The Key to Regenerative Crop Nutrition | Establishing Biology at Planting to Supply Nutrients

Hi, friends. Welcome, everyone to another Advancing Eco Agriculture webinar. We really appreciate all of you joining us and learning together. We enjoy sharing the things that we've learned in the field. Our topic for today's webinar is thinking about biology as the key to crop nutrition. And this has become more of an established concept over the last five or six years, particularly in the regenerative agricultural world. The idea that biology can deliver 100% of a crop's nutritional requirements, not just nitrogen, not just phosphorus, but also calcium, magnesium, zinc, manganese, copper, boron, and so forth. And of course, there's exceptions to every rule that are dependent on geological context. This is a topic that's been discussed quite at length from a theoretical perspective. But what is often missing is how do we make it real? And particularly in this moment in history with very high fertilizer prices, the common question that's coming up today is can we inoculate microbial inoculants this spring and expect to see an observable nutrient absorption response? So I'm really excited to have David Miller here with us today. David has been consulting and working with the AEA products now for over a decade, and he's one of the stars that many of you have gotten to hear from and learn from over the last year or more in particular. And David is going to be talking about what he has learned and what he observed working with these biological products. So I'm also going to be here in the background responding to questions. And at the end, David and I will both be here for the Q and A. So thank you for being here. I'm sure you'll find the information useful and welcome, David.

Thank you, John. What a great day to be talking agriculture again and to consider the importance of food. You know, a lot of times you might get into the tractor, maybe you're in the combine, and you don't really think about the effect or impact that your occupation has on the world, on the human population. And I'd like to just take a moment here this morning to thank all of our farming friends, all of you who are producing food, for the effort that you put in to feed your fellow humans, to feed the animals, to feed those who consume what you produce. And I find it remarkable. And I think there's a disconnect between the way the population in general sees farmers and how we ought to see them. So I just want to give a shout out to all of you growers that in my mind, in my heart, you are more important than all the doctors and the hospitals combined because you, by the quality of the food that you produce, have a greater impact on the health of humans. You can keep people from getting sick because food is more nutrient dense, food is higher in proteins, higher in all the different medicinal compounds that help us to be healthy and well. So a shout out to all of you and this webinar is just to keep encouraging you and all of us as we continue to learn new and exciting things about soil, about soil and crop relationships, about the microbiome. And it's amazing, you know, John noted that I've been doing this for 10 years. It was 2008 when I first started realizing, or when I first understood that the nutrient density, the concentration of minerals and vitamins, the medicinal value of food was declining. And in that first year or two, I read like five or six books and thought I pretty much understood all of what there is to know. And today, 2022, I'm excited that there is so much more to learn. So let's be student of nature. Let's be a student of how things were created and the pattern with which things are designed to work. And the closer we can function within that pattern, the more successful we'll be. So hopefully you'll find this, this little talk stimulating. And I look forward to the Q and A at the end where we can discuss the things that you have questions about. So we're going to look at context. We're going to look at why biology is better investment for you than fertilizer. We're going to look at how microbes are critical to improve soil health. We're going to look at the most economical ways to get your crops off to an optimal start. And then we'll cover some insights and experiences from regenerative growers, people who have been and are on this journey. And we'll have a Q and A session at the end. So let's start with context. You have soil or dirt. Are you working with soil that has structure? Are you working with what is this brown material that you're driving your tractor over that you're putting your seeds in that you're applying your fertilizer to? What is it? Is it soil or is it dirt? This is a picture that I got this week of a good friend of mine, and his farm is on the right side of the fence. His neighbor's farm, obviously, is losing either soil or dirt. And I'm of the persuasion that if it were soil, it wouldn't move like this. And if you'll notice, there's a cover crop on the right side of the fence, and that's stopping and slowing down that soil. So, soil or dirt, what are you working with? When we are looking at any aspect of life, for that matter, but especially when we're talking about producing food, about a business that needs to be profitable also, that has a significant impact on the environment and on our fellow humans. It's important to think about the context within each operation, but also a context of the macro. Looking at what's happened in the past, what has brought us to where we are, what is going to get us where we want to go, how far, when you think about your operation, how often do you think, about 10 years from now, how often do you think about next season and two seasons ahead? Are we thinking in that mindset? And so this is just a bit of context from history and also things that we need to think about. So the era of antibiotics for the soil is kind of the era that I would say we're coming out of, where we've applied lots and lots and lots of materials that are going to act as antimicrobials, antibiotics. And whenever I take an antibiotic, I'm always very concerned about what it's going to do for my beneficial gut microbiome. So what about the soil, and what's the context in which your soil finds itself today? In this era of antimicrobial products that have been applied to the soil, we need to think about the context of tillage and carbon. How does tillage affect the carbon in our soil, the organic matter in our soil? And there's people who say, no, never till. And if you can make that work, that's probably the ideal. But a little bit of tillage here and there is not going to break the farm if it's in context. And if you're thinking about what's happening to the carbon, you're resupplying that carbon, you're getting a plant back into the soil as soon as possible. What happens with fertilizer and carbon when we apply soluble nutrition, especially nitrogen, how does that affect the carbon? And what has been happening? What's the context of where we are today? How does carbon affect photosynthesis? Is carbon important for photosynthesis? Yes. And so if we have depleted lost carbon, or if our carbon cycle is not in symbiosis with the plants, and we have carbon release at a time when we don't have the plant to take it up through photosynthesis, how does that affect five years, 10 years down the road? The context of photosynthesis, symbiosis structure, soil structure especially, and its effect on the water cycle, as we can see in this video. I don't know what your thoughts are on this, but as I look at this, I don't think that we're going to capture very much rain. If we have soil that's got infiltration like this, it's hard as a brick. It's the same soil that you saw in the beginning of the first video. It's just a block and that's where the corn is growing in. But there's no room for biology, so it's very limited. It's the gas exchange, the water cycle, all of these things are affected. So what's the context that you find your farm in today? And then we're going to go to the next point of why microbes are so valuable. Many crops, the genetic potential, the yield potential, I should say, is determined very early on based on the level of nutrient uptake. And the plant is reading its environment and determining what effort or what size of plant or how much, how many ears or how much grain or how much fruit it's going to be able to set based on that early stage environment. So having a good biological root colonization really has a significant impact on those early stages, on those very early critical points of influence. But then also later in the season, as your roots grow out, you will have better nutrient absorption because you have a better biological community working in symbiotic relationship with the plants. I'm going to give you two different examples of why microbes are a better investment and are so valuable in. So on. This soil sample is just a regular ammonium acetate extraction from Midwest Labs. And if you see this red circle, you can see that we have 81 parts per million of potassium, 49 of magnesium and 939 of calcium. Now this is a very light, sandy soil. If we look at our manganese, you can see we have three parts per million, which is very low. That should be like 20 parts per million. So that must probably mean we need to apply a lot of minerals in order for this to become available. If we look at or in order in order for us to have enough for the crop. Now, if we have a look at the saturated paste report, we can see that our calcium is only 19 parts per million. If you remember, we had 939 parts per million. Our magnesium, or I'm sorry, our manganese, which was very low at 3, is non detect at 0.02. So what we're seeing here is we're seeing a Spectrum of nutrient availability. So on the scale of which nutrient or the, the availability of the nutrients to the plant, you can see that we have way less than what we have in our soil analysis. However, if we look at the total mineral extraction and we look at all the nutrients that are available out there, we have double the amount of calcium that we had in our regular soil sample. So instead of 939 parts per million, we have 1873 parts per million, meaning we have a lot of calcium out there. We have. And again, we have the saturated paste at 19. The manganese on the total report is 23. And we had three on the regular ammonium acetate extraction and 0.02 on the saturated paste report. So here you're seeing the spectrum from available at all, where we have a total. And you could think of this, if you were to use the analogy of finances, you could think of this as your assets, the total nutrient report as your assets, and then your ammonium acetate extraction as your savings account and what's available in the saturated paste analysis as your checking account or your cash. And so there's a lot of nutrients out there. And if we only look at the ammonium acetate extraction and we try to balance the soil based on that, we're really making decisions based on a very limited perspective and really not in context of all of the other factors our farm. I'm going to give you another example of a soil in Nebraska. And if you look at this purple square, you'll see the P1 and the P2, which is two different phosphorus extractions. You're going to see here that they're recommending to put on a hundred pounds of P2O5, which would be roughly 200 pounds of map. And now we're going to look at the total nutrient digestion. So if you can remember here, we're low on phosphorus and we're just going to focus on phosphorus. For this specific scenario, we're recommending phosphorus. And now we look at the total nutrient digestion. This is taking all of the nutrients in consideration. And, and we have 811 pounds per acre of phosphorus out there, which would equate to 400 per million. That's equivalent of 3574 pounds of 1152. So if you have 3500 pounds ton and a half of map, what's the value of that? And how much value will there be in applying another £200 of map when you already have £800 out there? But based on your regular soil sample, it was just showing as deficient. And I'm just going to point out, because we're going to touch on nitrogen later in the conversation here. In this sample we have in the soil, we have a nitrogen value of £2,800 per acre, which is the equivalent of three ton of urea. Why are microbes so? It's because they are what make these nutrients available. If we just try to balance the soil by looking at the ammonium acetate extraction. And I will say that a lot of soil analysis today aren't even adequate in if they just have NPK and they don't have calcium, they don't have magnesium. They're not even what I would really consider a soil analysis. They're more like a fertilizer selling analysis to just get you to buy some phosphorus and some potassium and hydrogen. But plants grow on a lot more than that. However, if you are doing a full spectrum analysis and let's, let's say your calcium magnesium ratio is out of whack, or let's say you need more potassium or you need more phosphorus. If you don't have biology, and I want to just put a caveat in here or a disclaimer that I don't want anybody to get the idea that we never have to put out soil amendments. There are times when it makes sense to put out a couple hundred pounds of gypsum or to, you know, to put out some raw phosphate or to put out potassium, especially in very light sandy soils. So don't take this to say that you never have to put out a soil amendment, but to balance your soil by just putting out more fertilizer slash soil amendments is kind of just like putting more ground up rock on the soil. And I did this a time or two and the one time especially I remember, we put out like 2,000 pounds of rock phosphate. It had 23% phosphorus. Like the total phosphorus was around 23%. And we did another soil analysis and it came back at the very same part per million. It didn't move it one bit because there wasn't biology. And this was in very early on, before I understood the plants and the microbial symbiotic relationship that we understand now. On the other hand, if we put on a foliar to help the crop, we don't have the biology in that root zone. We can get a crop response from the foliar by providing it for a very limited time with the nutrition that it needs. But as it enhances the photosynthesis, as that foliar enhances the photosynthesis and more sugars go down through the roots. If there's no biology there, then that's where the cycle stops. If the biology is there, then you have that cycle repeating itself and you actually get a very. The response from the foyer is more of a trigger. And that trigger allows you to take up way more nutrients, your plant to take up more nutrients, and thereby you get a significant crop response from that foliar, not because of the amount of nutrients that were put out, but because of the trigger and how that accelerated the microbial rhizosphere and the whole microbiome. What about soul borne diseases? It's really just about good guys versus bad guys. If you have a good microbial inoculation, meaning if you have a good symbiotic relationship between the root and the soil, if there's a sheath around the root like you have on this onion, how will the bad guys get in there? So the protection. And if we create an environment where these good guys, meaning beneficial bacteria and fungi, are able to give the plant all that it needs, and the plant is able to give them all that they need, there's no place for the bad guys. So establishing a functioning microbial plant symbiotic relationship really is the key to success, because healthy plants can be 100% resistant to insects and diseases, says John Kemp. And I believe that. And healthy. I like to think of healthy as when all of the parts are functioning. So you can look at a healthy. You can look at a plant, maybe like this plant back here, and you can say, well, it's green. Is it healthy? Not if the biology is not functioning. You can look at the root and say, is it healthy? Everything looks nice. But if the top part, the photosynthetic part, isn't functioning, then it's not a healthy plant. So a healthy plant is when all of the parts are functioning as they should be. So let's just take a look at this cascade that I was talking about with the foliar application. If we put on a foliar application, that's providing the plant with whatever it's deficient in. And SAP analysis is the best tool that we have today to identify which nutrients are excessive and which are deficient and to put out the least amount of material to, to trigger that plant to full capacity photosynthesis. When we do that, then we enhance an increased level of sugar production. So it looks like this. When the sun shines on the leaf, you have the photonic energy reacting with the chloroplast and glucose is formed. So if the sun doesn't shine, then photosynthesis stops. Do you all agree with that? What if there's no water? There's not enough water. H2O and CO2 are the two primary building blocks that are reacted to build that glucose. So within that chlorophyll, you have the water, the H and the CO stored by the leaf, and the sun shines on it. The reaction happens. The plant releases oxygen, which is why it always feels so good when you're in a forest and you have all that just refreshing air. It's because there's lots of oxygen there. So if there's not enough water, that reaction can't happen. And photosynthesis is slowed down. If you don't have the minerals that are needed in this photosynthetic process, which the five. There's a lot really. The plant needs all of the essential nutrients in a greater or a lesser degree in this whole cycle. But five of the elements are really key for the photosynthetic process. Magnesium at the center of the chlorophyll molecule, nitrogen as a part of that molecule, iron, putting it together, mag. Manganese splits the water molecule in that photosynthetic process. And phosphorus in the form of adenosine triphosphate is needed to transfer that energy and keep the Krebs cycle going. So we need all of the minerals, we need the water and we need the sunlight and we need CO2. We need this carbon to be acted upon by the biology, be released into the atmosphere, be absorbed by the leaves, and then to be converted into sugars and be put back down through the roots. And when that happens, the bacteria will be digesting that carbon, those carbohydrates, as they come down into the roots. Which means the more the, the bacteria are digesting, the more food source they have, the more bacteria you will have. And when those bacteria are reproducing and growing, they will use minerals from the soil to, to build their bacterial and fungal bodies. And in return for the carbohydrates, the plant will, will get those minerals. So when the plant has more minerals, it will take it to another level of photosynthesis and plant health. Because, and this is a really key point in this, this section right here, microbial metabolite nutrition is when the plant takes those minerals in the form of microbial bodies or poop for a lot. I mean, that's just the English term for microbial metabolites is the fancy word for it. When the plant takes it up in that form, it will use 8 to 12 less times the energy as when it takes it up in simple ion form, such as your soluble nitrogen, soluble phosphorus and so forth. So when you have eight to 12 times more energy, what's the plant going to do with that energy? It's not going to be 8 to 12 times bigger. What it does is it now has the energy to store, to build and to store fats and lipids and plant secondary metabolites, these compounds that will be active repellents for insects. And there will be an active immunity that the plant is building up when it has the energy to build these plant secondary metabolites and these higher compounds. And so when we get to this level and we have higher levels of plant secondary metabolites, or think of them as fats, now those start being pushed down through the roots into the soil at greater volume. And when this happens, the fungi will digest. That bacteria doesn't digest the fats and oils, which is why meat is preserved in fat. And because bacteria isn't able to break the fat down and digest it. So the fungal digestion of those higher energy compounds is now going to build stable humic substance. And that's how we can rebuild the soil, simply by putting on one application or providing the plant with the nutrients that it needs in the proper balance. So how might this look on your farm, starting from the beginning to the end, What's a good way to be implementing this? And this is a quick outline of how we look at it. Make sure you have biological inoculation. You can use various inoculations. We'll talk about those later. The biocode gold. Don't put on more soluble fertilizers than you have to. And if your farm, if you're transitioning or if you're reducing nitrogen because of the cost, whatever it may be, always think about the context. What is this nitrogen in this amount at this time going to do for my. What's it going to do for my biology? What's it going to do for my plant microbe symbiotic relationship. Think about the context and how that's going to affect the rest of the season. Think about how that's going to affect that biological cascade and how much humus you will be putting into the soil as compared to if your plants are depending on the microbial system and are able by the microbial system to take up the majority or all of their nutritional needs. So we're just going to go through this in a little bit more detail to give you some context of how practically to apply this in your operation. And one of the context points that I think I glossed over was the connectivity of the caregiver or the caretaker. How connected are you to the soil? How connected are you to your plants? How connected are you to what's happening, not just in a mechanical business sense, but really smelling the soil, really getting in there, digging, looking at the roots, looking at soil structure, understanding what's happening, looking for limiting factors. That is really all of these things. We're going to talk about you as the caretaker, the one who's stewarding this land is actually the most important component. So you can put a lot of these things into place and still fail if you aren't out there observing. And part of the reason that that may happen is because you're not thinking five years down the road and you're not thinking 20 years or 100 years back and thinking about the context of where you are today. So I encourage you to be connected from the aspect that you can be applying materials and products. And all of those things are helpful. And in your context, in some contexts, they're more helpful than other contexts. Depending where you are, maybe you have cattle and maybe you have a very good rotational grazing, and you really just need a little bit to tweak that system. Or maybe you're on the other side of the spectrum and you're growing very intense vegetable production or fruit production, and it's a long ways from the pattern of nature, it's a long ways from all of that, and you have to supplement that system much more heavily. So let's look at the regenerative soil primer. And we talked about the importance of inoculating or of having a good symbiotic relationship of plant to the microbe. And establishing that is key. The best place to establish is at planting or before planting, so that when your seed germinates, the biology is right there. And that symbiotic relationship is happening from day one. And it looks like that little onion plant that hadn't even germinated yet, but the root portion was. Was completely covered with biology, as you'll see on the next slide with this wheat, spring wheat that's not germinated. And see the roots and see how just totally covered that is with biology. You could shake that off and that rhizosphere sheath would not fall off. That's soil aggregates that are glued by bacteria byproducts called glomerulan. The bacteria and the fungi are just sticking all of those things together into a beautiful structure. And the plant's able to absorb that in the form of microbial metabolites. Let me just back up one slide here and talk for a second about the rejuvenated Spectrum are a combination of products that give you a very diversified biological inoculant that includes nitrogen fixers, includes phosphorus solubilizers, includes the Zootomonas flourens species which are very affected by glyphosate applications. So there's a whole suite of biology in this Spectrum and we have various different Spectrum products for specific use cases. The seashield and the Rejuvenate are simply food, energy and tools for the biology until it gets established with the plant. So it's a delivery system, a starter system that feeds and supports the biology until it gets established on crop residue or preferably on a plant. And this question comes up quite frequently is well, can I just create my own biology? And the answer is absolutely, if you have the infrastructure, if you have the manpower, if you have the interest, you can create some really amazing compost, manure, compost tea. There's people who are taking virgin soils and bringing in biology. I think things are great. But what we found is that, and I don't know how many growers, I probably couldn't list them on both hands that used to be building their compost tea. And when they learned about Spectrum, when they learned about micro 5000 and PZ1000, they stopped using it because they have a consistent form that's easy to use and is in a very stable form. So it doesn't, doesn't, isn't going bad like the compost tea will. So yes, absolutely, if you're, if you have the infrastructure and the interest and you're able to build a consistent product, go for it. More power to you. But if not, then the Rejuvenate seashield and the Spectrum are a well proven out system that has given us very consistent results in, in establishing that symbiotic relationship with plants as well as crop residue digestion, which is what actually the whole system was originally created for. There was a lot of concern number of years ago about genetically modified crops, especially those that were rootworm tolerant and corn earworm tolerant. They weren't breaking down and so people were having two, three, four years of crop residue. And so this was the original design for this microbial inoculation package. And then we saw so significant changes in soil structure. Actually we had a consultant who would get his growers to spray half the field and then he wouldn't tell the consultant which side he had sprayed and the consultant would walk across the field and the majority of the time he was able to pick out which site had the soil primer applied just simply by the softness of the soil. He could feel it when he walked. So with that we realized how effective it was in establishing biology in the soil. And then later we started applying it a lot also in the row starters and getting it out there right with the plant. So it's a very multifunctional package that will really work well in establishing on your farm. Biocode Gold is another very key. It's the most economical or effective as far as return on investment goes of any microbial inoculant I have worked with. It's just, it's a combination of mycorrhizal fungi, it's got a little bit of bacteria, it's got some very unique and interesting food sources in there that just work. I, that's about all I can say. I mean we have, I have one example on here of spending $4 for the biocode gold and getting an 18 bushel increase in conventional corn. It's very simple. We've seen significant improvement in germination rate and just consistency of germination. So treat your seeds like gold, treat them with biocode Gold. And then I'd like to talk about nitrogen for a second. How many of you feel that nitrogen is very important for the success of your operation? What you're looking at here is a chart of the nitrogen cost in the last 13 years from 2008 to 2021. So you can see it went up, it was up, it dropped, went back up in around 2012 and then dropped way down in 2017, 18, 19 and now in 2021. It's just, you all know the story, so I don't need to, I don't need to spend a lot of time on that. But this is what I like to point out and this is the reason I asked the question, is nitrogen critical for your success? And when you say it is, then ask you, what is success? Because this is a graph and I'd like to just point out to you that this is also from 2008 to 2022. Do you see any similarities in the trends? We're looking at corn prices now. So it looks to me like 2012 to 2011 to 2013 would have been the time to grow corn. This, that was the all time high and it was the, the nitrogen was also high, but not as high as it is today. So maybe corn prices will keep rising to match that, which is exactly the Point. Is success, profitability is profitability success. And if the nitrogen prices and the corn prices have such a similar trend, how does that make you feel as a grower? You might say, well, I don't have any control over that. I can't do anything about it. But the reality is you actually can and I'd encourage you to do that. One of the things you can do is to make the nitrogen more efficient. You can stabilize it, you can add things to the nitrogen to help stabilize it in a way that's not going to be antagonistic to your biology and will actually help to convert it into a microbial form of protein that is very stable. That'll keep it from leaching, that'll keep it from volatilizing and losing it through, through gassing off. You can also use alternative sources of, of nitrogen, such as compost, manure, compost, tea, fish hydrolysis, like seashield or plant based proteins that are amino acid form, often coming from soy or from food waste. And those are all great alternatives that I would really encourage you to be looking at. But this is what you, this, the nitrogen cycle. See the atmospheric gas, this stuff that we can't see that keeps us alive, we call it the air, the oxygen, we get oxygen, but really that atmospheric gas is 78%. Not phosphorus, not potassium, not oxygen, but nitrogen. So how is it that we are so influenced when nitrogen is such a critical component of our success and, and yet profitability is what true success is. And yet our profitability looks like you're never going to win the game. From 2008 to 2022, the trends are right there. Corn prices go up and you think you'll make more money. But then the nitrogen prices comes and what's the. So I would encourage you to really think about how can you take advantage of the nitrogen cycle. And the things that you need to think about are soil structure so that you have good gas exchange if the soil isn't breathing. And yes, the earth, the soil actually does breathe. Have you ever noticed in the evening the fog goes down or the air comes down and it's cooler? It's because the air, the gas is being exchanged in the soil, it's breathing. And when that happens, if you have good soil structure and the bacteria and your plants will actually be taking advantage of that atmospheric nitrogen? I mean, think about, think about forests, think about the prairie. There was never a nitrogen deficiency there. And why is that? So think about nitrogen or think about good gas exchange and think about nitrogen fixing bacteria, think about plants that you can, that you can plant that will have a symbiotic relationship with certain nitrogen fixers that can help a lot in fixing nitrogen. But then again, even if you have legumes in your mix and you don't have good gas exchange, if you don't have good soil structure, it really won't help. You won't take advantage of that nitrogen cycle. Think about it. You can take control of it, the profitability, the whole game. You don't need to play it. So the Nitrogen efficiency program, if you've listened to John at all, you've heard of this before, of adding humocarb, which is the non denatured form of humic acids, meaning we don't extract it with potassium hydroxide or with sulfuric acid or any acid, but rather it's mechanically processed to a, in a way that you get the humic acid, the folic acid and the human fraction, the actual rock, if you will. And so it's a very strong, powerful stabilizer or material to complex the nitrogen. So think of it that actually I remember years ago, John, you told me how, you know, think of it as being these s hooks or you could think of those little toy monkeys we used to play with and they all held hands and you hooked them together and in each of those little crevices you can have a nitrogen. So think of this humor carb as a very porous material that complexes the nitrogen and keeps it in a stable form. That's one aspect of the Nitrogen Efficiency program. It keeps it from leaching. It keeps it keeps it there in a stable form so it isn't as easily converted to a more nitrate and nitrite and then oxidized back into the atmosphere. See, nitrogen is a cycle. Nitrogen is not a stable thing that you're going to build up. It's a cycle. And it's about you maximizing and capitalizing on that cycle. The other part of the nitrogen program.