Unlock $450 in Hidden Fertility from Crop Residue This Fall

0:00 Hey everybody, this is Keith Burns and we're coming to you today with just a little bit different type of format. I'm actually going to be wearing two hats for this episode. I'm going to be wearing the green cover hat as this is a green cover podcast episode, but I'm also going to be wearing my Elevate A hat because we're going to be releasing this as an Elevate A podcast episode as well.

0:22 For those of you that aren't aware, Elevate Egg is a company that manufactures, mixes, and sells really high quality biological products. And Green Cover Seed is a 25% owner in that company. The rest is owned by some really great farmers in Kansas. And so I'm working with a podcast on both.

0:42 So today I'm very excited for our guests. And the reason that we're doing it as both companies because my guest Mr. David Olsen from Sustainable Growing Solutions in California has been an integral part of the Elevate A experience and we'll talk about how we've actually got a formal partnership going here as well. And we've got some really exciting things to talk about that I think anybody who's a farmer and does not want to pay more money for fertility inputs, you're going to be really interested in this episode. So thanks for joining us and let's get started.

1:16 So David, very excited to have you on both podcasts here this morning. So welcome.

1:23 Thank you, Keith. Thank you so much. Yeah, actually the topics we've got lined up for today are amazing. Actually, the program that we're talking about for the fall decomposition literally could make the difference of not making money this year or making money this year in your field.

1:40 Yeah. And we all want to be on that side of making money. So before we jump into that because I'm excited to hear this too because I know some of this data that you're going to be presenting is the first time that people are going to be hearing about this. So I'm excited to hear it. But before we do that, give people just a little bit of your background, set the context of who you are, where you are, and how you got to the place where you're at now.

2:04 Sure. Sure. Well, I'm David Olsson. I'm owner of Sustainable Growing Solutions. We manufacture micro binocular products. Currently work in about 25 states again thanks to Green Cover and Elevate Eggs and our partnership there. We work in about 70 different crops. We have nine different biological products, micro inoculant products. They are actually quite a bit different than most of the inoculant products that you'll see on the marketplace. And part of that will become evident in our discussion today and we'll go into tremendous detail about it. But part of how we got to our products being so different than everyone else's biology is we're farmers. I'm a sixth generation farmer. Grew up on the farm doing all the farm jobs you can do. Cut my teeth doing a lot of trial work with organics even 45 years ago in biologicals, starting 35 years ago.

3:05 So lots and lots of experience with it, all of it grounded in the pragmatism that we need to actually implement this stuff in real life production agriculture. So you'll find our products are easy to work with and reliable and have very high performance.

3:23 Yeah. And I love the fact that you're a farmer, we're farmers, all the other Elevate Egg owners are farmers as well. So I do think that lends a lot of practical experience into what we do and we're all using it on our own acres as well. So we very much have vested interest in making sure these things work as well. So how many years have you been kind of in this biological business?

3:49 Well let's see, I guess we formed Sustainable Growing Solutions 14 years ago and we're doing biologicals, kind of broad spectrum stuff, and also some selected species products. My dad did his first one 25 years ago.

4:11 Yeah. So even though the biological realm may be relatively new for a lot of us, it's not for you. You've been in this a long time and that's one of the things that really attracted us to you, to your products and eventually to a partnership, because of that vast amount of experience.

4:28 So I mentioned that Green Cover owns 25% of Elevate A and Elevate A and Sustainable Growing Solutions have come together and we formed a joint venture called Ark Biome. Do you want to just briefly describe for folks what Ark Biome is and what Ark Biome does?

4:48 Sure. Sure. Well, of course, our principal manufacturing has been near Sacramento, California. And so that's a great hub for us to service our customers from on the West.

5:00 In our enjoying our partnership with Elevate A is one of our key distributors in the Midwest. Really we got to the point where the business was working so well and the partnership was deep that we decided it was time to start up production in the Midwest. So we have now a production plant that we have in Bladen, Nebraska at Keith's facility there. He's our landlord. And partnered with basically a 50/50 joint venture with Elevate and its partners to not only produce products there in the Midwest utilizing our proprietary technologies but also develop new products which are very well suited for the specific conditions and economics of the Midwest.

5:54 Yeah. And so today we want to talk about one of those new products that we're very excited about. I know you are in some of the data that you have to share here is very exciting and you mentioned that SGS makes a number of different products and love to have you back on future episodes and we can really dig into some of those. But I think for the purpose of this episode, I really want to dive deep into a specific one and that's the product that we call decomposer which is your biology. We're making it here in Nebraska now. And then when we pair that with the hyperscycle food type product, we're seeing some pretty amazing things. So, David, tell us a little bit about what this decomposer product is and why it's kind of revolutionary when it comes to freeing up nutrients for that next crop.

6:49 Sure. Yeah. It has some rather unique characteristics. Kind of the general characteristic of all of our products are that we have a very broad spectrum of species but they have all been selected and had their metabolism dedicated to a particular function and objective. So in this case what we've done is we've grown a very large and diverse set of microbiology that's dedicated to breaking down crop residue. So they're actively doing the metabolism. Not only are they capable of doing the function of breaking down cellulose and lignans and such but also they're actively dedicated to that metabolism. So that's something that really differentiates our products from everybody else. A micro species is capable of doing a number of different jobs but it really only adopts doing the one that seems the most beneficial when it gets on the ground. So by having us kind of preload that biology so it's dedicated to the function that we want, it lands and it gets to work much more quickly. Another thing that's different about our products than any other inoculant is the amount of metabolites that are built up in the product. So those enzymes that break down cellulose and lignin are actually in the product in vast quantities. So those microbes when they land, they'll continue their metabolism and they'll do those functions. They'll continue to break down those materials, but there's a large amount of that enzyme that's already in the product. So it acts instantly.

8:32 So they pop at the beginning of it. And so these microbes are all in stasis. So that means they're incredibly durable. So long shelf life so you don't have any short period of time that you have to put the microbes on like some other biological products but they're also capable of being mixed with other inputs so that makes them integrate into your existing operations much more efficiently. So that's kind of the biology side of things and I should mention that there's bacteria and fungi. The fungi are there in very high numbers and very high diversity and again dedicated metabolism to breaking down crop residue. The fungi are really the ones that are doing the heavy lifting on breaking down lignins. So when you have that woody material in your crop residue, you really have to have the fungal component of the biology working for that to go efficiently. And I would say, we work with hundreds of different growers in the Midwest that are regenerative. So they've been doing cover crop and no till for decades.

9:39 And when we look at their soils oftentimes we will see a very high functioning bacterial population. And the bacteria are excellent at breaking down cellulose but not quite as good at breaking down lignins. So when you see a in-situ crop residue breakdown from resident microbes, you'll mostly be seeing the benefits of it breaking down the cellulose, but not as much function on getting to the lignins. And so when we look at these regenerative soils, we see a lot of bacteria, but almost usually no fungi. So this product is actually bringing in a huge component of the fungal population that's important.

10:24 In two ways in this program. One is that it's essential for breaking down those lignins, but two that fall period of time is the best time of year for us to actually get a fungal population established because they have a favorable carbon to nitrogen ratio. They have a preferential food source for them with the lignins and we have moisture and low disturbance. So if of the entire crop cycle you know as we're applying biology through each crop growth stage with different products this fall application of the decomposer is our absolutely our best opportunity to get fungal component established in the soils.

11:09 And as I said the regenerative soils are generally missing this. So they're enjoying a lot of the benefits of having a high functioning bacterial component to their soil microbiology, but they're completely missing the benefits of how the fungi support the plant.

11:25 So if you do this fall program, you're going to plant into the spring with a lot more support from the fungal community and you're going to enjoy a lot of the benefits of the fungal functions that you've been missing out on. And the fungi in the case of a growing plant provide a lot of the phosphorus. So they do the heavy lifting on phosphorus. So as we talk about this particular case study, we're going to see that there's a lot of phosphorus unlocked in this process. So much so that you might not even need to apply phosphorus.

12:01 Which would be great news for all of us. But before we jump into the study and into the numbers, which we're going to get to shortly, I'm going to go back just a little bit because I want to make sure that we don't pass over a couple of things that I think are really important, really key points here. And one of them is you said that you optimize the metabolism of these microbes.

12:26 And I've been to your facility there in California and I saw you doing this and it takes a while for me to understand these things sometimes, but essentially you're gathering microbes from all over the world, but then you're training them or coaching them or helping them to specialize in specific functions. Correct.

12:50 Absolutely. That's a good description. Yeah. And so each of the products that you make or that we're making here where you send out the initial biology, those microbes, it's not all the same. They have been trained and recruited and essentially trained to do very specific functions.

13:09 Yes. And that really is essential to having a reliable outcome. So when we're talking about microbes that fix nitrogen, there's a lot of microbes that can fix nitrogen, but in the case of ours, they kind of been forced into doing that job actively. So when they land, they're doing what we want them to do. And that's a principal failure of many of the biological products that are sold out there as nitrogen fixing products is they do have the correct species, but they've never been activated. And so they where they land they have to be in an environment that actually is conducive to encouraging them to do the nitrogen fixing function that we want. Ours are already doing that when they land. So that's a huge advantage for the functionality of our products.

14:00 Yeah. So it's a little bit like hiring a bunch of people that could be capable of doing the job, but if they've never had the training, they're not going to do the job very well or it's going to take them a long time to really make progress versus bringing in a highly trained workforce and they are productive from day one and they get the job done. So I really like that concept.

14:20 The other thing that I want to just touch on because I think it's such a fascinating thing and you know, Dr. Christine Jones, who I think we all have a tremendous amount of respect for, the great Australian microbiologist, soil health expert. She's been here to our farm several times. I know you've listened to her, David. And I remember her early on talking about how the signaling molecules that these microbes produce can be sometimes just as effective or even more effective than the microbes themselves. And I'm assuming that's what you're talking about with these molecules and these enzymes and all these things the microbes are producing.

15:04 So when you're getting our products, you're not just getting the microbes, but you're getting all those microbial signaling molecules that are telling the plant, 'Hey, we're here.'

15:14 Let's get going.

15:17 Microbes put out about 2,000 different volatile organic compounds that are used in communication within species, between species, and between them and the plant, and also from the plant to the microbes. So it's really kind of how they signal back and forth to each other. I was going to mention before we kind of got off that topic. So I already mentioned that this fall application is our best opportunity to grow fungi, and what the values of that are. The other thing that we haven't gotten into yet, which we talked about this conditioning of the metabolism, the microbes to do the jobs that we want. Well, fixing nitrogen is one of the other things that we want the microbes to do. And this fall application is the best time of year for that free nitrogen fixing.

16:12 And when we go through this study, you'll actually see that we're getting twice as much nitrogen gain out of this process than there were actually was even in the residue to start with. So the reason why this is such a valuable opportunity for the growers is this is the one time of the year where we have a really favorable carbon to nitrogen ratio in the field that really is conducive to the microbes being very active in fixing nitrogen.

16:42 So when I say that kind of the ideal ratio of life that everything wants is around 15 carbon to every nitrogen. So in a normal field situation often times we actually can be somewhat carbon deficient because we've lost a lot of soil organic matter in a lot of our soils. So we're a little short on carbon. And of course what do we put a lot on of every year? We put on nitrogen. So in a normal growing situation most of the time we have, in terms of the perspective of the microbes, they want to have this 15 carbon to one nitrogen ratio. Typically they have an excess amount of nitrogen in that ratio and not enough carbon.

17:24 So in that condition, the microbes have no incentive to actually fix nitrogen.

17:31 So this crop residue phase is the only time of year where we have like corn or wheat, you know, we've got a carbon to nitrogen ratio in that crop residue of like 50 carbon to one nitrogen.

17:43 So the microbes are really really incentivized to fix nitrogen because that's actually a limiting factor to their life. So they just pluck nitrogen right out of the air. So air is 78% nitrogen. And so this is our opportunity to collect a whole bunch of free fertilizer. And when we talk about the study, I'll quantify it and you'll be shocked by how much it is.

18:08 And I just want to share my perspective on this because I think it's probably a common perspective held by many of the people listening to this, many of my fellow Midwest and High Plains farmers out there. I've always known about these decomposer products. I've always kind of thought I don't know, because I've known about the carbon nitrogen thing and my understanding has always been, and this is probably true for a lot of products, the only way those microbes can break down my carbon is they're going to be pulling the nitrogen out of my soil in order to do that. And now I have nitrogen tie. And so while I may have less residue, I may also have less nitrogen. That's always been my thought process.

18:56 But the difference is this decomposer product is bringing trained microbes to the table that aren't pulling it out of the soil, but they're pulling it out of the air. Like you said, there's 30,000 tons of free nitrogen above every acre of crop ground. These guys know how to get it and they go out and get it. And what is just completely stunning here, folks, what David is saying is that you have the opportunity to fix nitrogen without a growing plant because their carbon source is not the root exudates of a plant. The carbon source is the residue that they're breaking down.

19:36 Yep. And you do bring up a very good point about nitrogen tie up. So we're doing this decomposition process where yes, there is a demand for nitrogen and that's why we're fixing so much, but we're not competing with a growing crop. And so we're doing all this at a period of time where it's not interfering with anything. And that's one of the big benefits of doing this accelerated decomposition process because if you're just relying upon the native microbiology, if it's not very high functioning, when you plant this next crop, you're going to be planting into a residue that's not very fully decomposed. So it's going to be competing with that crop early season for the available.

20:19 Nitrogen. So by us breaking it down, you know, we completely sidestep that. And that can be a source of serious yield loss and of course nitrogen input inefficiencies.

20:33 All right. So I think you teased me enough with this pending data that's out there. So set us up. Tell us this case study. Give us the scenario of where the numbers came from, how the readings were taken, and then let's dig into the data a little bit.

20:50 Sure. Yeah. And so all this is really done utilizing the same kind of saturated paste soil tests that we typically do in agriculture. In other studies we're doing total nutrient digestion and things like that. We just wanted to focus on what was plant available. So what we looked at was kind of the baseline. So in the fall, what was our baseline soil fertility? So what was the nitrogen availability and what was the phosphorus availability? Wells and those are the only two I'm going to talk about today. But and of course while also looking at sulfur and calcium and potassium and magnesium and others and the reason why I called those out specifically is those are ones that we also significantly move and needle on. But just for the economic discussion today I'm just going to talk about nitrogen and phosphorus.

21:44 So we take the soil test at the fall and we also take note of course the crop type which tells us what the carbon to nitrogen ratio in that crop is. We also want to know what the yield was of that because from those two data points the crop type and the yield. There's enough university data out there that'll tell us basically what the nutrient content of that crop or residue is.

22:08 So that's of course we're trying to increase the efficiency of us capturing those nutrients in that residue and converting that into plant available nutrition for the spring. So then we also of course we keep a control plot so we where we're just decomposing the residue based off of the native microbiology. So that's kind of our baseline and then of course we have our treated plot where we'll do a spring soil sample. And so our ultimate comparison is spring soil nutrient potential from the control versus our spring treated.

22:47 And so the difference between those two that gain in nutrient availability is really the payoff for the program itself.

22:56 So that's kind of the gist of how this is calculated. In these numbers that you're going to share. Are these from multiple farms? Are they out here in my area? Where is these numbers coming from?

23:12 Sure. Yeah, this is actually just I'm going to talk about just one trial specifically from Nebraska from last year.

23:20 And so we've talked up to this point about the decomposer product. So our Metavro decomposer is our center of biology that's set to break down crop residue. But in the application program, we always always pair microbes with food. So our typical decomposer program would be two gallons per acre of Metagro decomposer and a half pound of Metagro M food, which is our micro broadspectrum micro food. If there were cold temperatures like we've done many times up in Minnesota and some of our more northern growers, we often times will put some additional molasses into that because what it is is fast quick energy to get the biology going even under extremely cold conditions. And then if the carbon to nitrogen ratio is very high like we've got with say corn and wheat and a few other strawlike crop residues, we also put on a jump start amount of nitrogen because we don't want the biology to sit there and struggle because it can't get enough nitrogen to have available nitrogen in the ratio for life.

24:38 Yeah. We'll typically put on a kickstart amount of nitrogen. Sometimes that'll be in the form of things like squid juice which is a squid fish hydrolysate. I like that because it's got an oil component to it which fungi really like. So the fungi again are really critical in breaking down the ligaments. In other cases we can use some other nitrogen sources like the isobu and some other things that we've worked with. And so that's an ammonized type urea. So it's quite favorable. So anyway, those are kind of the variables of the program. In this particular one, we actually this is the hyperscycle product that's produced by Elevate A. And Elevate what they do is they take our biology.

25:26 Our biology is kind of the engine of all of their products, but then they'll also basically make a custom blended product that includes food. So it's kind of an all-in-one package. So you get not only the biology, but you also get the molasses and the fish and several other nutrients and support materials for the biology. So the hiker cycle is kind of just an all-in-one. So it's a great product for this particular application and that's the application that we did for this particular study.

26:01 So one of the first things we wanted to look at was what was the conversion efficiency of the nutrient potential of the crop residue. So comparing the control, that's our native microbes. How good a job are they doing breaking this down? How much of that nutrient potential did they unleash? And just talking in very general terms, not getting into the actual numbers, the in situ control breakdown process released about half of what the nutrient potential was of that residue. So there's about 80 units of nitrogen and about 30 units of phosphorus. That's what was broken down or that's what the potential was. And that's what the crop residue potential was. Yeah, out of this corn crop.

26:55 The natural breakdown process captured about half of that. And it's important to think about that process because what happened to the other half? Where'd it go? Well, part of it wasn't broken down yet because it was not an accelerated process, but mostly what happened to it was volatilization. So literally the residue is sitting either on the surface of the soil or shallowly incorporated and it literally oxidizes. So nitrogen instead of being captured in case of biology in the form of amino acids, nitrogen gets oxidized into nitrous oxide or ammonium and it volatilizes. So you had all these units of potential nutrition that just oxidized and volatilized. And so that's why the natural breakdown process was pretty inefficient.

27:55 Now then the ultimate comparison is looking at the difference between our treated program versus the baseline. So recognizing that we did get some value out of that control situation, we didn't really appear to fix any free nitrogen. So when we look at the crop residue nutrient potential versus the amount of additional nitrogen that we fixed above and beyond what the control was, it was actually 2x of the amount of nitrogen that was actually in that crop residue. Two times the potential. Yes, not of what just the baseline did. So that's like 4x of what the natural biology did. That's correct. Yeah, it's 400 something percent.

28:47 And so when we done a lot of this analysis right after we got this data, but I really started to think of it. I really wanted to follow it all the way through correctly and say, 'All right, well, what's that really mean? Dollars and cents on the ground, you know.' So one you can take that fall, the spring soil test and use that to modify your fertility program for the upcoming crop. But what's that mean in terms of dollars and cents in terms of how you might have to be able to change your fertility program? So when I looked at the units of nitrogen that we fixed, that we captured from the residue and the additional nitrogen that we fixed, when you figure how much urea, as an example, would you have to put on in order to have that many units of nitrogen, it was $102 worth of nitrogen.

29:43 The program itself, like all the ingredients that we talked about, it's less than a $30 per acre program. So you've got a huge ROI just right there on the nitrogen. Just on the nitrogen and if you're organic that number might be double because organic nitrogen is going to cost you even more.

30:04 Right and actually I would submit that the organic nitrogen actually has more value from an efficiency standpoint for the plant. So if you compare the form of nitrate nitrogen to the form of nitrogen in amino acids. So when microbes are delivering nitrogen to the plant, they're doing it in the form of amino acids. When you're just applying say urea or say nitrates, you're applying that form of nitrogen but the plant actually has to and or biology has to invest water and energy and other minerals in order to convert those other forms of nitrogen into amino acids.

30:48 Because that's what the plant is actually using. So the plant's using the different types of amino acids for different physiological processes and of course it starts to build those into proteins. So it'll build amino acids into peptides and polypeptides and eventually full proteins. So that's one of the reasons why when we're delivering so much of the nutrition to the plant in the form of amino acids that we typically see an increase in the protein content of the grain in case of the cereal crops.

31:19 So, that's kind of the nitrogen part of the story. The phosphorus one is even more interesting. So as I mentioned, there was only about 30 units of phosphorus in the residue and we ended up with, which I'd have to check my notes here. So we increased the phosphorus enough that if you were to use MAP as your source of phosphorus to replace the amount of phosphorus that we unlocked in terms of nutrient potential, it's $350 an acre.

32:05 So Keith, you should be saying it's like that's crazy. Nobody's going to put that much on. And my reply is exactly because you don't need to. Because what you what we're doing here is we're taking the nutrient potential of the soil that we have all this phosphorus that's all locked up. So if you do a total nutrient digestion and you can see how much phosphorus there is, that's a much much higher number than what you're going to see in these saturated paste test.

32:35 Yeah. And so, and this this actually wins a lot of growers over for us. So they're kind of trapped on this cycle of every year their crop is deficient in phosphorus and every year they take a soil test that tells them that they have plenty of phosphorus and their PCA tells them that the answer to the problem is to put on more phosphorus, which is what we did the last year, which led to the plant being deficient in phosphorus. Of course, and there's they're just like super frustrated.

33:06 And we spend a lot of money to create our own problems sometimes. Yes. Well, we're keep doing the same thing that was that just wasn't working, you know. So, putting more on is not the answer in this case. And matter of fact, you know, it's causing all sorts of environmental problems where we have all this phosphorous runoff that's causing, you know, big watershed and surface water quality issues. So what we're really, you know, so we're not creating phosphorus, we're just unlocking the nutrient potential that's in the soil and translating that into a plant available form. So in this case, you know, we're we're not we wouldn't ever put on that much phosphorus, but that's the value of the phosphorus that we've unlocked. So in this case, when you figure your your fertility program for the next crop, the answer is going to be I don't need to put on any phosphorus.

33:57 And David, those numbers were coming from the spring soil test. Was that a regular soil test or a Haney test or both? We had actually both. Yeah. So we had a total nutrient digestion as well as the saturated paste. Okay. So, so obviously to to get that much phosphorus liberated and freed up and plant available, those microbes were getting it out of the corn stocks, but also pulling a lot out of the soil and and I assume they did that just simply because they needed that to balance what they needed in their bodies. Exactly. Yeah, that's exactly how it works. So, they're they're fulfilling their own need. Now what what's really cool especially about this decomposition process is so as I mentioned you know here's this huge community a very diverse biology that's all metabolically dedicated to breaking down crop residue. So that's that's called a saprophytic metabolism. So saprophagy just means they just eat dead tissue.

35:03 When those same microbes are exposed to a growing plant. So as soon as you put that seed in the ground, the seed puts out an exudate. So those are those volatile organic compounds that we're talking about before. Those volatile organic compounds that the seed puts out when it first gets hydrating are communicating with the micro population around it. Those microbes that have been engaged in the saprofitic breakdown of this dead tissue immediately change their metabolism now from breaking down plant tissues to being supportive of that growing plant. And so now we've got all this phosphorus as an example that if the exudates that the seed is putting out and and later of course the roots are putting out exudates. Those exudates tell the microbiology in that root zone what

40:49 The residue has a lot of carbon in it in an unassisted crop breakdown process. I mentioned that there's a lot of oxidation. Well of course the carbon oxidizes as well as carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. So that's a big loss of that carbon potential of that crop residue that the microbes are not letting get away because they're going to utilize it and of course they're breaking it all down.

41:15 Eventually they turn that into humus and so humuses are organic structures and complexes and things in the soil that the microbes use to complex nutrients into so that they can basically store them.

41:29 And the virtuous cycle that we just talked about where the crop is doing exudates through the roots. Well, those exudates are excess photosynthetates in the form of sugars and sugars are just a carbon chain with some hydrogen growing off of it. So it's that exudates from the roots of the plant that are the principal component of the carbon cycle in the soil in terms of fixing organic matter in the soil. So once we kind of get this system working, the plant working with the biology, that's when we see those tremendous gains in that soil organic matter.

42:08 Yeah. And so with that being said about the exudates of those plants really driving that system we know that this decomposer hyper cycle type program that this case study is about and we've got other studies and examples that have shown that as well that can work without a growing plant in the fall and in the spring but would it work better if I had a cereal rye cover crop out there?

42:37 Oh, absolutely. Any crop residue opportunity that we have to break down works equally well on a terminated cover crop as well. But if I planted my, I harvest my corn, I maybe I aerial seeded some cereal rye. So I've got a growing cover crop out there in addition to all that residue and the decomposer and the hyper cycle. Does that growing dry plant does it make a difference?

43:09 Yeah, it'll allow the biology to have basically two sets of metabolism. One is going to break down the residue of the previous crop, but then another component of that same population will be actively supporting that growing rye. So very synergistic set of metabolisms.

43:27 Yeah. Yeah. So it you don't have to have it, but if you can, it should help some too.

43:38 Well actually we do have some growers that have been using decomposer actually on within their growing crop cycle so that they've chosen that set of biology instead of some of our other biological products so they're not actually using it specifically for the growing plant and the reason why some of them have selected that is because as I mentioned our products are extremely biologically diverse and we actually have 12 different species of rhizobium that are in our decomposer product. So some of our soybean guys have looked at it and said like well that's the product that has the most the highest population rhizobium.

44:20 Yeah. And that was the next topic I wanted to explore a little bit here is if I'm a little worried about this working too well in the fall and kind of depleting and decomposing my residue too quickly and maybe not giving me some weed control that I want in the spring. Can I do the same thing that you're talking about, but instead of doing a fall application, can I do an early spring application? Do I see the same results? Like you were mentioning, I know our Clint Cox, who's one of the owners of Elevate Egg, I know he did an application after he planted his corn. So he's trying to do the same thing, but we're shifting the timing of when it's working and how it's working. So maybe just talk a little bit about why people might consider that spring application as opposed to fall.

45:16 Sure. Yeah, I think either is going to work. I guess you just integrate it with the rest of your crop system. So you mentioned that sometimes you use that residue as a way to suppress weed growth and I get that and it does have value. One thing I would say is you can actually probably observe this on your own farms is that when we get that fungal component going, there's a number of weed species that are just not successful anymore. We see those drop out of the composition of the weed complex. So those tend to be thistles, some of our tougher stuff. So thistles, bermuda grass, crab grass, Johnson grass, and as I said, the nut sedge. So there's a bunch of.

46:13 Some of our tougher weed complex that once we get this fungal component going, you're going to see a lot less presence of those and they just kind of naturally drop out of the read. So even if you don't have as thick a residue because you've switched it to more fungally dominant, you won't see some of that.

46:32 That's really interesting. So I know that we are really good personally and I know a lot of people listening are too. We're really good at growing Palmer amaranth because it's such a tough weed. It's such a tough weed to control and it's going to be dumping millions and millions of seeds out there. If I put this product on in the fall, will that activate this biology to also decompose those seeds that because I'm just leaving all that seed right on top the ground. Will it help break those down as well as my crop residue?

47:08 If there's say marginal viability of those seeds, I'd say that there's a possibility that there will be some saprophic activity of this population against those seeds. But I wouldn't put a lot on that. I wouldn't try to make a claim or value based off of that.

47:31 Yeah. Well, I know we have a lot of we have a very high cricket population and I assume they're eating a lot of those seeds and things as well. You know, we just got done with our field days we had here at Green Cover and one of the things that we were showing was our corn interseeding plots. And we had a really thick mat of cereal rye that we rolled down, planted the corn into it, and then we did our interseeding experiments. And what was interesting this year, it's probably one of the better thicker mats of cover crop that we had had. It really did a pretty good job with controlling weeds. But, you know, here it is, first week in August when we're recording this, and I still had a lot of cereal rye residue out there. And it just got me to thinking that if I would have, you know, put a product like the decomposer on, maybe when I did my interceding at V2 or V3, would I have gotten more nutrient release? And by the time that my residue was breaking down, my corn would have been canopied. So, I didn't need the residue quite as much for weed control. It just got me thinking, boy, we missed an opportunity to study that to look at.

48:41 You know, could we do that and, you know, keep my residue intact for the spring, you know, for weed control if I feel like I need that, but then get that late season release of nutrients and maybe that'd be even more valuable for soybeans, you know, to get that late season release of nitrogen from that because beans will really benefit from a late season application. And I don't really want an early season release of nitrogen or it will disincentivize those beans to nodulate.

49:13 Yeah, actually and I can see a lot of synergism there with the timing of your interceding. So if you're going through it at V3 to do that planting, that is honestly one of the best times for us to do a foliar application with our biology. So, one we'd be inoculating the residue you want to break down, but we're also giving the metabolites to your growing principal crop at a really important inflection point for yield.

49:46 And I mentioned that there's as many as 2,000 different metabolite products, things that the microbes produce as a byproduct of their metabolism that are specifically bioactive on the physiology of the plant. So what it does is it temporarily gooses the photosynthetic efficiency of the plant. So you'll see an immediate green flush after that foliar which is basically what you're seeing is the increase in photosynthetic activity. It does several things. One, it makes the plant healthier and so you're going to see increasing things like leaf size, leaf thickness, better node spacing. And then you also get that flush of exudates because during that green flush of photosynthesis that plant can share more exudates in the roots. So and that's I kind of view that as it's a kickstart to that virtuous cycle.

50:52 And so that plant's feeling really happy can share the excess food with the microbes through the roots. They in turn feed the plant the nutrients that it needs in the right ratios the right form for that growth stage.

51:06 Yeah. And that's another reason why I'm really keen on that application is a lot of plants are just still in the greenup process. You know how plants just after emergence can be kind of chlorotic looking? They just haven't filled out their chlorophyll. That's a particularly vulnerable stage of a crop for a potential disease infection. So there's some potential fungal.

51:30 Pathogens that will successfully attack a plant in those early growth stages. Some seedling mortality type pathogens like fusarium, they just come and wipe something out in that early stage. If we get that photosynthetic efficiency up, we green up that plant faster, get those bricks up higher and also build up the rest of the fungal population. It completely suppresses those early seedling diseases.

51:58 But it also suppresses those infections that happen at those early stages that oftentimes don't visibly manifest themselves until much later in the production, in the growth phases. So we say it's a late blight or something like that that happens, it killed the plant late in the process, but the infection happened much earlier.

52:23 Yeah, so there's just so many benefits for just getting that photosynthetic efficiency up of that plant much earlier, and that V3 foliage that I love to do that with.

52:34 And now this really has my mind cranking here because if you do that foliage at that point and you seed that interseeded cover crop and now you have a diversity of different plants growing and contributing exudates to this microbiome, that's going to encourage these plants to cooperate more so than compete. Even if my cover crops don't survive till the end of the season, which a lot of times they don't because the corn shades them out, maybe that's okay because maybe the benefit that those interseeded, some flax and some buckwheat, some radish and some clover, maybe the benefit that they're bringing is in that first six weeks of the corn's life, and it really doesn't matter if they're there at the end.

53:23 There is definitely a benefit to the diversity of the habitat that's created by the different species. So there is certain species of microbes that have a natural, or I should say a particular species of plant will have a natural affinity or a close symbiotic relationship with a certain set of species. There will be overlap, some of the species will be common or some of the micro species will be common cohorts with all the different crops that you're growing there, but some will be unique to a particular crop. And what it does is it just builds more diversity and resilience out of that micro population. So again, you have more of a disease suppressive type soil, and you also have more nutrient relationships, and the plants do communicate and share among species, even directly.

54:20 There's all sorts of myriad benefits out of that. Okay, I'm going to tell Brian that he needs to put a spray boom and sprayer tanks on the tractor now for when he's interseeding. We just bought a 40ft interseeder because we do believe in that, and I can really see a benefit of doing a foliage at the same time.

54:41 Yeah, and that is our strategies, as being farmers and pragmatists, and we have to integrate with the existing operations in a practical sort of way. So we love it when our materials are applied in a ride along of an operation you're already going to do anyway. So we don't have additional application costs and traffic across the field. And I guess that's an important part of the discussion about the decomposer that I forgot to mention is how we apply the microbes to the crop residue is pretty important because all of this crop residue, it has exterior structures that are designed to be very protective of the plant. So the more interior access we have to those stocks and straw, the better things go. So if you're doing any chopping or light incorporation or anything like that, typically we do our application at that time. So we put it on in front of the mower or chopper or in front of the disc, and so what we're doing is we're getting the biology not only all over that residue, but as that's kind of mechanically manipulated, you can also do it with a roller crimper. Just literally put it on the crimper, and so as it's cracking that tissue, we're getting biology right there. And so we've added interior access. It really speeds things up. It doesn't cost us anything extra to do, but it just makes everything work better.

56:14 Yeah, that makes sense. You get more surface area for the microbes to work off of, and that just speeds everything up.

56:23 Yep, and that interior access because, especially in the northern climates of course it gets very cold and very dry, and if the microbes are already

56:32 Working inside those tissues they actually kind of maintain their own habitat so they'll still be really active.

56:39 And I would assume that as it gets cold they'll tend to slow down some but they'll survive and then as it warms up in the spring they kind of pick things back up.

56:50 Correct. Yeah. Microbes are a lot like us. You know, they like kind of the same temperature ranges. Their metabolism does slow down, but you know, I always make the analogy back to food preservation. It's like, okay, well, we put our food in the refrigerator. All right, so that brings the temperature down to like 38 degrees or so. Is it like, does it last forever in the fridge? No, it just lasts a little bit longer. So, you know, the decomposition that was going to happen continues to happen. It just happens at a slow pace.

57:21 All right. Yeah, that's a good analogy. So, David, as we kind of draw this to a close here, I'm assuming that a lot of people listening to this are going to want to dig into this a little bit more, look at these numbers, look at this case study. I'm assuming that you'll be putting together kind of a white paper or report or something like that that we can get to people.

57:44 Yeah. Yeah. And actually what I'll do is I'll be aggregating a number of different fields. And so that way we'll have kind of a range of conditions because actually what we're working on is basically a calculator that we can use to help the growers. It's like if you tell me what your crop is and what the yield was at the end I should be able to give you at least a reasonable estimate as to what the nutrient gain is that we should expect to get out of the program and the value of it.

58:12 Yeah. And here on our own farm on Providence Farms, we applied the decomposer and Hyperscycle to multiple fields last fall. We've got soil test data before and after, much like what you're talking about. We've sifted through it a little bit and I'm seeing some similar things to what you're seeing. I just had AI kind of give me a summary and so I'm going to be getting all this over to you and you can potentially incorporate that into your study as well. So you got a little more data to work with but the point is we have seen a significant increase in the soil respiration. There was a fourfold increase in the percentage of fungi. We did PLFA test in addition to the HY test on this too. And so we saw a big increase in the microbial biomass. So all of these numbers are positive. I'm looking at percentages here and not overall numbers. So we'll get you that raw data for you to look at. But folks, if you're interested in this, reach out to your Elevate Egg representative, your Green Cover salesman. We'll be able to get you more of this information as David helps us put this together. And we are actively making the decomposer product right now. So, we're going to have it ready to ship out along with food source so that if you're interested in trying to free up these nutrients and actually create some nutrients from that free nitrogen, we'll be ready to help you do that. We're going to be doing it on our own ground as well. So, David, any kind of last words to leave people with as we close this down?

59:54 Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Keith. I think it was a great discussion. Super excited about the program. Again, I think that this application is the biggest bang for your buck opportunity that we have. I mean, we see a huge response for our growers at our seed coat products. You know, not a lot of dollars spent, but a lot of dollar value out in the field. A lot of programs that we do that are very successful, but honestly, if you're going to start anywhere, this is the place to do it.

1:00:23 Yeah. Yeah. For that $30 investment to get hundreds of dollars of potential fertility released. And I know that by the time you get done with harvest, everybody's tired and you just want to go on vacation, but before you go on vacation, get those microbes out there working because they'll keep working even when you're not. And so, just really something to consider and think about there. So, David, thank you so much for coming on. Like I say, I'm sure we're going to have you on additional episodes where we can talk about some of the other products that we're making here at Ark Biome. I wander up there once a week or so and see all of the stuff bubbling and going and it's just really fun to be able to do that.

1:01:08 Folks, thank you for watching and we hope that you reach out to us and we'll get you more information on this product or any of the other Elevate Egg or Ark Biome products or any cover crop seed from Green Cover to help you out as well. Thanks again for watching this episode of the Green Cover and the Elevate A podcast.