Podcast Extra: Ask Me Anything with John Kempf - June 4, 2026

Hi friends, welcome to our Ask Me Anything session. I have a lot of fun with these, and I know a lot of people enjoy sending questions in. So if you are a subscriber to the newsletter, one of the things that we've offered— if you're a subscriber to the newsletter, then those subscribers get early notification of the Ask Me Anything, and they can submit questions in advance. So we have a number of those questions that have been submitted in advance. I'm going to start our discussion with those. And feel free to submit any questions here in the chat as well, and I will get to those as best as I am able. And if you want to pre-submit questions in the future, just subscribe to our newsletter and send those in to us, and I'll be happy to respond to you. All right. Without anything further, we're just going to jump right in and see what all great questions are you've been able to come up with so far. So the first question here is from Jana. Could you please go deeper on supporting vegetable crops during the hot summer period when leaf temperatures push plants from photosynthesis into photorespiration? In our sap analysis, all nitrogen fractions are above optimum, especially ammonium nitrogen and total nitrogen. Magnesium, sulfur, molybdenum, and boron are all at optimal or slightly above optimal levels. What would be the good strategy for this few month of high temperatures? All right, so the question that Jana is asking, if you're not familiar with the context here, what happens when you have high temperatures? And if I recall correctly, for C3 photosynthetic pathway plants, when leaf temperature, this is an important distinction, I'm talking here about leaf temperature, not air temperature. But when leaf temperature gets warmer than 70°F, plants switch from photosynthesis dominant to photorespiration dominant. In other words, they are consuming energy faster than they are generating energy. And in that process, there's also some water metabolism aspects that are interesting as well. But from an energy perspective, what happens here is that they, because they're consuming energy faster than they are generating it through the photosynthesis process, they will deplete— they will become depleted of available sugars to use as an energy source, and they begin extracting energy from proteins and degrading proteins. And so the result of that protein degradation is— or what we would call proteolysis process— is plants that have high levels of ammonium. Because ammonium is the end metabolite of this protein degradation process where the plants are essentially— one way to think about it is you could say they're essentially catabolizing themselves and using proteins as a source of energy instead of sugars. And that results in elevated levels of ammonium within the plant sap, which results in all kinds of disease and insect susceptibility, but particularly There's a handful of insects that— well, I shouldn't even kind of group them with insects, but they're obviously not. Spider mites show up in this profile very strongly if you have high temperature conditions. So basically any disease or any insect that is commonly associated with hot temperatures or shows up in high temperatures, almost always that is associated with high ammonium levels. So What they really need is not the high temperatures, they need the high ammonium levels that are associated with those high temperatures in plants. And the— so I mentioned leaf temperature of 70 degrees for C3 plants. For C4 photosynthetic pathway plants, which is our warm season grasses, corn, sorghum, sudangrass, and so forth, if I recall correctly, the threshold there is a leaf temperature of 86 degrees Fahrenheit. And I pointed out the distinction between leaf temperature and air temperature because the healthier a plant becomes, the higher the wax and oil lipid layer on the leaf surface, the more efficient plants are at cooling themselves because that wax and oil layer does a couple of things. One is it's better at reflecting solar radiation And so there's actually less heat absorption from the atmosphere and from solar radiation. So that's, that's one aspect. But the other aspect is waxes have these interesting characteristics in that they are efficient conductors and reflectors at the same time. So it also not only is it a good reflector of heat and energy, but also they are good at conducting, which means they are good at cooling. They're good at helping the plant to cool down. So we have, we have some data, some field data that various growers, particularly tree fruit growers and vineyard, vineyards have, have actually measured this over time where blocks that were on an AEA protocol for a several-year period, the leaf canopy could easily be on a very hot summer day, temperatures in the 90s or even the low hundreds. The leaf canopy can be 8 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit lower than a section or a different block that has been on a different nutritional program. So that's quite substantial from a perspective of additional energy generation and photosynthesis versus photorespiration dominant. So that's, that's the context in which Jana is asking this question. And of course, she, she focuses on magnesium, sulfur, molybdenum, and boron because those are the nutrients that are contained in PhotoMag that are needed for optimum protein synthesis to convert the various forms of nitrogen into complete proteins. So, Jana, to, to answer your question, you say that all nitrogen fractions are above optimum, especially ammonium nitrogen and total nitrogen. So there are two pathways to consider here. The one pathway is how can we give— make sure that the plant has the tools and the ability, the nutrients that it needs to convert ammonium to complete proteins. So that's one consideration. And the other consideration is to ask the question, do we perhaps have excessive levels of ammonium and— or excuse me, excess levels of total nitrogen? And would it be easier for the plant to metabolize ammonium if our total nitrogen levels were lower? So when you suggest that total nitrogen levels are above optimum, that's one of the places that I would look is to say, how can we reduce our total nitrogen levels? Do we have overapplication? Is the soil mineralizing too much? Some of the things that we can do, if applied in slightly larger doses, humicarb can be very effective at tying it up. So you mentioned vegetable crops, so you could look at putting on an irrigation application of, of humicarb to perhaps slow down the absorption a little bit. Um, something else that can be effective is elevating magnesium even slightly more, and that will actually lower the absorption of nitrogen into the crop. You mentioned that you were already slightly, slightly above optimal levels, so I don't know exactly what that means, but you might consider increasing magnesium even more using Photomag or magnesium sulfate. Photomag would be a good source here. So that would be the one suggestion, is to, to moderate total nitrogen absorption and make sure that we don't have excesses. And then the second aspect, um, is a nutrient that we don't speak a lot about because there, there's a very long list of cautions around using it here in North America, uh, and that is nickel. So nickel is an essential enzyme cofactor for enabling the plant to convert ammonia. This because this, this photorespiration process where plants are catabolizing proteins and they get degraded to ammonium the plant has the capacity to convert that ammonium back into complete proteins. And to do that, one of the critical enzyme cofactors to facilitate that is nickel. Now, the quantity of nickel required is tiny. We're talking 3 to 5 grams per acre for most crops and a maximum of 10 grams per acre for some crops that have a high nickel requirement. Pecans are an outlier. They have an extremely high nickel requirement. And they're the only— I think one of the only crops that is recognized as actually having nickel deficiencies or having the capacity for nickel deficiencies. And so there are a number of nickel products available in the marketplace that are labeled for pecans specifically. So the quantities of nickel required are tiny, and a good proportion of agricultural soils already have nickel. So it very seldom shows up as being something that is worthwhile addressing or needs addressing. But there's been— if you've done everything else and you still have high ammonium levels, I would take a look at addressing nickel in very tiny dosages. And my experience has been that that will drop ammonium levels very rapidly. Now, there is one other, one other aspect, one other piece that these plants need as well in order to convert ammonium into complete proteins., and that is they need sugar. They need sugar energy. They need some level of energy coming from sugars. So, one of the tools that we have that I've observed being used very, very successfully in when plants are very stressed, very drought stressed or heat stressed is actually putting on foliar applications of Rejuvenate. And you can also use sugar or other materials, but Rejuvenate is very effective because it doesn't just contain carbohydrates. It also contains enzymes and other very high-energy compounds that contribute lots of energy to a plant. And so it is actually— these plants need a source of energy as well as nickel, as well as these other elements that you're already working on, and that will facilitate the conversion of ammonium back into complete proteins. So that's the, that's the comprehensive answer. To your question, and it's a great question. If you're working on it in this way with the approach that you're taking, what is— it's fascinating to observe how much more productive plants can be in heat-stressed environments than we commonly give them credit for if we just support them with nutrition and we enable them to lower leaf canopy temperature. All right, next question here is from Dexter. I keep hearing you advising to not front-load high amounts of nitrogen at the start of the season, but I'm struggling to find a different cost-effective approach for organic production. Well, Dexter, we can partially pause this question right here with this comment right here. When I advise not front-loading high amounts of nitrogen in the season, I am specifically referring to ionic nitrogen, which is specifically nitrate or ammonium. Those are the two that we need to be cautious about. If you are using amino acid nitrogen or nitrogen from compost or liquid fish or proteins, whatever, whatever, or again, I'll just broadly call them organic forms of nitrogen instead of mineral forms of nitrogen. Then those have a longer release period than the ionic forms of nitrogen do. And so you don't have the same degree of negative effects on soil biology and on plant health and our overall performance with those gradual release materials as you do with front-loading high amounts of soluble nitrogen. Continuing with your question or comment, I use NatureSafe 13-0-0 pellets for the vast majority of the season's nitrogen budget, with humic carbon, magnesium, sulfur, molybdenum, boron, but it has to go down at the start of the season to be incorporated during tillage. That's fine, that's not a problem. I use some hot soil hydrolysate and MacroPak, but both are expensive per pound of N, and I don't always want the potassium from the MacroPak. I can usually only afford about 5 to 6 pounds of N per acre in these soluble forms. I foliar feed early in the season but do not have the equipment to be able to increase N efficiency by foliar feeding the solubles. In the latter part of the season. Do you have any thoughts on improving my strategy on a budget? So, Dexter, uh, you, you haven't described what crops you're growing, but based on the context, the way you're framing the question, I'm assuming it is, um, organic grain crops, row crops. And I'm actually completely in favor of— if you're using the 13-0-0, it's completely appropriate to front load all of it. Because you will have a gradual release, extended release during the growing season. So the fact that you're doing that, and particularly when you're combining it with magnesium sulfate, molybdenum, and boron, that will have the effect of holding that stable for the entire duration of the season. So I'm not opposed to— you won't get the yield responses and the Yeah, you won't get the same degree of yield responses that other growers who are able to use foliar, particularly foliar urea, are able to get. But it's, it's not inappropriate at all to front-load large amounts of organic N if you need it. But also the other thing to consider, you titled this question Organic Nitrogen Strategy on a Budget. I mean, the reality is you should think about getting nitrogen from legumes in your rotation. Rather than from the 13-0-0. And again, I don't know what your rotation is or what that cropping context looks like, but legumes— I'm of the persuasion that legumes are not a— the legumes are a pioneering species in a rotation, and that as they, they generate nitrogen to facilitate more rapid development of other crops that eventually will supersede those legumes. But I would definitely encourage the consideration of legumes and cover crops to contribute more of your nitrogen component, because that's going to be a lot less expensive than buying 13-0-0. Question from John Kempf: I'm growing wine grapes in central Kentucky where the calcium levels in the soil are high. Calcium as part of the base saturation is 87%. Magnesium is about 4%. Ouch. Potassium about 1%. Ouch. I suspect my magnesium uptake issues in the vines As shown in sap analysis, is due to the high calcium. I'm applying PhotoMag but still not achieving optimal levels of magnesium and sap results and not advancing the plants up the plant health pyramid. Any help in balancing magnesium would be appreciated. John Kempf, the one missing piece of information that's quite critical to making a good recommendation here is understanding, uh, not just what these elements are in ratio to each other, but also what the what the absolute values are or what the CEC is. Because if you have sandy soil versus clay soil, then the recommendation is quite different here. Definitely calcium at 87% and magnesium at 4% and potassium at 1% is problematic, whether it's sand or clay. And possible solutions, depending on what the CEC levels are and whether it's sandy or clay soils, one possible solution would be spoon-fed, spoon-feeding K-Mag or Solpamag, making annual applications before the, before you put the crop in the ground. Or actually, no, we were talking about wine grapes here, so this could be a fall application and a spring application. So that might be a good fit depending on— you haven't mentioned soil pH, but your total base saturation only adds up to about 93%.. So you have a slight amount of acidity. Again, depending on CEC, depending on pH, dolomite lime might be a possible fit to increase your magnesium levels. Other possible fits— and we're talking here about addressing— we need to build magnesium and potassium levels. Greensand is a mined rock powder that has some potassium. But I'm guessing unless you have really sandy soil, your soil will probably begin releasing potassium over time. What's the name of the rock powder? Basalt. You have to be really cautious about basalt applications because you can trigger accelerated rock weathering and very rapid carbon sequestration, which can create a nitrogen deficiency. I've seen this on a number of occasions. But basalt, if you can source it inexpensively, actually can contribute magnesium and potassium relatively inexpensively. So those would be the possible options. Which of those is the right fit for you depends a little bit on your soil pH and total exchange capacity and the absolute levels of these various nutrients that you're talking about. I think the one recommendation that you probably cannot go wrong with is K-Mag or Sol-Po-Mag application. The other thing that you can do in season Because this is now obviously for this, this summer, this growing season. Photomag, the magnesium in Photomag is very bioavailable, but if you need to increase magnesium in this growing season substantially, just go with straight applications of magnesium sulfate and consider that as well as a foliar application. There's a question here from Francisco. I'd like to ask about strategies to help manage fire blight in pear orchards. So fire blight is fascinating. Um, here several years ago, I spent quite a few hours researching fire blight, and I've got a document, probably a 40-page document of notes and details of information that I pulled together from a lot of different references and citations. I found some really fascinating stuff, like this paper that was published back in I want to say 1962 or somewhere in the early '60s. About the third or fourth sentence to the introduction to this peer-reviewed article said, "We know that fire blight cannot establish itself and cannot express as a disease when the sucrose content of the sap is above 22% or 26%." Forget what the number was exactly. And then it just passed that right on by and went on to talk about all of the other, uh, the need to develop other further remedies. It's like, wait, what? What did you just say? Like, we know fire blight cannot establish when you have greater than 22% sucrose. Like, you want to talk about a connection between brix content and disease resistance? Here is one in the literature. 60 years ago. So, uh, that was one that really caught my attention, and there were, there were dozens of other citations. But, um, the short version is, from that research, we put together a fire blight protocol. Um, our team has access to it. I no longer have it right off top of my head. Uh, with the development of Pinion now in the last 2 years I would like to test pinion on fire blight as a preventative tool. But we've been able to develop a nutritional approach that includes microbial inoculant foliars. It includes some specific nutritional foliars, particularly SeaStem and SeaCrop and some other things. I forget what the total package and combination is, some, some micro pack and macro pack as well, if I recall correctly. And, you know, it's very challenging to test for fire blight resistance because some years you have it present in certain regions and not in others. So we've run a number of fire blight trials with third-party researchers that have been somewhat inconclusive because pressure wasn't present in the years that we were running the trial and not in a significant way. But from a practical experience perspective, we have a number of growers who have used the fire blight treatment protocol very successfully on fire blight pressure where it halted the progression of the disease. Once it was already present, we put on a couple of foliar applications and it stops. So I would suggest connecting with our team to get that exact protocol of what we had put together and what was found to be effective there. Question here from Steve. On previous podcasts, John Kempf has stated that there are specific times that are good and times that are bad to supplement nutrients to the plants. Could you please go through those specific times that are good or bad for each nutrient, especially for corn and small grains grown for forage and grain? At what levels would you be supplementing? This is a longer, a bigger question than I can answer right now, but I did go into this, uh, in some detail. There is a webinar on YouTube, um, it's a couple years old at this point, where I go into some pretty thorough detail on the nutrients that are needed at different stages of plant development that I refer to as critical points of influence. So I'm guessing Phil will probably drop a link to that webinar in the comments here in the chat section here, but I did go into some detail. It's not, and to reframe your question a little bit, it's not that there is particularly a bad time to apply nutrients. It is simply that at specific stages of plant development, a nutrient application has a disproportionate impact on yield. And at other stages, a nutrient application will have a disproportionate impact on resistance mechanisms, disease resistance, insect resistance, and so forth. So, and those stages do, are determined by the plant's reproductive versus vegetative growth cycle and where it is in the cycle as it is moving back and forth and fluctuating between reproductive dominance and vegetative dominance. So I go into some detail on that topic in that webinar, and I would refer you to that. Question here from John Kempf. I have a question regarding nutrient uptake and straw mulched garlic. For the past several years, I've been sap testing our garlic crop and there are nutrient deficiencies across the board. I have done several foliar sprays targeting deficiencies, but the garlic seems to use them faster than I can get them to reapply. My main question is how to remedy the slow biological activity in spring soil when a crop is growing very vigorously. I'm on a clay loam with adequate rainfall. I'm thinking of making ridges in the fall and not mulching or possibly seeding oats and peas just prior to planting to leave a little residue to cover the soil over the winter. All right, John Kempf, this is a good question. And there's, there's a cultural management part of the answer, and there's a nutrition management part of the answer. So on the cultural management side, Essentially, you want to facilitate warming the soil up in the spring, which is already the direction that you are thinking of by making ridges and leaving just a little bit of residue. So here where we are in northeastern Ohio, we used to— on the farm that I grew up on, we used to have the practice of planting oats in the fall, or really in late summer. And growing them really tall, really thick, and having a mulch that would winter kill for them for the following spring and planting into that. So we would plant, uh, 4 bushels per acre of oat seed in, I want to say, early August, late July, early August. And by mid-October, for our average first freeze hard enough to kill it, uh, mid to late October, we would be 3.5 to 4 feet tall of a thick, lush stand. And what was interesting is once you started having good biological activity, it would be surprising even how much of that mulch would disappear by the following spring. So you might be looking for a little bit less residue than that, but the other thing to consider is if you have less residue, then you're going to get some weed emergence in the spring as well. So that's, that's a challenge to consider. And of course, the other practice that we experimented with on the farm that I grew up on. We did this for— we grew about an acre, an acre and a half of garlic for a number of years, and we actually planted it into plastic mulch, biodegradable plastic mulch. And that also worked very well to warm the soil up in the spring to get more biological activity. So that's on the cultural management side. Now, on the nutrition management side, We got substantial benefits from fertilizing our garlic well in the fall, um, with whatever was required. It might be gypsum applications, potassium sulfate applications, um, compost applications. We put down substantial amounts of compost in the row when we were making our raised beds, and that— the garlic responded extremely strongly to that the following spring. Now, there was something I wanted to experiment with, removing the— and see if I could get— could remove the burnt tips on the garlic leaves, because all the garlic that I almost have ever seen growing has these brown tips on the leaves. So what is that exactly? I studied that question, and some colleagues that I exchanged information with in Australia also contributed to this effort.— the garlic tips die back because of extremely high concentrations of ureides, specific urea metabolites. And the requirement to convert those is molybdenum, very high doses of molybdenum. Garlic has a substantially higher molybdenum requirement than many other crops. And so we were putting on 2 to 3x the molybdenum applications that were common for other crops, and those burnt tips disappeared. We had garlic that had healthy leaves all the way out to the tip, and you can imagine the proportional growth response and quality response that we got from that was substantial and was very worthwhile. So, um, that's, that's kind of the longer answer, but I think, um, garlic also has a very strong root system It roots very well, and putting on at seeding or in the, in spring right at emergence, putting on microbial inoculants and accelerants like Rejuvenate. Rejuvenate performs very, very well in this, in this setting. If you have cool soil in the spring, putting on a Rejuvenate application will not just, it'll speed up biology substantially. And we have, I've seen some evidence of Rejuvenate applications actually warming the soil up in the spring, whereas fall applied, and where it was applied in the treated versus untreated, the soil thawed more rapidly in the spring, snow melted more rapidly, and that there was just much greater biological activity. So that's something for you to consider as well. It's a question from Rico. What are your top 5 AEA practices and products to build a thriving, high-producing sweet cherry orchard? What works in one orchard or in one setting does not work in another from a specific nutrition management perspective. So I'm hesitant to even point out and say that it is this practice or that product because years ago when we first really gained some significant traction in developing resolution for bacterial Ah, come on, I want to say bacterial spec, but it's not bacterial spec. Bacterial canker on cherries. Growers would ask us the question, well, what, what did you do? What did you do to solve bacterial canker? Because we actually, we reversed bacterial canker. There were trees or entire blocks that were scheduled for the dozer. They were ready to be pushed out, and in 18 months, those trees went not to the top-performing block but to a middle-of-the-range performing block. And all physical evidence of bacterial— you could not find canker, not fresh canker in that block. We were able to reverse it entirely. People asked us, what did you do? And they want the solution to be 3 products or 5 products. Like, we did these 5 things. No, we didn't. Answer is really simple. We pulled sap analysis, we pulled soil samples, and we balanced mineral nutrition and we addressed soil biology, and that was it. That solved it. But was it the zinc, manganese, copper? Was it the calcium? Was it the sulfur? Was the combination of all of those things? Without question, it was the combination of all of those things. So there isn't a, uh, there isn't a magic in a gallon jug that you can replicate or transfer from one operation to the next. Question from Scott. High chloride levels. I have high chloride levels in sap in potatoes. I'm struggling to reduce high chloride in sap numbers. Is the chloride potentially a significant cause of compromised plant health, including bacterial soft rot and reduced nitrogen assimilation? Is this likely, probable, possible, or unlikely? Scott, it's more than all of those. It's almost a certainty. Um, so when you have high chloride levels, yes, it will slow nitrogen absorption, it will slow potassium absorption, uh, to a lesser degree, um, but it will significantly slow calcium absorption as well. So calcium and potassium and nitro— excuse me, calcium, potassium, and nitrogen absorption will all be less, as will phosphorus. I mean, essentially, essentially the when you have elevated levels of chloride, your absorption of calcium, potassium, phosphorus, and nitrogen is all going to be less, um, and significantly less in many cases. So particularly for calcium, um, so yes, there is a very direct connection. My first question would be, are you fertilizing with potassium chloride?. And if so, the potassium chloride has to go. We did— we've, we've done ongoing experimentation and of course it varies a little bit from year to year with commodity prices. But the common rebuttal that I get when I suggest replacing potassium chloride with potassium sulfate is that, well, potassium chloride is so much less expensive. Well, it's not less expensive when you consider the crop performance costs that it produces, as you were describing, in quality and so forth. So we started this— rather than replacing potassium chloride with potassium sulfate on a pound-for-pound basis of potash, we started replacing them on a dollar-for-dollar basis. And what is interesting, if you replace potassium chloride with potassium sulfate on a dollar-for-dollar basis, depending on which part of the country and logistics and everything else, you're looking at anywhere from a 25 to 35% reduction in actual pounds of potassium. And yet we consistently see greater and better potassium absorption and crop performance with the potassium sulfate than we do with the potassium chloride. In my, in my opinion, there are very few— it's not actually, it's not my opinion, my opinion has nothing to do with it. Uh, in the podcast interview that I did with Rick Mulvaney, and I also published a couple of blog posts, uh, putting out Rick Mulvaney and his colleagues research papers the, the research— the key research paper is titled The Potassium Paradox. And there was an attempted rebuttal by the industry, and there was some back and forth. But the bottom line is, uh, Rick Mulvaney and his colleagues conducted an extensive literature review. This is just from my memory, it's been quite a while since I read this, but if I recall correctly, something like 900— over 900 papers that have been published on trials with potassium chloride applications, they found a positive yield response 16% of the time. One-sixth, 16%. I mean, my goodness gracious, if AEA products perform like that, we would have been out of business a long time ago. But that's the benefit of being an incumbent in the space and, and having extensive marketing and promotion like that. Potassium chloride is one of the worst performing fertility products that's in the marketplace, and yet it gets applied in large amounts every year because it's necessary, supposedly. But it's not, not even for potatoes that have high potassium requirements. You're much better off with potassium sulfate. Go listen to the podcast episode, read the papers, you will be amazed. There was an attempted rebuttal, but that attempted rebuttal was rebutted, and you can't, you can't argue the evidence. 16% positive success rate across 900 studies is, uh, should be enough to indict a product and to call it snake oil. All right, enough of my soapbox. Um, there's a question here from Darren. I was wondering, when we are melting liquid urea 46-00, if it isn't— if low— if it is not low biuret urea, is that a huge problem? Low biuret urea is very hard to come by in Saskatchewan. Um, Darren, it's been a long time since I looked at this. I need to refresh my memory and get back to you. I think The low bio-ret is not a problem if it is soil applied. It becomes a problem when it is foliar applied at certain levels, and I don't remember what those levels are, and I need to also double-check if my memory is correct. Um, so that's, that's— I require some research on my part to be able to answer that question correctly. I used to know the answer, but I forget. Question here from Grant. Hi Grant, I'm planning to apply 3 pounds of nitrogen as a foliar this summer using a product generally used as a turf fertilizer, 30-0-0 grade. The label says to apply 2 to 4 quarts per acre at 10 gallons per acre, but I'm attempting to apply 1 gallon per acre of product at 5 gallons per acre via a drone. Fieldlark seems to think that the form of the liquid urea, which is urea triazone— ouch— an evening application timeframe, the presence of humic and fulvic substances with the micronutrients I'm using, the biological synergy with these micronutrients, and a 49 to 51% product to water ratio is enough to feel confident in no leaf burn at this rate. Based on your knowledge and experience, has this worked and would it work? So somewhere along the line, I'm not quite following, because you went from 1 gallon per acre at 5 gallons per acre product, or 5 gallons per acre total volume, which is a 20%. You went from there to 49.51. Um, perhaps the 49.51 is because of the micronutrients, the humic and fulvic substances, and the other things that you're adding. Grant, I think what you're proposing can work. Some crops are going to be more sensitive than others. Uh, corn and small grains will probably handle this relatively well. Uh, it's worth testing though, but I think corn and small grains will handle it relatively well. Uh, in addition to the humic and fulvic substances, I would suggest you also add some carbohydrates into the mix. Add some Rejuvenate, add some sugar. Add something else that'll also help buffer it out a little bit. Um, and you're putting this on as a foliar, so you're probably going to be okay with the triazone urea. Uh, actually, yeah, you can be okay with a triazone urea.

Plants—

some of these grain crops actually respond to that very well at specific, at specific stages. However, um Since you mentioned triazone urea, I'm going to, uh, just as a general service announcement, I suppose, uh, triazone urea or any form of urea— there's a couple forms of urea that are manufactured with formaldehyde as one of the base ingredients, and triazone urea is one of those. I forget the name of the other. Um, and supposedly none of the formaldehyde is left over in the final product formulation. And I'm not hugely concerned, or I don't have— we haven't measured, we haven't looked either. We haven't looked and we haven't measured any negative effects from those formaldehyde synthesized products when used as a foliar. But we have measured very substantial negative effects from those forms of urea when applied to soil. And this first really caught our attention on a strawberry operation in Florida where urea applications were being made through the drip irrigation system at low doses, a couple pounds per week of product. So it did not take much. I'm talking a couple pounds per week of product, like 3 to 5 pounds. And we could not understand why soil biology was not responding. Like, soil biology was just non-functional. It did not respond to a Rejuvenate application, to inoculation. There was just— there was no response to it. And we were puzzled by this, and we tracked it down to the triazone urea and the, um, being synthesized from formaldehyde. And we pulled the urea out of the mix. And in a matter of 2 weeks, we got a tremendous microbial response in the soil. Now, plants— formaldehyde is actually a metabolite in plants. Plants, when you apply it to a leaf surface, plants have the ability to metabolize and to convert formaldehyde. But it apparently does a number on soil biology. So I wanted to point that out as an experience that we had. That is, I think, worth paying attention to from a soil application versus a foliar application perspective. So, Grant, to kind of summarize and come back to your core question, 49 to 51% product mix. I see that you also have a note here that you're using AEA Rebound products with Holocase, SeaShield, SeaStem. I put together a webinar a number of years ago on optimal design for product foliar— optimal design for foliar applications. And— excuse me— the piece that we need to be really concerned about or pay attention to is the EC levels, and obviously urea has a very high electrical conductivity. Very high salt index. But with what you are describing and the combination that you're putting together, I'm 98% confident that it's going to be fine. It would still be worth testing out and verifying, but if you're using that particularly on corn and small grain crops, I think you're going to be completely okay. It's a question here from Noah. Hi John, I recently plowed some ground to expand our potato crop, essentially flipping over quackgrass sod. What are the best ways, mineral and microbial-wise, to shift the soil environment from a quackgrass dominated soil to a vegetable garden? For reference, I live in Manitoba, Canada, with a clay loam 7.3 pH soil. All right, well, you specifically asked about a garden and not field scale, so I'm going to answer it in that context. I've dealt with a lot of quackgrass, more than I care to think about, and my recommendation would be that for a period of time, long as it takes a single— probably a single summer, single growing season. I would use landscape fabric or a tarp, probably a landscape fabric, and I would simply smother it. Um, that's the easiest way short of killing it with Roundup. Um, the challenge with killing it with Roundup, as I also know from a lot of personal experience, is you can kill it once and it will be back again the next year. Worse than it was the first year. Um, so that, that is the— using a tarp or landscape fabric over the soil is the easy answer to solve the population. But then how do you change the mineral and the microbial profile? Um, I would suggest a gypsum application, um, to provide a lot of available calcium and to help flocculate and loosen the soil. And you're already doing some tillage, but the question that I would ask is what's the optimal tillage and what is the COVID crop combination that you need to grow to, to keep that soil loose? So I would recommend 3 cover crops that are particularly good at producing loose soil are buckwheat, annual ryegrass— oats are also pretty good— but buckwheat, annual ryegrass, and hairy vetch are 3 that are are really great at producing very loose soil. So essentially, you need roots to keep the soil loose, you need calcium to loosen it and flocculate it. So question here from Lana. My question is about IMOs, indigenous microorganisms. I'm interested in available data and efficacy. Are IMOs the missing link to returning natural nutrient cycling and soil function to each region paired with rehydration and biodiversity? Um, I don't have a great deal of personal experience with IMOs. With what I'm familiar with, the IMOs and the propagation that is used, quite simply, anytime we propagate microbes, we need to be cognizant of what it is that we're propagating and what it is that we're leaving behind. When we make compost, compost propagates certain microorganisms. At the expense of others. Vermicompost, same thing. Indigenous microbes, the same thing. Um, and if we propagate microbes in the lab, it's the exact same thing. So all of, all of those various cultivation or propagation methodologies will, will propagate certain groups of microbes at the expense of others. And the reality is somewhere in the 90+ percentile of all known and identified living soil microbes will only propagate in the presence of living plant roots. So unless you are growing compost or growing plants in your compost or somehow facilitating the extraction from plant roots themselves, then you're getting only a very small fraction of what's in the total soil profile. So there are people who have had very good results, and I, I believe IMOs can be very beneficial, inoculants can be very beneficial, compost— they all have their place, they all have value. But I'm not of the persuasion that any one of them is inherently— should be considered complete or should be considered the missing piece or the missing link because we have to have a more integrated and broader perspective than that. There's a question here from Leonard. Do you think credible certification framework that pays farmers for regenerative farming, not just carbon numbers but ecosystem services, could do more to accelerate the transition than agronomic education alone has managed? And if so, what would we— what would you want that framework to actually measure to make it mean something at the farm level? Leonard, I would refer you to, uh, 2 podcast episodes. The first podcast episode is one where I introduced, um, uh, the, the regenerative verification standard that we developed. That's called Integrity Grown. And we have had other priorities. We haven't emphasized the further development of Integrity Grown, although that's been a growing request from a number of different crops and regions. And in that podcast, I kind of described the thinking behind Integrity Grown and what I believe needs to be developed to be really effective and also some of the things that we're measuring and how we're approaching that. And then the second podcast interview I would refer you to or podcast I would refer you to is the conversation I had with Michael McNeil at the Acres Conference last December. Where I talked about the history of agricultural economics and how we got to this place. Because the reality is we are now from a macroeconomic perspective, we are in this cycle or in this catch-22 trap where I'm going to speak rather crudely and rather broadly, but From, from a quality perspective, most farmers are producing crap. They are not, they're not, they're not specifically trying to produce a high-quality crop because they're not being paid for it. And it's, it's a catch-22 where If you have a federal policy of having cheap food readily available, then that comes at the expense of quality. And if you looked at any other part of life, any other consumer goods that we purchase, the old adage is that you can get great service, great quality, or a great price. Pick 2 out of the 3. You can't have all 3. And we have focused at a policy level of having the cheapest and most abundant food supply, and that comes at a cost. And it's come at the cost of quality. It's come at the cost of farmer economic viability. So there is, there is this whole, uh, ball of wax where all of this is intertwined. And I'm of the persuasion that if we had a quality food policy instead of a cheap food policy, uh, we would all be much better served because we would have better public health, lower medical costs, um, better public health outcomes, on and on the list goes. But there's a whole combination of issues there that paying farmers for ecosystem services does not solve. It doesn't solve for food quality and nutritional quality. There's more that has to be considered there. It's a question here from Dennis. Our family has been farming the same soil since 1854, and there are some really strange field patterns that are difficult to explain. Fertile soils that produce 10x what the soil just feet away produce. These patterns are most easily seen in hay ground. Conventional soil tests reveal the predictable elevated NPK levels of the deeper soils. I stopped using synthetic PNK several years ago and applied nitrogen according to the Haney test. I rotationally graze cattle through every acre of the farm. There is an ongoing debate as to whether the increased production over the tile lines is due to drainage or to micronutrients. I'm told that the old-timers would manure the fields for micronutrient deficiencies. Any thoughts or comments are appreciated. All right, Dennis. There's some interpretation required here. I'm going to assume that the patterns, the strange field patterns that you are describing, are not tile patterns. Otherwise, why would they be strange? So for interesting field patterns, I've observed a number of those. I've observed them in hay crops as well. My instinct, my guess, just based on observing them over a number of years, these patterns shift and change. The ones that I've observed, they shift and change. They expand over time. Sometimes they contract. Um, I suspect that they're present, or they are, um, the expression of soil fungal populations, mycorrhizal fungi hyphae networks, because I've, I've similarly observed remarkable degrees remarkable variation of productivity within a few feet of each other. And I don't believe it's because of the nutritional profile of soil. I believe it's because of changes in the microbial profile of soil, particularly fungal populations. So that would be my first guess. And the good news is today it's able— it's possible for us to measure that and to quantify that, what the differences are. Then relative to the tile lines and the patterns that you're seeing there, whether that is due to drainage or to micronutrients, you mentioned that your family has been farming the same soil since 1854 and that it would be interesting to know— you are now grazing cattle over every acre every year, but has this soil perchance been depleted? Has it always had cattle? That would be something that I'd be interested in knowing about. It is certainly true that many subsoils have higher levels of trace minerals than the topsoil does because of depletion that was accelerated by tillage and particularly by the application of soluble fertilizer. A lot of people don't realize this, but a nitrogen application or a potassium chloride application, a good part of the, of the supposed damage that it does isn't measured in the short term. It takes 20, 30, 40 years to show up because it solubilizes— the presence of these, of these high salt content electrolytes, uh, solubilizes trace minerals and moves them further down into the soil profile. So if you have a history of 40 or 50 or 60 years of fertilizer applications, then yes, those trace minerals will have depleted from the topsoil and moved down the soil profile, and that can facilitate a drain tile pattern. I've certainly seen that showing up. And then when you speak about— your question is, I'm told that the old-timers would manure the fields for micronutrient deficiencies. Well, if you read the old literature, they would actually use the term manuring the fields if you go back far enough. 70, 80 years ago, they would use that terminology to describe what we today call soil amendments, or they would speak about putting on soil amendments of, of trace minerals directly. If I'm understanding your question correctly, you're not asking about that, but you're asking about livestock manure, whether that can correct the micronutrient deficiencies. And ruminant cow manure in particular, beef or dairy, has an incredible microbiome. Their, their ruminant microbiome. Other, other ruminant animals are really valuable, are valuable as well, but cows in particular are particularly valuable. And they can greatly increase the nutrient availability on soils where that manure is applied, but they only, they only deliver nutrients in the manure that are present in the original parent forage that they're consuming. So manure by itself— or let me say it this way— manure from a depleted soil does not fix micronutrient deficiencies. I hope I answered your question. Uh, there's a question here from Teresa. What nutrient deficiency is indicated by an infestation of aphids? Uh, we actually have a couple of webinars on this where we talk about aphids specifically. Aphids will show up in plants that have a particular nitrogen profile as well as a particular sugar profile. An application of PhotoMag that contains magnesium, sulfur, molybdenum, and boron will change that profile very quickly. So in particular, these plants need high levels of nitrates and low levels of complete proteins. What happened? An hour is already gone. Wow, that was quick. Thank you all for being here. I hope you find the information valuable and useful. Please subscribe to our newsletter so you can send in questions in advance, and, uh, I look forward to having another one of these and chatting with all of you again soon. Thank you very much. Happy growing.

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