In this instructional video, John Kempf shares his personal, hands‑on approach to managing insect pests in a small homestead orchard of about 100 fruit trees, most of which were newly planted. He explains that nursery‑derived nitrogen loads make seedlings especially attractive to early‑season pests such as aphids and leafhoppers. To combat these, he applied a foliar spray of PhotoMag, Rejuvenate, and a small amount of Pinion at label rates, achieving 70 % aphid mortality within 24 hours and complete control within 48 hours, with leafhopper pressure markedly reduced after a repeat application. When Japanese beetles emerged, he shifted to a high‑dose foliar mix of PhotoMag, Rebound Boron (≈2× label rate), and HoloCal, also adding calcium to buffer potential boron toxicity. Within a day, beetle numbers collapsed from hundreds to a handful. Kempf emphasizes that none of these products are insecticides; instead, they alter plant internal physiology—changing carbohydrate, amino‑acid, and peptide profiles—to make foliage unpalatable. He notes the importance of a carbohydrate boost (Rejuvenate) to synergize with boron and magnesium, especially under heat stress, and cautions that the rapid mobilization properties of Rebound Boron, PhotoMag, and HoloCal are unique, so results may vary for growers lacking these specific formulations. The video serves as a concrete, time‑stamped case study of nutrition‑driven pest deterrence, with practical dosage notes, observed outcomes, and realistic expectations for replication.
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Hi friends, I wanted to give you an example of how I approach managing insects just on a personal use basis. So I have a small homestead orchard, I don't know exactly, around, let's say, around 100 fruit trees, many of which I just planted this spring. And the seedlings that I got from the nursery, as you might expect, have some insect susceptibility because of the nitrogen load that they got in the nursery. That is still accumulating and carrying over. So roughly a week, I'd say now at this point it's about 2 weeks ago, I went out there and there were problems with some small leafhoppers. There were leafhoppers out there, and also particularly on the apple trees, there was a load of aphids. Aphids were completely covering some of the new shoot growth. So my approach to this was I put on a foliar application of PhotoMag and Rejuvenate, and then for the kicks of it, because I want these plants to be really healthy and robust generally, um, it wasn't particularly needed for those two particular insects, but I also added a shot of Pinion. To the mix. And I know you can have these effects, the effects that I saw, without the Pinion application, just with the Photomagnum Rejuvenate application. So anyway, I put on this foliar application, and, uh, single application, and I'm doing a small backpack sprayer, but just standard label rates, nothing out of the ordinary. And within 24 hours, about 70% of the aphids were dead. When Within 48 hours, 100% of the aphids were dead. The leafhopper pressure was greatly reduced, but they were still present. There was still a small amount out there, but not very many. So I then went back and I repeated this exact same application about 5 days after the first application, and at that point the leafhopper pressure pretty much disappeared. But then around 4 or 5 days ago, something like that, Japanese beetles emerge from dormancy, from winter dormancy, and Japanese beetle pressure looks like it's going to be a season for intense Japanese beetle pressure in this part of the world. We have Japanese beetles everywhere, very intensely. They— the more mature trees that have been exposed, that have been managed, that are being managed with our nutrition management system, are completely being ignored and left alone. We have no Japanese beetles there at all, which has been our historical experience. And so for these new seedlings, I wanted an application that would go after the Japanese beetles. So we know that many of the beetle family, whether they're piercing beetles or whether they're chewing beetles, they, they tend to be a bit more robust, and it takes a bit more to solve that problem than it does for some of— for something like the aphids. Aphids are really easy to solve. I did a follow-up application with an application of Photomag and Rebound Boron and HoloCal. I did a fairly high dose of the Rebound Boron. I think it's about 2 times the regular application rate. And Holocal, um, I put on also at a very high dose. And the reason for these— I've, I've talked about this in the past— but the Rebound Boron, unlike any other boron source that I'm aware of, actually gets into the plant, mobilizes around very, very quickly wherever the plant needs it. Most foliar applications of boron just stay on the leaf surface wherever they land. And I put on this high dose of boron that could conceivably have caused toxicities in sensitive plants. Again, I don't know what these plants' history are, what their nutrition management was like, so I wanted to just provide some buffer and some insurance. So I put on a high dose of calcium as well to buffer out the rebound boron. So I put on this application 24 hours ago. Yesterday morning, and as of this morning when I was doing my crop scouting, the Japanese beetles are gone. Yesterday I could find hundreds. Today I found 3. So there's been a— this dramatic, almost immediate reduction in Japanese beetle pressure as a result of this application getting into the leaf. Now obviously None of these materials are insecticides. But what happens is they change the plant's internal physiology and they change the plant's biochemical profile, the carbohydrate composition, the amino acid and peptide composition, so that those plants become unpalatable to the Japanese beetles. Did we kill them? I didn't see any dead beetles. I kind of doubt it. But they moved on to more palatable pastures. And they no longer wanted to utilize those tree seedlings as a food source. So this is a concrete illustration. Now there is something worth pointing out here. I pulled the Rejuvenate out of this mix, but if I had not made those two previous applications that had had carbohydrates in them, um, we've had a lot of heat here the last couple of weeks, which increases the carbohydrate need. I would have included Rejuvenate in this mix as well to add some carbohydrates because, uh, you need a carbohydrate dose to go with the boron and with the magnesium, everything that's in the PhotoMag, to trigger that rapid shift of carbohydrates and various protein forms. So that's the practical application. This is what I did on my own personal orchard. With an immediate effect. And the challenge— I know there's many people who watch from international sources, people who don't have access to AEA products, but— and I want to be clear that you should expect your mileage is going to vary quite substantially because there's a lot of engineering that has gone into the Photomag and the Rebound Boron, the HoloKAL, but particularly Rebound Boron and Photomag, HoloKAL as well, for that matter. Um, there's just a— to— as far as I'm aware, there are not really other trace minerals in the marketplace that mobilize inside the plant and move around wherever the plant needs them as rapidly as these elements do. So if you try to replicate this on your own, you should just have the expectation that you're you may not get the exact same results in the same amount of time. It may require repeat applications, it may require, um, more frequent applications. So just something for you to be aware of.
