Managing Phosphorus In-Furrow
16 Mar 2310 min 13 sec

Kevin Matthews and Temple Rhodes talk about what they learned last season from their phosphorus management trials with Concept AgriTek and how that is changing their approach for this season.

00:00 Hey there coming at you from commodity classic at the booth with Concepts Agri Tech. And we're talking about phosphorus management and the 00:06 usage of sugars and Biologicals. We've got two different farming scenarios here Temple roads, one of our extreme ad guys and Kevin Matthews one 00:15 of our extreme AG Founders along with Mark glassdetter. He's with Concept Agra Tech interesting thing Temple 00:21 farms in the Chesapeake Bay Area. And if you have listened to any of our stuff on our webinars and in our podcast, he has to really manage his phosphorus 00:30 can't put much out there because of environmental regulations. Whereas Kevin Can't Get 00:36 Enough phosphorous in his soil period so two different farming scenarios, but using the same product total foes, but 00:42 more importantly Kevin using a bunch of bugs. So let's talk about your situation. We are on a webinar Kevin and you said well, I wish I had that problem where I had 00:51 too much phosphorus. You don't have phosphorus in your soil you use total fires last year. What was the result? Yeah where 00:57 we used a couple years now last year become. Standards that means we're using it on every for a corn in Furrow. We're using a two 01:05 to three gallons. And then we're adding a product Sweet Success in with it to help just and feed those microbes 01:11 and make it easier for plant uptake plus. Well those low phosphorus levels the more microbial activity I can get then I can also use 01:20 it to Aid and what phosphorus I have in the souls. So trying to you know, get the Boost but I need that boost from that total cost to get it going sure. You said 01:29 there's not become grossed in a practice and we talk a lot about extreme AG when we take a product and we say this works in 01:35 our trials. It works after we ramped it up on Acres now I put on every acre it goes in furrow. 01:40 Yes, sir at time of planting. Yep, and it can be used to but two but that's just where I choose to put it and you then sort of juice it with the usage of Sweet Success another one 01:49 of their products. And you said I like this because it's all natural sugar. That's correct. There's some molasses base sugar. 01:55 We use it in all of our foliar spray-ins. We'll use it and every spray post pre-emerge even our you know, our burn down people say why you 02:04 put sugar in a burn down we get better drift control. We get better penetration. We just get better Keel and with our Roundup resistant weeds that we have to 02:13 deal with and other resistant weeds from other chemicals. It just helps make those chemicals do a better job. So it's we use a 02:22 ton of that product Damian you mentioned something to you there, you know trial work, you know, Kevin obviously did it on the farm, but 02:28 when we first started manufacturing our own starters, we did it we looked at a pile of different phosphorus analysis and makes up makeup and 02:37 at the end of the day total cost was what Given us the most return on investment for our Growers. So that's what we went with. So that's kind of the backstory 02:46 of how we we got to that day before we hit record and we're gonna get to Temple because I love his story about the phosphorus management. But also then usage of the Biologicals as far 02:56 as it phosphorus application, you're talking about putting small amounts of it right there where it needs to be but I heard before we 03:02 hit record as far as the phosphorus products. This is got as much of a concentration of phosphoruses all except for like 03:08 a couple of drivelifts. Yes, sir. And it's it's a very clean product, you know, sometimes when you get in the some of these other different 03:14 products, you might get a load that's that's really nice and you might get a load. That's that's not so good and make clog up filters. This is a very consistent product. It's 03:23 very safe low salt so very high quality starter. Probably your big points. Kevin was about it being safe and I'm like, I understand what that means, you know safe means what it's 03:32 not poisonous. Well not nothing for us poisonous. I mean, it's this you're looking when you're going with them for you don't want no salt 03:38 in there and you don't want to heavy metals. There you gotta be really careful and you know, there's all kinds of different grades of in for a 03:46 fertilizer when you talk Ortho phosphate. That's just a classification of it. Then you got the quality of it got 03:52 it and you know, you can have a fast meal from McDonald's or you can have a good meal from a 03:58 set down restaurant. You just got to decide what you know, so this one's sit down restaurant slow slow absorption kind 04:04 of thing. Yeah. I feel like every time we talk about phosphorus Temple we come to you you're the one with all the history 30 years or so now in the Chesapeake region, I've been talking about phosphorus you 04:13 did use a total fast package. So you used biological product but used it as an enhancement. So what we 04:19 they brought it to us and they said, you know, we want to add these biological for your soul. We're gonna put it in Furrow and idea was to get 04:28 your your soul breaking down all the Fosters that you do have. We have different scenarios. So one of our scenarios is is if you get over a certain PPM in 04:37 your ground, we can't apply any more Fosters, right? Doesn't matter how we put it out. We can't put it anymore or we're in a phosphorus depleted environment like it 04:46 is so we're going to need it the other way too. So we have boat scenarios. Right? So we use the bunch of bugs and we put it in trial. So 04:55 we use that's not by the way. I think it's important not to confuse bunch of bugs is not a phosphorous product. It's a biological it's not it's a Biologicals. 05:01 What's a bunch of bugs Mark? So bunch of bugs is a biological Consortium. It's got beneficial nematodes bacteria and fungi. And what 05:10 we're trying to do specifically with that product at planting. So phosphorus mineralization is huge just as you're talking about but we've also got nitrogen fixtures 05:19 and several others, you know that are helping break down those specific bunch of bugs doesn't have one one component of phosphorus, but it helps 05:28 him get to phosphorus. Yes. So then we ended up so Trey reaches out to me and he says, hey we want you to run it as 05:37 many different variations as you can and we also have A phosphorus efficiency agent with that we want you to test as well. So we did that. 05:46 So we did two different things. We had a bunch of different tests. We did just the efficiency agent, you know, trying to get as much 05:52 out of the phosphorus that we're putting in then we did just a bunch of bugs and then we synergetically put them 05:58 together and then when we had that synergetic, I mean it was huge when you put them together our reactions were the same between the checks and those first two, but 06:07 when we mix them together, it was a big bounce. So what it tells us is from our tissue samples and everything else artificiency of our phosphers that we are 06:16 putting out. Yeah. It's a huge bank for a back a buck. So every time that we always talk we talk about we have to make every ounce count, right? Yeah. So this is making every 06:25 ounce Down Kevin. I kind of feel like again we talk about phosphorus efficiency. There's a whole bunch of the country never even had to think about this. 06:31 He had been thinking about for the next the last 30 years. Isn't this the worst going? Oh, yeah, and we're having 06:37 to deal with it too with our heavy poultry areas where we got Poultry litter so once a lot years of 06:43 litter going out meant phosphate levels. Yeah. I mean, you know, I was looking tissue samples the other day and I was like, holy grail what's going on here? I mean, this is not good, but 06:54 That but our overall Farm on average if it's not been under heavy litter is going to be low and phosphorus and we're having to watch what Temple does because we got 07:03 to High rock water reservoir going into the PD, which is just dropped right into Atlantic Ocean and they're on us because they see all these poetry houses everywhere and 07:12 it's all the farmers fall, you know, so we got it. We got to watch our father and they never blame the person in the suburbs. That's got the lawn care company spraying. 07:21 What are you going to do in 2023? So now that we found out this test, you know that this works you use it on it wasn't on five acres 07:30 either. No, it wasn't on five acres. So our testing our trials was about a 15 acre trial each one of them and 07:36 we compared it as we went across and we did this on irrigated Acres so I could really compare it like I didn't need 07:42 a drought. I need to see what it would do in the best case scenario. So I got to see that so for for me in my area this is gonna be growing standing 07:51 at practice, right? Because I can't tell you how hard it is to fight not being able to feed your crap. 07:57 It's it's impossible. So this is a growing curve for all of us and being able to farm and make every ounce that you put out there. You know 08:06 phosphorus is very easily tied up in a sole if you're not careful. So we need all this to break it down so we can feed our plants and I think that's one thing 08:15 we're finding out is there is a pile of fertility sitting in that soil. It's just figuring out how to get it available. So I think that's what we're saying there. Is that the key 08:24 Mark we used to talk about 30 years ago 20 years old 10 years ago. He's Biologicals are snake oil the key now is proving that what their their value proposition 08:34 is helping you access fertility that you've been put into that soil for years and never even got the benefit out of absolutely you've been building your bank. Now, we're using that biology to 08:43 kind of tap into that bank a little bit and that nutrient load. So what's this I disagree. I mean the man 08:49 the key to this conversation is the quality of the company. He's in the fertilize business and now he's telling us how we don't have to buy 08:57 I love it. He says yeah, I mean I'm used to that that's being honest affection see efficiency. Yeah, I love it. I mean it seems kind of it seems 09:06 kind of productive but then again so does the dentist telling you how to prevent cavities? Why would you do that the end of 09:12 the day we're all environmentalists right? We absolutely we are working together for the end goal. The end goal is the 09:18 environmentally friendly. That's what we're here to do maximizing yield maximum profit with a limited limited environmental footprint. I think that's worth things are 09:27 going by the way. I gotta tell you if I was a dentist, I would give I wouldn't give toothbrushes or Tooth dental floss. I 09:33 believe soda pop and candy bars as soon as they walk down the office. They see in six months. I'll fix those cameras Mark last letter Kevin 09:42 Matthews and Temple roads both of those with extreme egg. I'm Damian Mason if you all learn more about this, where do they go? You can 09:48 visit us at concept agrotech.com or give us a call and we'll get you in touch with the rep. Talking about environmental Environmental Compliance as 09:57 we're going to be moving forward and still getting fertility and the yield and we're using a phosphorous product a sugar product and most importantly a 10:03 biological product is starting to prove its Merit until next time. Thanks for being here.

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