Preventing Yield Loss at Planting

Welcome to the second installment of AA's Wednesday evening webinar series. Glad you could join us. John unfortunately could not be with us. He is speaking at the Ohio Grazing Conference. And so I had the honor and privilege to step in and be able to lead you all through this talk about preventing yield loss at planting. I hope the reason for that title instead of increasing yield, will become abundantly obvious as we go forth and that this subtle shift in thinking will increase your productivity and profitability this year and in the future. So get started. My name is Nathan Harmonies. I have been a consultant with AEA for about five years now and it's my first time leading a webinar. So if there are some hilarious mistakes, laugh with me. I grew up farming with both my grandparents and then did a big diversity of things in college and studied a lot of science and natural architecture and really continued to nerd out on plants and then started a farm with with a good friend and did that for about five years growing a wide variety of small scale organic produce crops for market. And then towards the end of that I had some pretty impressive experiences working with materials from AEA and one thing led to another. Here we are. So I work all over the country and some internationally and have had a great deal of experience on all manner of crops and it's really been quite a ride and quite a privilege. And from there we will go forth. So at advancing agriculture, we don't think about increasing yields. That's not where it's at. It's about preventing yield loss because most of the crops we deal with are not attaining the potential that they actually have. So where are all those potential yields going? Well, we're losing them throughout the season, bit by bit, step by step. So we're going to talk about. Some of those issues. Why does this happen? Well, a plant is extremely vulnerable to early in its stages of life. That's a critical point of influence. Any stress here has a proportionately greater influence than anything you can do later on in the year. So more impact can be made with less effort on your part. In those first few weeks of a plant's life, any stress, and there are lots of them, can depress reproductive function or proper framing of the plant. On and on the plants communicate with the environment. From the moment that the first radical comes out of the seed, they are making choices and setting themselves up on what their potential is in the place where they are. And it's from their perspective. It's not from a soil test report. It's the plant communicating with the microbes and determining where it can achieve its greatest potential for the season. Our goal is to make sure the plant is getting the signal that there is a lot of energy that everything will be taken care of. We don't actually have to do all the taking care of yet, we just have to provide the signal. If any of you have heard John Kemp speak, then you will have seen this chart that he developed as a visual to lead us through critical points of influence. A critical point of influence is any point where we're going to have the greatest potential to make a beneficial change. So in this chart, the annual crops are in green, the perennial crops are in blue, and they take us through the entire season, Right? So at germination and plant framing, or physical structure development, blossoming, fruit fill and senescence, those are the periods where we need to make sure we're doing the very best we can to provide zero stress. Today we're going to be talking just about germination and transplant on annual fruits and vegetables. AEA works a lot with tree fruits and perennials, but that is not the topic today. We're going to be dealing with annual fruits and vegetables, specifically at germination. So the, the source of most of these problems are stresses. You can read through this list, you can probably add a dozen others. There are an awful lot of ways that plants can become stressed and can lose potential yield. Some of these we control directly, they are our responsibility. Others we can only react to. And some are actually caused by potentially other farmers like herbicide residues or drift.

But.

To the best of our ability, we need to take care of everything from soil compaction and not planting in terrible conditions, to putting out very strong transplants that aren't overdue for the field, from not causing cultivation damage, etc. The result of all that stress, or rather the indicator that there is stress early in the season, is poor growth, small root systems, disease and insects. These aren't necessarily natural parts of the plant growth cycle. These are indicators that stress has already occurred and yield has already been lost. The solutions that have been advocated, some of which actually cause stress and cause loss of yield, are things like incomplete water soluble fertilizers, especially when those fertilizers are put down in large quantities pre plant, when the plant can't use them and is actually damaged by them. Fungicidal seed inoculants, which cause stress by limiting beneficial fungi. Genetic engineering, so far anyway, is a source of plant stress rather than beneficience. And our planting schedules, we aren't necessarily, sometimes we're under the gun. Understood. There's a schedule to maintain from your buyer or your market. And often we get out in bad conditions, but then we feel those not just for the rest of that year, but on and on in the future. Some of the real solutions are provide microbial occupants probiotics at planting.

Right.

We're gonna have weather stress. It's going to happen. But the more helpers you have for that plant, the less of that is going to affect the plant. Not over applying nutrients that suppress microbial activity, using superior quality seed, and making every effort to provide ideal planting conditions. Okay, so those are the four topics that we're going to be going through today. But first, let's talk about babies. At the risk of sounding unscientific, I'm going to go ahead and make some relations between mammalian pregnancy and birth and plant reproduction. It's not the same. I know, but poets and farmers throughout the centuries have seen a lot of parallels. And anyone who's ever held a newborn knows there's infinite potential there.

Right?

We dream about the people that they could be someday and they could be anybody. But this stage of life is really fragile, and any accident or injury or setback now can lead to a lifetime of issues. All living things have this tenacious will to survive, and they're going to make something of themselves. But we want them to thrive, right? We want our children to thrive, and I think we want our crop plants to thrive. And that's why we've got to treat them tenderly at that stage. Fortunately, plants are a lot more reliable than children. So, you know, sometimes you just have no idea how people are going to turn out despite your best intentions. Okay. Newborn mammals drank colostrum. Colostrum first, then milk. Colostrum is this amazing material that only flows for a few days or weeks, and it's decidedly unlike milk, has a completely different nutritional profile. Colostrum is chock full of antibodies and immunoglobulins and leukocytes, white blood cells. These are all probiotics. They're living cells that need to get into that baby first thing to vaccinate them against diseases, to inoculate them with the microbial infrastructure that they're going to need in order to thrive, to be able to take in food. One of the primary roles of colostrum is to create the mucous membranes on the throat and in the lungs and in the guts, exactly in the same way that microbial inoculants are intended to coat plant roots with beneficial bacterial populations. So the colostrum is intended to set up this living system in the plant. And it's tiny in volume. There's very little of it compared to the milk that's going to come later and actually grow the organism. It's very low in fat, but it's very high in protein. It's got much less calcium and less potassium than the milk that comes later, but it's got much higher manganese, copper, zinc, iron, sodium, et cetera. It's these micronutrients and not macronutrients that are critical at this stage of life. Reproductive parts of plants, interestingly, seeds, flowers, et cetera, have 20 times or more the concentration of micronutrients as the other plant tissues. There are a lot of parallels here. And Colostrum also contains very specific growth hormones and growth factors that are specific to each species. They get these body systems up and running a lot like we use growth hormones and seaweeds in agriculture. So here we have diagram of two intestinal systems from monkeys reared in a lab. The one on the left was bottle fed with a, you know, the best shot science has at an appropriate formula for monkeys. And on the right are the gut flora from monkeys that were breastfed on their mothers. The measurements were taken many months after that event when they were both adolescents running around in the same situation, dealing with the same things in life. And we see that there is a vastly different quantitative and qualitative population. The mother reared monkeys have far more immune system cells and they have a much lower amount of Clostridium specifically, which is a bacteria that is natural and normal in the gut, but is a source of many gastrointestinal problems, diarrhea and botulism, etc. So if we take this example to plants, then we realize that the effects that we have immediately upon birth or germination are lasting. And for a plant, its digestive system is the soil. Here we have a slide of two sets of broccoli or cauliflower or cabbage that are. The one on the left has been raised in a standard media with which you would all be familiar. The one on the right is the keystone media that AEA offers. And the difference is obvious in the plant growth. And I can tell you, having known that crop, that the difference continues to be obvious throughout the season. We have to start right. The keystone media specifically is not sterile, right? That's a no, no. It might be a no no to have completely random biology in your potting media, but the right biology makes a major difference. It's full of humus, compost, biochar Peat moss, perlite, pulverized crab shell, volcanic ash, chelated micronutrients, dolomite and living microorganisms.

That.

Yeah, that set that plant up for that colostrum like environment. The big point, rather than starting our plants with simple NPK rations, they should be started with small and appropriate amounts of microorganisms and micronutrients. Okay. Now, as the plants will need more fertility later and it has been convenient for farmers to give their plants and their fields everything at once pre plant, we need options for later fertility delivery. Luckily they exist. If you're not familiar, here is a brief but not exhaustive list. It's our responsibility to find the systems that work on our farms for our crops to apply that fertility at the appropriate time. It could be a liquid or a dry, it could be in the soil, it could be through drip line or you know, there are lots of ways. Yes, it involves equipment changes and learning curves and expenses, but this is just part of farming in the modern era. It's part of farming lean. It's part of not wasting money, it's part of not polluting the environment with wasted inputs. And it's part of growing a healthy plant that is not going to suffer from the overabundance of food that you have provided at an inappropriate time. Seed quality, low integrity growing conditions make low integrity seed seems obvious enough. Genetics are not so clean cut that the environment in which a plant is grown cannot influence the expression of those genetics. So we need to be looking for the highest quality seed we can. In some cases we have choices, in some cases we feel that we don't. But all I can say is find the right supplier or grow your own. It starts with seed, nothing else. We're going to talk about matters. If you're using poor quality seed after that you've either planted directly in the field or you're dealing with a transplant. Transplant quality is the next, the next motion here. Because by the time you put that thing in the ground, it's already been alive for days and weeks, enough that several of these critical points of influence have already passed. So we need to make sure that we're growing really nice quality transplants. In order to do that, they have to start their lives with microbial connection with the knowledge that they have a team of microbiologicals helping them so that they can make the right decisions. Greenhouse conditions matter an awful lot. And if you can't find a supplier who's willing to work with you, who's willing to change medias or fertility sources or you know, work with your needs, then grow your own. From there. We have to take responsibility for our soil conditions. They're never as nice as we want them. Well, sometimes they are, but it's our ground and we're the stewards, so we need to be able to share in the and the care and responsibility for the conditions that we have at planting. A lot of this is determined in the fall, long before you're ready to plant. And a lot of it has to do with when and how you treat the soil in the spring. In this case, we have some scattered, weak plants that are ostensibly due to planter pressure from a mechanical planter. But the real issue is compaction, Right? So while we could move to a pneumatic or hydraulic pressure system, the ultimate issue is that there is compaction in the soil. While we're talking about corn, John loves this slide. Corn has genetic potential to yield 1100 bushels per acre. It's a romantic thought, maybe, but I've done the reading and it's true. We absolutely have the potential with our current genetics and our current technology to grow corn at that or higher rates. So why aren't we getting there? Well, it's stress by stress by stress through the season. If you look at a corn plant, which a lot of people have, it's the most studied of all crop plants. It's had the most money and research thrown at it, so we know the most about it. And there are some really interesting things to look at here. Nine to 12 days after germination, you've already determined the number of ears on that corn plant a few days after germination. In a three day window, that's where the corn is deciding. One year, two, three, four, five. 14 to 21 days is determining the number of rows around each cob. And 21 days later, you're starting to get into determining the number of kernels along each row. The biggest influence we have here is on the number of ears. If we want to increase yield.

That.

Is down here at emergence through V1, that's when the plant is deciding its biggest potential factor in providing yield. So if we're sitting, you know, long before reproductive phase, long before you're seeing any silking or tasseling or physiological features that would encourage you to think, oh, I've got to do something to save what I've got here, it's back at that emergence stage. If corn can produce 1100 bushels and we're sitting usually well below 300, then is this you? We can go a lot farther and it's not pie in the sky because 30 years ago we popped the 300 bushel an acre mark and 30 years before that, that would have been unthinkable three, four years ago, now we hit above the 500 bushel per acre mark. Randy Doughty got into it to break that mark. That was his goal and he did everything he needed to in order to get there. And he's very clear about how that happened. Either eliminate stress or address it, plain and simple. He applies massive amounts of fertilizers, he plants at ridiculously high populations, he chooses his varieties very carefully, he pampers his fields, he cover crops, he addresses pre plant micronutrients and biologicals. He does everything he needs to do and he irrigates, of course, to eliminate every bit of stress that he can. Flower producers know that reducing stress is the key to them making a living. That's why with their very short window of marketability and their very high demands on quality and the very visual nature of the crop, the fact that people are looking at it deeply, that they need to give those plants every advantage they can in life. Hence the greenhouses, the heating systems, the watering and fertility delivered very accurately in successful greenhouses. Some of the flower producers that been working with have taken a next step in productivity and product and profitability by incorporating micronutrients and inoculants from the moment they get their cuttings or the moment the seed hits the soil and are finding that they can crowd the plants much closer together, fit more in a house with no disease, and that they can stack the internodes. They can have short, tight, stocky little plants so they don't have to deadhead as much. And then we can hit it with a biological stimulation to promote flowering. But the core of that is this very artificial modified environment that is geared in every way towards reducing any stress. So we're going to get into something a little different than corn because corn is a unique crop and that a, we know so much about its reproductive capacity and when that's determined, but it's also, well, it's mostly a day neutral crop because of how we've bred it so intensely over time. But a lot of the other day neutral crops, which means they're not dependent on, on day length or night length, they are mostly affected. Their reproductive phase is affected by physiological growth stages, temperature, other conditions in the environment. But a tomato for example, it grows nine to 12 leaves and then it puts on a flower stalk and inflorescence, then it grows three more leaves every time three More leaves and then a flower stalk, three more leaves, flower stalk, boom, boom, boom, on up and up. On an indeterminate tomato, that process can be infinite. It can keep going and going. There is no theoretical limit to yield. So long as the weather holds out, you don't get disease, you're not taken down by some other condition. Cucumbers and green beans are the same way. These multi fruiting crops need a certain amount of leaves on them and then a signal given within the plant to start producing flowers. On a determinate tomato, it's a one gene mutation that causes after several sets of three leaves, one flower, three leaves, one flower, it drops to two leaves, one flower and then one leaf, one flower and then flower, flower, and that's it. After that, the vegetative energy of the plant is kaput. And without more vegetative energy, you can't have more reproductive energy. And that's why it's determinant. That's a single gene mutation.

That.

Is the difference there. But how do we then determine yield with those plants planting? We don't exactly, except that we can certainly limit yield with every stress that they have that limits their, their growth, that that's what we're looking for in those plants. We just have to make sure that there is no lack of energy to build first strong root systems and then strong, yeah, framing systems to get that plant quickly to that 8 to 12 leaf condition and to get it there with zero disease and no other pressures. So it still applies, even though it's a very different sort of mechanism in these day neutral crops, in the photosensitive crops, which means that they determine their reproductive cycling based on the length of the night. It's a slightly different story. If you plant out of season. Well, you're just out of luck. Spinach or lettuce here, they are very prone to bolting if they're planted in a short day, long night environment. We still get nice crops out of them because they're very quick. Right. But planting winter wheat or spring wheat in their opposite time frames is a bad mistake. So in these crops where we have a very strong signal given by the weather, the length of the night, then it's back to the same condition. Our best shot is to get them up and running and strong and healthy so that there is no limitation to them reaching a peak state of vegetative mass and health before they go into those necessary flowering signals brought by the weather. As we go forth, we can do a lot of things to encourage them or discourage them to accept those weather Cues, especially as we have modified environments, as we deal with artificial lighting, as we deal more with the application of growth promoting hormones, etc. But the corn example is glorious. It's not the same as in every crop. However, one thing remains the same. It's a radical concept. The radical is the first initial root that comes out of a plant. And there's a reason. There's a reason it's first root dominance, root primacy. We have to focus on root health. We have to allow plants to express that. So roots, roots, roots. On the left is a potato plant which is geared toward root growth. You know, we've been selecting for it and breeding for it in a way that we haven't necessarily for other plants. And yet I think you could all agree that's, that's a pretty impressive root system. And you can see the hook leaves or the hooks just starting to come out on the ends of those very white extensions. That's where the actual potato is about to set. That dreadlock condition of those leaves is where the plant has already been inoculated first so that those bacteria and fungi are present and ready to absorb any sugars the plant is exuding down to them. And then they are responding by putting, providing the ideal environment in which those roots can grow. Rhizobia, nitrogen fixing bacteria, same situation. You're lucky if you have not lucky, skilled. If you've been farming in such a way that you can rely on those rhizobia to be present in enough volume on your crops without inoculating them. But otherwise we are dealing with inoculations. These are crops in Florida grown on some very poor quality sand that is more or less devoid of organic matter. And yet you can, you can see the color and the dreadlocking here that plants build soil as they grow. And the earlier they are able to form partnerships with endomycorrhizal fungi and with a whole host of bacteria, then the more of that is going to happen, the more roots you're going to get, the sooner you're going to enter your desired crop stage. These are potatoes off some of the potatoes from two slides ago. I think that's 40 some potatoes off of maybe two plants. We can really, we can focus a concentrated set when we have that sort of massive root growth that is ready.

Right.

We've done the work of priming the plant for its peak reproductive phases and it's allowed, it knows it has the energy and the right conditions to fruit wildly and abundantly. I'm not going to spend too long explaining the role of fungi. Because if you're here on this webinar, I'm betting that you are already a little familiar and have done some studying on your own and know that these guys are amazing and critical and that there is a strong connection with phosphorus, that it's relatively hard to move phosphorus in the soil, that plants do a very poor job of it themselves and rely in natural systems on fungi and to a lesser degree, phosphorus harvesting bacteria. And that phosphorus is a big issue in organics. It's hard to get it in conventional fertility regimes. It's easier, but it's very hard on the environment. And that we have a lot of pollution from overuse of superphosphates, especially when unneeded. And furthermore, that when we oversupply a phosphorus early in the season, the plants do not feel the need to create a symbiosis with those phosphorus harvesting fungi. They have an abundant enough supply that they're not going to waste sugar and other energy feeding these fungi. And so they physically close off their roots. They say, no thanks, go pedal your wares elsewhere. On that, I'm going to get to another metaphor. I like to think of fungal relationships sort of like mom and pop stores on Main street. And I like to think of synthetic phosphates as a big box store. When we connect and knit together these small local networks, they self support, right? They're friends and neighbors, they're sharing. And when we supply large volumes of phosphates or cheap crap from China, we sort of rob the local economy of its interdependence. The plants are exactly the same way and they need that sort of localism and that mutual support that is offered by fungal hyphae, which is why we inoculate, because often we've been rather hard on our soils. Farming is not necessarily universally.

A great.

Practice on the soil itself. And fungal hyphae are one of the most delicate biological objects. They're easy to break and hard to build once broken. So when we're dealing with systems in agriculture that involve plowing, that involve disturbance cultivation of any sort, when we're dealing with systems that involve fungicides, or when we're dealing in a greenhouse and transplant situation where you have an imported artificial soil in an artificial environment, growing in plastic trays, especially in a sterile soil media, that's where we need to help these guys out. We need to make sure that each plant starts its life with a symbiosis. And that's why we use Bioko Gold as a seed inoculant. This is a seed treatment that we put directly dry on almost any kind of seed. And it also contains very fine powdered calcium and seaweed that further contribute to this early colostrum like effect. Also, we use mycogenesis, which is a much more diverse and dense form of mycorrhizal and bacterial inoculant. This would be used, blended into liquid and put in a planter band into a root dip or used very early in your greenhouse media when you're starting plants. There are others, there are hundreds of others of microbial, fungal, bacterial inoculants. I don't have anything bad to say about any of them. I have much better things to say about some of them, including the two that I've just shown you. And that's why we use them. The moment something better, more effective and more cost effective for the farmer comes along, be bringing that on board as well. The science is developing, we're learning a lot. And certainly you can find dozens of ways to inoculate a soil, some of them very labor intensive, very local, very specific to your environment, some of them using multiple blends and species from various biotechnology companies. All I can say is if you find something that's fantastic, then please share the knowledge, because this is where agriculture is headed in the next century. This is understanding microbiology, and this is, this is where we're really going to make huge amounts of progress. That said, fungicidal seed inoculants are kind of a bad idea, right? They are there to inhibit fungi. Fungi. The expectation being from the manufacturers that fungi are bad for plants, they are the source of disease. That can be true, but mostly because there is a shortage of beneficials. The moment that the beneficials are taking the bigger share of the energy and are promoting the health of those plants on whom they depend on, right? The plants are feeding them. They're feeding the plants. If the plant dies, the fungi is out of luck.

So.

Many of the beneficial microbiologicals are not just helping the plant, but by feeding it. They're actively going through the process of hunting out and destroying disease and pest entities. So fungicidal seed inoculants are one step forward, two steps back. It's, it's a bass ackwards idea. And it's a shame that a lot of crops are hard to find with without being treated. And even more so that a lot of, if it has a fungicide on it, it's probably also got an insecticide and that's probably a neonicotinoid and that's probably contributing to the massive loss of Bees support companies that provide seeds that are untreated, find ways to use them and absorb the benefits. Brassicas are a unique case. They do not have that sort of endomycorrhizal fungal relationship. They apparently get along just fine without it. They never developed a mechanism to use it, and so you don't need to waste your time or money supporting them with specifically fungal inoculants. However, they still have a very strong bacterial relationship and benefit from that. Obviously, the brassicas are a huge crop family and deal with from leafy greens to root crops to flower crops. But the fertilization techniques get specific depending.

On.

The part of the plant you're growing, but no fungal relationship there. Now, all these biostimulants perform best when the plants are supported with proper nutrition. And it's a back and forth. Is it that we're feeding the microbes and they're feeding the plants, or are we feeding the plants and they're feeding the microbes? Yeah, it's both. So that early inoculation phase is often ineffective if it's just the inoculant without appropriate fertility. And maybe that is extant in your soil. If it's not, then we need to work with it. Microbes prefer to take up, as do plants. They prefer to take their nitrogen from protein and amino acid forms. And phosphorus and zinc have a mutual relationship early in the plant. They need to be imbalance and calcium and boron as well need to be imbalanced and are mutual to one another. Manganese and really all the trace elements have a role to play in this early germination to transplant phase. You don't need much, we're talking very small quantities, but they've got to be there. Which brings us to plantar Solution A's product, where we've tried to put all this together for you. We did the math, we, we did the blending and in quite a lot of cases it could be all you need. It's rejuvenate, holo, phos, fotomag, micropak and seastem. There are biostimulants, there are micronutrients. They're ingredients to support photosynthesis right off the bat. There's phosphorus and calcium to support early root growth and cell division. And there are humates and carbohydrates to directly support the microbial environment in which those early plants are growing. When is it not everything you need? Well, there are certainly limiting factors beyond these that we may deal with. And of course, soil reports are helpful. Of course, past conditions on the farm are going to play in. Also, if you're an organic grower, then you need to be wary that there are regulated micronutrients that if you have an excess in your soil already, you need to be able to speak clearly with your certifier about how and why you would be using a material that adds more of it. So in addition to plant or solution, there are and inoculants, there's one other thing that really makes a difference to this colostrum effect when you're planting, which is seashield. This is an ingredient that AEA has found value in at every plant stage, on every crop because of its inclusion of chitin from crab and shrimp shell. It directly feeds fungi in the soil. And interestingly, in a way that I probably don't have time to get into now because we're running out of reduces fungal inoculation, fungal attack on the leaves when it's applied as a foliar. But seashield as a, as a effect of protein and calcium and lipid and chitin source is a key ingredient in this early seed development phase. And this is actually my last slide and we'll be able to get to some questions. I can't talk about early spring work like planting and germination without talking about late fall work after the harvest. Whatever the condition of your soil in the spring, it has a lot to do with what happened last fall and what was happening all winter. In this particular slide you see on the right, where soil was treated with rejuvenate seashield Spectrum Biological Primer after a crop of soybeans and the soybeans, the soybean straw was scattered out on the left. No primer, no inoculation, very little happened. Both were planted with a cover crop and very little of it came through on the untreated ground. And while it's not as thick as we would like on the right, it certainly keeps something green in the field. And that's how we keep biology around. That's how a will eventually work itself out of business, is that farmers are going to start keeping something green in their field. They're going to be doing more cover cropping, more interplanting, tighter rotations, not letting the biology that we've worked so hard to build up then die out because there's, there's nothing feeding it. So there are, there are many, many techniques and ways to improve your field conditions in the fall. And they matter. They get your seeds off to the right start. So I hope that was helpful. I'm now Going to open it up to questions.

And there's one question here, Nathan, from Pete Gibford, and he's asking, he says I use a plant starting medium of two parts peat and two parts really good finished hot compost, Elaine Ingram style and one part vermiculite. And he asks whether our inoculants will live in a peat based starting medium.

Okay, yes. Yeah. Two parts peat and two parts good finished compost. Absolutely. The inoculants would, would carry in such a medium. They won't necessarily live without a plant relationship. But yes, provided there are plants in that, in that soil media, then we're good to go. Do you have cheat sheets for timing of application of your products throughout the year for the home gardener? Yes, indeed. We have material developed from the past. Also we are working on a very handsome and very thorough new catalog in kind of small book form that will cover a great deal of these basic recommendations for applications and techniques. Let's see, touch on copper and fungi. Yes, copper is, you know, the first discovered antifungal mineral that was common in the Bordeaux mixture and is potentially an antifungal when out of balance, when applied in strength and also when applied in certain forms of copper. Copper has a lot of different oxidation states. And when copper is available in a. And I'll have to stretch my chemistry here or just leave it out before I sound like a fool. There are oxidation states that are less toxic, but the real key is not to over apply copper. The rebound organic copper that AEA uses is in a reduced form, not an oxidized form and its rates are low enough, but its chelation state and oxidation state such that it gets right on and into plants. I don't recommend a lot of direct application of copper to the soil. If you're really extremely deficient in copper, then it can make sense to apply some actual copper sulfate dry mineral form. But in our experience, providing it to the plants is the best way for them to dole out in appropriate ratios into the soil where it's not harmful to fungi. And I hope that answers your questions. Is there any study evidence indicating that rejuvenate reduces disease carryover to the following season? Well, yeah, yeah, Absolutely nothing from a university that I'm aware of yet working on it, but absolutely. Rejuvenate is the, it's kind of the standby base level where we want to go on every acre, every farm. It primes the soil in a dozen and a half ways. So by promoting the bacterial composition of the soil, you are handling the residue, you're physically digesting away residue. Of course, residue is where any disease organism that was thriving on your crop at the end of the season last year is going to reinoculate. In that way, you're reducing disease carryover. You're also just building a richer herd of microbes that are opening up the soil, reducing compaction, getting more water penetration, more oxygenation. And that starts a cascade effect of plenty of other larger actors in the soil that can, in the way that I talked about with fungi, that can further actually hunt down certain disease organisms. If we have field blocks that were left bare all winter, what would be the best way to boost the biology? Well, that's a pretty broad and open question and I love that old saying, there's cheap, fast and good. Pick two. You want it cheap and good, but not fast, or do you want it fast and good but not cheap, etc. The best way would be, you know, 15 tons of amazing quality compost and very, very quick turnaround of some sort of COVID crop that would get a few inches tall and have something green in there and dose it up with rejuvenate and mycogenesis and you know, sure, throw some biochar and probably some gypsum and etc. Etc. Any volume of any of those things is going to have some impact. But the on a practical level, I would say try to seek out some good source of actual compost and use the rejuvenate program with SeaShield and Spectrum or microgenesis and put that out.

As.

Soon as the soil is starting to warm, early spring, but not in conditions that are going to harm your field to drive over it. And then you should be ready to plant in a couple of weeks. Next question from Pete. What of your products would you add to soilless medium besides living plants to feed the microbiology? You got my gist already, huh? What would you add to soilless medium?

So.

I guess the big question, and.

Maybe you can.

Clarify a little bit.

Is.

What'S made of. There are certain soilless mediums. For instance, coconut Coir, which after depending on its quality, after being flushed fairly well, seems to be able to support some microbial population, but not ideally. I think John is here and said that he would like to answer that question. John, Great, thanks.

Thanks.

Nathan, I didn't realize that you were telepathic.

Something popped up on my screen.

Good evening, friends. I am in the dark, so I'm not available on camera. But very briefly, the primary challenges with soilless media are in my understanding that mycorrhizal fungi do not thrive well, particularly in peat moss, but also in choir. And that can be largely alleviated when we add compost or other humic substances to provide a struct for the mycorrhizal fungi to thrive in and survive in. So we often, we like to see the addition of small amounts of compost and other humic substances to a soilless media. And then we use the mycorrhizal fungi and biocoat gold and the general inoculants that we would use and we typically would also recommend, obviously want to use those at planting so that we have strong germination and we get the root colonization immediately after germination. But then also we would usually reinoculate right at transplanting as well, so that we get the benefit of adding any bacteria or fungi later on at the transplant period that might not have survived in those media. Yeah, and doing kind of a one, two punch is where we see the biggest benefits.

And Pete mentioned that it's two parts peat and two parts compost, in which case I think you're home free. That level of compost.

Thank you, Nathan.

Should be well able to support biology. Got an active question. Do we sell activated biochar? No, not yet. Definitely a continued point of curiosity and we'll see where that goes. There's research coming out all the time that is curiouser and curiouser. And I fully support the production of more biochar and more people starting businesses so that it's available on a commercial scale. That would be the big one of the big questions. How do we uptake more calcium to fruit at Blossom Apple farmer? Hey man, this is for annual crops. Some other time. That's somewhat honest. John will definitely be dealing with that in an upcoming seminar.

But.

They'Re simple. Simple answer. Getting more calcium to a fruit at Bloom. Make sure you're not over supplying potassium, which is an antagonist to calcium. Make sure that you're supplying a bioavailable form of calcium and make sure that there is enough boron in the system that that calcium is transported. Maybe other finer details, but the most likely issue is an overabundance of potassium and potentially a shortage of boron. Jonathan says you talked about the importance of zinc and phosphorus balance as well as micronutrient balance. What are the best forms of micronutrients to apply to the soil to create this balance? Well, that's easy. AA rebound micronutrients. To be a little less facetious. Zinc sulfate works in the. In the soil. It's. It's fairly absorbable in a Wider variety of biological conditions and ph. A lot of your micronutrients, if you don't have thriving biology and you don't have great ph, then they're kind of a moot point being applied to the soil. Zinc and boron are notable exceptions. So zinc sulfate can work and can perform the function of correcting a serious imbalance where you're talking about, you know, if you actually need 20 pounds of zinc per acre. However, if you're in the realm of acceptability on your levels and you don't want to potentially tox anything out, then using foliars of. I really being quite honest, the rebound micronutrient line is extremely bioavailable and worked very well as a foliar and as a drip solution. So I would look into those. I knew I was going to get questions on that. I didn't really have time to get into a lot of those detailed mineral balances. The point of the talk being that planting we need a light, diverse and appropriate source of micronutrients and that it can be easy to go too heavy. Actually on that note, legumes, beans, peas, soybeans can actually have a negative response to, to several of the micronutrients.

When.

Applied directly to the seed. They need them very shortly after germination, but can actually be. Germination can be inhibited on many of the legumes by direct seed application of micronutrients. So that is a fine detail that is important. Know that you can, you can still put Those in a 2 by 2 or 4 by 4 next to the seed that you can even apply dribbled on top of the planting row and not have any likely negative consequences. But you don't want to put those directly on seed in row for legumes. How do you address saline soils? Well, that's, that's a bit of a. Bit of a big topic as well. Saline soils need. Need bioremediation and they. You need to look at your water source if you're, if you're irrigating. Usually if you're in a situation with saline soils, then your water source or lack of penetration and drawing through the soil is a big issue. But I'm going to respectfully save that question for another time because it's a really big topic. And so what do you do for raising soil cec aside from building organic matter? Is there a quick fix? Well, certainly that's one of the magical scientific properties of salt based fertilizers. They don't necessarily raise the CEC of the entire Soil and they don't do it permanently, but they certainly have increased electrical conductivity until they degrade. Also materials like seed crop and rejuvenate itself by increasing the biological stimulation in the soil will have an effect at least short term in raising soil cec. There are probably more bad ways to do that as a quick fix then there are good ways. In my understanding at least building organic matter is still your key. But in the meantime, in order to enhance your building of organic matter, you can use foliar materials to directly feed the plant. When the soil is not behaving and not moving things around like you want it to, you can feed the plant with the foliar and thus build more soil more quickly and get a crop now. So I would say that foliar and very accurate drip feeding is the shortest term solution I can think of there. Can you talk about oats as a cover crop and their efficacy with microbial and mycorrhizae fungi? I can, but not as deeply as John can. So John, if you're still around and able to answer that one, I know that you've got a lot of experience with that particular relationship.

Thanks Nathan. So oats are a very interesting cover crop in that they are one of the few, perhaps the only small grain which produces a reducing microbial community in the rhizosphere as a result of the compounds that is releasing through the root system, particularly the glucosillanates. So oats have a very strong symbiotic relationship with mycorrhizae as would all the small grains. But the in addition to that, the bacterial community in that rhizosphere is very effective at both solubilizing phosphorus as well as producing a very disease suppressive bacterial profile. So it's oats and buckwheat share that in common. They're very effective cover crops at producing a disease suppressive soil and are very valuable for that reason.

John, if. If you'd like to also take a quick stab at the previous question on raising CEC besides building organic matter.

I.

Feel like that could be more thoroughly answered.

Yeah. So when you think of cec, the cation exchange capacity, the fundamental way to increase that is there are obvious limitations to what you can increase because of the soil structure. Sand, silt, clay, etc. You can increase that with organic matter. And that is the usual and most common answer. You can affect it directly to some degree by using humic substances. But then you also have to ask the question is why do you feel the need to raise Organic matter. It certainly can be useful and helpful depending on the crops that we're producing to increase CEC to a higher level. But you can also manage CEC at very low levels. We can grow exceptionally healthy and vibrant crops on very sandy soils or for that matter in hydroponics. So having a greater mineral bearing capacity and mineral holding capacity is valuable for long term crop when we're not able to apply nutrients through the the growing season. But if we're working with sandy soils that have a very low CEC then we need to figure out how to apply nutrients through the growing season. It's just a part of the management process to grow an exceptional crop. So I guess my answer to summarize very simply would be yes, we can increase it to a limited degree by building organic matter and stable humic substances. And we also need to figure out how to manage that soil at its current present CEC levels.

Thank you, John. I think I'm gonna cut it off here after this next question. It's 15 minutes after what would be the best way to utilize your Holo Mic and Mac products? What would be the best schedule to use it? Plant situations that would benefit from it most. So Holomac and Holomac are two blended products that really contain almost the whole stable of A's materials. So they are best shot at a nearly universal two jug solution, if you will. So it was developed for being able to use on diverse garden crops where you're not going to make a separate blend and application for, you know, for each row. And then we found that it could be used just as effectively on large scale industrial crops, on corn and soybeans and fruit trees.

And.

The simple answer is that there's no simple answer. There are certain, there can certainly be situations where they would not be the right products. For instance, the Holomoon Holo Mac has a fair amount of potassium in it that is not excessive for what a plant might uptake in the season. But if you already have a potassium excess, it might not be the way to go. Similarly, Holomike may have micronutrients that in your situation are already overabundant. I would encourage you to look on our website where they're is usage instructions that cover weekly fertigation and foliar applications. All right, well hey, thank you all. I had a great time. Appreciate you being here. I hope it was useful to you and look forward to working with you all this season.