Preventing Nitrogen and Phosphorus Leaching

Thanks, friends. Good afternoon and thank you very much for joining us on this webinar. The topic of the discussion this afternoon is preventing nitrogen and phosphorus leaching. We know that we have major challenges throughout the Midwest and in California as well with nitrogen and phosphorus runoff and pollution causing challenges with water pollution, algae bloom in waterways, etc. To the point where we're now increasing getting legislation on managing nutrient runoff, which is something that has been predicted to happen for quite some time by several leading agronomists in the field. And the reality is that nitrogen and phosphorus runoff don't need to be happening. We already have the knowledge, we have the information today on how to manage both of these problems and to essentially make them go away completely in a very short time frame. So the discussion this evening is going to be very straightforward, very brief. I'm not going to go in depth into the long scientific explanations. Instead, I want to focus specifically on how do we manage nitrogen? How do we manage phosphorus? What are the specific things that we can do as growers to eliminate nitrogen and phosphorus leaving the farm either through leachate or runoff or whatever the case might be. So the one of the foundational premises and the frameworks that we think about how to manage agronomy and how to manage plant nutrition is the idea that plant nutrients should be available but not soluble. This is an idea that was first promoted by Dr. William Albrecht, who was a soil science professor at the University of Missouri in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. He postulated this idea that nutrients can be available in the soil profile, but can be bound microbially, such that they are still very readily available for the plant to absorb, but they are not soluble in the soil solution. And there are a couple of reasons why this idea is extremely powerful. The first reason is that, of course, when soil begins drying out, if you have nutrients that are soluble in the soil solution, the challenge with that is the moment the soil dries out, you no longer have good nutrient availability. And of course this is a problem. The second challenge is when you have nutrients that are soluble in the soil solution and you have a surplus of water, then of course those nutrients and those ions can move readily with the water and either leach out through the soil profile or you can have runoff in some extreme situations. So when you have nutrients that are microbially bound, they are available but not soluble. They do not move with water in the soil profile, which means that you can have nutrients that are plant available, but you do not have water pollution. And so I want to talk about how we can create that. And the reality is it's not that complicated. It's a relatively simple, straightforward process that we've understood the nuts and bolts of for quite some time. So first we're going to focus on nitrogen. I'm going to focus on both nitrogen and phosphorus. I'll describe the step by step process for both of these. The key to stabilizing nitrogen is that when we apply nitrogen, either in the form of nitrate or ammonium, we want to quickly convert that applied ionic fertilizer, or actually it's not ionic, but molecular fertilizer, nitrate or ammonium, to an amino acid. And that process happens through bacterial mineralization. So we need very rapid, very quick bacterial digestion that quickly consumes all of the nitrogen that was applied and converts it to amino acids. So how do you do that? To accomplish that, in addition to the nitrogen, the bacteria need a generous supply of soluble carbon, they need sulfur, and they need molybdenum to accomplish those three things, they obviously need other nutrients and minerals as well. But these are the three major pieces that we often find to be limiting factors that prevent the bacterial population from quickly binding nitrogen and converting it to amino acids. So the key to when we think about binding nitrogen or converting nitrogen to amino acids, one of the we can think about this in terms of carbon nitrogen ratios and the various mineral ratios, the way that they're formed in stable amino acids and also in stable humic substances. So if we look at carbon to nitrogen ratio in stable soil organic matter, for example, or unstable humic substances, compost would be a great example. Compost is stable. When you have a carbon to nitrogen ratio in the neighborhood of 30 to 1. At this point, you have a very stable compost. And different experts will give you different numbers. Occasionally you'll hear numbers of carbon to nitrogen ratio in the level of 20 to 1. And I think the key question is, how are you managing carbon? Different laboratories and different agronomists measure carbon differently. And that is why I think you get some of these differing ratios. But for the sake of this discussion, we're going to be using the number of 30 to 1, which is the kind of the recurring number that I find the most reference to when you look at stabilizing nitrogen in the form of amino acids, converting nitrogen to amino acids. Sulfur is required to form a couple of the key amino acids, such as cysteine, methionine, that is then used and needed to build complete proteins. Because of these sulfur bearing amino acids, Sulfur to nitrogen ratios in wholly formed proteins, complete proteins that have that are present when you have adequate sulfur levels usually show up in a ratio of 10 to 1. So we have one part sulfur can effectively stabilize 10 parts nitrogen in the form of amino acids. So when you combine these two ratios together and you look at carbon to nitrogen to sulfur, you now have one part carbon can hold and stabilize 10 parts nitrogen, which can hold and stabilize 300 parts carbon. Now, there's a couple of key pieces here. The first is that you don't require 300 parts carbon to hold the 10 parts nitrogen stable. However, this is the secret and the key to holding large carbon reserves in the soil profile. If you want to build soil organic matter quickly and maintain large amounts of soil organic matter, then you can accumulate and store and hold a tremendous amount of carbon by managing these other two nutrients. And I'll describe how this happens and what is going on. So nitrogen stabilization. And you could also, by extension, speak of carbon stabilization, because the reality is you're stabilizing all three of these anions together. Carbon is both an anion and a cation, can be dependent on the environment that is found in. So the key is that this whole protein matrix, if you will, these protein and carbon based compounds will be unstable relative to the lowest common denominator. They're dependent on the lowest common denominator. So what I mean by that is, let's say for the sake of discussion that you have, your soil holds a reserve of 60 pounds of nitrogen and you apply an additional 60 units of nitrogen. So now your soil profile has a total of 120 units of nitrogen in the top 6 inches. I'm just making up a hypothetical example. So you have 120 units of nitrogen and you have 8 pounds of available sulfur. When in reality, to maintain the 10 to 1 ratio of nitrogen to sulfur in the soil profile, you are now missing 4 pounds of sulfur. So those 4 pounds of sulfur that you are missing, so you have 8 pounds of sulfur, that means you can hold 80 units of nitrogen. Your soil already had 60, you added 60 more. But of those 60 that you applied, you now have a total of 120. That 120, 40 pounds of that nitrogen. 40 out of the 60 that you applied is going to remain soluble as nitrate or as ammonium nitrate, of course, is the most leachable. And so those 40 units of nitrogen can, can move through the soil very quickly and very easily because you don't have enough sulfur to hold them stable. So there's a very simple remedy for this. If we just simply apply sulfur at the same time. That we apply nitrogen, we now give the bacteria in the soil profile the resources that they need to form and to convert all that soluble nitrogen into the amino acid form and we don't get nitrate leaching. And of course, when we speak to the lowest common denominator, it is also possible that the lowest common denominator can be available carbon, particularly in sandy soils. So when we have soils that are low in organic matter, have very large particle size, then having adequate carbon to, to bind the nitrogen can be a challenge, particularly when we don't have a green growing crop. So when you have a crop that is green and has a substantial amount of vegetative biomass, generally if it's a healthy crop, it should be contributing a substantial amount of carbon to the root system and moving out into the rhizosphere as root exudates. If that is happening properly, as it should be, then generally you are supplying a substantial amount of carbon from living root biomass and from root exudates. So usually, of course, where this would not be the case is if you have very small seedlings, or where you have a corn crop, or you have small seedlings that are scattered out, you don't have substantial biomass on a per acre scale or per square foot scale. So in those conditions, in those situations, we may need to actually add some carbon, both soluble carbon and very concentrated carbon, to help bind the nitrogen and to give the bacteria the resources that they need. So there are a number of applications, combinations that we can add to our nitrogen applications that are relatively inexpensive and that can make rapid changes in nitrogen stability. And this is all, I'm not even going to speak of some of the newer technologies that are emerging, such as polymer coatings for polymer coated urea nitrate, excuse me, nitrification inhibitor, nitrification inhibiting products. There's a number of technology products that are available that can make substantial differences as well. I'm not even going to speak to those, although those are very worthwhile researching, understanding and applying, because many of them do work very well in the right situations. So that the pieces that I'm referring to here are relatively low tech and they're very effective. The first is combining the nitrogen application with sulfur. So adding ammonium thiosulfate, for example. Ammonium thiosulfate is 12,0026, 26% sulfur. And the goal is to add thiosol to a liquid nitrogen application in such a ratio so that we have 10% of nitrogen as sulfur, so that we achieve that 10 to 1 nitrogen ratio. This is very inexpensive to apply and makes a difference almost immediately. And of course, the purpose is to provide that sulfur that we just spoke about. The second piece is adding stable humic substances such as humicarb. And humicarb is a very concentrated and very stable carbon source which has a very large complexing capacity and holding capacity that is referred to as AEC anion exchange capacity, which I'll speak to a bit later when we talk about phosphorus. So humicarb has the capacity to bind and hold anions similar to what a clay colloid has the capacity to hold cations. So they contain a number of positive charges which allow them to hold on to negatively charged ions such as nitrate. So this is very different from adding carbon in the form of sugar or molasses, for example. That can also be beneficial, but it has a completely different purpose from using humicarb. So we typically recommend adding hemocarb to a solution at 10% of the nitrogen percentage. So, for example, if you have liquid 32 UAN 3200, 10% of that nitrogen number would be 3%. So to that total solution, we would add 3% humicarb. And we found that that is adequate to stabilize and hold almost all of the nitrogen in that solution and prevent it from flushing and moving quickly with the soil with the water profile. Now, the I specifically mentioned humicarb, we have not found this same effect to be true for other humic acids and other humic substances to the same degree. I believe this is true because the humicarb being manufactured and still retaining the human fraction not being chemically extracted humic acid. When you have humic acid that is extracted with potassium hydroxide or other alkali solutions, there is still some of the anion exchange capacity present. You still have the capacity to hold nitrate, but to a greatly reduced degree. Based on some of the limited research that we've done, it seems that it has. Of course, there's many different sources, but many of the alkali extractions have the capacity to hold about 10 to 15% of the nitrogen that humicarb does, which means that you need to apply 7 to 10 times more in order to have the same effect. The third piece that you can add is adding molybdenum. Rebound molybdenum at one pint per acre. The purpose for adding molybdenum is that it is the enzyme cofactor for the nitrate reductase enzyme, which is needed by the bacteria in the rhizosphere to convert nitrate to amino acids. Small amount makes a very rapid difference very quickly. And the Fourth piece is adding rejuvenate. So rejuvenate here we now have another carbon source. Rejuvenate contains a substantial amount of molasses in addition to a whole range of other enzyme cofactors and microbial biostimulants. And because of the molasses component, it's a very strong bacterial biostimulant, which is very valuable in this situation because the bacteria, bacteria do not thrive in an environment with concentrated nitrogen applications. So if you apply a band of liquid 28 or 32 or a can 17 or whatever the case might be, whenever you have a band of concentrated nitrogen that really is a, it's a strong oxidizer and it really suppresses the bacterial population right in the band of that zone. So you are suppressing the bacteria that you want to convert the nitrogen application into amino acids. This is a problem, and this is why rejuvenate is so valuable. Humicarb helps a lot to buffer out that effect. It already begins having an impact on the bacterial population, but the rejuvenate is a strong bacterial biostimulant that really invigorates that bacterial population and allows it to recover very, very quickly and really begin binding up and tying up the nitrogen and preventing it from moving through the soil. And the other key piece, of course, in addition to being a biostimulant, is that it contains some of that liquid carbon fraction that is needed where it can actually supply a carbohydrate source to begin balancing out some of the nitrogen that is in the profile now. It's not enough. It's not enough in and of itself. If you wanted to supply all of the sugars that were needed, all the carbohydrates that were needed to bind all of that nitrogen and convert it to amino acids, you'd be looking at applying a fairly substantial quantity of sugar. It is incredibly powerful. It would be incredibly powerful if you had the capacity to do that. We've worked with a couple of small scale fruit and vegetable growers who conducted experiments, and you get some really incredible soil and plant responses. If you're able to add carbohydrates, larger quantities of carbohydrates with your nitrogen application, it makes a really big difference. So 5% of the nitrogen solution is not enough, but it's enough to make, it's not enough to bind all the nitrogen, but it's enough to make a really, really big difference to the bacterial population and really get, get them started very aggressively. So if you look at the summary, those give you four pieces, ammonium thiosulfate, humicarb, molybdenum and rejuvenate. I know from a lot of field experience that when you combine these four pieces, I can say with complete confidence that you can apply 100 units of nitrogen per acre or 150 units of nitrogen per acre. Even in extreme examples, which I do not recommend, I would strongly prefer to put on smaller doses more frequently rather than really aggressive and intense applications all at one shot. But I know from experience that when we combine these treatments and come and add them to our liquid nitrogen applications, we can bind all of that nitrogen and can prevent it from leaching, still maintain it in a very plant available form. In other words, it's available but not soluble, and this is very powerful and very important. The other piece that you can do this, we find that there is a relatively straightforward trade off between the cost of this application and nitrogen efficiency. There are many of the growers that we have worked with for a couple of years add this to their nitrogen application and it's very safe on almost all soils, on almost all conditions to reduce nitrogen applications by 30% when you add this, because you're not going to lose any of it, it's going to stay there. So when you look at this combination, you can add these materials, the humicarb rejuvenate and the molybdenum to the solution. You should be adding the ammonium thiosulfate anyway. Irregardless, these are the three materials you can add to the solution. And depending on where commercial nitrogen costs are, of course, in the form that you're applying, you might be spending a few dollars more per acre. It will not be substantial, but the crop response and the soil response is really substantial. It's absolutely worth it. So we're going to switch gears and speak about phosphorus for a little bit. Phosphorus is of phosphorus and nitrogen. Phosphorus is perhaps the biggest challenge from a water pollution perspective in terms of the impact that it has on the health of water reservoirs and rivers and streams and lakes and oceans, etc. The thing that we have to remember is the phosphorus is quite insoluble in natural systems, both in soil and in water. And as a result, a very small amount of phosphorus in the water can have a huge impact. I'm just, I'm going from memory here and I hope I'm not mistaken, but if I'm not mistaken, I believe that the phosphorus levels required to produce a substantial algae bloom are between 10 and 35 parts per billion with B. So we're looking at very, very small phosphorus concentration in the water profile from water runoff or leachate, that can make a really big difference in water quality. So the key piece, when we think about water leaving the field, water leaves soil in only two ways. One is it leaves as soluble ionic phosphorus, or I should say soluble phosphorus shortly after application. And that shortly depends on the form that it was applied in, the quantity that it was applied in, and the soil type. That can be a few days to a few weeks. So it can leave while it is still in the soluble form. If you get a lot of rainfall, it can leave from runoff or from leachate through the soil profile in a relatively straightforward fashion. The second way that phosphorus leaves soil is with soil particles. And it's unfortunate if we're losing phosphorus from the soil profile by losing soil particles. But I believe, and I'll explain why I believe this, I believe that in fact, a great deal of phosphorus pollution happens when soil particles leave the farm. And I believe that is true, because phosphorus does not stay soluble in the soil for very long, even when it is applied in the soluble form in a matter of weeks. The great majority of it is complexed because it doesn't remain soluble in natural systems very readily. So phosphorus exists in the soil profile in four different buckets, if you will. And I want to speak briefly about each of these and describe how they work and what's happening and what's going on. So the first, you have these four different buckets. You have orthophosphates, which is the soluble form of phosphorus that plant roots absorb. You have that which is microbially complex. In other words, it's bound up in bacterial and fungal bodies. In the soil profile, you have that which is adsorbed to soil particles or to humic substances. You have that which is existing in the mineral form or in precipitate form from prior soluble phosphorus applications. So let's look at each of these, and I want to explain what's happening with each of these a little bit. The first category, orthophosphates. Plants primarily absorb phosphorus in the orthophosphate form. They can also absorb some levels of polyphosphates, but orthophosphates are the preferred, the most efficient, the most effective. And generally, there are only very small amounts of orthophosphates in a natural soil environment at any given moment. So typically, we're looking at £1 per acre or even less. You can even have only a half a pound per acre of soluble or the phosphate. Remember, I'm Speaking of a natural soil environment where you do not have, where you have not applied soluble phosphorus fertilizers. So it's a very small amount now, of course, but the key is that that small amount can be replenished from the other reserves on a continual basis and is replenished continually in a natural system. So when we look at these other pieces, one of the challenges that we have, and I want to describe this before I talk about the other containers, one of the challenges that we have, this is what a typical common phosphorus ecosystem looks like when a synthetic phosphorus fertilizer is applied. Let's say it's a dry granular MAP or dap, or it can be a liquid orthophosphate or a polyphosphate like 1034 O. When that phosphorus is applied, then it moves into these four other containers that are present in the soil profile. A large amount of it is going to quickly precipitate out and join the mineral fraction. In other words, it's going to become complex and locked up and not available. Some of it can be adsorbed onto soil particles very quickly. In fact, the majority, as much as 90% of applied phosphorus will go to the adsorbed bucket or to the precipitate bucket in a matter of as little as three to six weeks after application. But in the meantime, in that three to six week period, substantial amounts of it are converted to the orthophosphate form. And it also has a very damaging effect to the microbial population. So you have, in essence, it shuts down the microbial population in the rhizosphere that is, or that has the capacity to solubilize phosphorus later in the growing season. This is a really big deal and very important. I want to describe this in a little bit in this microbially complex category. What is happening here is. I want to describe, this is worth describing for just a little bit. So the. There are two. We know very little about what happens in the rhizosphere. We know less than 5%. In fact, we probably know less than 1% of what is happening with microbial interactions in the rhizosphere. But the few pieces that we think we understand are that one, most of the crops that we're producing, with a few exceptions, are colonized by symbiotic mycorrhizal fungi. And one of the things that mycorrhizal fungi are known for is solubilizing phosphorus. More recently, we've identified that there is actually a third symbiotic group. It's not just that plants have a symbiotic relationship with mycorrhizal fungi, but in fact, plants have a symbiotic relationship with mycorrhizal fungi which have a symbiotic relationship with phosphorus solubilizing bacteria. The three of these work together. So plants actually are giving photosynthes and sugars to the mycorrhizal fungi. And the mycorrhizal fungi are transferring some of those root exudates and those sugars to the phosphorus solubilizing bacteria. So you have this three level symbiotic relationship and the phosphorus solubilizing bacteria. The reason they are phosphorus solubilizing bacteria is because they have, they're very effective at producing the phosphatase enzyme and the phytase enzyme and other enzymes which can fracture the phosphorus containing minerals such as apatite and tricalcium phosphate, etc. That exist in the soil mineral profile. So they can actually extract and release locked up, tied up phosphorus in the soil profile. This mineralization process occurs most rapidly at soil temperatures the neighborhood of about 65 to 105 degrees Fahrenheit. The reason this is worth describing a little bit and talking about is because whenever we apply a soluble phosphorus fertilizer, it suppresses both mycorrhizal fungi and the phosphorus solubilizing bacteria. And this is a really, really big deal. This is a big problem. The reason it suppresses mycorrhizal fungi and phosphorus solubilizing bacteria, we think we're not entirely certain, but we believe that, that there is an indirect effect. The plants will only release sugars out through the root system and signal mycorrhizal fungi and these bacteria. Plants have the capacity to signal microorganisms for exactly what they need. So if they need phosphorus, they provide a flush of sugars to mycorrhizae and to bacteria. And they also signal them with specific compounds to say we need more phosphorus. So the mycorrhizal fungi and the bacteria begin releasing large amounts of phosphorus and feeding it back to the plant. That's where we have this symbiotic, mutually beneficial relationship happening. But now, when you have an environment in the root zone, in the rhizosphere, where you have an abundance of soluble phosphorus, the plant roots begin absorbing that very quickly and the plant has an adequate or a generous supply of phosphorus and so it will not transmit the signal, the signaling compounds or the sugars to the mycorrhizae and to the phosphorus solubilizing bacteria. So those populations never develop. And then three weeks to six weeks later, once the applied phosphorus fertilizer has been precipitated or locked up in the soil profile, all of a sudden the plant now has a functional phosphorus deficiency. It can't absorb. There's no longer phosphorus present in the soil profile. And you also no longer have mycorrhizal fungi and phosphorus solubilizing bacteria. So you have essentially you've shot yourself in the foot, you have, you've damaged the microbial population in the short term, and it's going to have long term effects where you will have limited phosphorus supply later in the growing season, right at the period when the plant needs them the most for reproduction and fruit fill. This is why this is so much of a challenge and so much of a problem. All right, let's speak about the next category, the next bucket. The next category is adsorbed phosphorus. So everyone understands and talks about a soil's CEC cation exchange capacity. We understand that sand and silt and clay particles in the soil profile all have some capacity to hold cations positively charged elements. What is much less well understood and not frequently described is that many soils also have what is termed an anion exchange capacity or AEC instead of cec. This is particularly true for soils that have clay particles and also stable humic substances and organic matter have extremely high anion exchange capacity. So some soils, when soils have a high clay content or they have a large proportion of very small soil particles, they can adsorb phosphorus extremely rapidly in extremely large quantities. So I referenced that soils can contain as much as 500 pounds per acre of adsorbed phosphorus. And of course, it's difficult to make generalizations because you have such a broad range of soil types, but in fact, there are some soil types where you have higher clay content, where you can have as much as 15 to 1800 pounds adsorbed phosphorus in the soil profile. And I'm just referring to the top 6 inches. So some soils have tremendous phosphorus holding capacity. And by the way, this is phosphorus that will never show up on most soil analysis. It won't show up on Bray or MLC3 analysis or even Olson or most of the commonly used soil analysis. So the key is that roots, plant root systems have very limited access to adsorbed phosphorus. It's not particularly soluble, it doesn't move in soil solution very readily, and it's mostly released by microbial mineralization. There is a very small amount of adsorbed soil or adsorbed phosphorus that can move to the orthophosphate form. So essentially, when the soil, when the orthophosphates become very limited, Less than a pound per acre, then a small amount of the adsorbed phosphorus begins being released and shifts from the adsorbed phosphorus to the orthophosphate. But it happens very slowly, and it happens through the microbial mineralization process for the most part. And also worth mentioning, applied phosphorus can be bound and can be adsorbed very quickly. The third category, excuse me, the fourth category is mineral phosphorus or precipitated phosphorus in the soil profile. So phosphorus precipitates, this would be tricalcium phosphate, apatite, hydroxyapatite. There's a broad different array of minerals that are formed. So most many soils, and again, making some very broad generalizations here, because there's many different soil types all across the continent, but there are many, many loam soils, particularly clay loam soils, Often will contain as much as 9,000 pounds per acre of phosphorus in the top six inches in the mineral form. When we add soluble phosphorus as a liquid or dry phosphorus application, those tend to within a matter of a few weeks, they tend to quickly move to either adsorbed phosphorus or to mineral precipitates. So this precipitation reactions happen. They can happen very quickly, Particularly in acidic or alkaline soils. So in acidic soils, phosphorus reacts very quickly with iron or aluminum and manganese. And the reason it is attracted to those three in particular Is because phosphorous has a triple negative charge, and iron and aluminum and some isotopes of manganese have a triple negative charge. Excuse me, a triple positive charge. So you have a triple negative that is bonded to or that is attracted to a triple positive. It's the perfect magnetic attraction. And this is why phosphorus, There are such low levels of soluble phosphorus in natural ecosystems, because it becomes complex and tied up very, very quickly. In alkaline soils, phosphorus tends to react with calcium and form tricalcium phosphate, where you have three calciums that have a double positive or total of six, bonded with two phosphorus that have a double positive or a triple positive for a total of six as well. So the important part, however, is that root systems cannot absorb precipitated phosphorus or mineral phosphorus in the soil profile. It is locked up in mineral reserves. It is not soluble and not available. And in fact, there is some research which indicates that the phosphorus which has been applied to the soil and then precipitates out may, in fact, be more difficult for microbes and bacteria to release Than the native mineral phosphorus. That is already existing in the soil profile, which is something that I'm certainly looking forward to learning much more about. So if we want to tap into this precipitate and the mineral phosphorus, we have huge quantities available, and we have greater than 9,000 pounds, the top six inches. That's more than we can harvest with hundreds of years of crops, not even to speak of all of the remaining phosphorus in the soil profile below that. And if we want to tap into that, we can tap into that. But we need aggressive bacterial and fungal digestive processes happening in order for that to happen. So this is. This is the common ecosystem. This is the challenge that we often see happening in agriculture, is growers apply substantial quantities of soluble phosphorus that shifts themselves and their soil systems in the foot, where they are actually then unable to tap into the tremendous phosphorus reserves that are already in the soil profile in the mineral and precipitate form, and also in the adsorbed soil form or in the adsorbed form. So, in essence, as long as you continue to suppress that fungal and bacterial system, you will never be able to tap into the tremendous reserves of phosphorus that are already existing, that are already out there. So the goal, kind of the ideal that we need to strive for, this is kind of the ultimate in soil health and soil performance, is when we rearrange those four buckets a little bit, and now we look at how we can tap into the adsorbed and the mineral and precipitate phosphorus. And so in an optimal ecosystem, in an optimal environment, what is happening is we have soil particle or the adsorbed, and the mineral phosphorus is being digested and processed by bacteria and fungi, and then is being converted and solubilized and released in the orthophosphate form. So this is an ecosystem where there is no need for synthetic phosphorus applications of any kind. Now, you may be thinking that sounds quite idealistic and utopian. That's not realistic, and that's not practical. But in reality, there are a number of farms who are implementing this today very successfully on a very large scale. This is not idealistic. This is not a pipe dream. We have the knowledge and the information today to develop soil ecosystems where we do not need to apply any soluble synthetic phosphorus and we can achieve continually increasing yields and continually increasing crop quality. There are farms that are doing this successfully and have been doing it successfully for over a decade. So, and of course, to achieve this, we really need to take an ecosystems approach. So the growers who are doing this successfully are using crop rotations. They're using cover crops, they're doing a number of things well to have the vigorous and to maintain the vigorous microbial population that is required to achieve this level of performance. But it is possible in situations where we're not able to have crop rotations and cover crops. If we're growing salad greens or strawberries on a continual basis, then that is going to be a cropping system where we may need to continue applying small amounts of phosphorus. So the question is, this is the ideal that we want to strive for, but we're not there yet. We're still back here. So how do we get from where we are today to more closely approximating this? How do we get from point A to point B or to even to a partially integrated ecosystem that is much more vibrant and much more healthy? Here are a couple of the keys when we begin working with growers to help them through a transition. There are a couple of pieces that we begin looking at right away. The first is we want to reduce the quantity of applied phosphorus fertilizers per application. So rather than putting on large doses in one shot, we would much rather spoon feed it over an extended period of time. This is just common sense. I'm sure that all of you already know this and most of you are already doing it. The second piece is to buffer and stabilize that applied phosphorus fertilizer so that it is available but not soluble and so that we can increase crop utilization from 15% up to 60 plus percent. This is something that I didn't speak about, but there is in fact quite a bit of research which indicates that when soluble phosphorus is applied to the soil profile, as much as 90% of it is locked up. It is either adsorbed or precipitated in between 20 and 40 days. Say what you think about that for a moment. 90% of applied soluble phosphorus is precipitated out or adsorbed and is no longer planned available between 20 and 40 days. Now, again, this is a very general statement. And in some soil environments, some soil types, some phosphorus fertilizers, some cropping systems I'm sure are doing better than that. You might have only 80% or only 70% being complexed in a matter of 60 or 70 days. So it can happen. Perhaps it's happening slower, perhaps you're losing less. But even, even, even fertilizer manufacturers in their own research indicate that at best 30% of the phosphorus that is applied is absorbed by the crop. So this is an incredibly inefficient and incredibly wasteful form of fertilization. It, when you stop to think about it, it, there's no common sense at all. There is a much better way and we know how to do that. So the third piece that we can add is we can add the phosphorus solubilizing microbes, the mycorrhizal fungi, the phosphorus solubilizing bacteria and biostimulants, which really stimulate those. So I've sketched out some of the diagrams a little bit differently. As you can see, we're applying a little bit less fertilizer. And because we're applying less fertilizer, that means we are now having a much less damaging effect on the soil biology. And we are counteracting that very limited damaging effect with all the biostimulants that we're adding. And so as a result, we get this flush of available phosphorus that is in the microbially complex form. And actually, I should speak for a moment about the microbially complex form. What we mean by microbial complex, and I've included some numbers here. So microbially complex. I've suggested that you can have up to 50 pounds per acre of phosphorus in the microbial complex form. I know actually for certain that that is a conservative number. And again, this varies so widely based on organic matter levels and bacterial and fungal populations. But this is essentially the phosphorus that is contained within the fungal and bacterial biomass. It can be as little as five pounds per acre. I'm sure in some soil types upwards to, I would expect 70 to 80 pounds per acre. The key part is that when you have phosphorus in this microbial complex form and it's contained within bacterial and fungal cells, the moment the plant sends the signal that it needs phosphorus, it's instantly there. It is instantly there. So you will never have a phosphorus deficient crop as long as you have a generous supply of microbially complexed phosphorus that's rid of the form that you want it to be in. So now, going back to thinking about this, similar to what we were about nitrogen, the question is, okay, how do you do this? How do you get there? And I've described the concepts, but there's essentially a couple of key pieces similar to what I spoke of regarding nitrogen management. Humic substances are unique in that unlike many, unlike soil particles, they have a very high anion exchange capacity and they can complex anions. So in much the same way that humicarb can complex and stabilize nitrate, it can also complex and stabilize phosphate. So if you go back to, we go back to this slide point B is when you add humicarp to a phosphorus fertilizer. It is going to buffer that fertilizer so that it doesn't have the negative effect on soil biology and it's also going to stabilize it so that it doesn't become adsorbed and it doesn't precipitate out nearly as quickly. So it's going to hold that phosphorus in the phosphorus form that it was applied in for a much longer period of time. And that of course is going to give you much better crop performance and longer period of absorption when you stop to think about it. Let's go back to this for a moment. When you stop to think about it, the most efficient numbers are 30%. The average efficiency is generally assumed to be in the neighborhood of 5 to 15%. So let's just say 10% for the sake of discussion. That means if you apply a fertilizer, let's say MAP 11520 at 100 pounds per acre, you're applying 52 units of phosphorus. If only 10% of that is being plant absorbed, that's 5 pounds of phosphorus and it's a relatively small quantity. So it's incredibly inefficient even. Let's just, let's be very generous. Let's go with a 30% number. 30% of applied phosphorus is still only 15 pounds per acre. When you apply humicarb, it's very safe to expect that you should be able to. Humicarb does something else, humic substances, something else which is that they actually sensitize root systems and give them an increased capacity to absorb phosphorus. I'm not sure exactly of all the mechanisms. I read this a very long time ago, but the research that I read quite some time ago indicated that adding humic substances to phosphorus fertilizers increases plant utilization by 30%. And this was with alkali extracted humic substances. I'm certain that humicarb still containing the human fraction and not being alkali extracted and denatured would do even better than that. So right there, there's one piece that can give you a 30% increase in the, in the efficiency of your phosphorus fertilizer applications. And of course what that also means is when you stabilize it, it also means it's now not going to be water soluble and it's not going to leach and cause water pollution effects when you have major problems or it'll prevent major problems. The second piece, which I also mentioned earlier, is using Biokot Gold. So Biokot Gold is combination the mycorrhizal fungi and the phosphorus solubilizing Bacteria that I mentioned that we use as a root treatment or as a seed treatment. And we would generally also combine this with a rejuvenate application, which is strong biostimulant effect, to establish this these microbes and give them a very strong and a very aggressive start. When you look at the combination of combining these microbial inoculants and biostimulants, stabilizing phosphorus applications with stable humic substances, reducing the applications, the application quantity, and spreading them out over a period of time, you can greatly reduce the quantity of phosphorus that you need to apply to produce a crop to the point where if you are able to incorporate cover crops and crop rotations, there's no question and no doubt in my mind that you can get to the point where you can eliminate the need for any phosphorus application and simply tap into all the phosphorus that you have accumulated from historical phosphorus applications, as well as from the native mineral component that was already in your soil from a native geological profile. So if you want to learn more about any of these pieces or to want to place an order for biocode gold or humicarb, or rejuvenate or rebound molybdenum, any of the products that I mentioned, please call our team at AEA 800-495-6603 and we look forward to hearing from you. There's one piece that I failed to mention which is I spoke about how to how to transfer nitrogen, nitrate in particular from soluble to insoluble, what's still available. I spoke about how to transfer phosphorus from soluble to insoluble but still available. And I didn't state this explicitly, although it was somewhat implied in the approach that I described. To manage phosphorus. Well, you really need to take an ecosystem approach. You have to manage the entire ecosystem and you can manage that plant and microbial ecosystem to give you good phosphorus availability or to give you bad phosphorus availability. It's. You have to kind of manage all the different pieces together. It's not a simple, it's not quite as straightforward managing nitrate because you really have to. There is a longer term response from the phosphorus solubilizing bacteria. The response is a little bit slower, a little bit more delayed than it is with converting nitrates to amino acids. However, one of the pieces that I didn't speak to was how do you prevent soil particles from moving? It's one thing to prevent or to reduce the soluble phosphorus levels, but how do you reduce soil, particularly clay particles, very small soil particles, which are the easiest to move? Of course, taking phosphorus with them. Remember, we're talking about 10 to 35 parts per billion of phosphorus in a water reservoir being able to produce a tremendous algae bloom. That's practically nothing. A very small amount of clay in the soil or in the water column from erosion can contain that quantity of phosphorus. It doesn't take very much. So. This of course, could be an entire other conversation, but the headline is simply that we need to bind these small clay particles and form larger, more stable soil aggregates and larger crumb structure. Stable crumb structure within the soil profile, which, oh, by the way, is something that mycorrhizal fungi does extremely well. The one of the another piece that mycorrhizal fungi is known for is producing this peptide, this compound called glomalin, which is essentially soiled glue, which takes all these small particles and bonds them together into much larger, more stable soil aggregates. So when you have when you inoculate soils with mycorrhizal fungi and you maintain strong populations of mycorrhizal fungi, not only do you do you have the effect of solubilizing and releasing phosphorus for the plant, but you also have the effect of stabilizing the crumb structure within the soil profile and reducing the free clay particles that can move off the soil with erosion. When you have extreme rainfall events or anything like that. And of course managing erosion is that's a whole other topic in and of itself. And the need to keep the soil covered with a living cover crop or mulch or whatever the case might be, that's another topic. But you can greatly reduce erosion and greatly reduce the movement of these small clay particles where you have this cloudy Milky Way water simply by maintaining active mycorrhizal fungi and developing that ecosystem. Thank you very much for attending and participating. I really appreciate you being here and each of you will receive an email following up within a couple of days of this event with the recording and the slide deck that was used. And also we will be including references, links to half a dozen different references that describe the different phosphorus fractions and how phosphorus works in the soil profile. If you want to do additional research and understand what is happening with phosphorus absorption and phosphorus in soil to a better degree. So thank you very much for attending. Hope that you found it useful. And if you have any feedback or any topics that you would love for me to speak about in the future, please send me an email john kemp.com and I would love very much to hear from you. Look forward to talking with you soon. Have a wonderful evening. Thanks everyone. Bye.