Right now is the time to switch to regenerative agriculture. Here's why.

Welcome, friends. Thank you all for joining us for our webinar. Today, David Miller is going to be sharing his thoughts on course correction and how do we need to shift and what do we need to shift from to really have a regenerative agriculture practice and implementation on our farm. So this webinar is really intended for people who are starting out or who are curious or want to start out or want to learn more about what regenerative agriculture is. And then the really important question is, how do you actually implement successfully? There's lots of noise in the space right now about how to transition to regenerative agriculture practices. And I think one of the common parameters, the foundational parameters, is frequently missed. And that is how do you make certain that it's economically viable? Because obviously if it's not economically viable and it doesn't make dollars and cents, then it's not truly regenerative. That needs to be one of the foundational pieces is that we need to regenerate farm livelihoods and rural landscapes and rural economies. So when you think about course correction, it's worth asking the question of what got us here? How did we get here? It's fairly common for us at advancing eco agriculture when we start working with a new crop to observe the standard mainstream contemporary growing practices and ask ourselves the question, just how did we get here? What brought us to this place? Because from a fresh perspective, it looks as if, though we are really in some cases doing things very backwards. An example of this, I'll use cotton as an example. We started working with cotton a couple of years ago. David was one of our lead consultants on our first cotton production projects. And if you're familiar, if you're not familiar with cotton production, it's common, depending on which region you're talking about, to apply anywhere from 250 to 300 units of nitrogen per acre for a cotton crop, and then to also apply anywhere from 7 to 10 and sometimes even more plant growth regulator sprays to slow the plants down because they're growing too fast from the excess of nitrogen application. And you look at that and it's like, this is so oxymoronic. It's like driving with one foot on the accelerator and the other foot on the brake. And you ask the question, how did we get here? How do we think that this is acceptable? And it's striking, once you have a fresh perspective and you give yourself the freedom to question everything, how frequently those types of oxymoronic situations are the case in our mainstream agricultural practices today. So we do need A course correct. We do need a benefit of a fresh perspective and David is here to tell us his perspective on what course correction is needed from our historical practices, how we got here and where we need to go. So thank you, David. Oh, actually, I missed one piece. David is also going to leave time for the Q and A at the end of this webinar. I will not be able to join him for that, but you'll get to hear David's perspective, which I'm sure you'll really appreciate. So thank you, David. Take it away.

Thank you, John. Hi friends. It's a delight to be connected again with fellow people who are connected to food and concerned about food. When I think about the influence that farmers, ranchers, food producers across this nation have on the health and well being of the nation, of the people, of the animals, it's I think I can say, awesome to me to consider how powerful and what influence and what effect you really have. And I'd like to just start this conversation this morning with a note of appreciation. Thank you for producing food. Thank you for thinking about and for caring about other people in such a way that you are growing food. And I hope that this conversation can inspire you wherever you are on this journey or even if you are a food consumer, that it can help all of us to be more sensitive to the effect that food has on us and how very, very critical that food is for our well being. So excited to be here, excited to share a couple thoughts here on regenerative agriculture, on why did we end up where we are? How did we end up where we are? Is it okay if we continue in the direction that we have been going? Are we shifting, changing fast enough? So I am hoping to just inspire some thoughts and questions. And if you are new to the conversation of sustainable biological regenerative agriculture, if you're new to the thought that soil has life, that plants are living and not mechanical, then welcome. We are glad that you're listening to this and welcome any questions that you have. It's our goal, it's our desire to change the model of agriculture, that it would be more sustainable, be back to what it used to be at one point. What we're going to do today is we're going to take a look back oftentimes when we want to do a course correct. I don't know if you've ever been lost in the woods or not, but to correct a course, you kind of need to know and understand where you've been and where you're going. Let's look back at what. What has the course of agriculture been? If we start way back 530 years ago, that's quite interesting, actually, when we stop and we think what these people are doing. And now we in 2022 are saying, hey, in North America, we're doing 531 years ago, and probably hundreds and thousands of years before that is they were growing enough food for themselves. They. They were growing enough food for their family, for their tribe, and for continuation of that food production. And whatever they couldn't grow by cultivating, they gathered by hunting or foraging. And again, they didn't gather to stockpile. They didn't gather to hoard up into big piles. They gathered what they needed, they gathered what they could use, and then they used all of it. And if you think about, if you think about the life of these people, there's some things that I certainly would miss. Right? There's, there's. I want to be careful. I'm not advocating that this is where we need to go in order to be wise and careful stewards of the land. But there are some principles that were followed here that are quite interesting. They didn't have any landfills. They didn't have a bunch of garbage. They, they. Their houses were made of things that were also supplying food. So interesting to think about and then to think about how that changed. After three ships came sailing in 1492, what happened with agriculture, what happened with the way food was produced, what happened with the land, what happened with the soil? And we could spend the rest of the afternoon, and I could have spent probably two more weeks looking at history, because it's very fascinating to look back and to consider what happened, what took place, and what changed and shifted and formed the course of agriculture. One of the first things that really made a big difference was the invention of the plow. Up to this point, people were using pointed sticks, people were using oxen. It was very difficult to really, truly create a seedbed or to make significant or to make changes at any significant scale, as in turning the sod of half the prairie or the whole prairie just wouldn't happen until 1797, the first iron plow was patented. And I find it interesting here that the American farmers mistrusted the plow. They believed it poisoned the soil, fostered growth of weeds. Maybe, maybe they should have continued to believe that. 1831, the reaper was invented, and this allowed people one manta instead of harvesting half an acre to an acre, if he was really good at swinging the Scythe, to harvesting 5 acres, 10 acres, large tracts of land by himself. And so that really started to that, that really had an impact on, on a family or a farm's ability in how many acres they could cover. In 1838, John Deere, and we know John Deere as an equipment manufacturer back at that day, it was actually a man. He developed plow that was self polishing, that was designed to cut through the tough prairie sod. And this allowed for growers to significantly plow even larger tracts of land. And now they have the reaper, now they're able to grow much more wheat. This quote by William R. Johnson, which is the great grandfather of the inspirational and leader James Johnson, who is a friend of many of us and has been just. I've been very inspired in watching James as he has evaluated the course of his farm and the changes that he's making. But his great grandfather wrote in 1912 and this was concerning a trip that he made from El Paso, Texas to Silver City, New Mexico, right through Deming, New Mexico. He said, as I topped out of the Rio Grant River Valley, I entered a huge grass plain. As far as I could see. My stirrups drug in the grass the whole way. It was a cattleman's dream. Talk about growing beef and producing cattle. And there were many cattle ranches that have been established in Texas. Things weren't going the greatest. So this, this, this was great opportunity. But people, may I say people were greedy and people didn't understand that the reason that all this grass was growing was because of the soil and because of the symbiotic relationship that was happening. So over grazing happened at mass, mass, mass scale. 1914, World War I began. And during World War I the demand for wheat increased significantly and prices more than tripled. And so this caused farmers to plow land that was very marginal. Land shouldn't have been plowed, shouldn't have been farmed at all. The diversity of the crop really shrunk down to wheat because everybody was pursuing this golden opportunity of getting triple the wheat prices. And so diversity was. Went way down and rotation went down. It was wheat on wheat on wheat because that was the crop that could be utilized for the war efforts and also was paying the most to the growers. By 1921, farm tractors were advanced to the place where one farmer could cover Many, many acres, 50 or more acres in a day, plowing, harrowing, planting, all at the same time. And so that again expanded the amount of soil that was being disrupted and changed from its earlier state. 1932 Shell Chemical pioneers the use of ammonium fertilizer. By 1939, there was direct soil application. And now we're 1935, April 14, 1935, known as Black Sunday, where there was such a massive dust storm that there was a complete blackout. And people all the way to the east coast noticed that there was dark, that it was dark, and there was a dust all the way to the East Coast. The dust cloud moved that far, moved tremendous amounts of soil. But it wasn't just that one Sunday that it happened. There were more than 53 major dust storms recorded in 1935. This soils and Men is the yearbook of Agriculture in 1938. And wow, I tell you, if you get your hands on some of these over yearbooks, it's quite fascinating as well as kind of disheartening almost some of the things that these people were aware of and understood and maybe just didn't understand what to do about it. But there's many lessons that I believe we can learn from, from this history. But in 1938, and this is calculated, this is calculated that 99,300,000 tons of plant food material are lost annually. Minerals, topsoil, Think about it. 99,300,000 tons lost annually in 1938. In addition, and that's in the cropland. In addition to the 37,200,000 tons removed annually from the pasture land, 52% of the phosphorus losses and 58% of potassium losses, 34% of the calcium losses and 22% of the organic matter losses are due to erosion. So water and wind together remove not less than 3 billion tons of soil from the croplands and associated pastures of of the nation. Every year, some 730,000 tons of solid matter are carried annually into the Gulf of Mexico by the Mississippi river alone. That's more than 60 times the amount of these elements of plant food used in the United States as commercial fertilizers during the fiscal year ended in June 30, 1934. So four years before, in 1938, this book records that 8 million tons of fertilizer were already being used annually.

So.

What did people do about it? How is it that we're still growing? Well, people did take note and a number of federal programs were set up. Soil Erosion services started in 1930s and taught farmers how to use terracing and contour plowing and various techniques to help preserve the soil and keep it from blowing and from washing away. Roosevelt directed this group, the Civilian Conservation Corps, to plant over 200 million trees in the Great Plains. And I hope if you're living in the Great Plains. You won't just cut them down now. Fortunately, in the fall of 1939 rain finally returned in significant enough amounts that many areas of the Great Plains the Dust bowl kind of ended. But the damage remained and still remains. So jumping forward 1947 at the end of World War II chemical companies invested billions into expanding facilities because these chemicals, many of the chemicals that had been developed in labs during the war effort were found to be effective in killing and yes killing insects. And so much was invested into expanding this this part of agriculture. And farmers embraced it as the the key, the next thing that was going to help them really grow and prosper and not have the trials of the Dust bowl happen again. From 1947 to 1960, pesticide production increased five fold to 637 million 666 pounds. And if we look at the use today, more than I think it doubled itself once one and a half times since 1960. By 67, no till and conservation. There were a lot of good things also happening during this time. At this time, the no Tillage Practice Survey released that Kentucky let all the states with 150,000 acres in no till which is great 1970 the glyphosate is patented as an herbicide in addition to having been patented as a chelation agent and also an antibiotic. And then in 76 it was roundup was approved to use in no till and conventional tillage systems. 78 the President of United States said that farmers still cultivate too much. They've got to go to minimal till and or zero tillage wherever and whenever it's feasible. Wendell Berry published Unsettling of America. Rachel Carson had written her book in the late 60s. And so there was a questioning about the industrial agriculture revolution. People were starting to ask questions. By the 80s there was an emerging movement, if you will, of people talking about sustainable and biological methods of farming. It was during this time frame that Bruce Taneo, Gary Zimmer, Neil Kinsey, some of those students who had learned under William Albrecht and Kerry Reams were really starting to put out the message of what soil really ought to be. And and taking an honest look at what had happened in the past. By 90s genetic modification was popular. Roundup ready soybeans are introduced. I think a year or two later the corn was introduced if I'm not mistaken. Also around this time the organic the NOP was was enacted or was put into place where there were some standards for organic food and fiber production which was certifying what organic food is not by 2000, there's a lot of momentum building for sustainable biological and organic farming. In early 2000s, John is learning about this on his own farm. He starts AEA in 2006, and then in 2011, he starts questioning the sustainable or biological model and starts to promote regenerative agriculture. To describe his vision for the future model of agriculture, up until that point, sustainable was considered what we need to be thinking about. But if you are, if you are in a broken system, is sustainable enough? Are we able to continue or to keep, get things moving back up if we are not intentional about regenerating, but just sustaining? Now, because of the quality of the pictures, you can probably identify which is in 1935 and which is in 2022. But I look at this and I say we have learned a lot of things and we've made a lot of corrections to the course of agriculture. But if we were hit by a drought, the scale of the drought that they experienced in 1935, would it look any different? I'm afraid it might not. I'm afraid it might not. So my encouragement today is, wherever you are on your journey of agriculture, wherever that might be, whether you have started to correct course or whether you have not, will you just jump out and let it crash or are you going to pull back the yoke, correct course and do something about it, there's hope, there's lots of possibilities, there's lots of options, and together we can change correct the course of agriculture together, meaning when each individual food producer who is responsible for stewarding his specific section of land is willing to say, whoa, what does this do? What? What does that do? Why am I doing this? Why am I doing that? Is this taking me in the right direction? Collectively, we will be able to correct the cores of agriculture. And when we consider the 500 years and the effects of the choices that have been made, and may I say that many of these choices were possibly based in greed or selfishness.

How do.

We now where we are, move, change, shift that in another 500 years from now, someone would be able to say, wow. During the late or during the early 2000s, from 2010 to 2050, there was a dramatic shift in how food was produced and it changed the course of our nation's soil and well being. So where are you? How do you start? First of all, make sure that you know what your goal is. Why are you producing food, what do you want, what do you need? Think about your vision and it's got to be a minimum of five years. And what are your goals? Where are you now? What direction are you headed? If you're off course, start making some corrections immediately. If you find yourself, your operation, your farm, your family in an emergency, don't panic. Ok? Stop. The last thing you want to do when you are lost in this cloud and you are going down is to push and drive your nose even further down. So stop. Don't panic. Look, see what you're looking at. Listen, feel, think about what you do and why you do it.

Ask.

There's many, many people who have learned many things by experience and by education that would be delighted to help. And then make corrections, make deliberate corrections, but make them carefully. Make them in such a way that they will have a change and an impact now. And it's amazing, it's really amazing when we learn from nature and from people who have done it. But when we start moving towards nature, how quickly she's willing to move in our way and how quickly.

Let me.

Say it this way, I've been impressed. How soon growers shift from being uncomfortable with the concept to being comfortable as being a part of their operation, not as one having dominion and controlling and killing everything, but understanding where they are being able and willing to make decisions and take responsibility for their own actions. I love this quote from David Buffman. Buffum. David Buffum just popped up on my desk here a couple days ago. The human race has to pay for such errors. For in the school of nature, man must always be pupil. He can never be the teacher. And I would suggest that for the last 500 years, we have tried to teach nature how she can produce more and how we want her to perform. And I think a lot of that was embedded in selfishness, in covetousness, in gain, which led to destruction. So how do you start? What does nature teach us? Remember, nature is the teacher. We're not the teacher. We're to learn from nature. And what are the things that we learn from nature? From history, from looking at our own experiences, from looking at the experiences of our close friends, of our peers, of a network of people that we can be surrounded with. This is probably a very abbreviated list, but diversity is crucial. Diversity in plant species, diversity in microbial species, diversity in the people you interact and associate with, diversity in thought, being open to think about, why do we do this, why don't we do this? And so forth. One of the things that we learn from nature is that it wants soil to be covered with living plants, there's places that it's not covered. But for SOAP to be productive and the majority of land that is productive, if you will, will be best suited and functioned by living plants. Just, I mean, if you look, look across the landscape, if man hasn't destroyed it, there's probably some. Something growing there. So if we destroy nature, it will destroy us. I think that's another valuable lesson that we learned from looking back. Nate. There is abundance in, of life in this whole ecosystem that we are a part of. And that abundance of life comes when we're willing to share, when we're willing to care, when we're willing to participate and be, be a part of the natural systems. I think nature wants to teach us that we are a part of nature and that we may have the greatest ability and responsibility to build or destroy nature than any other part of nature. So let's look at some basics. Let's look at some fundamentals of regenerative agriculture and then we'll open up for questions because in this setting we need to talk very much in generalities because, I don't know, are you growing corn? Are you growing cotton? Are you growing soybeans? How long have you been. Are you just transitioning into regenerative agriculture? What are your challenges? We don't know those things. So this is simply to whet your appetite and to give you an idea of, of how we think about what we do. So when we look at the basics, photosynthesis, the carbon cycle, the water cycle, the microbial symbiotic relationship that happens in the filosphere and in the rhizosphere. I chose this picture because we look back over history of agriculture. I think it's fair to say that probably the greatest loss and destruction of soil has been in the Great Plains, where there's been excessive amount of tillage, or wherever there's been excessive amount of tillage, I might say. But when we look at just simply the root system and we swap this on the left for this on the right, now we think about the carbon cycle, and when we talk about the carbon cycle, what we're talking about is the plant will photosynthesize. Oh, wait, now we have to talk about photosynthesis. So photosynthesis is when the plant takes. Oh, wait, now we have to talk about carbon because carbon is a part of photosynthesis and water is a part of photosynthesis. So let's just stay with the photosynthetic process. Then for photosynthesis, the plant will take carbon dioxide and water. So CO2 and H2O and will.

Build.

Through photonic energy in the chloroplast. Of that plant, it will build a glucose molecule which will then be converted to fructose. Various forms of carbohydrates built into amino acids, built into proteins, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. There's five basic minerals, but many other. I could probably safely say that all nutrients in some way, shape or form are directly connected to the photosynthetic or to the protein synthesis process. So let's talk about the carbon cycle. Now the carbon then, which is built by the photosynthetic process, is transferred from the plant leaf into the fruit or into the roots. And so when we have this type of root system, we're going to have a much greater demand for carbon here. And the plant may be inspired more to build more carbon, Whereas here we really don't have much of a root system at all. So when we have less sugars or carbons coming into the roots, that means we're going to have less microbes being fed, which means we're going to have less nutrients being available, which means we're going to have less photosynthesis. And when we think about the carbon cycle, when we have less microbes in the soil here, then that means we're going to have less CO2 respiration, which means our photosynthesis is going to be reduced. And that means we're going to have less sugars coming back down to the roots. And so you have this degenerative cycle that that keeps happening. So photosynthesis, when the plant takes sunlight energy and converts H2O and CO2 into energy. And from that energy, the plant then feeds the soil, builds carbon in the soil and builds itself for consumption of animals or of humans. And that cycle and symbiotic relationship just continue to flow. Or when we destroy it and we think that wheat is better than prairie grass. And yes, I think maybe to some regards it might be. But what do we learn from this picture? I had to put this picture in. I have a friend who was talking about a specific disease that never used to happen before 1983 when they had a major flood. Well, actually it only happened on this one growers field, but he had very thin soil. So think about 99,300,000 tons of plant material, or plant food material, meaning minerals, leaving. So where's it coming from? It's obviously not going away here, it's going away here. And so if you have tons and tons and tons leaf, and then you're plowing and your plow layers, say 5 inches down or 10 inches down, your soil starts getting very thin Thin soil? Are you farming thin soil? How much soil has been lost on your operation? What if you're farming down here somewhere and you're building new topsoil, new life? It may well be that that's what we're trying to accomplish. So this is to put into a bit of a visual what happens when photosynthesis decreases, whether that's because we have a carbon deficiency, whether that's because we have a nutrient deficiency, or whether that's we have because we have a water deficiency. If the photosynthesis goes down, that means there's going to be fewer sugars to the root system, which means there's going to be a sluggish or a less reactive microbial system. You're going to have less biology in the soil, which means you're going to have less efficiency, efficient mineral absorption, which means you're going to have a plant that's more susceptible to insects and diseases. So now we probably need to spray a pesticide to keep the pests away, or a fungicide to keep the diseases from destroying our plants. So that means we just continue going this cycle, as many of those compounds will actually decrease photosynthesis even more, which means less sugars, which means less biology. And some of them actually directly antagonize or, or kill the microbial life in the soil. Those pesticides can in fact be having a draw on the microbial system directly, which means we have less efficient mineral absorption, which means we have an even more susceptible plant. And now you have insects chewing on the plant and it just continues and continues. And then finally you have a dust storm or just everything feels like it's falling apart. What can also be happening is this. When we trigger the system, when we increase photosynthesis, and we will do that by addressing the greatest limiting factor. So maybe that's a mineral. Maybe that's magnesium or nitrogen or phosphorus or iron or manganese, maybe it's copper. Whatever we need to do to increase photosynthesis, maybe it's just we haven't been watering consistently enough and our plants don't have enough H2O for photosynthesis to be maximized. And if that's the case, then whatever we need to do when we increase photosynthesis, that means we have greater volumes of carbons, greater volumes of sugars that go down to the root system. And those sugars feed the biology. Now, hopefully we have biology there. And if we don't have that, may be something to consider is to inoculate the soils with biology, make sure that there is a symbiotic relationship between the plant and the soil life. So that when more sugars come, there is actually a response of more nutrient availability. And because plants absorb nutrient or because plants that are taking up nutrients in the form of microbial metabolites have more energy, they're able to resist more pests and have exceptional quality. And when that happens, we have less pest pressure, we don't have as many pesticides and we have more sugars that can now be allotted to go down to the root system and or to improve the quality and the yield of our crop. So let's talk about how you can start today. And this is what we need to do. We need to think where are you on this course of agriculture? Where is your operation? Where is your mindset? What is the way that you're thinking about soil? When you look at your field, when you're driving by in the truck, do you feel a need to get out there to dig the dig a plant to smell the aroma of the soil of that life? Or is soil to you still just an inert object that you put some plants in and put all the fertilizer that you need and then it grows. So wherever you are, think about your crop and what the next stage is that you will be able to influence. Maybe, maybe you're growing soybeans and you could still use more flowers. Maybe you don't have as much set as you would like. Maybe you're already past that stage and you really need to focus on the grain fill. Whether you're growing corn, cotton, beans, nuts, potatoes, really doesn't matter what you're growing. Think about what is the stage of crop that you can influence. Because if you already have 50 to 75% of your of your bean pods set, then putting on accelerate, which is what you would do if you want more flowers, like cotton, for example, is it tends to be very growthy. And part of that is what John was saying in the introduction is there's an excessive amount of nitrogen applied, which we find is often a greater problem than deficiencies is excesses. So figure out where you are today and then think about how you can reduce or eliminate the stress that would cause that particular point of influence to be compromised. Address that and that should give you a return on investment of whatever you do and set you up for the next step of improving soil, of building that soil, of saving the soil. Maybe it's one less tillage pass that you do. Maybe it's doing a foliar application, maybe it's a side dress that contains Carbon. Because you're deficient in carbon, whatever it is. Think about your crop, where you are today, and how you can affect that next stage. And you'll do that by asking, what's the biggest limiting factor? Is it because I don't have enough carbon? Is it because my crop should have more water? Is carbon the limiting factor? And there's only one thing that we really can't influence at all, and that is when it does, when the sun doesn't shine. And obviously there's areas where you can't irrigate, but if you have irrigation, then you'll be able to do that. Some of the tools that you can use to understand what is important for you to do now, especially in the sense of, are there certain elements that are deficient, certain nutrients that are deficient, that are the limiting factor? Because that's the easiest for you to address at this point. If, if you have a cotton plant that's just loaded with cotton, well, do you need potassium or do you need nitrogen, or do you need magnesium, or do you need boron to help move the sugars? If we're in bold fill, then that means we're going to need to think about manganese and zinc, which are critical for the synthesis of the hormone within the cotton seed that would determine or dictate the plant to allocate more of its sugars to the bowl. So we need to check our manganese and our zinc. And if we look at this, we can say, oh, manganese is pretty decent. Zinc is really good. Actually. Iron was low in the old leaf, but now it's. Now it's doing pretty well in the new leaf. Not sure. Can you see my cursor here or not? But I'm going to assume that you can. If we look at phosphorus, we see that our oat leaf, phosphorus really dropped. And phosphorus is critical for adenosine triphosphate ATP, which is the energy molecule. I never heard this calculation for plants, but I just heard someone talk about it in human health. And the amount of ATP that needs to be generated by our body.

At.

A constant level was just astounding. And he helped understand, he helped me understand how critical this ATP or the energy molecule was to our bodies. He said that if a, if someone running a sprint were to not replenish ATP, in other words, if there weren't metabolic reactions that would build more ATP, and he started running on a sprint, within 2.5 seconds, he would be dead because he wouldn't have any energy. That's how fast it's consumed. When we are fully exercising, I think that was like 30 times faster than if you're not. But even that is quite quickly. So think about plants and think about if these metabolic processes are slowed down. It really makes a big difference. So when we look at this SAP analysis and I'm just. This is just a very quick overview to give you an idea of what tools are available to you. This is this, this first sample or the bottom bar on potassium. Here is the first sample, here's the second sample, and here's the third sample. And this is by all indications showing that we have sufficient levels of potassium in this cotton crop. We can see that our calcium has struggled all the way through. And it's basically been using everything that the soil and our fertility program has been putting on. And if budget allowed, we would put on more. But also we know that there's lots of and lots of calcium in this soil. And it's about making that available. So we find that balance between pouring on calcium and going broke or putting on calcium at the critical stages where we need it for cell division and for plant growth. And then we watch the plant and we watch the SAP and we adjust that program. So looking at this, we can see that magnesium would be way more important than potassium. We can see that iron would be way more. Actually, iron newly is pretty good, but that's more important than nitrogen. We have plenty of nitrogen. So these are the tools that you're able to, that you have at your fingertips. We can help you with that. Another one that's maybe not as relevant for in season and for right now is the Haney analysis. And yet it can be a tool that helps you understand what is in the soil, what's available in the soil, and what's the level of microbial activity that I have, what's the level of carbon that I have, and what are the forms of carbon that I do have. Is it very available, is it not available? And so forth. Then the other tool is you yourself be out in the field, get your boots on the soil, get your hands in there, look at the crops, see what you're looking at, and have some level of sensitivity into what you're feeling. It feels like this crop, something's not quite right. Dig into it, try to understand it. Because the reality is you can grow potatoes without fumigation. You can grow organic onions that are amazing. You can grow cotton without growth regulators. The list goes on and on and on of people that I could point to you that have been able to reduce or eliminate pesticides. That have been able to improve the quality, the storability, shippability, the flavor of their crops. So that is our passion, that is what we do. That is why we are here. That is why I, after 12 years, still get on these calls with John, is because we want to inspire you as our partners, as the ones that are able to influence the health of the people in this nation. We want to inspire you to join us in correcting the course of agriculture and moving in the right direction. So, questions? All right. So in the Q and A, Gary asks, do you take into consideration the effects of climate change? Good question. Yes. I think that's part of the reason that. Regenerating land, having the land covered, having diversity, having that carbon cycle functioning, having the water cycle functioning. I believe that a lot of what we're seeing in climate change, yes. Has to do with, with emissions and so forth. But I believe the majority, this is just my personal persuasion, is that the majority of it comes from how we have destroyed the soil organic matter, lost it, it's in the ocean and, and our soil is just not able to, for that carbon cycle and the water cycle to function properly. And I think the faster we can do that, the faster we are able going to be able to keep this shift from continuing. Don Warmerdan, welcome. Don, in tree crops we have seen a strong flush of growth and significant and sufficient nitrogen in spring, post fall primer. But it seems we start running out in some blocks as the season progresses. What kind of feeding schedule do you maintain to keep the biology fixing nitrogen throughout the season? Good question, John. So when that happens, it's an indication that we're not keeping up with the sugar demand or with the nutrient demand, I'm sorry, with the sugar demand for the biology. And oftentimes this happens when we go into fruit fill, whatever that is. So the feeding schedule, maybe you need to supplement a little bit with foliar nitrogen and consider what is the limiting factor? Like where is the system not keeping up? Maybe you don't have enough carbon in the soil yet. Maybe you need to actually bring in compost or bring in some wood chips or some very lignified materials to help lengthen that carbon cycle. So what is the, what is the limiting factor that keep that slowing your photosynthesis down. And then the other thing to consider is do you have a boron deficiency or do you have some nutrient deficiency that maybe you are synthesizing sufficient levels of sugars, but they're not being mobilized. So the other thing that I would add to that, John, is when you're doing SAP analysis, do them on a consistent basis so that when you come back year over year, you're actually able to say, okay, yes, we need to do an application of nitrogen earlier, or we need to do some nutritional application. Maybe it's manganese or iron that you're running out of, and then the cascade effect of that appears to be nitrogen deficiency, but maybe the causation is actually much earlier by a nutrient deficiency of one of the minerals that are needed for the photosynthetic process. Question from Ellis Yoder. You really haven't discussed the role of livestock in improving soil health. How important is it to incorporate livestock to improve soil health? Very valuable. Wherever you're able to improve or to add livestock to the system, ruminants definitely will, will help in rebuilding the soil. But we have found that if you are able to cover the soil, if you're able to grow those cover crops and feed the biology or the animals in the soil, you can, you can go a long way even without livestock. And there are many people who are in a situation or setup where animal incorporation of livestock into their system would not be possible. So we see it as valuable, but not imperative in order to at least make a change in the right direction. And I really, what I have seen is that when there is sufficient diversity and soil or sufficient diversity and then cover crops and plants being incorporated and carbon cycling soils improve tremendously. I think probably the biggest thing that livestock may be able to help us is managing those cover crops and the plant species that we're using that we don't have to be tilling them. Question from Jerry. What products or minerals replace the job of fungicides to improve tar spot and corn replace fungicides and soybeans? Great question. And again, I'm going to just, I'm not going to say that you can add a specific mineral and replace a fungicide, but the reason that tar spot shows up is because something is not there that the plant needs to combat the tar spot. And when you think about when tar spot shows up and when you think about how it's moved into the area and the research that I've done on this specific organism, I think manganese is one of the first places that I would really start looking is what form or is the level of manganese in the SAP? And then also just the form that's in there may be chelated. So think about what are the rest of your applications? Are you putting out an herbicide that could potentially be tying up manganese and that Is it manganese deficiency? What's. Is there any pattern where you see one field get it and another not? Is there any pattern in when you did this? Then tar spot shows up. But overall, it's about having a plant that is photosynthesizing efficiently, cycling carbon properly, and has enough energy to not only grow and produce the crop, but also to build up resistance to these, to these fungal and bacterial diseases. I don't know what this question is implying for sure, but who in agriculture is employing attitude change specialists outside the chemical industry? I don't know of anybody that has that as a job title. I'm sorry. But I think that we. It's about how we think has a big influence on how we are going to be able to respond to it. Is there an upper limit of organic matter past which you wouldn't want your field to go? It's not so much the level of organic matter as to is it cycling? Do we have enough. If we have a very high level of organic matter in the soil and it's cycling properly, great. But if we have very high level of organic matter, but we don't have biology, we don't have that carbon cycle going, then it doesn't matter. If you have 4, 5, 10, 15 parts per million of organic matter, it's not going to give you that benefit of enhancing photosynthesis. So typically, if I see organic matter over 5, I start wondering, okay, are we cycling it properly? Why is it building up? And I have seen systems or farms and fields where in fact it was, and it was phenomenal how those crops were growing and performing. So I don't have. It's when it gets into that limit, I start asking questions. But it's not, not so much the number as is it cycling? Roberto? Yes, this could definitely benefit your farmstead of 25 acres. Absolutely. Just call the 800 number. They'll get you set up with where you are and what is going to best fit your operation. Matt Cohen, I'm very excited about moving into regeneration ag. I'm wondering how far we can get if we continue to use seed treatments and herbicides. How do these items harm biology very much? There's definitely effects and what we need to think about, Matt. And I've experienced it in different ways, but you can either just say none of that. If it's bad, I'm not doing it. And often there's a more difficult transition. Some people are at a place with capital and finances that they're able to take that. Others need to take it more slowly and step by step. But you will never be able to totally get to an ecosystem and a place where all of these things continue as long as we're using seed treatments and herbicide on a consistent basis. So think about those things as tools that you use very judiciously and if you do, you know what negative effects are and you come back with a treatment to help the system continue. And so it's a process of how you start building the system. Welcome to the call, Greg. I would disagree with the assessment that AEA nutrients are simple technology. I have used many other formulas and products, some good, some not so good. The difference is I do biweekly SAP and Haney analysis and I don't have to have faith. I measure the results and I consistently get SAP and soil results from stack products using AEA as a foundation. Thank you, Greg. We are up on the hour and we have one more question here from Gary that I'll do. Does the location, does the economics of the farmer matter? Yes, absolutely. That's. And that's what? That's where this is not about a one size fits all, where you put out X accounts of this product or X gallons of that product or implement livestock or it's not a one size fits all. And so depending on your location, depending on your rainfall, depending on your market potential, depending on the crop you're growing, depending on what your economic situation is at the moment, maybe you are in an emergency state. Maybe it's a matter of just tweaking what you're doing a little bit. Yes, they all make a difference and all affect how we as consultants will recommend that you move forward. So hopefully that's been helpful to all of you. Thank you again for coming. We will wrap up the call and look forward to seeing you next time around.