How to Remove Compaction, Manage Nitrogen, and Build Soil Health Fast with Tainio and John Kempf

Today. I can't believe it's already September. Boy, this year seems to be just flying by. We're gonna do a little bit of a kind of a roundtable, have a few points of discussion. So Dennis spoke last presentation about kind of Fall Fall Primer and was discussing how important this time of year can be. And it's such a big topic and a fun topic that we kind of wanted to expand on it. So if anybody wants to make sure you go to infoinio.com, sign up for these presentations, sign up for our newsletters, information, things like that. I wanted to say we're very excited and we're very lucky. We have special guest today, John Kemp, who's going to be joining us for the roundtable discussion. So if you have any questions, definitely contact John. He is a wealth of information. I've known John for over a decade, and his insights and resourcefulness, intelligence has always been just incredible. He's a lot of fun, super smart guy and a lot of fun to work with. So big thank you to John. And make sure you check out AEA Advancing Ecoag's website, advancingecoag.com they have a tremendous amount of information, educational materials, and they're always expanding what they're doing. And one of their drives seems to be educating people, which is just absolutely fantastic. Trying to make sure people have as much information as they possibly can to be as successful as they possibly can, which I think is just fantastic. That's what we're all trying to do together is improve and share as a community to make our crops better, make them actual food for people to eat and for their health. So with that, I was going to let John kind of introduce himself and tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us what you got going on, John, and give yourself a nice little pat on the back.

Thanks, Steve. I'm very happy to be here. Thanks for having me on. And as for a personal introduction, I'm not even certain what the important pieces are. I think many people are aware of my background of growing up on a family farm and then founding Advancing eco Agriculture in 2006, initially as a consulting company. What I'm really passionate about and what I'm doing, I'm really inspired by the idea that we can develop regenerative agriculture, ecosystems and management systems that can produce plants that are resistant to diseases and insects based on how we manage nutrition. And when they achieve that level of immunity, they can transfer that immunity to the people who consume that food, and we can have a legitimate conversation about Growing food as medicine, and thirdly, can also regenerate soil health at the exact same time that we can build soil, sequester carbon, builds organic matter while we are growing a crop, while we're growing any crop, while we're growing corn, soybeans, small grains, tomatoes, strawberries, it doesn't matter. And so I'm really inspired by the idea that we can develop agriculture systems that can do all three of those things at the exact same moment in time. And my personal mission and what I'm really passionate about is to see these regenerative agriculture ecosystems become the people, status quo, the standard, the mainstream against which everything else is compared around the world by 2040. And that's a very realistic and a very achievable goal. And we are well on the pathway to achieving that goal.

Thank you so much, John. No, and I agree, it's something that unfortunately, when we go to a lot of university presentations, the idea is that as you're growing, you can't build your soil. The two don't go hand in hand. But as we've been seeing and as you've been seeing and as you've been working with growers over the last number of years, we absolutely can. So it's fantastic that we're kind of fighting back. We're kind of the warriors for the soil of building the soil quality and making sure we're actually improving the planet and the soil and the crop and the person that consumes it, like John said. And food absolutely can be medicine. So thank you, John. So I think with that we're going to jump right in. So Dennis and I, when we were kind of discussing where do we want to go. Dennis, you were chatting last month again about the fall primer. We were reminiscing a little bit and we were talking about. Oh yeah, listening back, remembering back. Bruce used to give lots of presentations and a lot of times those would be based around somebody would ask a question, well, I've got alternate bearing on my trees. What can I do about that? The idea there was basically, well, we can think about those trees as a sponge. As we're growing our crop, we're squeezing out some of those nutrients. We need to recharge those. One of the best ways that we can do that is in the fall, once our crop is off, we can put nutrition back in. It doesn't just have to be in orchard crops, perennial crops. We can make sure we're building our soil quality post harvest in any crop, as John was saying. So with kind of that in mind, the overarching theme of fall here, John, how important is this time of year in your opinion?

Well, I think the question that needs to be asked is of all of us as growers is when do we think our growing season begins? When does our growing season begin? And historically, for many growers, we, it's easy for us to associate the beginning of the growing season with spring. Spring is when we have kind of the rebirth of nature. We have trees bursting into bloom and plants begin growing. And it seems visually obvious that that is the beginning of the growing season. But if that's the beginning, if you're managing in such a way that you're managing that as the beginning of your growing season, you've missed three to six months of your potential growing period. You've missed three to six months of your potential growing period, particularly for all the soil biology, but also for the developing buds that you have on perennial crops, such as overwintering berry plants and tree fruit and nuts, etc. So in terms of preparing for the following year's crop, managing plants in the fall and managing biology in the fall is the single most important thing that you can do. It's the single highest impact management treatment that you can do. So we've seen and observed over and over again that when we apply foliar applications of trace minerals to perennial crops in the fall, we have a tremendous impact on bud quality and bud viability that rewards big dividends the next spring and the next year with the next year's crop quality and return bloom and so forth. And then in terms of biology, we understand and we know that one of the big pieces we rely on biology for is extracting minerals from the soil mineral matrix and making them available to plants. Biology, the biology that is present in the soil will do this naturally through the winter months. It's a process that slows down, but it never completely stops. Even when the soil is solid frozen, it never completely stops. We've done a lot of work where we've applied rejuvenate and spectrum in the fall. And then in some cases, farmers might have done a partial application in the fall, but for whatever logistical reasons, they weren't able to get it completed and they completed it the next spring. We still get nice crop responses the following spring, but they are always only a fraction of the crop responses we get when we apply it in the fall. So you can gain a three to a six month window in the fall and during the winter months of having biology extract minerals and make them available to plants that you completely lose out on you completely miss if you only apply them in the spring. In fact, this has become so significant that we are putting on what we consider our quote unquote fall applications to the soil earlier and earlier where now, just for ease of use, for logistical reasons and also for the crop response that we're getting on our commercial corn crops that are being irrigated with overhead pivots, we're actually putting the rejuvenate and the spectrum and the fall primer into the pivot on the last pass through the standing crop before the crop is harvested. And we're seeing incredibly good responses from that because now we have a few things that happen. One is that the residue doesn't get digested quite as quickly, which is an advantage in some areas where we need to keep the soil covered from wind erosion, etc. But we also now have a much longer period where the soil biology can release nutrients. And this is, you can measure this the following spring when you conduct a Haney analysis on a treated versus an untreated area. There are always significant increases in the available nitrogen, the available phosphorus, the available potassium that was released during the winter months from the microbial activity.

So in those areas where we're seeing the improved digestion, I'm guessing we see a faster spring response and better root establishment. Are you seeing that, John?

Oh, without question, I would say we are. We're seeing as much as two to three times bigger root masses on some of the broadacre crops. Wow. But the really important, the really important piece is that when you get this additional root mass, particularly on the multi fruiting crops such as soybeans and crops which have the potential to set a larger number of seed, a larger number of grain, that larger root biomass is critical for setting up the hormone profile that produces a larger seed set and then keeps it and fills it, it's very easy to put on foliar applications and get a 50% increase in pod count on soybeans. But it's a different story altogether to actually harvest a 50% higher yield. And to do that you have to have those large root systems supporting the plant.

That's a great point. And I know you gave a presentation here a little while back that was talking about our hormone profiles and making sure we have are hormone profiles geared more towards root development. We can go down that road if we want to. But I think that again, I want to point people back to your website because I know that you've given presentations where you talk about that hormone profile. I found it incredibly interesting let's see, anything else? You mentioned some trace minerals. Do you have any products that you recommend or any trace minerals you like to do specifically in the fall, or is it going to be based mostly off the SAP analysis?

It'll be based largely off of SAP analysis in season, but the fundamentals are actually really, really simple when we consider the various hormone balances and trace mineral profiles. You asked a couple of different questions, so let's talk about the hormone balances for just a moment. I actually recorded a podcast episode. It's become the single most listened to episode that we've ever done that is titled Managing Vegetative and Reproductive Nutrients. And I talk about the effect that different forms of nutrients have on plant development and plant hormones from a biophysics perspective rather than from a biochemistry perspective. And it's fairly short. It's about 20 minutes long. And we've received a lot of really great feedback about that. But what it all comes down to, really simply, this is to some degree, this is an oversimplification, but it's not inaccurate. We need to balance root biomass and growing root tips with shoot growing shoot tips and seed development. So we under. We understand that at different stages of crop development, particularly for perennial crops, we know that we sometimes have a root flush. And the question that we should be asking ourselves is why does this root flush happen and at what stages does it happen relative to fruit development and nut development and seed development in the crop that we're producing? And in brief, as long as we keep the root biomass balanced with the fruit and shoot production, we can maintain a plant that is what we refer to as being reproductive dominant instead of vegetative dominant. And when that happens, you don't get this very long shoot extension where you get shoots that are four or six feet long and you have extremely high quality plant growth that is also resistant to diseases and resistant to insects. So that's a very important piece. Then to your second question of using trace minerals in the fall. Our recommendations would typically include the rebound line of trace minerals that we developed at aea. But in brief, the nutrients which are extremely critical in the fall to get into reproductive buds on all of our perennial crops are zinc, manganese, copper, boron and cobalt and molybdenum. That's zinc, manganese, copper, cobalt, boron, molybdenum. When we get those elements into a generous supply in the buds, we can gain about 6 degrees Fahrenheit of additional freezing resistance, which is a really significant deal on buds. And so not only do you gain the additional frost resistance, but you also get very strong bloom and very strong pollination. We know that there are some varieties of tree fruit that will bloom very strongly but don't pollinate all that well. There's some varieties of plum, some varieties of cherries that have this characteristic. You'll have tens of thousands of blossoms, but only a small percentage will pollinate. When you get to the levels of trace minerals up, that problem almost completely disappears and you can go from very light fruit loads to very heavy fruit loads in a single year.

And John, with that being said, one of the things I've been noticing a lot with my fruit growing as they move into this philosophy of fall applications, timing especially. As soon as we're done harvesting, we start this philosophy of fall feeding. Not only do we see a tremendous response in the amount of fruit, but I see a direct correlation in sizing. Have you guys seen that also?

Yes, there is a direct correlation in sizing. And there's also. There's one additional aspect to. Earlier, Steve, you mentioned the the challenges of biennial bearing. And there is another aspect of managing biennial bearing, which is that fruit that is on the tree needs to be thinned as early as possible. If we wait to go through and to do hand thinning until July or the beginning of August, when we have fruit that is an inch or more in diameter, we're removing, we've already had a significant energy drain. Earlier you spoke about a sponge squeezing out energy. If we remove a lot of fruit that is already relatively large, we've sucked a lot of energy out of that tree already. And that's happening at the same time as the bud development process for the next year. So we actually need to do our fruit thinning on apples very, very early, as early as we possibly can. And that will also have a significant impact on biennial bearing.

Okay, great point. And sorry, John, I mean, you're going through and discussing and I hope you're ready for more of these because I think we're wanting to have more of these discussions because a few of the things that you've already commented on, I want to expand on, but I think we're going to have to set up a future webinar. Two or three. Okay, so I think I'm up for that. Excellent. No, we're having fun. So something that I don't know if it's this year. We've had a nice moist year in some of the areas. Weather has been really good, but we've been hearing massive amount of feedback from different growers, different environments, California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, basically all across the country that they're having phenomenal success. So I wanted to get your feedback and what are you seeing out there? And I guess kind of more importantly, are you making any shifts or changes to the way that you're approaching some of these fields, these crops? Do you have any different products that you're using, recommending, how are we getting this fantastic success?

My goodness, Steve, that's a quick, easy one, right?

Yeah.

Where do you start and where do you end? Well, we aren't managing things dramatically differently from what we have in the past, with one distinct exception, and that is in how we are thinking about diseases differently, and particularly in the case of soil borne diseases. So I'll use a case of Phytophthora as an example. We have a lot of fun working with a group of chili pepper growers in Arizona and New Mexico, which is a crop that is extremely susceptible to Phytophthora. And we are, we've been working with this one group of growers now for, I think, four or five years. And this year for the first time, we planted a very susceptible variety of peppers into a field that was known to have the presence of Phytophthora in the past. And on this entire block, we had a small outbreak of Phytophthora that was a small section, maybe 20 or 30ft across, something like that. The rest of the field did not get infected, even though we made multiple harvest passes through the fields, picking the crop after the infection was there. And this is on a highly susceptible variety, on an organic block that has had no fungicide applications of any kind.

Oh, wow.

And so I get pretty excited about having successes like that. But what the way that we've begun thinking differently is based on, it's based on knowledge that is well documented. On the podcast. I've interviewed Bob Kramer and, and Don Huber, who both reported and both said verbally that when you have a pathogen in a given region, and my understanding of Phytophthora is that if you have a soil type that is of a similar soil type in a given region, the presence of Phytophthora is relatively ubiquitous. It's present in about the same concentrations in each gram of soil in a field that has an infection and a field that doesn't, the only difference in the field that doesn't have the infection is the presence of other suppressive organisms. And so we have this idea that Phytophthora is, as an umycete, is a water mold and it propagates and spreads with water. And therefore, if we have wheel tracks from sprinkler irrigation or sprayer tracks or anywhere where we have ponding water, that's where Phytophthora begins. And that's where Phytophthora spreads from that point to. Because we've created an environment that is ideal for the movement of Phytophthora. That's the way we used to think. We don't think that way anymore at all. When we have the presence, when we have saturated soil and ponding water, we don't have, quote, unquote, an environment that is ideal for propagating Phytophthora. Instead, what we have is we have an environment that shuts down all the suppressive organisms that would prevent the Phytophthora from exploding. So in reality, the presence of Phytophthora in an environment is immaterial. It doesn't matter. We can have a field that has a history of ten years of intense Phytophthora infections. And even in that environment, when we manage the soil biology properly and when we manage soil water and make sure that we don't have compactions, that water can move on down through, and we begin using disease suppressive organisms, putting on microbial inoculants, Phytophthora will cease to be a problem. And this can happen very rapidly. It can happen in a matter of a year or two.

That's absolutely incredible. So if we have ubiquitous, we know that it's everywhere and we're trying to manage our beneficials. What sort of approach do you. Have you mentioned making sure we're monitoring our water? So crusting, basically it sounds like gas exchange is going to be very, very critical for these. Are there any ways that you improve the gas exchange in a field in a relatively easy way? And I know that's. Again, I'm asking all these gigantic questions and then asking for a simple answer. But if you were to come to a field that you saw a little bit of that, what would be the first thing you do to help increase the gas exchange?

Well, this leads into the next topic that we wanted to speak about, Steve, which is how do we manage. We need to begin. Growers need to begin managing their soil as if though it were a laboratory petri dish. We want to manage, we need to manage the A horizon, whether that's 6 inches or 10 inches deep. We need to manage that top soil layer of the soil as if though it were a petri dish. And we need to do everything we can to keep that an ideal environment. For soil biology. And we have. What I've observed is I think there are two significant factors that the importance is not enough appreciated of how important they are and how imperative it is that they be resolved if we want to have biologically friendly soil ecosystems. The first is bare soil. Bare soil that is exposed to the sun is completely unacceptable because we know that soil enzymes or microbial enzymes are denatured and completely destroyed at 110 degrees Fahrenheit. And when you have bare soil that is exposed to the sun, it can reach temperatures of 140 to as much as 150 degrees Fahrenheit to a depth of 2 inches. So that means you've just completely eliminated the top 2 inches of soil profile as being an environment that can sustain biology. So that's factor one. Then. The second factor is compaction. It seems to have become normal and to have become accepted to have a compaction layer that is as shallow as 4 to 6 inches deep. Because of the large equipment that we farm with today and having grain bins in the field when we're harvesting, and for any number of different management reasons, and the way that equipment has changed, it's now become normal to have a compaction zone that is 4 to 6 inches deep. So think about what that means. If you have a compaction zone that's four inches deep, that means water. Of course, you don't have good water and good gas exchange and good water flow below that level or at that level. So if you now have bare soil that is exposed to the sun, you've destroyed the capacity to have any biological activity in the top two inches and you have a compaction layer two inches below that. So instead of having a microbially active topsoil that is 6 inches or 8 inches deep and producing a disease suppressive soil, suppressing phytophthora, suppressing verticillium, etc. And all these other various organisms, you only have a layer that's 2 inches deep and that spells a disease enhancing soil. That is the type of soil environment in which Phytophthora is of course going to proliferate and verticillium and Fiserium and all these other soil borne fungal pathogens because you don't have a microbial community in enough of the soil horizon to actively suppress them. So it I found I learned something really interesting. About a month or so ago I was speaking to Jerry Hatfield and Jerry described how when no till was first being pioneered here in North America, the first strong advocates who were speaking Publicly about the advantages and the benefits of no till. They had. They had a list of rules. They said these rules, you cannot violate these rules and have no till agriculture be successful in the long term. This was in the late 70s. Rule number one was that you have to remove all compaction layers with equipment. You have to get it, you have to fix the problem, you have to get rid of it. Rule number two was you have to do everything in your power to prevent those compaction layers from being reformed. And we've completely lost sight of that in the intervening 40 years. So today we have a lot of compaction. Most of our agricultural soils are very compacted from what we observe and what we experience. And you will not be successful at producing a disease suppressive soil until you fix that compaction problem.

So when you say compaction, are you using a pentrometer, do you have a threshold of pressure that you find where it's starting to be acceptable, or are you looking for as minimal pressure as possible with a pentrometer to see that soil quality improve?

I actually have a tool that I like better than a penetrometer. Penetrometer is an interesting and useful tool, but what it doesn't do well enough, I find, is that it doesn't tell us where the bottom of the compaction layer is.

Okay.

And it tells us where the top is, but it doesn't tell us how deep we need to go to fix the problem. It can in some occasions, depending on what's happen up, it's not quite as clear. So my recommendation is to dig a hole with a post hole digger. That's 20, 30 inches deep, as deep as necessary. Poke a knife, Take a. Take a common table knife or every farmer carries a knife. Just poke a pocket knife into the side of the hole and drag it up through the soil towards you. And it'll come through that soil quite smoothly, It'll move up very easily, until all of a sudden, bang. You hit the bottom of the compaction layer and you know exactly where it is. There's a very distinct difference. And so I really like that tool because it's kind of a very personal tool. You're right down there with the soil, and you can feel it. You can feel it in your arm instantly. And it shows you where the bottom of the layer is rather than where the top of the layer is.

Okay. So when we're coming in with our equipment to address it, you know exactly how deep you need to go. That's a great idea.

Yep.

Okay. Dennis, do you want to add Anything in here?

No. You know, I was just thinking, and I think we'll fill into this here, John, is I keep going back to what we talked about earlier is the fall primer program. And we start to talk about how building soil biology and humification starts and building soil structure. And you mentioned Dr. Hatfield on this. And this all kind of builds into itself when we start talking about compaction. And I always see it gives, I look at the longest period of time when we do not disturb the microbes. We have temperatures that aren't excessive, that you talked a little bit about heat and denature and protein and how that works. And so all of this is starting to make a little bit of sense of what can that biology do for us and why the fall primer program is so important based on all these things we've just talked about.

When you're breaking up the compaction, do you like to add some extra carbon, some rejuvenate material to help? So we've broken it up. Are we adding carbon at the same time to encourage aggregation, aggregate formation over the fall, through the winter?

Yeah, good questions. So. And good comment. So sorry, I'm a very impatient person. I don't want to take five years to do what we can do in one. And there's been a, a lot of conversation happening in certain parts of the country and certain areas of agriculture about using hashtag rootsnot iron, but using cover crop roots to plant to loosen up soils and to break up soil compaction and to remove these compaction layers. And there's certainly a valuable and useful tool. And I think it's imperative that we do use cover crops. However, I would suggest that it is, it pays strong dividends to remove that compaction zone with steel up front and then prevent that from being reformed using cover crops. And so our approach, our approach has been that again, going back to my earlier comment, I'm a very impatient person and I want to get the maximum results in a single year rather than taking five years to do it is my suggestion is to first of all remove the compaction, go through, do deep ripping, do whatever is necessary to get rid of it, and then concurrently, either immediately before or immediately after that application or even at the same time would be ideal. Put on an application of rejuvenate and spectrum and sea shield and get in the fall primer, and you now have an ecosystem that the biology can just explode and can really proliferate and populate all the way down much deeper than they've been able to in the past. And at the same time or shortly after, immediately after this, you plan to cover crop. If you're in an environment where you can at all possibly do that. So you do all three of those things at once, and you will be amazed at the crop response you get in the following years. You can, you can short circuit. It is, it is true that cover crops and root systems have an incredible capacity to loosen soil compaction to a large depth and to a large degree where you wouldn't have to use machinery to use it. But it's a process that in order to do it well, will take three years, five years, seven years or longer, depending on the degree of compaction that you had when you started.

Yeah.

And in that three to five year period, you can still continue to have significant crop losses because of flooding or because of excessive drought. We live in a world today where we have a lot of climactic extremes. Too much water, not enough water, etc. Small root systems compromise crop yields to a tremendous degree. In that type of environment, we can't afford to have compaction anymore.

Well put. I definitely agree with that. So we're building our carbon, we're building our humification processes, aggregate formation to encourage gas exchange, water infiltration. I really like that we've covered one problem. Now let's jump right into another problem that I feel like we keep hearing more and more every year from more and more areas of people that are dealing with salt, whether it's sodium salt itself or a high electrical conductivity in their soil. When someone calls up and they say they've got a salt problem, how do you approach that, John?

Well, you generate a salt problem from a combination of two problems. One of them is compaction, which we already spoke about, and the second is from having poor irrigation water quality. All 95% of the cases where growers have a salt problem, it's because of a combination of those two factors. So obviously, step number one is you have to remove the compaction. And then you also want to address the irrigation water and see if there are water treatment devices or things that you can use to help the bicarbonate or the sodium or the chlorides or whatever is present to move through the soil easier. And then in addition to that, we will regularly and consistently use gypsum applications and humic substance applications using humicarb and Spectrum ds. So those are kind of our three tools in the toolbox that we use a lot of. They are very effective at solubilizing the salts that are in the soil profile, but only solubilizing them. Then, of course, you have to flush them, you have to move them through the system, and you can't do that when you have a compaction layer.

Yep, absolutely true. Dennis, do you. What's. What's your approach? Because I think we. I definitely agree with absolutely all of that. John, what do you have. What are you doing with some of our growers in California and salty areas there? Dennis?

I'm seeing a lot of the same thing. I think the compaction is the biggest issue. But the other thing that I'm really seeing is in the fall when we have the opportunity to get these things working. And John mentioned about we have to leach that out of the soil profile. And the best way to do that is use mother Nature and rainwater or precipitation that we're receiving at given periods of the time and being able to leach some of that out of that soil profile. But it has to be leachable, I guess, in order to move it within that soil profile. So a lot of it, look, is timing on these applications and getting all these things to work in your benefit.

Yeah, and we like to see, I mean, knowing that we flush as much as we possibly can through fall, and I definitely agree with that, solubilizing it, opening up those pores, opening up that space so the soil can actually move that out of there. And then the following spring, we usually want to focus if we still have a high EC or a salt problem. Calcium, that sodium being cation, we oftentimes see calcium being pretty heavily restricted. When we've got sodium, we're usually recommending people pay close attention to their calcium levels when they have sodium. We found, and there's some good research coming out on some of the kelp extracts and using some kelp. Some of the phytohormones in there are very protective for the plants, so we're seeing some pretty good benefit by adding some kelp. But this is, again, this is more spring. This is growing time. So. Yeah. Thank you, guys. So we've been talking a lot about fall and all the things that we're trying to do, helping remove compaction, helping use trace minerals at appropriate times. So what are some of the things, John, that you absolutely put your foot down and say, guys, do not do this, and it's not something that. That you're helping your soil. You're doing it to your soil or damaging your soil.

What.

What do you tell people that absolutely avoid? And I mean, if you want to pick three, pick three. If you want to pick five, pick five. But tell us some Things that you say, people absolutely stop doing that.

I only have one. I would really very much desire for people not to do tillage in the fall. And so there's only a few areas where we work with growers that think they can't farm without doing that. Most generally, we're able to persuade growers that there are other viable options and viable alternatives. But it's actually not tillage that is the number one thing that I would obsess over. There is one thing that you should absolutely not ever do under any consideration, for any reason whatsoever, even if it costs you more money. Do not apply nitrogen in the fall. Don't apply anhydrous ammonia. Don't apply liquid 32. Don't apply liquid 20. Do not apply any nitrogen to the soil in the fall. It is literally the most stupid, most wasteful idea under the sun in all of agriculture. It makes absolutely no sense from an economic perspective, from an agronomic perspective. No matter which lens you look at, look at it. It's a really dumb idea. And I know I came across really strongly when I said that. And it's necessary to do that to break through the barriers that some people erect.

So, John, how do you feel about.

Nitrogen in the fall?

How do you feel about that, John? Oh, I like. I. What. What about if it's attached to some carbon, though? If we've got a soil environment with some fish, Would you like some fish in the fall? Small, small quantities. Again, mostly for the biology, not necessarily for the crop.

It's a great idea when you're planting or when Your crop is 6 inches tall, but you don't need it in the fall. Biology can get all the nitrogen they require from the air. You don't need to add any.

All right, I like it. That was a pretty simple one. Dennis, do you have any more or. John hit the nail pretty hard on the head.

I think he hit it pretty hard on the head, and I couldn't agree more. So, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of things. The tillage one, I think, is huge. We run into so many problems when we just talk about biology and building biology within that soil environment. Out here in Washington state, we see them harvest wheat, and the first thing they do is go through and till that field immediately. And it's never, ever made any sense to me. Actually, I'm starting to see that change. In fact, I had a grower out here that I've talked to for years about stopping those practices. A year ago, they quit those practices, and it was actually pretty Funny, because I was talking to the grower and I asked him, I said, what made you change this? He started laughing. He goes, I know you guys have told us this for years, but WSU now came out and said that it's a good idea. It's fun to see these things starting to change and see some of this. I couldn't agree more.

Gary popped up there. Gary Redding, the question is around, if you don't like fall tillage, isn't this the best time to break up your compaction layer? And I think that's probably the one exception. John, you want to touch on that?

Yes, yes, that is. That's a great question, Gary. Glad to see you. So, yes, you're correct that fall is typically the best time to break up that compaction layer after your crop is harvested, before you plant a cover crop. And. But that, that is the tillage that I was referring to specifically was standard surface tillage in preparation for planting, soil prep for the following spring. So recreation.

Well, and when we talk about tillage, there's a. I mean, there's a lot of different forms that we look at based on that. And so I think it depends on what you're trying to do. Are we ripping? Are we tilling? Are we turning that soil over? What equipment are we using and why are we using it?

How.

Let's make sure we make that disc pan and plow pan that much harder every time. Right, guys?

Yeah.

Let's see. Another one came in. Compost. Does this include compost when you're talking about nitrogen?

Compost is a source of biological inoculation, not a source of nitrogen from my perspective. So there's actually. I'd like to. There's one more aspect to add to the conversation about compaction. The second rule that was developed back in the late 70s in order to have a successful form of no till agriculture was that you have to prevent reforming that compaction layer once you resolved it. I think that's the one that we have often missed sight of. What that means is you will not have grain carts running out through the fields at random. You'll have controlled tractor traffic where you're using the exact same rows over and over again and then just ripping on those rows. So I've actually been to a number of farms that have worked with controlled traffic, and they unload their combines at the end of the field. They don't take grain bins into the field. And it is absolutely incredible the soil biology that they've been able to build in a very few years. I'VE seen soils that had such abundant fungal populations that there were mushrooms growing in the same. A lot of mushrooms. The soil being 20% covered with mushrooms in the same field with the soil bean crop.

Oh, wow.

So. And penetrometer readings less than 160, 30 inches down.

Oh, wow.

So that they removed the compaction once and then they made sure never to reform it. That's something else that we have to keep in mind.

So this is something that you're seeing paying for itself within one growing season.

It depends on the economic value of the crop that you're producing. But in general, yes, because it gives you a tremendous degree of climate resilience. We need desperately to have climate resilience in today's world of agriculture.

And that's an excellent point.

Yeah.

We'll have to see if we can loop Dr. Hatfield in for one of these and get us all going on the same topic because, yeah, we're absolutely seeing the increased likelihood of severe weather events. Earlier frosts, later freeze. It's a difficult environment to work with and work in. But I agree, the more that we do to build the plant's health, the root system, the nutritional value, the more resilience we have. We're creating basically a larger and larger buffer of protection for ourselves. I love that we've talked about what not to do. Do you have a single to do that you're as emphatic about, John, or do you have a few more things that you recommend everybody do for fall?

Well, I would say the single to do that I would recommend the most highly is the fall application of Rejuvenate and Spectrum that we've been talking about, the fall primer application. And then, of course, cover crops are a very important idea as well. But I will say that I've changed my opinion. I've changed my mind on the relative importance of COVID crops and the fall soil primer in the last three months. If you would have asked me this spring or five or six months ago, which is the most important, is it most important to use cover crops or most important to use the fall primer? I probably would have said it's most important to use cover crops. And I've changed my mind about that as a result of an experience that we've had with a group of growers in southwest Kansas, where they have such limited moisture, such limited rainfall, that they often aren't able to grow cover crops. They can plant the seed, but nothing grows because it's too dry. And it also will take water away from the following Crops. So for their dry land corn in the region that I'm. That I have in mind, they will do a corn crop followed by a summer fallow and then another corn crop. So it'll be corn every other year and a summer fallow every other year for an indefinite period. There will be corn on corn every 24 months for as much as I know some fields that are now in 15, 20 crop cycles like that.

Okay.

So they've been doing that for 30 or 40 years. And we have a few organic certified farms that we're working with in this type of cropping system that are supplying 100% of their crops nitrogen requirements and 100% of the PNK only with an application of spectrum and rejuvenate in the fall. That's it. I'm sorry, can you repeat any other.

Can you repeat those percentages?

100%. They're not applying any other fertilizer, they're not applying compost, they're not applying manure, they're not growing cover crops. There is no other input source of. Well, I need to change that. There is the application of seashield during the growing season at planting and then side dress once at a rate of maybe 2 gallons per acre which is I think a 3 or a 4% nitrogen. So it's the equivalent of a liquid fish product.

Yeah.

So there's a half a pound or a pound or two that's represented there, but it's not very much. The crops nitrogen requirements are being contributed and we're producing record yielding crops on dry land corn with all the nitrogen being supplied. And I'm talking, we're just about to begin harvesting this season's crop. So we'll get, we'll have the final yield data coming through in a couple of weeks. But yield checks are checking out as high as 180 to 190 bushels per acre with no applied nitrogen.

And this is being reflected also in the plaid SAP analysis on some of these that I've seen in the. In these crops also. So it's pretty exciting when you can go and see that and not only seeing it in the expression of the plant but also seeing it in the plant SAP analysis that the plant is showing that it has plenty of nitrogen throughout that entire growing season.

Yeah. And leaves, there's no firing, there's no browning. Leaves are dark green all the way down to the ground, all the way down to the bottom leaves. And what really caught my attention was the farmers themselves saying, you know what, everybody talks about COVID crops. How important cover crops are. But for us in our environment, where we're very, where we're very dry, I believe we're getting as big or a bigger effect from our fossil primer as other people do from their cover crops. And it's cheaper, it costs us less to do the primer than it does to grow a cover crop.

That's incredible. So you're saying that by using a product that has Zodobacter, azospirillum, all these fantastic free living nitrogen fixers, they're actually doing their job and fixing nitrogen from the air, huh, John?

I'm saying that it's possible, from what I've observed, it's possible to fix 150plus pounds of nitrogen per acre per year using microbial inoculants. Yes.

You know, one of the things Bruce used to talk about, John, and I know you guys have probably seen this when we talk about dry land corn, he started, he used to talk about when you applied nitrogen, you know, in a dry land scenario and you grew that crop, the stress that you would see under drought type scenarios when that timely rain didn't come. Are you guys seeing that same expression, at least from what I've seen of Bruce used to talk about, you don't see the plant's expression during drought periods. When you do this process that you're.

Talking about, when you have plants that are healthy enough, they have an abundance of energy and they store that surplus energy in the form of lipids. Stage three of the plant health pyramid. You don't see the leaf rolling and curling to nearly the same degree. I would say it's very safe to say 80 to 90% less. So it's, obviously it's, there's a spectrum of drought that can be present and when it gets severe enough for long enough duration, even a healthier crop will begin rolling. But yes, we are observing that healthy plants have a much greater degree of drought resilience and also heat stress and heat temperature resilience as well.

So what, what sort of root biomass? I mean, if you're comparing some of these farmers in these, these low moisture areas compared to their neighbors that haven't adopted some of these, what sort of root mass difference are you seeing? I'm guessing it's significant.

Well, visually it looks to be really significant. I would say looking at it visually, it's easy to say that it appears to be 50 to 70% larger. But to give you a definitive number, of course we need to actually weigh them and do some root biomass weights, which is something we Want to do this fall?

No. Yeah, I'm sure visually it's quite different. Are you seeing fewer brace roots? Are you seeing deeper roots as well?

There are, yes, we are. That's kind of a general rule across the board that we expect to see when we begin working with farmers is to have fewer brace roots.

Okay, well, do we have any other to do's that we want to add on there? I think at that point. John, is there anything else you want to add? If not, I think we might switch it over. I think we've got a couple questions rolling in. So now's the time. If anybody has some questions, it'd be great to get them. Let's see, what do we have there? Why do you recommend the fall program rather than applying it year round?

Yeah, the reason we recommended and advocate it so strong in the fall, you certainly can apply it year round. And we have an increasing number of fruit and nut and vegetable growers who do apply it during, consistently during the growing season and particularly where we need to actively suppress disease, as in the Fatah for example, that I mentioned earlier. The growers that are getting patophone resistance are putting on, they're essentially microdosing and putting on small applications every seven to 14 days in the irrigation system. Okay, so that is something that we're doing. But the, we get the big cumulative effects when we do a fall application. And then that biology has the ability to process and digest and ferment, if you will, for the entire dormant season. So you have this long dormant period where you can have significant cumulative benefits that are much bigger than putting on. If you put on an application during the growing season, it's kind of a snap, bang, flash in the pan reaction. You get a very nice crop response and a very nice biological response. But your mineral release, well, going back to the nitrogen example that I was speaking about in dry land corn in southwest Kansas, it would not be possible, I do not believe, to fix an adequate nitrogen supply to grow that corn crop. If you only did an in season application, you would really need it in the fall and to have that period of time to sequester all that nitrogen. So if we're growing a high value crop and it's not an either or situation, then we often do both. But if we're growing a crop that, where we have a limited economics than a limited crop value, the most valuable and the biggest impact application is a fall application that will exceed the performance of a summer application. Okay.

And a lot of times what I look at there, John, is growers Ability of applying the product, when is it easiest for them to get the product out? I mean, the fall, I agree with you, I feel is one of the most important. I love to see that in furrow application at the time of seeding, if at all possible. But a lot of times after those two opportunities, especially when we're talking dry land scenarios, there's just not another opportunity to get that biology out there. And this is going to have our greatest impact of doing it early now where we have irrigation and we have scenarios kind of like as you were talking about with your chili pepper customer that we can actually apply throughout the growing season, then certainly reduced rates to carry that biology through that growing season, especially when we've done something to disrupt that biology. I think makes sense like that.

Let's see another question. What was the timing of the N applications, nitrogen applications for the dryland corn you were working with, John?

The seashield applications, A pound or two that was being applied, that was applied in for wet planting and then later on with a full year.

Okay. And I don't know, I feel like, Dennis, we've been working with more and more people and John, I'm guessing you have as well the inferrow root contact with the beneficial soil biology and the rejuvenate the carbon based. We're seeing more and more people go in that direction whenever they can. Are you seeing a major benefit from going in furrow, Dennis?

I am. I always tell growers that we want that biology in the seed zone where we're planting that crop. John, you've always talked about the genetic potential of that plant starts at germination and it really starts before that. I know we've talked about that, but it's critical to make sure that we have that community working within that soil profile right there at the time of germination. Because based on seed quality, we just know that it's not what it needs to be. So I love the in furrow application at the time of planting. You know, I recommend that all the time, but it doesn't replace the fall primer program. Yeah.

John, are you in agreement? You like the infer O?

Yes, I do. And the applications of biologicals in furrow is huge. I think for the, for the dollar spent is the biggest ROI investment that a grower can make. We just, we have our product Biocoat Gold, which contains microbes plus mycorrhizal fungi and others. And that's because that's becoming one of our number one products because it's very inexpensive to apply it's very affordable and it produces significant visually observable crop responses.

Yeah.

So one of the questions is, for nut growers, I'm not quite sure how we'll really respond to this, but they're talking about when we talk, and I look at this as when we tell them no n application in the fall and they see a reduction in yield, basically, who gets blamed because of the idea that we have to use nitrogen in the fall in order to boost that? And what risk is there associated with that? And how do we manage this? Or, you know, how is this practice misaligned with what is currently being done in the nut industry?

This is kind of historical norms versus the reality of what we're seeing with some of the things we're doing. It's a difficulty. John, how do you. When you've got somebody. Well, we've got to. It's what we've always done. It's the history. How do you massage that? How do you work that conversation?

What do you really care about? And what does the grower really want? I always start the conversations with what does the grower really want to achieve? Do you want to increase the number of nuts on your tree by 10 to 20% or more? Do you want to increase the size of each of those individual nuts? What are the objectives that we're really going for? And then, particularly in regards to disease and insect resistance, what disease resistance might be achieved if we manage nitrogen differently? And then the really powerful tool for us, of course, is we use SAP analysis. And if we can, when growers apply a SAP analysis or, excuse me, when they apply nitrogen in the fall and we pull a SAP analysis in the spring and it shows that nitrate levels in the leaf are at 3,000 parts per million and ammonia levels are at 500 parts per million. And we can say right here, this is the problem. This is why you're going to have whole rot. This is why you're going to have all these various diseases. And we can directly identify it and connect it to that excess nitrogen application. The reality is that there are significant economic advantages for growers in not applying nitrogen in the fall, but instead doing it in the spring. Yes, I know that it's a time where labor is crunched. I know that it's a time where it's not as easy to put the application on as it is to do it in the fall. But when you look at it from a crop roi and economics perspective, you will be significantly more profitable and make more money if you apply nitrogen when the crop requires it. And not three months in advance.

I definitely like that and absolutely agree. So one of the tools that you're definitely using is the SAP. I mean, proving to people, look, you think you need it, but the plant is telling us otherwise. Let's go with what the plant is actually telling us. I really like that. Okay, let's.

Our conversation with, our conversation with growers is strictly around economics. How can you be more profitable and make more money than with different practices than what you're doing right now? And the reality is that applying nitrogen when the crop requires it and not four months in advance pays significant dividends, you know.

Yeah.

And related to this, we have another kind of question related to this same thing. In Canada, when the seasons frozen ground under snow, many of the large growers apply 3/4 of their nitrogen in the fall to reduce the workload. And how would this still apply to Canada? And one of the things that I look at, and this is a really good question, and not so much I'm looking at the frozen soils, but how do you address, John, where the grower has limited ability to get into the field based on saturated soils, late planting times? And I know how you're going to answer this because I've seen how you guys have done this in Kansas and Nebraska, and I've seen some of the problems in reduction of yield based on doing too much nitrogen at the time of planting. So when they say based on this is we just don't have the time to get it in in the springtime, it still applies. You have to make the ability to get that equipment in and you'll see a reduction in your nitrogen. You don't need three quarters of your nitrogen, I guess is what I'm getting at in the fall because you can do it with a quarter or half of the nitrogen spring application. Is that what you're seeing, Dennis?

The question is really simple. It is profoundly simple. If I paid you an increased profit of $50 an acre, could you figure out a way to apply nitrogen in the spring instead of in the fall?

Yeah.

There's the answer. Yeah. I'm telling you, I'm telling you that there is increased profit. And I pulled a $50 number out of, out of my hat because again, it varies from crop to crop, but it's usually $50 or bigger.

Yeah.

And I'm talking about dry land crops that are low yield crops that are not irrigated crops that might. Only another way of looking at it as a percentage. It's not uncommon for us to increase the profitability. I'm not talking about about top line, but bottom line, it's not uncommon to increase the bottom line by as much as 15 to 20% only by managing nitrogen differently on broad acre crops. That's a big number. So if you could increase your profitability by 15% on a broad acreage.