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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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

Many times growers observe field outcomes we don’t have an immediate explanation for. Why did that one section of the field with that early root disease not have any insect pressure later in the season? Why does our crop not have any disease where we foliar fed last years cover crop, but disease is present where the same cover crop was not foliar fed? Why does a field have greater disease pressure on one variety, but the next variety right beside it, not particularly selected for disease resistance, showed no trace of disease? Why do GM crops seem to produce a disease conducive soil, where the ..read more

When we consider that some people have qualified opinions about some topics, and some people have qualified opinions about few topics, whose opinion do you choose to care about? If you want to make a change on your farming operation how important is the opinion of your neighbors? The folks at church? The coffee shop? How important is the opinion of your family? Does anyone in any of these groups have a qualified opinion about the changes you are trying to make? If you care about their opinion, and their opinion is not yet qualified, how can you give them the necessary information to help them ..read more