them to excess.

They covered up a lot of sins. They covered up a lot of sins of of trace mineral imbalances. But as we're discovering, they also created a lot of additional sins with greatly increased disease susceptibility and insect susceptibility and reducing yield.

They increased yields for a while, but they increase yields to the threshold where now nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium are no longer.

Our greatest limiting factors. I'm speaking broadly across an industry as a whole.

They are no longer our greatest limiting.

Factors and arguably haven't been for decades.

And so applying more of the nutrients that are not our greatest limiting factors.

Isn'T going to produce us increased productivity.

Which is exactly why or one contributing reason why corn yields, soybean yields, wheat yields and so forth haven't continued nearly as rapid yield increase as they did in decades earlier.

They have.

They're still continuing to increase, but to increase incrementally rather than.

And relatively small increments rather than the significant increases that were true decades ago.

And one of the reasons it for.

This is that we want the, the.

Industry wants to insist on continuing to.

Apply more nutrients of what we already have, too much of which doesn't lead to any positive solutions.

Question from Dennis.

Oats and Buckwheat are good extractors of phosphorus. They are also the best reducers. Is there any connection between these two effects? And the answer is yes, there is.

The anions, the macronutrient anions, nitrogen and phosphorus and sulfur have the greatest reduction oxidation swings they can move from. I think there are four positions they can.

Yeah. Struggling to recall this right now.

When you, when you think about phosphorus.

In the form of phosphates, phosphites, There you have PO4, PO3, PO2, you have all these various oxidation states.

And so the, when you have these.

Very different oxidation states with, again, with sulfur, you have sulfides, sulfites, sulfates, all expressions of different oxidation states.

There is. The short answer is that there is.

A direct connection between these plants that are very effective reducers and they're also very effective phosphorus solubilizers.

All right, I think that is a wrap.

Those are all the questions that have come through. I want to say thank you to.

Everyone for being here.

I hope you found the information stimulating and useful.

Please reach out to our team with any detailed questions that you have about.

How to manage phosphorus, to produce positive crop responses and to not have a yield drag. And we look forward to talking with you soon.

Thank you all.

Have an awesome day and a great growing season.