Managing Aphids and Spider Mites with Regenerative Systems at Zeliff Farms

Pete Zalef farms around 1,000 acres of corn and soybeans near Buffalo, New York. He is pursuing ways to farm more profitably by simultaneously increasing plant and soil health, reducing chemical inputs and growing more nutritious crops. He became interested in working with AEA systems because of his friend and neighbor Dan Beal's successes with AEA in the previous seasons. Their consultant, Jason Stoll was on hand October 2nd evaluating crop and program performance before harvest.

My name is Pete Zielf. We're in Middleport, New York.

Hi, this is Dan Beale from Darien, New York.

Last year was our first year using an AEA program and we had a split field, half with AEA products, half without. And they were on soybeans. And we had spider mites coming into the field and you can see to the line where the product was on that the spider, spider mites would not go into the AEA treated soybeans and probably held them off for close to two weeks. At the time, we only seen about a half a bushel advantage on the AEA program. But it was also our first year into that program. So I believe the longer you use it, the healthier you get your soils, the more difference you will see on that in the future.

What we've noticed most with running the AEA program was in past history, we've always had an issue with a large population of aphids in our soybeans. Our crop consultants would continually advise us to spray. I had sprayed one year for aphids and it took care of the aphids, but it also took care of the ladybugs and everything else beneficial. We felt that was the wrong way to go. Through talking with Jason and John Kemp, we learned that we can control aphid pressure with micronutrients and timing according to SAP tests. We proved it last year on our soybean crop. We had way over threshold populations of soybean aphids and it was getting to the point where the plant leaves were turning purple and the SAP was coming out of them. It was sticky to walk through the fields and everybody kept saying, you got to spray, you got to spray. Well, we sprayed, but we did not use an insecticide. We used a combination of Fotomag and a few other micronutrients that our SAP analysis showed us we were lacking in. And within two days the aphids were gone from the field and we didn't harm anything, including the honeybee population. We gained a lot and we proved for ourselves that we did not need the insecticides for controlling Aphids. It's all about plant nutrition.

Yeah.

Our first year with aea, Jason had advised us on a program to start the rejuvenation of our soils. And it was noticed when our custom harvester entered the first field, which in the past we've been no tilling for the last six years. Our ground was very hard, soil structure was very tight. But when he entered a field and took the first pass of headlands off, he called me on the phone and he asked me, he says, what did you do this year with your soil? And I says, why is that? He says, I've been harvesting your crops for the past three years and there's something different. He says, I feel like I'm floating on a sponge. And that's exactly the way the soil reacted. It was, the top structure was fluffy and it was well aerated. And we knew right away that we, we were gaining something. We just weren't sure of all the aspects that were going to come on down the line of that happening. And the bottom line is you got to stick with a program. It's not a one year deal. You've got to give it a chance to work because biology is ruined very quickly. But it's very hard to get it back. It takes a several year process.

In 2019, yield averages were down 5, 5 to 10 bushels across all acres, weather control or one of multiple trial fields. However, the AEA trials yielded 17 bushels above historical average. Much of this yield increase came from bringing the lowest productivity areas up into normal yielding ranges. The 2019 trial received AEA's Fall Soil Health primer on soybean stubble before planting a cover crop. Then Biokote gold was used on the seed at planting and a planter solution of rejuvenate sea shield seastem, holocal and rebound micronutrients was applied as a 2x2 spectrum. PSB was added in the planter to enhance phosphorus solubilizing bacterial populations. The starter nitrogen was ammonium thiosulfate in the same 2x2 furrow along with humicarb to stabilize nitrogen compounds.

So one of the things that we definitely noticed this year is our ear tip fill. All of our AEA product corn is filling the tips out very well. Some of our more conventional corn using a standard fertility program, we're definitely not getting the tip fill, but this corn is from portion of the field that usually is under 100 bushel average with this type of corn and this is probably the more uniform corn throughout the more average parts of the field. This year and you're just seeing complete fill all the way through. And I believe that will definitely help us pick up additional bushels this year. These are also on a no P or K added to this field this year. Strictly AEA products and 150 pounds of nitrogen. So typically we use a variable rate program and we would use 1.1 pounds of nitrogen per bushel of corn. So our on farm average is about 17570 bushel. So you would probably look at 180 pounds of nitrogen in a normal program. And I think as we grow and continue to use the AEA program, we'll figure out what those efficiencies are. Then we will be able to plug that into our variable rate program. Our goal is to get to 0.7 pounds of nitrogen per bushel of corn.

July 8. SAP analysis showed high nitrates and chlorides along with several deficiencies. A corrective foliar was applied at V6, including Seashield and Photo Mag. One port each of Holocau Rebound Iron and Manganese and one pint each of rebound zinc and copper.

For people that aren't in the program yet, I say pick a field and give it a try.