Natural Growing Through Biology | Steve Becker, Chief Science Officer at Tainio Biologicals

Due to weather and Internet, we've had a small change to our schedule. David Miller won't be able to join us, but that means we get to hear from Steve Becker from Taneo Bio who is going to join us to present on communication. Thank you, Steve for jumping in. For those of you who are looking forward to hearing David's presentation, please go ahead and sign up for the AEA newsletter and they will send you a notification about when that presentation will be available to to you. So they still will make that available. So now I would like to introduce Steve. As Chief Science Officer at Tano Biological, Steve is afforded an up close and personal view into the world of soil biology. Valuable information that he uses in the development and refinement of Taneo products. After earning a degree in biology from Eastern Washington University, Steve began working with Bruce Tano Atteno Biologicals. Under his mentorship, Steve developed a deep respect for nature farming and the plant and soil microbiome which has become what he studies, shares and develops inputs for. So without further ado, because I know he has a lot of information to cram into this session, please welcome Steve.

Well, thank you very much, Sarah. Definitely appreciate it. So with the, the technical fun times we have, we dusted off a presentation and we threw a dart at a board and this is the one we're gonna go with.

Yeah, we talked a little bit yesterday about biology, communicating with the plant. So we thought this kind of fit in today.

So yeah, the topic's gonna start on a little bit of the, the world around you and then talk a little bit about plant communication, microbe communication and then plant and microbe. So what is communication? Like this little joke. And that is why we lift on three people. So communication is basically just sharing of information. It's input and output, it's the processing of information. But it's also critical that we react to that information and we have different ways, different organisms have different speeds of that information. I like this example and I kind of think about it. You know, it's really hard to hit that housefly. You try to slap it and it's gone. It seems like it, it's almost like it has a spidey sense. It's out of there super fast. But part of that is because of the way its brain works and how it processes that information. So humans, our brain, our eyes work at about 60 Hz, we process at about 60 Hz. That fly, on the other hand, is processing that information about 250 hertz. It's about four times faster. So if you were to throw 100 mile an hour pitch at that fly. That's only going the equivalent of 25 miles an hour. That's pretty easy to dodge. This leatherback turtle, on the other hand, though, that's processing about 15 hertz. So that 100 mile an hour pitch is coming at it like 400 miles an hour. That's crazy. But it's all based on how do we take this information in. And we have a lot of different senses. I know that some, I think Amy said that she really doesn't like this picture. So I'm really glad to have it in there. But if we take a look at one single input, let's start off by just looking at sense of smell. And our sense of smell is incredible. We have the ability to take in and process thousands, tens of thousands, millions of different scents. And our brain processes it. And it utilizes this kind of looks like a little hand hanging down. Those are olfactory ganglion. And those are basically the site where these molecules get smell stuck. So these scent molecules come in, you breathe them in, and then they get bound onto the surface of these little olfactory ganglion. And then our brain receives an electrical signal, an impulse, and our brain processes that and it tells us what's going on. And it is incredibly powerful. And it has a high level of specificity. So we can see that the nose and the brain, this communication together allows us to process this world around us in incredible ways. For example, limonene. When we look at this molecule, we can have two different smells. We can have a more orangey, citrusy. We're gonna have more pine type smell. And that's based on how this molecule is basically set up. We have different forms of this exact same chemical formula, the C10H16. But the way it's set up makes our brain respond in different ways. There's a D and an L, and these are chiral. These are molecules that are basically like a left and a right hand. They're the same structure, but flipped. And just that simple flip allows our nose to tell the difference between those scents. And scents oftentimes are simply a matter of opinion. Terroir is the. The French. And I'm sure I just butchered the pronunciation that. So I apologize to anyone from France who's on here. But it's the loose translation is the earth flavor, and it's the flavor we grow. And that has a major impact on the, the plants, on the flavor of the food, on the flavor, the grapes for the wine, for example, and that a lot of that is coming from these soil organisms, these soil bacteria, these soil fungi. The smell of rain. Petrichor. I love the smell of rain. Many people love the smell of rain. And that's generally associated with Geismens. And those are oftentimes. Well, those are produced by actinomycetes, and a lot of them are streptomyces. So we have a lot of these streptomyces organisms and we grow them and it's always fun. You can open up a barrel of the streptomyces and you can smell that Jezmine. You can smell it, which is really cool.

And that's sometimes what we get when we talk about going out and digging the soil. We talked about that yesterday. Ted talked a little bit about that today of his organic field compared to his dry field that he had beat, basically had been beat up with conventional agriculture. And those are those smells. Those are the aromas, I guess, that we're getting from that soil environment, which is the biological community or their functions within that soil environment.

Yeah. When you. You learn to. Dennis has a much more keen nose than I do. He's practicing this for decades. So he's a real stinky guy. He's a real smelly guy.

I'm a smelly guy. And one thing about that is when you do smell soil, be careful. I mean, what's been applied to that soil before you start digging in it.

Yeah.

And, you know, I mean, I'm. I'm talking mostly compost or chicken litter that might be there, and a heavy amount.

Are you thinking of the time that we went to that. That plant grow and I just tried to reach into what they described as compost and just a slimy mass of disgusting. Yeah. But I say it's a matter of opinion because I love the smell of those Jeos Mins. Fruit flies, on the other hand, they have an innate aversion. So when they smell that Jeosmin, they think that it has either bacterial fungal communities associated with it and they don't want to grow there. So they purposefully do not. They don't use oviposition, they don't deposit their eggs, and they reduce their feeding on those organisms by having this smell. We can attract or we can repel different organisms. So I have here a picture of a plant and bacteria. Do these communicate? And the short answer is absolutely. There are entire books on plant communication, and it's all about, remember, it's that ability to take information in, process it, and then react to it. And these plants have an incredible ability. So this is kind of a mental thought experiment. What is your favorite place in nature? Okay, put yourself there. Are you on a beach? Are you up skiing? Are you playing? Are you exploring jungles? Are you exploring volcanoes? Are you a spelunker? Are you a cave diver? Well, now imagine that you put yourself there and you can no longer move. What struggles would you face? That's basically what a plant goes through. So this beautiful beach, when you think about being stuck there, well, now all of a sudden you have to deal with salt, massive quantities of salt. You have to deal with wind storms, all of this weather coming your way. And same with these trees that are growing up in our alpine forests. They have to be able to survive through these cold times. So a plant's genome has probably an order of magnitude more genes involved in environmental perception than most animals do. Most plants have to. They have to really tune their physiology and biochemistry to what is going on. And they need a very sophisticated sense of perception response. And that's A quote from Dr. Ian Baldwin of the Max Planck Institute. So they have to have this ability, and when we associate these senses, this complexity of their ability to take this information in, we can think about some of these organisms as somewhat animal like. So the Venus fly trap, for example, the Venus fly trap is very, very fast. Fly takes off in about 3, 300 milliseconds. And these Venus fly traps can close and react in 100 milliseconds. And the way that it works is they have these little proprioceptor type structures that allow them to feel pressure. And when three of these little sensors, the little hairs that are inside the mouth of that Venus flytrap, are tripped within, I believe, 20 seconds. So not only can they feel it, they can also measure time. And if they aren't tripped fast enough, the Venus fly trap doesn't close. And the white mulberry catechin, when it ejects its seed, it's over 500 miles an hour. That's over half the speed of sound. So plants can react quickly. And when we talk about these plants, we can say that they have the ability to kind of smell. Do plants have sniffers? Well, yeah. When we look at our, again, our olfactory ganglion, they are designed to receive those molecules. The molecule comes in and a signal is transferred. This is the surface of a plant. And these also have transmembrane signaling mechanisms. And they are able to receive these molecules and react to the molecules. I'm not sure. I don't think this video is going to work, unfortunately, but Daughter this is an incredible presentation and it's put together by nature. Really recommend people kind of look it up and take a look. But what we see is the daughter plant. In scientific studies, it wants to attach to tomatoes and it can smell the tomato. The daughter will kind of spin and move around and away. It's searching for that tomato plant. And when you put it next to tomato or a grass, this daughter is utilizing those scent receptors or scent like receptors to smell the world around it. Because if it attaches to the grass, it's going to die. It needs to attach tomato or something that has a softer cell structure and it is more easy for a daughter to penetrate. Smell of war is another fun example. Dr. Mercer of Penn State, when looking at golden, raw goldenrod. Excuse me. So male fruit flies start excreting pheromones to attract the ladies. I have Mr. Stinky here, but that's me. Sometimes you've got that, that superpower nose. But it's not just the female fruit flies. They're gonna pick up on that smell. The goldenrod senses these pheromones and when it does, it increases its insecticidal chemicals and in turn, it decreases the females ability to lay eggs and it reduces their ability to damage the plant. So this is just a scent molecule produced by the fruit fly that this plant is utilizing. That that scent receptor is able to react and modify its structure, its physiology and its reaction. So when we're talking about this world around us, do these organisms have the ability to kind of control and react to the environment around them? Dr. Baldwin, again from Max Planck wild tobacco. He was studying wild tobacco and it is an incredible plant. Fire is required for germination. So these seeds of the wild tobacco can sit in the soil for hundreds of years, literally hundreds of years. So when it germinates, it's literally germinating sometimes into the complete unknown. So these plants have to have an incredible ability to react to a wide variety of things coming at them, basically. So these wild tobacco, they're going to utilize, they use nicotine, they produce nicotine. And the reason they do that is when an insect eats too much of the plant, the nicotine causes its muscles to contract. It basically causes the plants to die. However, there have been plants, when you have something that can be toxic, an organism is going to create or develop resistance and over time. And these hornworms, they have the ability to move away and they are not reacting to that nicotine anymore. They've developed a resistance. So when the hornworm starts chewing on this wild tobacco, tobacco the tobacco. Tobacco, there are some of the molecules and saliva cause a reaction in the plant. So this initiates plant sucker metabolite production. And once that plant serum metabolite production happens, it's exuding these scent molecules in the air. And that attracts a predator of these hornworms, the big eyed bug. And if that isn't enough, if the hornworms are still present and chewing and attacking this tobacco, the plant will produce what's what I like to call a trichome treat. Right there on that leaf surface, it puts out this little sugary droplet. It looks really attractive to the pest, so they chew on it. And I describe this as an evil lollipop. So once these hornworms have chewed on that and taken that sugar that's been laced with molecules, 20 minutes later, they start to stink. They start to put out a smell that attracts in even more predators. In this case, there are a number of lizards and birds that can then pick up on that. And if the infestation continues, the plant will switch from night flowering, which attracts more hawk moths, which lay hornworm eggs, to morning flowers. So rather than flowering at night, it switches its entire physiology to flowering during the morning, and that attracts hummingbirds. So we no longer have as many of these hornworms. It changes the flower shape, its opening time, and it also changes the nectar composition. That is an incredible ability of these plants to react to the world around them. And I have this in here as well. Knapweed is an incredibly devastating invasive species, and certain areas are just completely overrun by it. And it releases chemicals known as catechins, which are allele chemicals, which reduce the ability of other plants to grow around them. Allelopathic molecules can reduce the germination of other plants, reduce their seed production, as well as reduce their root growth. However, we can find different PGPR that can break this molecule down. Pseudomonas petita, Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus liganiformis, etc. Or organisms that I mentioned in there. But lupine releases a molecule, oxalic acid, which helps protect it, but not only protecting the lupine itself, but it protects the neighboring plants as well. So by having one of these species, it helps protect other plants. That's almost altruistic. So the bait, the debate, is no longer whether plants can sense one another's biochemical messages. They can, but about why and how they do it. The answer could have big implications. Farmers might be able to adapt this chatter, tweaking food plants or agricultural practices, so the crops defend themselves better against herbivores and we talked a little bit about that. The VOCs coming off the bacteria. I talked about those volatile organic compounds yesterday. So those are part of what is impacting. So here's another example. When a tomato is attacked, it starts producing this hexanol and it's spitting it out in the air. This is a plant circum metabolite. And the neighboring plants will pick up on that hexanol and they'll increase their ability to protect themselves. So the hexanol, the cena seeds, excuse me, increase cutworm mortality by 20%. So by sending the smell out, the neighboring tomato plants are able to protect themselves better, which is just incredible. And wounded leaves communicate at an incredibly fast rate. And they utilize. I don't think my video is going to work. Oh, here we go. So here we can see the researchers damaged the plant, and what they're monitoring is calcium. These calcium channels are being activated throughout the plant. And so this is somewhat nerve like where you damage one part of the plant. It's not going to let me replay it. And throughout the entire plant, the plant responds. So if a leaf on the top is attacked, the plant can then protect the leaves lower down, which is just incredible. And it's fairly fast. That's 100 seconds we're talking about. Within a minute or so, that plant has received and sent that message throughout. And we find that some of these plants, unfortunately, I say they're out of control. A 2011 report found that commercial. Many commercial corn hybrids seem to have lost their ability. The ability of wild maize plants to excrete and release these chemicals that attract parasitic wasps, the terpenoids, are lost. So the way that we've bred these corn plants, they no longer have that ability to communicate with the parasitic wasps, which is unfortunate for them. And that's why I have this silenced little figure there, this emoji that can no longer speak, so that corn can no longer call out for help. Okay, so we talked a little bit about plants. They're incredible. They're complex, they're large. What if we go smaller? Can we talk about bacteria? And can bacteria communicate? And when I say small, they're extremely small. So if you were to take a hair, and the reason I have this silly little cartoon, if you take your hair, which the average human hair is 88 microns, you have to chop it in half. Chop that half in half. Chop that half and half. We have to do that six times to get down to one micron the size of a microbe. And when we talk about These microbes and we ask the questions, can they sense. Well, we do that same thing. We zoom in to the surface of their cell membrane and we see these receptor like structures again. So these organisms have the ability to sense the world around them. So chemotaxis, I mentioned this briefly yesterday. What chemotaxis is is this ability of these bacteria to move either towards a positive stimulus or, or away from a negative stimulus. So if they sense a threat, if they sense danger, if they can smell other organisms that are going to parasitize them, they can move away. However, if they smell food, and we talked about this a little bit yesterday, the idea of recruitment plants sending out exudates that are specific, these organisms can sense that and move towards it. And the way they do it is really kind of cool. At least I think it's kind of cool. So a lot of these organisms will have cilia or flagella, and depending on what direction they turn that flagella, it makes them either move in a specific direction called chemotaxis, or if they reverse the spin of those flagella, it's called a random walk. So the microbes will just kind of move around kind of blind and aimlessly, and then they'll stop and sniff and stop and sniff and move and stop and sniff until they get where they're trying to go. They don't have eyes, so sometimes takes them a little while. A fun example is with Vibrio fischeri and this is a marine bacteria, lives inside of the bobtail squid. And this Vibrio fischeri is a bioluminescent organism. It glows, but it will only glow when there are high enough concentrations of that organism. So this bobtail squid is a nighttime predator. And it seems strange they would want to have a glow being a nighttime predator. But the way it does it is it has a special structure in its mantle, in the bottom of it, that it utilizes these Vibrio fischeri to mimic the amount of light coming off of the moon so that predators won't find it. In the morning when it's done, it spits out 90% of those Vibrio fischeri that it doesn't have to feed them as much. And it no longer glows. When it starts to be evening, it starts pumping the food in to re increase the population density of the Vibrio fischeri so they can glow again. And how they glow has to do with autoinducer molecules, these communication molecules that these bacteria use. And this is called quorum sensing. Quorum sensing is the ability of these microbes To. To get a general idea of who all's out there. The more of these organisms that are there, the more of the molecules are sending out. And therefore the more reception, the more times they basically have that hit. You can kind of think about it kind of like a flash. The more flashes you see, the more organisms they know are there. So this can be intra species, where it's just inside of one interspecies, excuse me, an intra species where they're communicating with. With others. So other species can get that communication molecule, kind of like I mentioned, through that chemotaxis. If they sense an organism that is detrimental to their growth, they can move away. Erwinia carradivora is a good example of this in quorum sensing. So it's pretty incredible. I had this sneak attack because that's what it's doing. Your carrots that are sitting in your fridge, and they've been sitting there and sitting there and sitting there, and then all of a sudden they get slimy and weird. Hate when that happens. My kids really hate it and they kind of freak out. The chickens are okay with it. But anyway, so what's happening is there are a few of these organisms that are always on the carrot. You're never going to clean them all off. You can sterilize it. That's going to help. You're usually going to have them. So they wait. They wait and they slowly grow and they're using that quorum sensing until they realize they have adequate numbers. And then all of a sudden they switch on. It's like literally flipping a switch. Where they went from fairly benign and kind of annoying to virulent. They start actually attacking and destroying that carrot or whatever plant they're attacking. So they emit this virulence factor all of a sudden, which causes all of them at once to spit out enzymes that create a wound and infection site. The same time, they're releasing protective molecules to keep other pathogens away. They create a biofilm and a capsule that protects them. So sometimes those biofilms are good, sometimes they're not so good. And that's what we have going on here. But I don't want people to think that just because you have one bad apple, it doesn't spoil the whole bunch. Just because you have some bacteria and fungi that are bad doesn't mean that they all are. So research done by Dr. Susan Simmerd up in BC in these Douglas Franklin forests she was utilizing and monitoring. How do these organisms share, how do they spread? And they're spreading through ectomycorrhizal. Species. There's a giant network underground that connects all of these different trees. And the incredible thing is the healthiest trees will send extra sugars down through the mycorrhizal communities. And they're highways. And they can actually spread that carbon, spread that sugar to trees that are lower, trees that are less healthy, and they can actually help some of those younger baby trees that are lower in the canopy don't get as much light, can't photosynthesize as well to actually grow and become eventually a productive member of the community. Because that's what it is. This is a community of trees. The way she did that was kind of cool. She took radioactive labeled carbon 14, she put plastic bags, put them over the branches, injected that radioactive carbon, and then monitor it. And she could see it moving from one tree to the next to the next. And the idea is kind of a mother tree where the largest trees are taking care of the younger trees. Bacterial altruism. And this altruism is basically taking one for the team. So tell me Carl, are you familiar with the expression take one for the team? So this wounded gazelle is no longer is going to be sacrificed, basically. And we see similar things happening in bacteria. Studying the development of antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria, the researchers found population most depth withstanding doses of antibiotics are those in which few highly resistant isolates sacrifice their own well being to improve the health of others. So this is why sometimes you have quote unquote sleepy organisms. So when we use an antibiotic, it doesn't necessarily take out. If we're sick, we have a uti, for example, we take that antibiotic, it can come back. Some of these organisms purposely reproduce slower so that they can protect and they don't die and they can move on. And the list goes on. But we should make sure we don't underestimate these organisms. Cordyceps, for example. Cordyceps hijacks ants and other insects and it basically treats them, turns them into zombies. It overrides their ability to basically control themselves. And it's incredible how much control these Cordyceps fungi have over the ants. It requires a north facing leaf of a plant about 25 cm off the ground in an environment with 94 to 95% humidity, location with temperature between 20 to 30 degrees Celsius. The cordyceps needs those exact environmental conditions for it to reproduce. So it'll force that ant to climb up the stalk, up the stem, up the grass, wherever it needs to be. And that once senses those exact environmental conditions, 1% humidity it can sense down to 1% humidity. It sprouts up through like you see here, you see here and then it reproduces. We can also see collaboration. These small organisms can make a big difference. And like we talked about recruitments and recruitment can be these specific exudates. In this research they were utilizing Bacillus subtilis and they were monitoring the impact of Pseudomonas syringii. Once the researchers introduced the Pseudomonas syringii into the soil environment, the the plant started spitting out lots of malic acid. And the malic acid is a recruitment agent attracting the bacillus of ptillocin. And we can see this in other crops. Benzoxazanoids are powerful antibiotic produced by corn. They help protect the plant. But the researchers have found that the plant is also sending these benzoxazanoids down out through the root where they found that it actually recruits Pseudomonas putida. And the Pseudomonas putida helps protect the plant from fungal and insect attack as well. So it's utilizing this molecule to do multiple things. So these can be powerful allies and we can utilize these plant growth promoting rhizobacteria for a wide variety of benefits, many of which we talked about yesterday. We talked about rhizophagy cycle. What's that, Dennis?

Well, and I was going to say the amazing part, your very first slide. Plants can't move. So they've created this incredible system.

Yes.

To protect themselves if we give them the opportunity. And you know, in the Regen Rebel a lot of these guys are how do I get through all of this process? How do I grow a crop? What about all of these things that I have to deal with based on stresses And I mean the plant has some of those abilities and that microbial community also has built in abilities already that we can utilize if. What did we say yesterday? A plant can't use a tool unless it's available.

Yeah.

And that's really what it comes down to.

It's incredible. It's almost like these systems are supposed to work together. Isn't that weird? That's just crazy. And again here we can see nutrient water connection, these plant growth emerging grass bacteria. I talked about abiotic stress yesterday. I didn't talk specifically about potassium mobilizing bacteria. Potassium is necessary for stomatal opening and closing. So there are organisms, these PGPR down in the root environment that can sense what's going on. They can sense when drought is occurring. They communicate that with the plant so the plant can more quickly close its stomata and save more of its water. I think at that point we talked a little bit about a lot of things. I don't think I have time to go into and do systemic resistance lilipathy. I would like to end on one final, final idea. And this is what I love to find in science. It's question marks. And it just blows my mind that we still have completely unknown things going on. And that's what I love, because that means it's information that's coming to us eventually coming to us soon. So this idea of induced systemic resistance. Induced systemic resistance is just having these organisms present helps the plant protect itself, and they don't really know how. There are question marks here. Scientists haven't fully found out how this communication is happening, but we see incredible benefits from these organisms. Control of cucumber beetle with pgpr. I believe this. Yeah, this is Bacillus pumilus. In this case, it's as effective as other chemicals. Just unbelievable. And with that, I think we're done. We're done. Let's open it up for some questions.

You're done.

Okay.

I was just here for moral support.

Oh, thank you. Thank you, Dennis.

Well done, Steve and Dennis, well done with that moral support. Thank you, guys. We do have a few questions from the audience, and I think we have about nine minutes to get them covered. So the first one is, can plants communicate to soil biology what their nutritional requirements are?

So that's what some of the research seems to be coming out showing. And that's part of, I think, what Dr. White was looking at where he said that some of these organisms, they all have different, basically, strengths and weaknesses. Like with your phosphate solubilizing bacteria, they're great at that job. Many of them have multiple benefits. So the plant is able to utilize multiple benefits, which is just incredible. Like, under that attack, they're spitting out the malic acid to attract Bacillus subtilis. And there are organisms that can be attracted that are better at certain nutrients. I mentioned briefly yesterday that they're finding different mycorrhizal species. Some are better at water transport, some are better at nitrogen, some are better at phosphorus. So the plant can utilize these different species basically to supplement itself, which is just incredible.

Great. Thank you. Multitasking some chats here. Are you aware of any specific audio frequency signals that are sent to. Sent by plants in distress or only visual signals?

I. I would be shocked if there aren't. There are so many different forms of communication that are coming off of these. Some are visual, some are molecule Scent based. There's even research into biophotons. Just life organisms, humans, plants, everything. We produce what are called biophotons. And this is just small packets of light energy coming off of you. And some of the research that I've looked at, some organisms can pick up on that. So yeah, definitely. And there was sonic bloom. Sonic bloom has been used in the past. So there are, there are frequencies, there are examples where people are utilizing music, utilizing different sounds and it does change plant uptake of nutrients. So it's just incredible.

Well, and Bruce used to talk a little bit about that based on a phonograph and a record, based on a CD and frequencies and sound and plant response.

What specific frequencies? If you're asking me for that, I don't know off the top of my head.

Okay, well that's great. Can these mycorrhizal highways and interplant connections be established in annual crops or is that just too short of a timeframe?

So most of your mycorrhizal species, it takes two to three weeks for the infection to occur and then once they're established with that plants game is on. I mean if, if there are cover crops and we talk to a lot of like orchard crop growers that they're worried about, get the mic. Getting the mycorrhizal fungi to their established trees. If they have cover crop that can establish with those mycorrhizal fungi. Yeah, those mycorrhizal fungi can establish and infect a wide variety of different plants. So it can actually be kind of a tool, a way that we can get it to spread. So I mean if we're talking lettuce or something that's extremely short lived, it's really hard to get into work corn you can. Yeah, so, so crops that we have a bit of time, some of that's going to depend on how many propagules the mycorrhizae are you applying? Are they in the root zone? What is the spacing of plants? For those fungal communities to spread from plant to plant, they have to come in contact. There has to be kind of a handshake. They have to be able to spread. So yes you can. And a lot of that is going to depend on, you know, how you're planting, your cultural practices and making sure you get that established is as quick as possible.

Fascinating. Do tarps in winter harm microbial life and if so, to which degree? I'm thinking about CO2 excess or lack of oxygen.

Go ahead.

Well, I mean that's a really. We're looking at different colored tarps based off of black plastic or clear plastic. A lot of times what that has to do is this is generally a weed control scenario. So yes, lack of oxygen, oversaturated anaerobic soils, all in the wintertime can all change that environment of that microbial community within that soil environment. And just the opposite can in the summertime based off of heat and temperature and then also too wet or too dry of soils. Yes, it can change the biological profile within that soil environment. So and oxygen is respiration. We need that CO2 respiration. I mean, think how important that is to plants and growth. So yeah, I'm. It can change a lot of things. In, in the agriculture environment. When we start to talk about overall plant health.

Oh, definitely seeing a lot of organic growers starting to use more and more solarization where they're using that clear plastic in the summer. And the reason they're doing that is it gets hot. It is hot under there. Which if we get up to 103, 104, some of the, the proteins start to fall apart. It's called denaturing. The proteins denature, which can damage the plant and they end up having to produce heat shock proteins which help protect them. But we do see die off. And like Dennis said, if we're cutting off gas exchange, we're forcing that environment into anaerobic. That anaerobic environment isn't great for some of the species. Some of the species are obligate aerobes. So they're gonna die. Your facultative anaerobes, most of your bacillus are gonna be okay. And if they do run out and they are getting too stressed, your endospore producers, like your bacillus, they'll just go to sleep, they'll take a nap. So your more sensitive species, I would expect probably some. Some trouble with some of your actinomycetes. But overall you're gonna have some species do better than others. How about that?

Reasonable answer? Yes. Okay, so last question. We have just a few minutes. How do you deal with, and I apologize if I say this wrong. How do you deal with daughter plant? Is there some mineral nutrition solution so that we don't use her herbicides for it? Our daughter plants some kind of symptom of soil imbalance?

Do you remember looking up daughter on the. What weeds tell us?

Not off the top of my head.

Yeah, I'm gonna have to look and see what minerals, what elements I don't know off top of my head. If somebody, John, if you remember, if somebody Remembers off top of their head, what deficiencies it signals, throw it into the slack or not the slack, the chat. And yeah, I'd have to go look it up.

Okay. And otherwise that's a good follow up question for our audience member. For sure.

Yeah.

Okay. All right, so that leaves us with two minutes. You get to squeeze another one in. What about the role of protozoa and nematodes in nutrient cycling?

So, yeah, most of those organisms that are shredders, detritivores, they're all breaking things down. So we have a wide variety of those organisms. Some of them are parasitic, some of them are attacking roots, some of them are bacteria feeders, some of them are fungal feeders. But the basic idea there is, remember the book, Everybody poops. They all poop too. And that poop is fertilizer. So as they eat, as they consume, as they digest, as they break this material down, it has to come back out the other end. And when it comes out, it's broken down and can be more available. So, yeah, they're. They're a critical part of. Or they should be a part of the system and just break.

Breaking larger things down into smaller pieces.

Absolutely. Yeah.

I mean, what it comes down to.

Yeah, that's. I mean, it's. It's kind of like enzymes. It just breaks it down. It's kind of like your teeth.

Perfect. Well, thank you, gentlemen, for hopping in here and sharing this really fascinating presentation with us. I'm going to echo what Rochelle put in the chat, which is plants are so cool. And you guys just shared a really cool part about that. So thank you so much for that. We will see you two back here a little bit later in the program for our Q and A with our speakers. So we will see you soon.

Thank you. Thank you.