How to Use Biologicals
For lots of good reasons, lots of good farmers are looking at biological crop inputs for the first time. Independent advice is critical for success.
These days, it seems like every time you turn around, there’s another new biological crop input on the market. All carrying similar promises (“boost your crop’s yield by 5 bu/ac”), they all become easy to ignore.
Claims that mimic the language used to sell chemical crop inputs ring especially hollow. It makes matters worse – for everyone involved – when a company’s own research trials deliver results that aren’t replicated in a first-time user’s field.
As discussed here before, expecting biologicals to perform like synthetic crop inputs is illogical. It takes an understanding of natural science and how a biological crop input works, in order to make a good decision about when and where to use it.
A Brief History of Independent Agronomists
It should go without saying that product salespeople are not entirely unbiased in making recommendations to farm customers. However, crop inputs have been marketed aggressively to farmers for so long, advice that only serves the agronomist’s sales targets can go unrecognized.
For this reason, independent farm advisory businesses started popping up back in the 1990’s, that are paid for only by farm customers. The idea was to take an informed yet financially unbiased read of clients’ fields, then make recommendations based on all available products and recommended rates.
The success and persistence of these businesses is, in and of itself, a testament that farmers need independent advice if they’re not prepared to make product application decisions all on their own. Agronomy advice from salespeople comes with a conflict of interest, just like market information from a grain buyer.
Considerations
Chemical agronomists act like pharmacists, treating the symptoms rather than a problem. As we pointed out recently in a critique of agriculture and food policies that trap farmers in the ‘productive and competitive’ paradigm, synthetic crop inputs are designed to be needed over and over again.
Biological solutions are the opposite – once they take hold in the soil, they grow on their own, leading to a steady reduction in the chemicals required to produce a crop. Working with biologicals requires patience because they are not linear fast-acting, solutions.
Diversity is Key
Some bacterial and fungal products contain only a couple of different strains. The ones with many more different species are going to act quicker and more effectively.
It’s similar to the action in a diverse pasture, compared to a monocrop forage cereal like corn. The animals get fed in both cases, but the spark in soil health is considerably brighter when many different species are each performing their unique functions at the same time.
Base Every Choice on Context
Similar to how legumes fix nitrogen and rye is allelopathic, each species of soil biology has a specific role to play. Biochar, humic and fulvic acid, foliar cocktails, kelp, worm castings, compost, etc… they all solve different problems.
The high rate of ‘failure’ in first-time attempts with biological crop inputs is a result of treating them like synthetics and/or hoping for a similar result. These are living formulations that will accomplish nothing if mismatched with incompatible field conditions.
Prairie Routes is offering independent advice for farmers in regenerative agriculture.
For more information, email hello@prairieroutes.ca. We’re here to help!