Nutrient Testing of Plants, Foods, and Soils | Nathan Harman, Regenerative Ag Consultant | Regen Rev

Now I would like to welcome one of Ted's AEA colleagues, Nathan Harman, to the virtual stage. Nathan is a longtime consultant with AEA residing in Indiana. He enjoys plumbing the depths of esoteric knowledge in order to pull up the relevant pieces that can help synthesize an actionable plan. He has worked with hundreds of far flung farmers to solve, or at least shine new light on a wild range of problems, whether they be rooted in production, market profitability, or joy. While not a data scientist by any means, Nathan has seen and used most every agricultural data tool out there in his work and appreciates that one can create meaning from raw numbers. Nathan's going to talk to us today about nutrient testing of plants, foods and soils. Welcome, Nathan.

Hello. Hello. Thank you. All right, well, my pleasure to be here. Hope my power stays on. I've got the. The Midwestern snow and ice storm drooping some branches, dangerously low on power lines, but perfect day to be here with y'. All. Excited to jump in. Let me make sure my screen can share. So, yeah, we're going to be talking about nutrient testing of plants and foods and soils. I'm going to talk quick because there's a lot here. So, you know, test for what you want to know. That's the long and the short of it is, you know, the kind of thing that you're looking at will determine what you see. So, like I said, I've kind of done it all and I've got some unique experience on what I think is most pertinent to, you know, specific industries or goals or crops. This is not going to be very like region or crop specific. I know we've got folks from around the world and who knows which of these may or may not be available to you, but going to kind of hope to steer towards what I find the most valuable in regenerative agriculture, you know, mostly from a farmer's perspective. So, yeah, you can have too much data. It can definitely just be overwhelming and actually stall decision making. And we don't want to do that. We also don't want to blow a bunch of time and money and energy on taking, you know, if you took one of everything that I'm about to show you, like well over $1,000 per acre per year, and that's just not necessary or in any way effective. So choosing, choosing the right tests and tools. I think it's just really, really fascinating that, that I believe, you know, the earliest writing was, you know, Sumerian cuneiform, and that was also the earliest farming. And immediately the first thing that they started writing down was yields, right? Just the trade of barley and beer and early wheat varieties and you know, thousands of years. I think agriculture just, just sort of lean lends itself towards, towards data and analysis. So you're part of a long tradition here. The earliest weights and measures and then math. You know, we're also, we have, we have farming to thank for. In those days the yield units were, you know, baskets and jars and something that somebody could pick up and they had to be similar enough size that the tax man could, you know, could make a good determination and tax you appropriately. I think as we're about to see, we've come a long, long way. But if each of these tests is a different kind of basket, then we still haven't decided which basket to use. Case in point, in the modern era, right? Like a bushel is a, we call it a bushel, but it's not a bushel, it's a measure of weight. There are confusions like that running all throughout the testing terminology and methodology and you just kind of have to educate yourself and grimace through it. But what are we trying to measure, right? Weight or volume, Nutrients or pesticides, Environmental impact, Carbon sequestration, right. There are tests for anything that you are interested in measuring and obviously your particular market, your crop, your profitability demand that you're going to take certain tests. There are some that you kind of can't get away from and you will already be familiar with those. But really getting better, right, Progress and research and moving forward are really the majority of the rest of the, the test that you get to decide on in general, I think just be consistent year over year. You know, if you, if you have 20 years of soil tests from a certain lab, it would really be a shame to just completely stop that. You might not need to do it as often as you used to. But you know, if you're ping ponging between different tests and different labs and different ways of looking at that stuff, you're throwing in a lot of, a lot of haze instead of gaining clarity. So pick something and stick with it at least in a several year period as you add other tests potentially. But most importantly, as everybody said yesterday, you know, use your senses and use your neighbors and ask and experiment and get out there. If you're already digging a hole to take a soil sample or you know, you're in the field taking a plug, then you're already there. So just go ahead and follow through with the rest of the time it takes to. I'm not going to tell you how SAP analysis works. That's not really the goal. The, the, the point is just to give you a view of some different kinds of samples and know what their value is. The value of SAP analysis is that you can use it to determine in season plant health. You can predict a lot of disease and insects and other issues. You can very clearly see the result of an application or, you know, a growing practice. It's, it's, you know, disadvantage, if any, is that you really should take multiple throughout the season. It is not a one time thing. And yeah, that's, that's kind of across the board, no matter, no matter. The SAP test that you're getting. AEA then takes that kind of data and thanks to our, our wizard, we've, we've been able to make some really nice graphing options. This is an example of the same field, same day, three different varieties. Right. So if you're interested in variety trials, if you're seed breeding, if you're just trying to, you know, get one thing to grow up to the par of your other varieties, this is really cool kind of data to see, right? They're, they're unique nutrient uptake associated with each variety, even on the same field, same fertility. That's, that's really kind of part and parcel of what you learn through SAP analysis and you can really zero in on the fertility for a variety if needed. You know, another option is to look at one variety through a field at various points in time through a season. Right. If you're sampling every two weeks or in this case, you know, weekly in the middle of the season, we can really, we can really start to track and monitor and make week by week adjustments on, on the fertility program. We can try to steer things towards where we want them to be. And we've also added in sometimes the moon phase just to see what relationship there is. Sometimes we do see some relationships there. So trying to, trying to take this numerical data and make it into something that's readily usable in the course of the season. This is a sample from apical labs, just a very different format. So the, you know, the lab similarities, no matter who you're using, are probably going to be the parameters. The nutrients themselves are almost identical across labs and the new and old leaf sampling technique and costs, I would say are all right in the same pocket. Some of the differences are the methods, the lab methods, how they extract the SAP, what equipment they're using. Thus the parts per million values are going to be different. There was some discussion on that yesterday and again, that's just the way it is, no matter what test you take, different labs will come up with different values. So consistency of lab is pretty important. And the optimums, which I really just think are opinions. Um, you know, anybody is, is basically welcome to put whatever they think their optimum is on there. So the graphs and the charts and the. That's to be taken with a grain of salt. No matter who you're, you're working with, hopefully you trust them and you see good results. But also the crops accepted. You know, some labs can accept hemp or cannabis, some cannot. Some labs can accept, you know, citrus, and some cannot. So that is a relevant distinction between them. And then just the, the visualization what, what you get, you know, the how, how kind of usable and changeable and viewable the data is, how it looks to you. Okay, moving on to soil tests for now. There's obviously a whole diversity here. I just come right out and say, I think the Haney test is the most generally useful for most people most of the time. It gives you all the value of the traditional soil sample, plus a lot of biologically oriented information. Soil mineral assay. We're going to go into pretty interesting compost media test, manure tests. You have to take those. If you have to take those. If you're selling, say, compost, then you need to be able to provide that to your customer. If you're buying it, you should be able to ask for that test for free. Obviously those matters. If you're using those materials, you need to be able to take a comparative look of how much fertility and what materials you're getting when you apply tons of the material. If you're not applying, then don't worry about it. Saturated paste is a very specialty soil sample in my opinion. And in general, I would say sampling every two to three years is more than adequate. And I would say that grid sampling, unless you have specific equipment that can actually, you know, obviously kind of do precision ag of multiple materials or whatever material, your grid sampling is, is almost useless. I would much rather see somebody take fewer samples less often, but really base them on, you know, that area. It always puddles in the spring and it's always got XY weeds and you know, it's clearly different. Well, take a sample there. But, but the, the majority of soil samples are pretty similar across a broad area. So the total mineral assay, or the mining assay, you may hear it called, or the, in this case region Ag Labs total nutrient digestion analysis report. This is really cool. It's, it's the Soil elemental content. It's what's really actually there. Not any kind of assumed availability as all the other tests are giving us. It's geology, not biology. And you know, the goal here would be to, to kind of give yourself some mental assurance that you can, you can lay off some inputs. If you look here, the nutrient pounds per acre in this farm. 5,276 pounds of actual K per acre. So why do you need to apply 75 or 150 units this year?

Right?

If you had to buy this, this fertilizer equivalent is, is just a mental exercise saying if you wanted to get that many pounds of K, you know, you would have to apply £21,000 of 0060. Right. So this is, this is not really to make recommendations. It's not really to, you know, it's just a way of actually telling yourself, all right, it's there. If I can get the roots to it, if I can get the biology activated, then this, this gives you that, that comfort to move forward. Consider depth. This is a 0 to 12 inch sample. If your roots are peeking out at 4 inches, then you should take a 4 inch sample separately and then a 12 inch sample and then you'll be able to tell yourself, all right, how much free fertility do I get if I can get down to that? 12 inches? This, this sample is about $35 from, from region Ag Labs. A few, a few labs offer this. If you ask for a mining assay, it'll be more like basically big money, but it'll also tell you your uranium and gold and silver if needed. Traditional acid extract. If you don't know what it's called and it's just called the soil sample, it's probably this. If you've been farming for more than a few months, you probably already have one. I'm not going to say to stop entirely, but we're going to get to the Haney test and I think it covers all the same basis plus more better for about the same cost. If you're paying 0 to $12, then it's probably a, like here at the bottom that I can't work with. I can't make any meaningful suggestions on, on what this crop would benefit from because there's just not enough data. Really just pay the extra bucks and get the sulfur and zinc and manganese and boron and organic matter and all the, you know, it's again, take fewer samples but take a better quality sample so that you know what's really going on in any, in any graph like this. I would first look for excesses, try to consider not applying any more of something that's excessive and then try to balance all of the items which hopefully you can do by bringing up some deficiencies. But excesses are really the big deal and the thing you need to look for first. And of course those are all just opinions. But lots of, lots of labs offer that don't completely stop. But please start considering using something like a Haney test, which gives you a much better idea of the biological impact that you've got going on because they can, they can estimate nitrogen release. I think one of the best numbers on here is this at the bottom end credits pounds per acre. Haney 88.3 right. That's telling you that 88.3 pounds of nitrogen per acre are already available here. You don't need to pay for them. You can count on them. That that's pretty reliable information. That's kind of your soil nitrogen bank. You also get a lot of other information on nitrogen, all kinds of details broken down which can really become important to you over time. Same thing with phosphorus. The depth of fascinating cost savings you can go into by looking at, at this, this phosphorus numerology is, is really well worth it. I'm not going to get into it right now, but that's, that's a major advantage. We're definitely looking at soil respiration. That's kind of one of the big ways of this test is telling you something about how much microbial life you've got. And then the carbon tracking just, just additional information on carbon I think is going to be very important going forward as we just ourselves think about carbon or try to get into carbon markets. Most of those companies are going to end, require some historical carbon testing. So start now. And the H3 extract, that's, it's malic acid and citric acid, these kind of natural, you know, plant derived acids instead of the harsher chemistry that the traditional acid extract uses. And most of these numbers are going to be the same, very similar between what you would see on a traditional soil test and this H3A extract. Notably probably calcium and magnesium are going to be a little bit lower. And I think that's good because that really relates a lot closer to what we see in reality with SAP testing. That oftentimes soil tests look great in calcium and magnesium but not in the SAP. So there you go. Saturated paste, water soluble nutrient analysis. This is pretty specific to hydroponics, which I'm not going to talk about here or to very sandy soils or to artificial Media is very low organic matter. A situation where you're, you know, really irrigating a lot or fertigating and using, using water to carry all your fertility. It provides an estimate of water soluble nutrients. Despite biology, if you're stuck having to rely on saturated paste as your like primary water sample, then you probably need to make some other bigger steps towards regenerative agriculture. Because we don't want to deal with strictly water soluble compounds. It will always show much lower values or hopefully always show much lower values than a traditional soil test because very little of the mineral in your, in your soil is actually going to be water soluble at any one point. So to water tests you got to know something about your water, the mineral content, right? For most of agriculture, the sort of potability or microbial content, drinking safety, not very important unless you're processing, packing with that water or you know, if you're a leafy greens producer, there's some issues there. But what we want to know from the context of fertility and spray and fertilizer irritation is, is the mineral content. I include saturated paste here because usually you're going to want to send in your corresponding water that you would be using on that field. Obviously because it's a water soluble nutrient test, you want to like use the water that you will be using because those will interact and yeah, that's water holding capacity, man. Like there are tests available, but I don't think you need to worry about it. That's, that's a shovel in a bucket kind of situation. Or you know, look up nrcs, they have all sorts of great tests that you can just perform and field at home. This is a Logan Labs water analysis. This gives me what I need. Bicarbonates. This, this number down here, bicarbonates. That's one of the most critical points that we definitely want to look at on any water test. If it's not, you know, ask the provider beforehand. If they're not giving bicarbonates, then move on, get a different test. Everything in here has its own little detail points, but definitely want that number. I would say if you're a greenhouse grower, if you're a heavy irrigation user, if you're in an arid climate with a lot of evapotranspiration, or you're doing a lot of sprays, whatever you're spraying, you need to know what water is going into those, into those sources. If you're in a, you know, wet climate and only occasionally irrigate, you know, maybe it's optional. The, the pounds per acre inch is, is Pretty great to look at, right. In this case, for every inch of water this grower puts on, they would get 8.45 pounds of magnesium. That's relevant information for the salts especially, you know, potassium and sodium. These are all very low numbers in this, in this random test. But the, yeah, you can kind of count that into your fertilizer budget free from your water. Just another labs, irrigation water test and you know, different orders, different, a few differences in minerals. Just make sure they give you what you need. You know, if you have potentially toxic levels of boron, you need to make sure that boron is counted. I definitely think that 120 parts per million is basically your cutoff limit for bicarbonates. So, so here we are at 291. Great. This test already paid for itself. We got to make some action points here, right. Water changes through the season. As water flows through the ground, over the ground in your pond, whatever your source is, you know, check all the sources, you might be surprised and find that one, you know, one pond is like way better than your well and that's where you should be drawing your spray water from and check a few points in the season when you were at the like high and low flow for whatever water source you're on. And again, microbial content usually unimportant unless you're drawing from a cesspool. Right. Microbial tests. So it's still kind of hard to gauge the exact function of all of these because we're all interested, lot of interest. I am, you are. A lot of new technology, it's actively developing but it's, I believe strongly that this is, you know, where the, the next century of agriculture is, is going to be learning the most. So it's worth doing. The problem is a lot of them are expensive, maybe time sensitive and, and bacterial populations, microbes, they change very fast. Right. Any little bit of weather, moisture, fertility practices, tillage, what kind of plant community. You know, you can't take a microbial test from two years ago and assume it has anything to do with what's going on now. So they're very good at keeping up with, with you know, on the moment changes. I include Haney analysis here just because it hints at biology, but it's not a direct measurement. PLFA in some ways is plfa. Phospholipid fatty acid is measuring kind of these biochemical signatures that various, what we call functional groups of microbes push off. Right. So gram positive bacteria and gram negative bacteria, some examples of which are actinomycetes and RHIZOBIA can be, you know, measured separately than the arbuscular mycorrhizal and saprophagen, phytic fungi and protozoa. So that's, you know, some pretty broad grouping. But that certainly gets you down the road of knowing your fungal to bacterial ratio. You know, with the protozoa you can tell where you are on the kind of whole food chain of predator prey. So pretty cool. Again, it's going to change very quickly. So it's a great way to measure management strategies. You can, you can very quickly make a decision, do a thing and see how it, how it changed your soil like within, you know, days or weeks. So that's, or, you know, you can, you can certainly use this as a sort of annual checkup. You know, in this farm, right off the bat we can see, all right, your total living biomass is pretty poor, pretty low. And that you have basically no arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. That can change a lot depending on when the test is taken and what's growing. And ward labs and other labs that do this provide a lot more information on the kind of, the second and third page. Very excited, but have no experience yet with biomakers. Biomakers is the company B Crop is kind of their, their test name, by far the most comprehensive biological view you can get right now, geared towards agriculture. Up to 7.7 million species in their database of actual specific name species that they can run through. And you know, they're, they're definitely looking at pathogens to be able to tell you, you know, here's a potential problem spot for you. But most important to me that I care about is they're, they're looking at everything and all the beneficials and specifically on the functional groups. So one of the things you would get with this test is saying, all right, your iron assimilating microbes are high in balance, whereas, you know, your chlorine transport are very low, your nitrogen fixers are low. So that can actually give you some, some unique data. When you, when you know your soil content and you know the kinds of microbes you have access to. And I think this test will encourage more specificity and microbial inoculation. Then, then you can, you can start to make some actual assessments. Again, this is very new, it's 200 bucks a pop. But there's, there's no way to, to get the data until we start taking this test. It's available, it's out there. I've talked with these folks several times, excited to see what happens. Other plant material tests Specifically with the, with the bionutrient meter. Right. We're going to talk a little more about. I'm not going to get much into forage analysis or fruit tests. If you grow forage then you should absolutely take forage tests. They're still the most appropriate thing for establishing that, you know, digestibility and fat content and all those other good numbers you get there. If you're a fruit grower, then yeah, there's firmness and acidity and you know, color tests. That's so specific. I can't, I can't deal with it here. But you know, in a food nutritional analysis that's, that's for the most part like the USDA labels that you'll see on packaged food and would not make sense for most farmers and tends to be very expensive. So what I will say is that, you know, petiole tests and tissue tests we've, we've pretty well disregarded just don't see a lot of correlation with plant health, fertility quality. It's. If you want that kind of information, zap analysis is the place to get it and pulls in again the end result of a lot of other kinds of testing. I just pulled some slides from, or some screenshots from the Bionutrient Food Association. I know a lot of us were interested in seeing some of those yesterday. I think it's super fun. I'll go to the next slide. They have what's called their interactive data explorer dashboard which has, it's all completely interactive. You know, hover over a point and you can learn more data about that, about that crop. You know, if I wanted to see the more information, a little bit on this Napoli carrot that had an eight point whatever for brix point can, can find out when that was grown and you know which point on the map can look at the antioxidants of all the different beet samples. Lots of different graphing methods available. Can definitely see that this wants to be filled out.

So everything.

Everything Dan was saying yesterday about participating in this non profit open source data set that gets built and used by anyone by funding it and you also get data. Right. So you're just paying for a test for yourself. What I love about it is measuring things like antioxidants and polyphenols, something beyond the same minerals that all these other tests are talking about, you know, because this is where ultimately we're dealing with human health is with some of those higher order compounds. But um, so, so keep an eye on it. Once you, once you have your data entered, you can, you can see how you stack up, right? You can see of this range of antioxidants found in beets. You know, where are you? Maybe, maybe it's a major bragging point and you can market your, your produce with it. Maybe it's a strong wake up call that you need to do something a little better. Okay. Well, I guess I, I went through those slides rather quickly. That's awesome. I was expecting to take longer, but I think what I will do now is bring on my friend farmer that I've been working with for a few years, Steve Cockroft in Colorado, who has been using a materials and SAP analysis. Basically he's, he's going to take it away and talk about some of his experiences here.

Absolutely. Wow, it's great to be here, Nathan. Great presentation. Wow. You did a good job. You should do more of that. I loved what you said about observation. You know, that's, that is a powerful tool. I totally agree with that. And whether you're looking at soil or plants, it is a powerful tool. And I'm excited about jumping into some water tests too this, this year. That's, that's probably our next step in, in our journey moving forward. But you know, SAP testing has been just a great tool for us. I'm really excited to share about it, a little background about our farm and how SAP has benefited us. Our farm owns and we operate 20 acres vegetable farm, northern Colorado just outside of Greeley. We grow a wide variety of crops on our farm, but most of our SAP testing experience has been with heirloom tomatoes in high tonal production. I think it was 2018 when we first connected with AEA and started using their fertilizers, which by the way make up a large part of our farming inputs at this point, especially with adjusting nutrients in our tomato program. And at the time I realized that they did have a SAP testing program, but didn't start using SAP as a management tool until the following year. So honestly, you know, back then I was really struggling with our tomato program and was open to anything that would help us do a better job. So if my memory's right, I think it was 2019, Nathan and I partnered up, we began SAP testing and really with the hopes of dialing in some better results. So 2019, we saw some, some good improvement from our 2018 crop, but we didn't know how much better that improvement was because we weren't keeping track of production. Okay. It wasn't, wasn't doing my measurement properly. Right, Nathan?

That's right.

So you know, every year has been a real step forward for us as I begin to understand better how to feed the plants and when to make adjustments. But in both, you know, because of that lack of tracking in 19, in both 2020 and 21, in order to, you know, measure our progress better and keep track of that production, we weighed every tomato. So 21 was a big step forward, had some great, measurable results. But in 2021, we had absolutely the best tomato crop we've ever had and experienced a 21% increase in production. Okay. So to kind of bring this home, translate that increase into a dollar amount. Okay. What that meant for us is that we made 10,000 more dollars than we had the previous previous year. Same amount of plants. Same kind of plants. Okay. That's. That's the kind of increase we had in that particular high tunnel of that particular crop. Let me just. I guess to kind of wrap up my thoughts about SAP, you know, what it's done for us. The real value of SAP, of SAP testing or SAP analysis for me was in the education that I received by using it. In other words, it's taken a lot of the guesswork out of my observation, and I feel like I've become much better at just looking at the plants and understanding what they need because of SAP. Let me. Let me say it this way. I really believe SAP testing has helped me to have a more accurate observation instead of just guessing about what I'm seeing.

Yeah.

I think when I started working with you, I mean, you were. You were always really wanting to do everything right. Right. And you were. Some of your rates were. Were all over the place. And because of, I mean, trying to. To really push. And it's been. It's been really fantastic to. Yeah. To see your. Your level of expertise. And, you know, it's. It's not like we're necessarily having to pour over every detail because after a couple of seasons. Yeah, you're. You're very much not only knowing how to read this app yourself and make adjustments, but also to. To see it right in the plan. And I think that's. That's really powerful stuff. And I know that, you know, I know that we're going to get a lot of questions about, you know, how to use SAP analysis at different scales because we have an audience from all over the place and all kinds of growers here. You know, Steve has some other acreage he's growing pastured chickens. He's got some field crops for sure, but, you know, this tomato and some small veg high Tunnels is really super important part of your operation and you know what? Five, five houses?

Yeah, five high tunnels. We've done a little bit of experimenting with trellis cucumbers. Very excited about continuing that trial and being a little more specific about that this, this, this coming season. But most of our, to date, most of our trial, I guess has been in, in the high tunnel tomato production.

Right. And that's, you know, that's my, my recommendation for anybody growing, you know, diverse vegetables is pick your most profitable or important crop, you know, right off the bat. Unless it's, you know, either pick your most problematic or your most important and undoubtedly you can learn things about your other crops in the same, you know, in the same vein as different as different crops can be from a, from a SAP analysis perspective. Well, all right, Steve, stay on with me. But yeah, really pleased that I ran through these slides in a hurry and have more time for Q and A.

So.

Holler in. I can't see that chat. So Sarah.

That's okay, Nathan. I can feed you guys the bunches and bunches of questions that we have for you. So I'll start with, and thank you both for, for the information. Steve, I'll mention I didn't realize you were right here in our backyard. I'm sitting in Greeley, Colorado right now, so it's good to know your neighbor.

Yeah.

We'll have to come visit, right?

Yeah, exactly. I just told the team how, how often do you need to do a tissue, A tissue or soil test I tested last year. Isn't that enough?

Soil test? Hands down, yes, unless you've put on, you know, 12 tons of manure and you know, unless you're making really major changes. Yeah, I wouldn't, I rarely advocate for a soil test more than every couple of years, a tissue test. I, I again, I hope they're meaning SAP because I would really just like to see people migrate away from tissue into SAP. You know, Steve, you were taken sometimes every, every couple of weeks, but for the most part just three or four times a year.

You know, early on in 19 and 20. 2020, we were sapping every two, three weeks, if my memory is right. And then last year I was about once a month on the tomatoes. But I, I probably am going to go back to a closer margin just so that I can fine tune what I'm seeing and what I'm understanding about how to, how to adjust some of those micronutrients.

Exactly. Yeah. And, and so marry it to the crop. Right. It's going to make sense to do that on a high tunnel tomato where you're picking, pick and picking and it changes changes a, you know, a much longer season outdoor crop it. If you're only going to have two opportunities to do anything about it, then take two SAP samples. Right. You know, I really like to say that this is an active test. You can use it for research and just like kind of planning for next year. But if you have an opportunity, you're about to go fertilize it with something. Well, you want to know why and with what.

Perfect. And going, going to your preference to do SAP analysis. We're going to dive into a bunch of SAP analysis questions.

Sure.

So what prerequisites are there for selecting a lab that does SAP testing? Any advice?

Yeah, certainly, I mean your, your location is certainly going to play into it. And the, the crop type again, some, some. There's few differences there, but citrus, grapes and any kind of hemp or cannabis are going to have some specific legalities there. State and national shipping. But you know, beyond that, there's. My preference is, is largely due to the fact that I've seen so many Nova samples, Nova Crop Control. I know their accuracy level. I've, I've, you know, if you were just starting fresh, then, then I would say go with what makes. Makes sense to you. You know, if you have a consultant, they may have a strong preference. Shipping costs can certainly be a thing. Most of the Nova crop you can ship directly and there are cheapish ways to do that, or you can send them to Ohio and they go out in, in unison with everybody else. But those are, I would say the big ones. NOVA kind of invented it. Right. And they have, they have the longest history. So there's a lot to be said for that.

Okay, will AEA consultants work with the other labs mentioned or is it just Nova Crop?

Like I said, all these kinds of data sets and so many others. I, I take what people have. If we're working on, if we're working on, on an active project and you've got some data, then let's use it. And if it's inadequate for whatever we need to know, we'll move on.

Great. We said that in the intro. You work with data. Are there USA labs doing SAP tests and if so, can you name some of them?

Yeah, both apical and new age that I mentioned and I forget, I'm sorry. There is a lab in like British Columbia that I think takes, takes US samples. There are a few labs that say they're doing SAP tests that if you look at I don't think are really a similar methodology. So make sure they're doing that new leaf, old leaf, and that they're having you ship fresh leaves. And I'll make at this point the distinction that I kind of didn't go into in my talk about all the meters. Right. Brix meters and, and handheld meters for nitrates and etc. Yes, those are measuring things that come out of the SAP, but it is not a SAP test. A BRICS test is its own thing. And everything that's in the bricks, that's one number, the bricks. The SAP test is the 26 parameters that are pulled out of that individually. Perfect.

The field tracking on saps over time is that AE formatting or NOVA Labs gives you that.

You can do that through nova. They have a program called Bemesting B E M E S T I N G. It's part of, you know, you'll have access if you take NOVA samples. So you can kind of go in there and do it yourself. But yes, the other, the other formatting, that's kind of a consultant, tools.

Great. Okay, I think. Let's see. I found one more for SAP. Have you seen SAP analysis as an indicator for heavy metal accumulation in produce?

Okay, so the only. I mean, depending on what you call a heavy metal, right. There's manganese, which is sometimes considered a toxin, or copper, zinc, these things and, you know, are considered environmental toxins. Sometimes cobalt and aluminum and molybdenum are all on there. So, yes, absolutely. Among those materials that are listed, you can, you can make some calls. Those are also considered essential plant nutrients, which is why they're on there. As far as lead and, you know, cadmium. No, no, no labs that I know of are testing for that. There are specialty labs. And for the most part, if you get into toxin testing, as far as I know, you're looking at paying by the item. You know, if you want a glyphosate test or a lead test, it's like often 80 bucks a pop and I can rack up quick. But if you have a known polluted soil or, or a crop that you're worried about it, that's, that's certainly a thing to do once and find out.

Okay, I lied about stopping with SAP, but I'm going to do two more and then we're going to do the other stuff because I want to get Steve involved here too, so quickly. We have a SAP testing lab in Australia that uses spectrum analysis from memory with a quicker turnaround than NOVA Crop. But how do you compare the technology, accuracy and usability. Do you know anything about that?

Not sure what memory means there, but spectral analysis should be the way all SAP labs are testing the materials. I think the distinction is how they, what they call SAP, what they're extracting and how they're doing that. And I'm as in the dark about that as anyone else. That's, you know, proprietary lab stuff. If you have a lab in Australia, man, use it. Find the right ways to use that data. Hands down, it might take some experimentation and figuring out what they mean by 70 parts per million versus what somebody else means by 70 parts per million. But, yeah, use that resource and yeah, hopefully that covers that.

Yeah. And the last one here, then I think you touched on this when you talked about the extract. But Apical says they do extract analysis, not SAP. Can you kind of clarify what the difference is? Or is there a difference?

I, I do. I wish I knew.

To tbd. Okay, that's one of those questions. If anyone in the audience knows the difference between extract analysis, that is what apical calls it, and SAP. Okay, let's scroll back up here in our list of questions and look at something a little different. So Danielle asks if I have chlorine water in a tank and I leave the tank open for 24 hours. Well, please, chlorine evaporate and make the water. Okay, for. Am I in the right for foliar applications? Excuse me.

Yes. Let's see. To some degree is it chloramines which will actively evaporate, whereas chloride, I believe will, will physically stay in the water. So there will be a, A, a lessening of the toxic effect. But I don't think that all of the actual element of chloride will leave. But that can be okay because chloride is again, an actual plant and bodily nutrient. You know, I will say that my parents house their community, just nukes their water. It burns my skin. Right. With, with chlorine. If you have a community that's treating their water like that, then yeah, I would do something about it. But, you know, practical experience says that we have used inoculants and for fertilizers and, you know, just hose watering. You know, how many millions of people are watering their gardens with their hose? And their plants are. Hey, okay, right. So, so it's, it's a thing to look at if you, if you really have high levels. But yes, there is some off gassing effect. You could, you could leave it in an open tank. Lots of surface is the goal. Or you can bubble air through it. That can help.

Okay. And just to attach onto that one. Irwin asks, what's the chlorine PPM limit in water use? Water to use for biology application.

Do you know that? Let's put that one in the chat and we'll get back to you.

Great. Okay. And Steve, are you growing your tomatoes in the same soil year after year?

I have not been. This is the first year we're actually going to, going to try that back to back tomato production. In the past, I've been, I guess, hesitant or scared to, to do that and always rotate it out. So all those particular trials were in a new house in rotation.

Okay, and how do you apply copper sulfate as foliar on tomato to prevent cracking, not as a fungicide without hurting biology. Let's say an example. How many grams of copper sulfate per gallon of water and how much fulvic acid to chelated?

That's probably a question for Nathan as far as those kind of specifics.

So.

That'S not something that I just like do every day and have off the top of my head. That's certainly the kind of thing that, you know, a little, little Googling and calculator work can, can figure out the, you know, I can say that a rebound copper, which is, is a sulfate form and is, but you know, is also chelated as you would be talking about with the folvic acid there. You know, we typically use a 3% copper in that rebound at anywhere from a pint to, to a quart per acre per week on a foliar program. And you know, the cool thing there is you're, you're not just getting fruit cracking resistance, you're also providing all the other benefits of copper in the plant because it's being absorbed into the plant so often. I don't have to like particularly think about copper in, in just that way. Unless I've seen in the SAP test that we've got very low copper and got fruit cracking. And then I might, you know, I might go up to a higher rate once or twice, get it there and then pull way back.

Great. And I'll just throw in here too for some of these questions. You know, Nathan, you're doing a great job, but feel free to follow up with you guys directly too. If it's one of those things where Nathan needs to get a calculator out, maybe he can do that offline too. Okay, so how can someone. Here's a good one. How can someone learn to interpret, interpret soil samples similarly to Nathan? How'd you learn, Nathan?

Well, the thing I took out of the Front of this presentation was about how I just love tests because, like, in school I was, you know, my teachers thought I needed severe punishment for my wandering eyes and drumming and like, I wasn't paying any attention and failure to turn in homework or show up on time or any of those things. But then I would take the test, and that was always my saving grace. Right. I don't know. I just like tests.

So criteria is you must be a test geek. You like. Got it. Steve, you've been working with, I think, Nathan, you said a few years. So what kind of takeaways have you taken away from that experience? Working together and learning some of the stuff alongside of it. Excuse me.

Well, I think if you were to ask me how that changes how I grow, for example, it's helped me to understand that the timing learned is the timing of inputs, whether that's a foliar application or fertigation on a specific, you know, on our tomatoes, for example. But, you know, the education part of it, the observation part of it, you know, early on I would. I would see a yellow top tomato, for example, and I. And I'm thinking we need nitrogen, and it was actually an iron deficiency. These kind of things that. That we learned by observation. And I think the most powerful part of that was catching things, you know, before you have a real issue. And it takes a major adjustment to correct. You know, that's. That's been the beautiful thing about knowing when to apply and knowing how critical is to apply it at a right time. So as soon as you start seeing a little bit of an issue, you can make an adjustment. Sapatalysis confirms or helps you to adjust further, and you keep going without having this roller coaster dip performance, whether in your plant health or your production.

Great. You guys have done an excellent job of covering all these questions. We have just another couple minutes here. Daniel wants to know, could you elaborate on beating the timeline it takes for SAP analysis? That is, from the time you gather tissue, to waiting for the results, to being able to apply the product. If you add a weather event, this could be several weeks.

Yeah, that's true. And that's. That's a common issue. I know Steve's gone through that. You know, we've had troubles connecting sometimes just to go over it, even in addition to all those problems.

Well, I can just say that I don't wait. Okay, that's. That's part of the education that I've learned. You know, adjusting for potassium, say, for example, or some kind of. I have kind of a feel for it after these several years. And so I don't personally wait. I'll make a, not a major adjustment, Bob. I'll make adjustment in the direction I think we need to go anymore. Nine times out of ten I've guessed correctly, the SAP analysis comes back, we do a really solid adjustment based on that test and move forward.

Another really cool thing with clients where we have multi year data sets is I'm just going through if things are remaining vaguely the same, similar plants, varieties, fields and just move the expected application forward a couple of weeks. All right, here's what happened last week with XYZ program up front. Let's take this, this SAP adjustment change and move it forward a week or two and hopefully we're on the front end of it. And then we're using that SAP to really check our progress or our, you know, our results rather than freaking out and making changes. But as you're starting the process, one really nice thing is that SAP is already looking ahead two weeks because SAP is dealing with materials flowing through the building new tissue. You're seeing those results for tissue that's going to be forming over the next days and weeks. So that time lost in transport is already somewhat accounted for. It's at least better than taking a tissue test which is exclusively looking at already, you know, built and failed or succeeded tissue.

And.

Yeah, I mean it can certainly, it can certainly help to, to communicate with, with your team, whether that be consultants or other, other folks on the ground to communicate with your shipper, with FedEx or UPS, make sure that you've chosen the right option to not have delays in shipping, etc. Etc.

And.

You know, it's, it's, it's hard to know what you're going to need until you've gotten that test. And I don't want to sell anybody like a whole litany of products that, that they may just leave sitting in the shed. So that's, that's just a difficulty of the process to some degree. Yeah.

But those are great tips for managing it and this was great. I think we're out of time, but so much information packed into this session. Guys, thank you so much for sharing your information with us.

It was a real hoot.

Great to be here.

Thanks y'.

All.