Sap Analysis and Nutritional Management for Honeycrisp Production

All right, thanks everyone.

Sounds like it looks like you're all.

Eager for the discussion this afternoon.

Thank you for joining us.

A little bit early. You will now be able to unmute yourself as well.

If you go down to the, I think it's the lower left hand side.

Of your screen, you can hit an unmute button. And assuming that your microphone and your computer and everything is working well, you should be able to join us and.

We'Ll have a conversation.

So the intent and the purpose for this conversation and this discussion was following.

My presentation at several of the Cornell Fruit School seminars.

I was very grateful for the feedback that I got following those events.

And there were a lot of questions.

About our SAP analysis work, how we.

Conduct SAP analysis, and our nutritional protocols.

That we've been using to manage bitter pit and to manage manganese and calcium relationships, etc. So I wanted to.

Just answer those questions that have come up and I'm really intending this.

I don't have a slide deck, I don't have a presentation. I'm really just intending this to respond to any questions that you have.

So it's really up to you to lead the discussion.

Any questions that you have, please let.

Us know and we'll be happy to discuss them. So I see the, the first person.

Who'S raised his hand is Roger Bannister. So Roger, love to hear from you.

Oh, Roger says that he doesn't have.

A microphone, but he's typed out his question, the chat.

And his question is, where has John received his education?

Well, Roger, I, I only have a.

Formal 8th grade education, the key word being formal. I have been very fortunate and very blessed that I've had some very good mentors.

So several of my mentors have been, they're from within USDA and within academia.

Don Huber, Michael McNeil, Jerry Hatfield, Bruce Tainia, who's now unfortunately no longer living.

So I've had a group of mentors.

Who really guided my studying and research and learning. So I spent, I spend a lot.

Of time, actually, I guess you can see some of my library behind me. I read a lot.

I usually read between three and five books per week if I'm able to.

And I'm not traveling, so I've always enjoyed reading. I've read hundreds of books and thousands of white papers. And I'm very fortunate that that reading.

Has been guided by the mentors that I've had.

I would, I would not have been able to learn what I have without being able to ask them for guidance.

And for direction on what I should.

Be studying and to ask them questions as well. So while there hasn't been any formal.

University training, I'm, I'm very grateful for.

The education that I've gotten with those with that team. So thank you.

Anyone else have any questions? Let's see. Don't see any other hands raised. So where I'll begin is I'll talk.

A little bit about our nutritional protocols.

And the SAP analysis that we have done. I know there were some questions around that. There have been questions around SAP analysis. How are we collecting SAP analysis and.

How is that different from tissue analysis? Does it really matter? Does it really make a difference?

Let me just reiterate and say describe the SAP analysis process a little bit.

And how we arrived at this point.

When I first founded Advancing Eco Agriculture.

We started doing consulting work for a number of different growers growing different crops around the states. There was, I learned from my mentors and there was this idea that we.

Should be able to grow crops that.

Are resistant to diseases and insects based.

On how we manage nutrition and that.

There should be nutritional correlations to the presence of specific diseases.

There should be nutritional correlations to the.

Presence of powdery mildew, for example, or to apple scab, etc.

And with tissue analysis we were never.

Able to clearly see those correlations. And I expressed my frustration around this lack of correlation to Arden Anderson who.

Suggested that I begin working with a.

Team in the Netherlands, a company called Novacrop and then an affiliated consulting group.

Called Hortonova that were they had developed what they were describing as plant SAP analysis. So we began experimenting with plant SAP.

Analysis in 2011 and conducted the first.

Year in 2011 on an experimental basis.

We conducted about 400 samples. Then 2012 we did several thousand.

And we made the decision at the.

End of the 2012 growing season that we want to do this on all of our crops that we work with.

So we started running 10,000 samples plus per year following 2013 and it's just.

Continued to grow from there.

So what we learned, we did extensive side by side comparisons of SAP analysis compared with tissue analysis on a number of different crops.

And we observed a couple of really important points.

One was that SAP analysis correlated to yield and to crop performance much more.

Closer than tissue analysis did. Many times we'd see that a crop.

Wasn'T doing awesome and the leaves weren't.

Looking all that great. Perhaps they were misled. Colored weren't the proper colors.

And we conducted a tissue analysis and.

Nothing would really stand out.

Things seems to be okay. And that was Confusing with SAP analysis, that never happened. SAP analysis always correlated very strongly to.

The plant performance visuals that we could see in the field, as well as.

Yield and quality data, etc.

But what we observed when doing side by side analysis, we started doing analysis.

On a lot of our longer season.

Crops, such as tree fruit and apples.

We would conduct an analysis every two.

Weeks throughout the entire growing season, side by side comparison of SAP analysis and tissue analysis. And the one element which was really startling for us was how early a.

SAP analysis could pick up trace mineral.

Deficiencies and other nutrient deficiencies as compared to a tissue analysis.

We would typically.

And it would, it would range a little bit, it would depend on how.

Fast the plant was growing.

But typically we would see tissue analysis occurring or, excuse me, we would see.

Trace mineral deficiencies occurring and showing up.

On a SAP analysis as much as.

Three to four weeks earlier than on a tissue analysis. And I think one of the reasons.

For this, there's perhaps other reasons that I don't understand, but one of the reasons for this is that when you have a rapidly growing plant, if we use calcium as an example, and this.

Is true of manganese and bon and essentially the majority of the nutrients, not.

Quite all, but the majority, let's say you, the plant is growing very rapidly, it's absorbing calcium from the soil profile, then it moves the calcium up into the new growth where it's incorporated rapidly incorporated into the cells and into cell membranes.

And then one day, all of a.

Sudden, the soil is no longer able.

To supply the plant's requirements for calcium.

And on that day, the calcium levels.

Within the plant SAP itself drop dramatically.

The needle moves very, very quickly. It will move from being 1000 parts per million to being 500 parts per million in a matter 48 hours.

It drops drastically.

And yet on that day, and still for three to four weeks into the future, depending on the speed of plant growth, those leaves will show that they have adequate levels of calcium because they still contain all the calcium which was moved into the leaf historically, for the last two to three week period, as.

That leaf was maturing and developing, all.

The calcium which is contained within the.

Cell membranes, so the plant SAP levels.

Of calcium will drop down, while the tissue analysis levels of calcium show that they're still adequate. So when you combine that, you look at both of those pieces together, the net result is that we can see.

A nutrient deficiency, the SAP analysis, as.

Much as a month earlier than we can with a tissue analysis, which of course is very powerful because now it means there's Something we can do about it long before visual symptoms show up. So how do we collect the SAP analysis? I'm going to share my screen with.

You and we actually have a SAP analysis sample collection guide that we could.

Email to all of you. But if you go to our website advancingecoag.com Regenerative agriculture Orchard following this discussion, Anna will send an email to all of you with the link to this address and when you go to this address on our website we have here we have a basic tree fruit program but then we also have plant SAP analysis instructions for tree fruit.

And so our typical approach and what.

We really need to see in order to get the best performance and know exactly.

I believe one of the keys to.

Our success at advancing eco agriculture has been that we don't guess about anything.

We don't guess about our nutrient applications.

We don't guess about what the crops nutritional requirements are.

With a SAP analysis we can know.

Exactly, we can measure.

It's for the results that it produces.

It's so inexpensive and it produces such a big crop response and often saves.

A lot of fertilizer applications.

So you can go to the website and download these analysis instructions. They give you very specific step by step instructions of exactly where on the plant to collect the leaf, or rather the two different leaves because we're collecting.

Two leaves, the last fully mature leaf.

And then also the oldest leaf on the plant that is still green and actively photosynthesizing. And then how we pack them and.

Ship them because we pack those with.

Cold packs because we want to keep them fresh until they get to the laboratory, we don't want to dehydrate them. So there's very clear instructions on exactly how we pull the SAP analysis samples and submit them to the laboratory. Then another question that came through and I'm happy to expand and speak more if you have specific questions about the SAP analysis, I'm happy to speak more about those as well.

Then there was also a follow up.

Question that we received a lot of.

What are the actual product applications for?

What are the nutrition programs that you are using that have led to these outcomes of reducing bitter pit and improving and increasing calcium mobility into the fruit. So I'll give you an example of what one of our foundational tree fruit programs looks like. So just to give you a frame of reference, this is what I think of as being a foundational program.

The one thing that we do not.

Do is we don't write a program at the beginning of the year and say, okay, this is what we're going to do for the rest of the entire growing season.

Instead, we make recommendations based on our current understanding of a crop, physiological requirements, soil analysis on that farm, historical SAP.

Analysis, irrigation water quality, etc. About what we think will be required. But then we adapt that and stay.

Fluid throughout the growing season. And it's very important to be able.

To do that if you want to really achieve some of the exceptional yields that our growers have become known for. So I wanted to I'm going to go through this fairly quickly.

There's a lot of information here and we can also provide this.

This is the exact same program that you'll find on our website. We can also include it in the email that we send to you after. But let me just give you a quick rundown of what these applications are.

What the products are, why we're applying them. And obviously I'm speaking about this within.

The context of advancing eco agriculture because it's what we have experience with and what we know produces results as based on crop performance and SAP analysis data. You can try to engineer some of this with your own products, but results may vary.

When you vary the recipe, the results.

Often vary as well. So I'm just putting that out there as a caveat.

So our first application is what we.

Call our soil primer application.

And this is spray.

This is a spray on with an herbicide boom to the tree row itself or occasionally a few growers cover the entire orchard floor. But our preference is particularly important to.

Cover the tree row and underneath the tree row. So this is an application 2 gallons.

Of rejuvenate, 2 quarts of humicarb 0.33 pounds of OP8.

Let's talk about those three. The rejuvenate contains enzymes and molasses and.

Humic substances and a number of different ingredients that really stimulate biology very aggressively. And we particularly like rejuvenate. In fact our preference we will do.

This spring soil primer only on orchards.

That did not get the fall soil.

Primer applied, where we prefer to put this application on in the fall instead.

Of in the spring.

The reason for this is because the.

Rejuvenate triggers very rapid residue digestion. We often we expect to see leaves.

From let's say from last year's leaf drop.

We expect to see leaves from a leaf drop completely digested and gone within a matter of it can be in given if we have enough moisture and rainfall it can happen as quickly as.

Four to six weeks which means that.

We don't have any disease. Residue carryover don't have any disease carryover on the leaf residue.

The humicarb is humic substances to trigger strong fungal digestion within the soil profile. The OP8 is a product that is.

A it is a hydrocarbon bioremediation inoculant that we have discovered is quite successful.

At digesting and degrading and decomposing the.

Herbicide and fungicide and insecticide residues that remain in the soil profile and allow the biology in that root system to really flourish.

In the podcast I recently interviewed Mike.

Omeg and I think his episode will be hosted in the next or posted in the next few weeks.

Last year I interviewed Lynn Long from.

Oregon State University who is a leader in cherry production and Lynn and Mike was really intriguing. The interviews that I had with them, they both shared the same thoughts. They said that in order for us.

To get to the next level with.

Our tree fruit production, we've up to this point we have focused much of our management and our cultural management practices on managing the part of the tree that we can see with hormonal applications and thinning and pruning management and canopy management etc etc.

But we haven't given enough attention to.

The hidden half of the tree, the bottom half of the tree in the root system.

And so one of the things that.

We'Ve observed is that if we really want to regenerate the root system and.

Have really strong biology, then the OP8.

Application to remediate some of the accumulated residues very, very important and often produces a very big crop response.

Then in the spring we often also.

Apply to the soil. This would be a typical dry broadcast application, £300 of gypsum and £1 of soluble.

That gypsum application can vary from as.

Low as 200 to as high as.

500 pounds per acre and occasionally on.

Rare occasions we'll do as much as.

700 to 1,000 pounds per acre.

The purpose and the Intent we prefer the gypsum be applied in very early spring rather than in the fall because.

Peak calcium supply is going to occur.

About 45 to 60 days after application.

Which is going to be the time.

Period if we applied in very early spring, as soon as the snow is off the ground, as soon as it's dry enough to get out there in April, very early April or even late March.

That means our peak calcium supply is going to coincide with peak calcium demand from the fruit development and cell division.

Cell expansion period and the solubor application. Actually this is a typo. This is not, this is not correct. Say is 1 pound of soluble it should actually say 1 pound of actual boron, the form of solubor.

So Solubor is 20% boron, which means that we need to apply five pounds.

Of soluble to the soil to deliver that one pound of boron.

Then we begin with fertigation bi weekly.

Assuming that orchards are set up for this, many of the orchards that we work with on the west coast are.

So bi weekly means once every two.

Weeks, not twice a week. So once every two weeks, we put on an application through the micro sprinklers, when available. A quart of rejuvenate, a quart of.

Rebound boron, chelated boron, one quart of micropack, which is a trace mineral pack.

Containing zinc, manganese, copper, iron, and one quart of holocal, which is a chelated calcium.

Then when we look at our foliar applications, the foliars are these various materials. Sea stem is a seaweed material that is not extracted with alkali. So it still contains a lot of.

The compounds that many other seaweeds do not.

Seacrop is an ocean mineral concentrate. And then we look at these chelated trace minerals, rebound copper, boron, manganese and.

Zinc, also including two quarts of holocal, which is again the chelated calcium.

50 grams of micro 5000.

So micro 5000 is a.

Microbial inoculant that is intended to be sprayed onto.

The plant leaf surface. So these are microbial populations that have a symbiotic relationship with the plant, that.

Colonize and live on the leaf surface itself and increase disease resistance and insect resistance, etc.

And also help the plants to absorb nutrition from the air, that is spray, and also that lands and is sprayed on the leaf surface and help the leaves absorb it much more effectively.

And then we also typically recommend 2.

Pounds of amino acids. So this recommendation really varies depending on what nitrogen management practices are. If we have a crop that is low in nitrogen, we can supply amino acids and get a very nice crop.

Response, similar to a nitrogen response, but without compromising calcium absorption.

Calcium flow into the fruit go to.

Cell division, foliar, fruit fill, foliar.

These are all fairly similar. We adjust some of the application rates.

We put on higher application rates of manganese, for example, early on during the cell division period. And you'll notice that there's no potassium.

And no phosphorus in these applications.

Then we go to the fruit fill foliar. These are all we adjust at this point.

Once we get to fruit fill, our applications of trace mineral substantially drop.

So we just remain with the seaweed and the boron and the calcium and the micro 5000, the amino acids, those.

Are the only parts that are standard that we apply consistently. Anything else, such as zinc or manganese.

Or copper, is applied purely based on SAP analysis results.

We don't recommend any of those materials.

Proactively unless we actually know what the plant's requirements are. And then we get to post harvest.

And post harvest is a.

It's not the best term because obviously.

For some of our apple varieties, we're harvesting very late until senescence and leaf drop. So the best way to say this would be in the last four to.

Six weeks before leaf drop, before senescence. We put on these application rates.

We like to see two applications.

Of manganese and boron and copper, as well.

As the amino acids, with the specific.

Intent of having these minerals be accumulated.

In the buds, particularly in the reproductive buds. And then next spring, the following spring, we have the manganese and the boron.

And we'll have the calcium flow coming.

From the soil profile that we can prevent the surplus potassium from being a problem and deliver an abundance of calcium based on how we manage these trace minerals for next year's crops, you can actually have a tremendous impact on next year's crop based on what you do in the fall. And this can actually have a much.

Bigger impact than spring applications. From my perspective with what we've observed, this fall application is the biggest impact application. It's where you can make the biggest difference on a crop of any application at all. And I know and understand that it's a challenge because obviously at this time.

Of the year, we're the harvest season.

And we don't even want to think about foliar applications. Some of our growers that we work with don't get them applied. But those that do, observe the biggest crop responses. And then you'll see here that we.

Have the fall soil primer again, which is in essence a repeat of what was in the spring. And generally you do not need both of those. It depends on. Depends on the soil and where soil health and soil biology is. But usually if we get a fall application on, then we will not make a recommendation for a similar application this spring.

We'll only do one or the other, not both.

So I'd like to open it up to the group. I've shared this information and we'll put it all out there in an email.

For you as well.

But based on what I've discussed and described so far, both here and when I was there in New York, or any other questions that you Have.

What questions do you have for me.

That you'd love to. You'd love to talk about? I'd love to have clarified.

Hi, John, I was wondering how you treat nitrogen in the tree and in the orchard, whether it's foliar, if you do any foliar applications or surface applied applications to correct nitrogen deficiencies.

Yes, very good question. Thank you.

Our approach to managing nitrogen is that.

We, we sell them. We don't apply nitrogen unless we know the crop needs it, as supported by SAP analysis data, occasionally by soil analysis. But we find that many growers in the east often over apply night vids actually. Interesting.

There's not a lot of middle ground with hydrogen applications. It's according to the SAP analysis, many.

Growers either substantially over apply or substantially under apply, which is quite interesting.

Our recommendations is that when we have.

A plant need, we apply nitrogen.

And there's. We have kind of three, three tools.

In our toolbox that we prefer to work with. One is soil applications of ammonium sulfate. And I have some trepidation around this application only because of the soil's nitrification process.

It's possible for the soil to rapidly convert that ammonium to nitrate and for.

The tree to begin absorbing nitrate instead of ammonium, which.

Causes tremendous strain on.

The tree from a plant health perspective. So when an apple tree absorbs nitrate nitrogen instead of ammonium, just some new research that I was just informed of yesterday. In fact.

They'Re describing how a plant.

That absorbs nitrate nitrogen will consume 30% of its total photosynthetic energy just to convert nitrate. So we really want to avoid absorption of nitrate if at all possible. And the best way to do that.

Is to apply ammonium sulfate and combine.

It with an application of soluble sugars and soluble carbon.

We need my understanding, we need roughly.

About 3 to 4% carbon soluble sugars to match with ammonium sulfate. So let's say ammonium sulfate. We need to, if we do £100.

Per acre of ammonium sulfate, we need to add an additional four to six.

Pounds of sugar to that in order for the biology. What we want to have happen is we want the biology in the rhizosphere to immediately consume that ammonium sulfate and.

Convert it to amino acids. Because then when you have this very.

Rapid bacterial bloom and you have the ammonium being converted to amino acids, the.

Plants can absorb the amino acids without.

Any negative effects from a plant health perspective.

So that's one tool in the toolbox.

A second tool in the toolbox is we can address nitrogen Deficiencies with foliar applications of urea. We do this occasionally. Urea is a nice material.

Plants like it as a foliar and.

They respond very well.

We're typically doing application rates in the.

Neighborhood of £2 to £4 per acre in foliars.

Actually, £4 is a bit high.

I'd say most of our application rates are in the neighborhood of one to three pounds being done once every two weeks.

And it does not take much to.

Produce a significant plant response.

Then the third tool in the toolbox is foliar applications of amino acids.

You saw in our recommendations, we made recommendations for amino acids.

There's a couple of different amino acid sources today.

One of them is a company we're actually hoping to become and thinking of becoming distributors for their product because so many of our growers use it.

It's a company called Nature Safe out of Illinois. And they have a dry water soluble.

Powder that has an analysis of 1501 and.

An application rate of 2 pounds per acre of 1501 will outperform 5.

Pounds of urea as a foliar.

The trees absolutely love the amino acids. They respond very strongly to it from.

A plant growth perspective. So those are the three tools that we use to manage nitrogen or to add nitrogen when it's needed and when it's necessary.

Did that answer your question?

Well, Christopher, yes, it did.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Very good question.

Anyone else have a question?

I have another question on SAP analysis. When you're doing SAP analysis, does a tree water stress have any effect on the nutrient content of the SAP?

If the, if the leaves are. If the plant is suffering water stress to the point of wilting.

If the leaves are wilting, then the answer is yes. If the leaves are actually wilting, then.

You will see that your, your levels.

On the nutrient levels that are tested and that are measured might be 15 to 20% higher than what they have.

Been historically, just purely as a function of dehydration.

So we have observed that.

And as you well know, it takes.

A pretty severe situation for leaves to get to the point of wielding. It does happen, can happen, but it's not particularly common. That's a good question, Christopher. Thank you. We have a couple of questions that.

Have come in here on Chat and in the Q and A. Let me pull up the Q and A here.

Bob Lacombe asked a couple of questions. Hi, Bob. What are our thoughts on calcium nitrate? Oh my goodness, Bob, you had to ask me about calcium nitrate.

Well, we've changed our opinion on calcium nitrate.

Well, let Me. Let me clarify.

We've changed our opinion on calcium nitrate.

As a means of supplying calcium.

We used to think that calcium nitrate.

Was an awesome fertilizer.

It performs really well and it gives.

Plants and trees a nice growth, nice.

Growth response and it still does those things. The trees seem to respond to it very well. But we were quite amazed to observe.

And to discover that.

Regardless of how.

Much calcium nitrate we use either soil.

Applied or in irrigation systems or foliar.

Applications, in not one of those applications.

Have we observed a significant calcium response. I don't understand it. I don't get it.

I don't know why we can put on calcium nitrate and calcium levels don't move. But it's like the needle on the gauge on SAP analysis does not change. I don't know why that is, I don't get it.

But we haven't seen calcium nitrate effectively.

Supply calcium to a tree.

And I'm confused by that and I.

Would love if someone could enlighten me.

So I'm interested in learning more. That's a very good question, Bob.

Thank you.

And then Bob also asked another question.

What is OP8? What about OP8? So I might have mentioned it briefly in passing, but I didn't describe it very in depth. OP8 is a microbial inoculant that was originally developed, amongst other things, one of the intents and purposes for it was hydrocarbon remediation, cleaning up oil spills and.

Diesel fuel spills and petroleum and motor oil, etc.

Etc. So we began testing it, I think.

Three or perhaps four years ago to.

See whether it could also remediate some herbicides and fungicides, etc. In the soil profile.

Here's the way to think about it. Well, when you think about the oceans.

And the food chain, the microbial shouldn't say the microbial, but the food chain within the ocean. The foundational living organism upon which everything else depends is plankton. And plankton are the ones that are responsible for carbon sequestration and bringing in nitrogen. And they have chlorophyll and kind of the whole story.

The same thing is true in soils. In soils we have an analog. It's not plankton, but instead it's lj. And we need the soils to have.

An abundant algae population because it's really algae. One of the things that algae. There's many things that algae do, but let me just say this simply, that.

They fix nitrogen and supply nitrogen to a crop very abundantly. In fact, so abundantly that several growers.

That we've worked with now for a number of years do not apply any nitrogen to their soils anymore. They are growing cover crops, incorporating cover crops and getting some nitrogen benefits there.

But we see microbial fixation accounting for from 80 to 120 units of nitrogen.

Per year from algae. So algae are these small single celled, well, not single cells, but they're these.

If you will, they're miniature plants. They also have chlorophyll, they photosynthesize and similar to higher plants, they require a.

Microbial population that they have a symbiotic relationship with surrounding them. And it's been discovered and observed that.

The, in order for these algae to.

Thrive, the herbicide application when we put on an herbicide such as Roundup Roundup.

Is particularly effective as many of the.

Herbicides are as well also really compromising the algae population, soil profile amongst other things. So our desire was to identify a product that could bio, that could speed up the bioremediation of Roundup and other herbicides and insecticides and fungicides and allow.

That algae population and the associated microbial population to really flourish. So OP8 as a hydrocarbon remediation.

One of the key things when you think about hydrocarbon remediation is you need to have the capacity, biology needs to have the capacity to degrade the benzene ring.

And if you can degrade benzene, that.

Is one of the foundational.

Backbone configurations of many of these synthetic materials that we are using.

If you can degrade that, then generally you can degrade many of these different herbicides and pesticides that we're applying. So we did some experimentation. We discovered that they actually remediated many of them very, very well.

We got extremely favorable plant responses and we are, we're actually in the process of developing and testing the second generation.

Of this product, version two, which doesn't even have a name yet.

But we're seeing very strong phosphorus absorption.

And nitrogen absorption from the soil profile with no added minerals, simply by the presence and the vigorous activity of this microbial inoculant. So we're quite excited by the work that's doing. You can find more information on our website or by speaking to one of our team. It's a material that is now, as you saw in the protocol, it's a standard part of our treatments that we use all the time purely. And it's gotten to be that way.

Purely based on performance and results. Some interesting questions in the chat. Jill MacKenzie if algae are photosynthetic, how.

Can they be living in the rhizosphere not a lot of light in the soil.

Are there some non photosynthetic algae?

Very good questions, Jill. So it's my understanding that there are.

Some non photosynthetic algae, but also the.

Algae don't only photosynthesize in the visible light spectrum.

They also photosynthesizing the infrared spectrum, which.

Is actually present in the soil environment.

But the part that's really fascinating for.

Me that I really get excited about.

Is here's a really interesting book, Bioelectrodynamics and Biocommunication. Mei Wan Ho. Fritz Albert Popp. Fritz Albert Popp was actually a fascinating researcher in Germany and he described how all living organisms and all shouldn't say organisms.

What's the right word? All materials and substances which have a.

Slight magnetic susceptibility known as paramagnetism, emit light photons. So he was able to describe how.

Rocks in the soil profile are emitting light photons and root systems.

Root systems are constantly actually emitting light photons of light. So there's some really amazing and fascinating.

Work that he did on biophotonics. I was just amazed to discover that.

In fact, within the soil system there.

Are photons of light being emitted by root systems and by bacteria and by.

Fungi constantly, all the time.

So we think of it as being a dark environment, but there's actually a lot going on in the soil. It's amazing, isn't it?

It's really fascinating. Roger Bannister asked the question, how uniform.

Is is the SAP at any point in time such that you need to harvest leaves at specific points?

Are nutrients in the SAP different at.

Mature leaf points versus immature leaf points when taken at the same time? Very good question, Roger. And the answer is yes, they can be substantially different.

I'll say that nutrients generally behave in three different categories and how they are transitioned and move between the old leaves.

And the new leaves. So one, there's one category which is a group of three.

These three are nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium npk. Those three are considered to be highly mobile in plants. They can move around wherever the plant needs them. Which means that during vegetative growth, plants.

Will do everything they can to keep.

The new growth tips at optimal nutrient levels.

So let's say the plant doesn't have adequate nitrogen. The soil is no longer able to supply adequate nitrogen.

It will pull nitrogen out of the.

Oldest leaf on the plant and move it up, which can sometimes be the.

Spur leaf as well, and move it.

Up to the new growth tip. So it's possible the new growth tip.

To have a thousand parts per million.

Of nitrogen and the old leaf to only have three.

And that is a signal.

The plant is telling you that it doesn't have enough nitrogen anymore. It's sabotaging the older leaves and moving them up to the new shoots.

So that particular configuration happens for nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus.

So the deficiencies for those three nutrients will always show up on the newly, excuse me, on the old leaves first.

Not on the new growth. So if you only collect a sample of the last fully mature leaf, you.

Will not see the deficiencies of nitrogen.

Phosphorus and potassium until it's three to.

Four weeks too late, or even later, sometimes as much as six to eight weeks before they show up.

Because they show up on the old.

Leaves first, not the new leaves. Then there is a second group, which is calcium and magnesium.

Calcium and magnesium actually tend to accumulate.

In the older leaves to surplus levels because of photorespiration and transpiration. And calcium and magnesium both follow the waters.

Prepowers that take are concerned about calcium.

Supply to say that we want to manage water flow to go into the.

Fruit rather than into the shoots so.

That calcium can follow that water flow. And of course, the real answer to that is to make sure that you have higher levels of calcium within the water stream and not have a surplus of potassium.

But what we'll often see happening is.

That over the course of a growing season, the desired levels of calcium and magnesium can be adequate on the new growth or even deficient, and they can still be at a surplus on the old growth.

So it's not enough to just take.

A sample of the old leaves themselves.

We also have to see that on the new leaves.

And then the same holds true for.

Pretty much all the other minerals. Manganese, zinc, iron, sulfur.

All the other elements are what they have what is termed limited mobility. They can move around slightly, a little bit, but not very much. They don't move around very well at all.

Actually, I, and several of those that.

I mentioned, manganese is one of them.

Is considered to be completely flow immobile. Boron is completely flow immobile.

So what that then means is that.

You can have deficiencies for those elements.

You can have deficiencies show up on.

Either the new or the old. It's really the new that we care.

About the most for these elements.

Because if you have, let's say, an.

Early spring, you put on manganese foliar.

Applications and your manganese on your spur leaves.

And on the first fully, the first.

Developed leaves show that you have an.

Adequate supply, but then you stop the manganese applications and you retest again two weeks later or four weeks later, and four weeks later you see that on your old leaves, the old leaves still have enough manganese because of what you applied six weeks ago, but the new leaves don't have enough manganese anymore and it's not going to move from the old to the new. And therefore you need to keep applying more. So the answer is that yes, you really need to look at both the.

Old leaves and the new leaves. Because if you look at just the.

New, you won't see deficiencies of phosphorus, potassium and nitrogen.

If you look just at the old.

Leaves, you won't see deficiencies showing up.

For the trace minerals and you won't.

See deficiencies showing up for calcium and magnesium.

So that's why we look at both.

Of those and exchange both of them.

It's a very good question.

Jill has asked one more question. There's only one question left, guys. If you have any more that you'd like to add to the Q and A, please add those.

Or you can also raise your hand.

And also ask you to unmute yourself if you have any questions.

Jill asked the question, can you tell.

Us anything about the honeycrisp leaf chlorosis.

That is sometimes called carbohydrate toxicity?

Jill, that's a fascinating question, one that I just started looking at last year.

And need to do more homework on this year.

We need more data, but the data that we have right now, still early days, still preliminary. I shouldn't say it as preliminary data, but the preliminary data seems to indicate.

That we have carbohydrate toxicity showing up in response to primarily low boron. When we actually test those specific leaves or we test particular blocks that are.

Particularly prone to that, it seems to be that uniformly they have low levels of the low boron seems to be the one common denominator. I don't yet have enough information of research to be able to say that with certainty. There might be other factors that we haven't identified yet. So I don't know that for sure. I still have some reservations. I feel like it's almost premature to be talking about that.

But that's our best knowledge at this point. Roger asked a follow up question with OP8.

Are your observations based only on plant response or is the soil tested as well to determine if the pesticides and herbicides have actually decreased? So Roger, we are relying very heavily on plant observation. We are also doing laboratory analysis we've done and actually the growers that we've been working with are actually doing much of this analysis. We have been testing particularly for glyphosate and AMPA because Roundup glyphosate being the active ingredient in Roundup.

And then ampa, which is aminomethanylphosphonic acid, is the primary metabolite of glyphosate degradation.

Those are the two that in many orchards we know to look for because.

Of the history of glyphosate application.

The challenge is that testing many of these pesticides is fairly expensive and often there's been such a cocktail that has been applied over the course of the last couple decades that it's hard to know where to begin and where to.

End measuring, particularly given the costs associated.

So.

It'S actually we are collaborating. It's been one of the things that.

We haven't done well enough of is developing more data. We need to develop more data around that and we are just beginning, just launching a research project with University of Missouri to actually measure the pesticide profiles.

That are present in the soil both before and after treatment.

I should mention that our crop responses.

The tree responses are extremely rapid.

As in we see visual growth difference and growth response three to four weeks after application, which is, I was extremely.

Surprised and amazed to see that type of reaction.

So that's, that's been the extent of our experience at this point. Roger, there's one more question that has come through on the Q and A from Bob Lacombe.

How long does IT take for SAP analysis results? We expect to see results back 7.

Our Our expectation is from collection on the farm to having results back in your email.

Seven days, five business days usually. Sometimes it happens faster than that. The laboratory has been very good about.

Having a fast turnaround. They typically have a 24 to 48 hour turnaround, but obviously most of the time is spent actually shipping the samples to the lab.

So it's mostly in transport.

So that's about the same as a tissue analysis. But the advantage that they have of course is that with the tissue analysis you still have a three to four week gain and lead time in being able to observe nutritional imbalances versus a tissue analysis.

All right, if there's not any other questions then I would like to thank you all for attending and I hope.

That you found the information valuable and useful.

Anna will send out a follow up.

Email with the PDF of the program that I spoke about that we use and the link to the website as well.

If you have any follow up questions.

You can email me directly and I look forward to speaking with you have an awesome afternoon.

Thanks, everyone.