Did You Hear the One About the Traveling Agronomist . . .?

From March through October, you will find me on the road about two weeks out of every month. For eight months, my travels take me from home, in Western Washington, to four cities in eastern Washington, on to the Willamette Valley of Oregon for nine stops, and then home. After that trip I am home for a week to catch up on business and then off to Idaho for a three to four day visit before returning home and repeating the process. 

After each trip it takes about 1½ to 2 days for me to recover from what I call “stupid head,” a condition where you can only hear road noise or the drone of an airplane propeller.  I’m sure those of you who travel a lot know what “stupid head” is.

This really doesn’t sound like an exciting way to spend your summer, especially if you are a 64-year-old husband, father, and grandfather. But there is a reason and a validation. When I was in college I had a discussion with an advisor about the ag retail business. He told me if you want to be wealthy, don’t go into ag retail. I can honestly say he was right. I have been in this game for 38 years and I’m sure many of my former classmates have acquired much more wealth than I have. But I think I can say I have had more successes than they have. Every place I go, I have helped a farmer or fertilizer dealer become more successful in their business and I am welcomed back for another visit.

Life isn’t all about financial greatness or great self power. When you can educate a dealer who can now pass the information on to his farmers, or help a farmer be more productive and more profitable, you have succeeded in being a real Agronomist.

Now, if you will excuse me, it’s time to pack my suitcase.

Grow for Quality, not Quantity

Modern production agriculture has been striving for increased yield ever since I can remember. Farmers are trying anything that will give them even a slight yield increase. We should take another look at what makes a quality yield instead of a quantity yield.

Everything that can be done to increase early, vigorous root growth increases the quality of the crop. This holds true for grains, fruits, and vegetables. When the root system is dominant, there is more uniform branching and increased flowering. Seed heads on grain are fuller with less shriveled seeds. Fruit has more fruit spurs with better set and more uniform development.

This happens because the roots are the brains of the plant and the purpose of the plant is reproduction. With that in mind why would it not want to put out as many high-quality offspring as possible? The conflict comes in when we try to push for quantity. To do this we increase rates of fertilizer, mostly nitrogen, over water, and basically take the brains of the plant and give them a real hard shake. What we do in excess can totally mess up the plant’s hormonal direction and increase the internal stress level. So the crop we get may have increased in number or volume but internal quality and storability is lacking.

Develop the root system, reduce plant stress and let the plant do its job. You’ll both be happy.

Send in the Drones

Imagine yourself driving on a country road in a rural farm community about early June and you stop your car across from a picture perfect field of potatoes. The dark green rows on a brown soil background just takes you back to a safe, secure childhood memory. Then you hear a loud fan sound and a three foot by two foot black helicopter swoops over your car and starts making precise passes over the field. Don’t call the NSA, FAA, or UFO Seekers; it’s just a farmer checking up on the health of his crop. It’s called Drone Field Surveillance and it could be coming to a farm near you.

By using infrared imagery to take pictures of the field, this helicopter can tell a grower if his crop is under stress and where that stress is located long before the plant will look bad. Basically a sick plant puts off a different infrared spectrum color than a healthy plant. This new technology is only new in the method of delivery. Back in the 1980s the same infrared technology was available but it was from satellites far above the earth. The question still remains as it did long ago: Who controls the data and is it cost effective? The only way for a farmer to have complete control is to buy the flying platform, chopper or fixed wing, buy the photography equipment, learn how to work with the FAA and then do it themselves. Then once you have the data, can you really use it? If you have places that are geo-referenced in your field, do you have an applicator that can do site specific applications? So many questions with too few real answers.

I was at a sales meeting this year where the presenter put up a slide of a farmer trying to drink out of a fully pressurized fire hose. He said this is how farmers sometimes feel about data: too much at one time is hard to swallow. I think this is the same with Drone Surveillance Technology. We should learn how to drink in a small amount at first so we don’t choke on the full flow.

What Used to Be True

I am a science fiction fan. I have been all my life and will probably die a fan. Often some words of wisdom can come from a sci-fi movie that makes sense in today’s world. In the movie Men in Black, Tommy Lee Jones told Will Smith something like the following: Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the earth was the center of the universe, five hundred years ago, everybody knew the earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet, imagine what you will know tomorrow.

Welcome to the world of production agriculture.

When I started my career in 1976, it was all about fertilizer and chemicals. We really didn’t know exactly how they worked but they did work. Then came Precision Ag. This was going to revolutionize farming by applying the proper nutrients at the correct location in a field. From the early 1980s to the present, it is estimated that the majority of fertilizer and chemical dealers who do custom chemical application use some sort of precision application methods. Actual farmer driven acceptance and use has lagged behind mostly because of cost.

Next came Biotech and GMO. Biotech was basically using biological organisms to help the plant defend itself from insects. One organism was used back then and now multiple insect and disease preventing bacteria and fungi are added to crop seeds driving the cost through the roof. But now we are starting to see resistance in some parts of the country.

GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) are the current latest and greatest. They have been around for a long time starting with Roundup Ready corn which was first commercialized in 1998. Since then we have added sugar beets, alfalfa, and canola to the list. This is all about getting good weed control economically with one product. What they forgot, again, was a term called resistance. So many weeds across the country are resistant to Roundup that the initial low-cost solution is becoming very expensive.

So goes the world of production ag. What we know at one time to be the latest and greatest changes very fast because we work in an ever changing environment. Soils, insects, diseases, and weeds are always changing. They were here before we were and they will still be here when we are gone.

The lesson for today: don’t get too comfortable with all you know today. Remember there will be a lot more to learn tomorrow.

Chemosensitization

I’ve been following this idea of enhancing the activity of fungicides. Or it could be described as enhancing the target pathogen’s sensitivity to fungicides. I have noticed that there is similar research and information in both the agricultural arena as well as human health. The results are the same. This is one of those true “synergy” or “win-win” scenarios. When using a tool like chemosensitization – proper math goes right out the window. One plus one no longer equals two – now we get more.

The basic idea is to use lower risk materials with antifungal properties along with conventional fungicides.  What was unexpected in the research was how well this approach worked. Each product on its own has activity on the pathogen. When put together the pathogen control was much higher than the control achieved with either product alone (and higher than the separate applications added together). Control has been so good that the researchers were able to use lower rates of the fungicides and still achieve good control. With the cost of today’s fungicides I think it would be easy to achieve a favorable ROI using this chemosensitization approach.

I used the words lower risk earlier and I want to elaborate on what I meant. The phrase “lower risk” applies for multiple reasons. Safety – Lower risk refers to the mode of action of the products. They are much safer for people and the environment. Resistance danger - The materials being used to achieve chemosensitization are essential oils, plant compounds, and microbial exudates. Materials with these types of origins, having evolved as parts of plant and microbial defense mechanisms, carry a lower risk of a pathogen developing resistance. Especially when compared to resistance buildup to chemical fungicides.

One compound that consistently shows up in research is thymol (2-isopropyl-5-methylphenol). I have run across thymol in both human health research and plant pathology work. The names of some of the antifungal medicines that thymol was able to make more effective in the human health realm end in “…azole” just like many of our crop fungicides. The thymol-azole combination completely stopped fungal growth at rates lower than when an azole medicine is used by itself. The research even tested the combo against organisms already resistant to the medicines. Thymol made the organism susceptible to the fungicide again.

Thymol seems to have most of its action on cell walls and cell membranes.  The azole drugs and fungicides also have activity on cell walls and membranes which may be why they work so good together. 

Our bio-pesticide products from Huma Gro® utilize thymol as a major component. For soil use there is ProMax™ which also gives us a bio-fumigant action. For foliar use we have Proud3® with local systemic activity and residual control that is rare for an organic product. Here is a way to maximize your fungicide dollar, reduce application rates, and use an inexpensive lower risk product that is geared toward supporting plant health as well as harassing the pathogen and making it easier to control.

Research examples: Quadris® (azoxystrobin) and thymol together had enhanced activity on Bipolaris sorokiniana, Phoma glomerata, Alternaria sp., and Stagonospora nodorum.

Dividend® (difenoconazole) and thymol showed enhanced activity on Bipolaris sorokiniana, and Stagonospora nodorum.

Folicur® (tebuconazole) and thymol showed enhanced activity on Alternaria alternata.

Striving Towards Zero

I was talking to a farm manager friend about the use of fumigants and other pesticides in today’s modern production farming. When the topic of fumigants came up, he mentioned that using the same amount of the same material has been giving increasingly less results over the past 20 years. The question comes up as to why; the answer is resistance.

Fumigation works by killing a targeted pathogen in the soil. But, no matter what the product is, you never kill all of the pathogens. The pathogens that are left are naturally resistant to the chemical compound used so they survive. Look at it as killing 80 out of 100 and the 20 left are the strongest, baddest, bad boys on the block. They reproduce faster so the next time you fumigate you only kill 70% with 30% stronger yet. You can see that over time you can have a population of almost super bugs that are very difficult to manage.

This brought up an interesting question for the world to answer; can we live with zero? Is it possible to totally eradicate a biological population, beneficial or pathogenic, and still survive as a human race? If you read the labels of some of the most widely used pesticide, the word “control” is what they are attempting to do. Pesticide manufacturers learned long ago that farmers want to grow the best. Corn, potatoes, peas, or beans it doesn’t matter. Farmers want to produce the best because they know the customer, either American, Japanese, or Korean . . . , wants the best. And the best does not have a blemish on it and is perfectly shaped. This is why we are striving for zero. If there are no bugs, there are no blemishes; then all is good with the world. Or is it? I submit to you the concept that our world cannot exist with zero. We are all part of this very intricate and very sensitive biological system called life. We exist with plant life, beneficial bacteria life, pathogenic life, and it goes on and on.

The American farmer produces more food than anywhere else in the world and they could produce more if our buying standards were not so high. If a potato has a blemish on its skin it is still a potato. If it is misformed, it will cook just as good as a perfect potato. I think you can see where I am going with this Utopian thought. All I want you to take home from this post is we can’t live with zero.

Plant Resistance: Top to Bottom and Bottom to Top

As in humans, plants have genetic material in them to help fend off disease infections and damage from insects. This is called the plant’s natural defense system. Certain genes in the plants makeup are responsible to keep all systems going strong, even when the plant is attacked from a soil borne pathogen, an insect infestation, or the negative impact of excessive heat or flooding. But what happens when an event is so strong that it over shadows the plant’s ability to take care of itself? Fortunately, there are two systems that can be put into play to help the plant take care of itself; they are called SAR and ISR.

ISR, Induced Systemic Resistance, can start at the earliest part of the seedling development. ISR can be triggered by many bacteria and fungi as well some natural compounds but for this discussion I want to concentrate on two types of Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria, PGPR, namely Pseudomonas fluorescence and Pseudomonas putida. When applied on the seed or onto the roots of transplants, these bacteria form an association with the root system triggering the systemic resistance. To compare this with a human analogy, it’s like getting a flu shot to prevent the flu.

SAR, Systemic Acquired Resistance, is a system by which the plant tries to repair damage that has already been done. In the case of insect or disease damage to the foliage, the genes responsible will cause rapid healing of the damaged tissue in order to stop the spread of the pathogen.  We have found that certain compounds, Salicylic Acid and phosphite products can ramp up the SAR in plants that are infected with pathogens. This is very important in the case of viruses because reducing the symptoms, which SAR can do if triggered early enough, on the plant tissue should reduce the negative impact of the virus and allow the plant to develop normally.

So what does this all mean? We at Ag Tech Services, LLC have the PGPR inoculants that will give you the benefits of ISR plus many, many more. We also have a program that reduces the damage caused by a particular virus using a Salicylic Acid product in combination with calcium. By reducing the symptoms on the tissue we should be able to manage the virus which is better than trying to eradicate it.

It’s all about plant health from the bottom up to the top down.