John Kempf Blog
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Explore the all-in-one resource and community for regenerative agriculture. John Kempf is an entrepreneur, speaker, podcast host and teacher. He is passionate about the potential of well-managed agriculture ecosystems to reverse ecological degradation.
John Kempf Blog
4M ago
My recommended reading list remains one of my most popular posts as I continue to update it with new books I discover.
First principles thinking is foundational to developing agronomic management systems that regenerate ecosystem health. It is a delight to discover additional information that can help us understand how to better manage our crops from a perspective that can be adapted to many different situations.
Concepts for Understanding Fruit Trees – T.M. DeJong is one of the gems that I am adding to the list. DeJong describes the foundational principles of energy metabolism and flow in fru ..read more
John Kempf Blog
4M ago
The management of some crops focuses on measuring overall leaf index per plant as an indicator of the fruit load the plant can support.
But this doesn’t seem correct. Leaves on new growth shoots and leaves associated with fruit do not contribute sugar to the fruit sinks equally.
In many crops, the majority of the sugars that are stored in the fruit or seed come directly from leaves that fruit is most closely associated with. These might be spur leaves, bract leaves or nodal leaves on different types of crops.
My present understanding is that as little as 35% to as much as 80+% of the sugars in ..read more
John Kempf Blog
1y ago
Hi Friends!
The prevailing paradigm today is that agriculture is somehow, by its very nature, inherently extractive. There is a widely held belief that the process of farming degrades soils and landscapes. Unfortunately, it is often the case that farming has a degrading effect, but it doesn’t need to be this way.
I envision a world where the process of growing food regenerates the land, revitalizes rural communities, produces food that improves our health, and leads to farming landscapes that are beautiful. Vibrant. And clean.
The vision (and the reality) that agriculture, the source ..read more
John Kempf Blog
1y ago
Plant Nutrition, The Driver of Soil Regeneration
Regenerative agriculture is commonly defined as a regeneration of soil health. A set of soil management practices that includes non-disturbance (no-till), keeping soil covered, incorporating livestock, utilizing cover crops, increasing species diversity, and maintaining continuous living roots in the soil are generally agreed upon as the drivers of a regenerative farm management system.
However, these management practices all miss a fundamental driver of soil health, which can supersede the impact of all the practices above. This factor is plant ..read more
John Kempf Blog
1y ago
What is ‘snake oil’?
The Oxford dictionary defines snake oil as “a product of little real worth or value that is promoted as the solution to a problem.” Wikipedia says it is a “term used to describe deceptive marketing, health care fraud, or a scam.”
The term is most commonly used in the agriculture space as a derogatory for biocontrol or biostimulant products that are unfamiliar or not yet in widespread use.
In my conversation with Pam Marrone she made a comment to the effect “If fertilizers and pesticides were held to the same performance standards as biocontrols and biostimulants before bei ..read more
John Kempf Blog
1y ago
What if you could get seeds to germinate as fast in challenging conditions as they emerge in ideal conditions?
This article was published in AcresUSA a few weeks ago, and I wanted to share with you here.
The spring wheat seedling on the right was treated with a BioCoat Gold and nutritional support at planting. The seed germinated 12 hours after planting in cold soil and challenging weather conditions. The comparison seedling is the grower’s standard program.
Root mass development on cover crop with BioCoat Gold and AEA fall soil primer
Seeds with Speed
How to manage germination spee ..read more
John Kempf Blog
1y ago
The success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervenor. ~ Bill O’Brien
Most growers in developed countries only have experience with contemporary farming systems, which relies on constant fertilizer and pesticide inputs and purchased seeds.
If you are reading this post, you are aware to some degree that regenerative agriculture management systems have so much more to offer than contemporary systems: higher yields, improved nutritional integrity, disease resistance, insect resistance, reduced input costs, increased profitability, reduced climactic risk, regenerating ..read more
John Kempf Blog
1y ago
When crops are foliar sprayed regularly through the growing season, managing spray solution electrical conductivity (EC) becomes very important.
If crops are only sprayed two or three times in a growing season, it is possible to apply a very concentrated product solution, and only observe positive crop responses. Growers regularly fly on spray solutions that were as much as 50%-70% high EC products with only 30%-50% water at a rate of 3-4 gallons of total solution per acre, with very good results.
When higher value crops are sprayed every 7-14 days through the growing season, managing the solu ..read more
John Kempf Blog
1y ago
All plants respond dramatically to changes in phytohormone levels.
The use of plant hormone products usually corresponds to a crops value. High value crop growers quickly recognize they cannot afford to not use these products because of the exceptional crop responses they can produce when applied in a timely fashion.
We often observe instances where cultural management practices produce a profound negative effect on a crop, because the impact on phytohormone levels is not appreciated.
As an example, abscisic acid (ABA) is the phytohormone which leads to the development of good fruit coloration ..read more
John Kempf Blog
1y ago
“We report how a single gene mutation from a functional plant mutant influences the surrounding community of soil organisms, showing that genes are not only important for intrinsic plant physiology but also for the interactions with the surrounding community of organisms as well.”1
Several growers have been reporting that different weed species are dominant the following growing season on soil where GM crops are planted, compared to soil with that same crop that is not GM.
Other growers have observed that disease expression is much higher following a GM crop than a non GM crop.
We understand t ..read more