00:00 So we got a question for you. Are your plants hormone imbalance? There's a very good chance they are, 00:05 and that's what we're digging in today to talk about with Chad Henderson, hence the shovel. But Dale Hankey from Stoler, Chad Henderson, 00:13 standing one of Chad's awesome fields, knows how straight the rows are. You know, people judge you on that. Anyway, more importantly, 00:19 besides the straight rows, we're talking about plant hormones. I gotta tell you, Dale, when I joined, uh, x extreme Ag two years ago, 00:26 I learned what a plant growth regulator was, had no idea. And then we were just talking before we hit record, you said, 00:31 it's just hormones. I said, oh, and you said, Damien, there's five principle hormone families and that are all about plants and crops. And I said, tell me about it. So start there. Yeah. 00:42 Thanks, Damian. So a lot of the technology you hear about today with biologicals, bio stimulants, PGRs, plant growth regulators, 00:48 it's all kind of based on what's going on with the hormone balance in that crop and in that plant, every plant deals with hormones, uh, the same five hormones. 00:55 And once you understand that hormone balance, it works the same in corn, cotton, soybeans, weed, any crop. So if you understand that hormone balance, 01:01 you understand what's going on in that crop, what you can do to help it, uh, manage that hormone balance. 01:06 A lot of growers are probably trying to understand that plants even have hormones, but it's easier than people. Yeah. Um, you know, 01:13 people have a lot more hormones and plants. We're just dealing with five of them now. Most of those hormones are made in the roots. 01:18 And so we've always had a saying at Stellar that roots are the brains of the plant. Just like in people, a lot of hormones are made in your brain, in plants, 01:25 it's, it's in the roots. So it's really critical to keep those roots happy. And he healthy and hormonally balanced. You know, 01:31 we know we have to have an active, healthy root system for moisture, for nutrient uptake, 01:35 but that's that hormone balance that things really kick in and it really starts at planting. But then even throughout the season, even in our stages, 01:43 there's things we can do to help maintain that hormone balance. But let's dive into the five hormones. So there's five major hormones. Hey, 01:49 wait A minute. You know what? I'm the host here. Dale, I'll tell you when we're getting ready to dig into the five hormones. Okay? Go. Whoa, wait a minute. You don't know that you got a hormone. I mean, 01:59 All right. So Chad, until, uh, we stepped in this field, started talking about the five principle, uh, hormone families, 02:06 did you know there was five hormone families? I kind of thought we had a hormone or two. You know, I might have fell across the third one. Mm-hmm. Um, 02:13 didn't have no idea there was five. You could have told me there was 55. Are these, I just know I just put a bunch of hormones out. You know, 02:19 all I know is I'm, I'm the just Pushed out there. He's the sendent guy. Are your hormones unbalanced? Oh, all the time. 02:24 All right. Five principle hormones. What do we got here? You Say imbalanced 02:28 M balanced. Oh, they're not in balanced. They're in balanced. What 02:33 Do you got? So yeah, five main hormones in plants. There's, there are oxen, cytokinin, gire, acid. 02:37 Those are the three what we consider growth hormones for crops. Now these, I heard of them, 02:41 OXS, I know them. Uhhuh cytokines and gibber Acid, acid G that gib, you're going to you going, yeah. Easy does it all. And then that's, that's, there's five within those three. Those are, there's, 02:53 there's a couple of one and a couple. So there's three now there's two other ones. Ethylene and ob ctic acid. Those are responsible for ripening and ultimate death of that plant. Now, 03:00 when a crop gets imbalanced, though, that ethylene especially can spike and it causes that crop to ripen too fast. So perfect example of this corn, when it gets flooded, 03:09 you'll get that corn plant, especially at the end of the field. You'll see that corn plant get maybe three, four feet tall, 03:13 starts to shoot a tassel. A little bit of a nubbin of an ear. Yep. And that's in, in flooded conditions. What about drought conditions? 03:19 You see the same thing. You got the end of that field. You got that corn plant about the same height. So you have two drastically different conditions, 03:25 but the same exact reaction in the plant. That's, that's an overload of ethylene in that crop that's doing it because your corn ear doesn't care about how many ear or how many kernels it puts on how many, 03:34 what's your goal for, for corn for number of kernels per year? Oh, just weight. We just deal with weight and we want it to weigh a pound. Yeah. 03:41 You know, so it's, we want to build a mass in that thing, like I said, because we can, according to variety, according to which hybrid it is, you know, 03:49 we may say, oh, I got, you know, so many, you know, let's say I've got a 50 long 18 around, you know, my goal will be, I would like to know that I could average, you know, 18 around 16, around 18, 03:59 around, you know, and let's say we could average according to spacing and all that, we could average 45 long. Yep. Dang. Good ear. Yeah. 04:06 So if your goal, if it's 600, 800 kernels per year, yeah, the corn plant doesn't care. Corn plant just wants to reproduce for next year. 04:11 Every plant is the same way. It just wants to make enough seeds to get through for next year. Yep. So a lot of that is, is hormone imbalance. We'll attribute it to weather. So, 04:20 you know, you get, you get tip back on your ear corn towards the end of the season, or, you know, late during those reproductive stages, everybody realizes, oh, it's the heat, 04:27 the closet. Well, yeah, it's the heat, but it's a cytokine breakdown. So we'll dive into those hormones a little bit. But the three main, uh, 04:33 hormones we use for growth are that we look at for growth is oxen, uh, the giren and cytokine. And so our oxen, when we're talking about that one, 04:41 mainly that's endo butyric acid. It's, it's really responsible for rooting. So when you, you go to the nursery and you, 04:47 you get the little powder to dip your plant in to, to make a new plant that's in Dolby teric acid. That's all it is. So what we're doing is we're putting a rooting hormone across the whole field. 04:55 Um, and then GI acid is responsible for germination. It's also responsible for cell elongation. There's some products out there on the market that they'll use ga uh, 05:03 to get a taller stock for, um, for silage and for forage. But GA is one you gotta be careful with. 05:09 It's a very small amount that you want to utilize if you're gonna use it and use it for the right reason. 05:13 What about the timing? Timing's very important to you. Yes. Just say it. Yeah. Hypothetically speaking, I'm not have a, but anyway, yeah. 05:20 About hormone problems. So here's my question for you is about timing. More importantly, these products that we're putting on here, um, the, the, 05:27 I'm talking about growth, uh, regulators. Mm-hmm. Um, they, they're not all using the same hormones, or not even the same, 05:35 the same amount or the same mixture or the same proportions, right? Yeah. It's all about the ratio of hormones too. So that's very important. 05:40 Ratio cytokine to oxen, to ga. Um, we're using that, uh, product in furrow or as a seed treatment, uh, 05:48 with a little bit of GA in there to help with germination to get that germination started. Then we need the endo butyric acid. We've, 05:53 the fortified simulate we have has four green ingredients. There's two, two oxens endocytic acid is what the plant uses most readily. 06:00 Endo butyric acid has to be metabolized into the I aa for the plant to be able to utilize it. A lot of products out there metabolize into those hormones. 06:08 What we're doing with some of these products, they're giving it directly what it needs. They're bioidentical to what the crop utilizes. 06:13 It's not really anything different. We're introducing to the plant, anything foreign to the plant. 06:17 It's what the plant naturally does on its own in perfect conditions. But how many seasons do you have perfect conditions, right? 06:22 You just don't have that. So weather imbalances, uh, chemical injury, those sort of things are abiotic stress. You hear a lot about abiotic stress. 06:29 What the heck is that? It's anything that's basically caused by, uh, non-living organism. 06:34 All right. So you told us before we got going here that roots are the brains of the plant. Let's dig into one of these plants and start looking at the brains. 06:42 Sure. So one of the most important tools you can have in the field is a shovel. We dig up that plant, uh, no matter what the crop is. Chad's dealing, 06:48 digging in some Alabama dirt right here. Uh, we're gonna dig up this plant, look at the root structure. But most of your hormones, 06:55 four out of the five major hormones are actually made in those roots. And so we're gonna take a look at that. All right, 06:59 so we talk about root development in, in a crop. Now you're gonna see here these very fine roots. These very fine roots have root hairs. 07:05 Those root hairs last about 10 to 14 days. But that's where a lot of these hormones are made in a crop. So, you know, if you get dry conditions, too much water, 07:14 those root hairs are the first ones to die off. So what we're doing is a supplement for that crop, what it would normally produce on its own in perfect conditions, 07:20 perfect soil conditions, perfect soil moisture. Even things like sidewalk compaction can negatively affect that hormone balance. So what are we doing? We make it easy product you can use in furrow. There's, 07:30 there's solutions you can use at your v3 pass V3 to V five at the herbicide if you're doing that. 07:35 And then there's op there's products you can utilize at your fungicide pass, go right in the tank mix with it. 07:39 What we're doing is trying to keep that hormone balance and that crop where it needs to be. 07:43 But the root development root structure is very important to that crop because that's where all of these hormones are made. So, um, 07:50 we all know that moisture and um, and nutrient uptake is very important, but these very, 07:56 very fine root hairs are where these hormones are made in that crop, especially cytokines. So cytokines is made in root tips. It moves upward. 08:02 Where it moves upward, you get branching. So if you want a cotton plant that's not tall and leggy, you need the optimum amount of cytokine. Same thing with soybeans. 08:10 We can build the structure in a soybean. We can be architects with that soybean plant and get that soybean to, to branch, get those inner nodes space shorter so we can pack more pods onto that plant. 08:19 But we, it's a, it's a management tool that we use throughout the season. Keep those hormones balanced. There's, 08:24 there's really not a way to test the tissue and get a fast, accurate readout on it. 08:28 But what we're doing is this mainly supplement for that crop. So, So Chad, here's the deal. Uh, we talk about the, the next evolution. You know, 08:34 it used to be fertilized, fertilized, fertilized, nitrogen, nitrogen, nitrogen. We're out here in a cornfield, which looks amazing, by the way. 08:39 And we haven't talked about nitrogen, we haven't talked about npk. We haven't even talked about the micronutrients. 08:43 We haven't even talked about your favorite of all things boron. The man loves to talk about boron. We're talking about hormones. Is this, 08:51 is this the next tool in the toolbox that we never even thought about five years ago? Well, 08:55 You know, it's just like he said, uh, like Dave said, it's, it's, that tool has been there. Mm-hmm. It's there the whole time. 09:00 It's understanding that tool you can do, I mean, um, it, it's a, it is something that needs to be explained really well, 09:07 and you did a good great job explaining, but it's something that needs to be explained well, because it's something that people can overdo in a hurry. Oh, yeah. 09:12 It's definitely one of the things on the list. And, you know, I'm not that guy. One of the things on the list is a, a little that you trying to 09:17 Overdo it. I, I've never, I measure with five gallon buckets, you know? Um, so, so I'm not that guy, but I do understand the principle of being that guy in this situation. Mm-hmm. 09:27 Because it's a fine balance with these hormones that keeps this thing in check. Right. 09:32 Got it. And you talked about boron. Boron is one of the minerals that has some action in that plant on it has an effect on oxens within that plant. So a lot of the nutrients that we use, 09:42 they're, it's actually a, they act as co-factors as certain mineral and a certain hormone together, they get that effect in the crop. 09:47 Yeah. So it's about balance, which we've talked about. Again, again, it's extreme mag is, you know, even Kelly says, 09:52 I'm not sure that we've got a fertility problem in some of these soils. We've got a balanced problem. So that's where you're going with this hormones, 09:58 balanced with micronutrients, and obviously the macronutrients and then whatever else. Uh, I'm excited about this. So, uh, you're doing a trial using some of their, uh, 10:07 products. Mm-hmm. And it's, uh, it's gonna be interesting to see what are we looking for? Anything that, uh, in specific that we should, uh, look for come in, 10:15 besides big money and big yields? Ted's always after the dollars. Yeah. No, we're just keeping that crop happy and healthy. 10:20 And we're going in not really asking growers to make additional passes across the field now, but the contest fields, yeah. 10:25 They're doing a lot of extra things and we can help with that. All right. So you bring up an important point, Dale. Um, that there's, uh, 10:31 you said you gotta be careful, Chad, when I started working with you and I learned what a PGR was, there's plant growth regulators, hormones you want to use at certain times. 10:40 And it's kind of like a maturing, uh, kid. You know, they get the, the, the body puts the hormones, 10:47 approves the hormones at the right time for our development. And if it doesn't work out, then you got all kinds of problems. 10:52 That's kind of the same thing with these plants hor right. Hormone, right time. It's, it's about what you're trying to do with the plant at that time. 10:58 You know what, we're in the vegetated stage right now where this corn is now. It's about root development. It's about growing the plant. 11:03 It's about getting the solar panels. It's about doing that stuff. Soon as we switch to reproductive stage, 11:08 we'll pull one back and take off with another one. There's a lot of knowledge in knowing that. So before you just take off down a rabbit trail with hormones, 11:15 there's a lot of people that's got a lot of good information with it that can coach you through this. Right. You know, 11:20 So you think about right hormones at the right time. I mean, let's face it. Uh, you can do, you can do more harm than good by putting a PGR on. 11:27 That's the wrong plant hormone at the wrong time of the vegetative or re reproductive stage of the plant. Yeah, 11:32 Definitely. You have to be careful. I mean, really hormones are just signals. They just signal the plant to do something. So the iba nw tur acid is signaling, 11:39 rooting, the cytokine is signaling that plant to, to make seed, to make flowers, to hold the flowers on the plant. Uh, ga is signaling that, 11:46 that seed to germinate. So they're, they're just signals. That's all they are. But plant hormones, very, uh, the balance is, 11:52 is very important to keep it that way throughout the season. And then we didn't really talk about the stress. 11:57 What happens when a crop gets stressed? You know, it just wants to make a few seeds. Well, that, that reaction in a plant that we talked earlier about the corn plant and drought 12:05 and corn plant and flooded looks exactly the same. It's all about ethylene. So when an ethylene spikes you, you get, uh, 12:11 basically premature aging in that crop. So, so what maturity corn do you plant? Uh, it's anywhere from 112 to up to 120. So, you know, we, 12:19 we'll land in there a hundred fourteen, fifteen, sixteen for average. Yeah. So when people, I mean, hormones are critical. So when people, 12:24 if we're blessed with 80 or 90 years, we've got decades in at corn plant, you got 112 to hundred 20 days of, 12:31 of life in that corn plant to make sure all those hormone balances are correct. So we're just trying to keep that plant having a happy, 12:37 healthy day every single day of its growth. And that's where you get those additional yield. That's where you get the additional bushels, the test weight, 12:43 all those sort of things. Yeah. So we talked about early crop life, uh, getting off to a fast start, getting germination, active, healthy root system. 12:49 When that, when that crop gets a little bit taller, it's when your number kernel row are starting to be determined. It's really important to make sure that you've got that plant balance at that 12:56 point. And that's where you go in with your V3 to V five pass. Or even if you're going into V nine to V 10, there's some opportunities there. 13:02 Then we look at reproductive timing. So reproductive timing's really important cuz we talked about if we're in corn here, we're talking about tip back and, 13:08 and tip back is really a result of a lack of cytokine because high temperatures will start that cytokine and breakdown in that plant. 13:14 We're just supplementing what that plant usually would need. Now the other thing too that happens when that corn is about tassel time and 13:20 develop near what's going on, you, you've got a lot of dry conditions. So let's say we, we started with a very happy, healthy root system. 13:27 Use some pgr, got those roots off to the real ha uh, active start. You get this plant up here and there's no moisture in the soil. 13:33 So even if you're making cytokine, there's really no moisture pulling up that's pulling that cytokinin up into that plant, into those ears. And so that's where we're, uh, 13:41 making a foliar pass with cytokine. Using a product with some boron and molly in with the cytokine together is a really 13:46 Good option. All right. So we talked about from the very beginning, we got here, Dale, we said, are your hormones imbalanced? 13:50 I think the answer is probably is the, I mean, this is something that's probably holding us back on yield, right? Because we don't have the balance. 13:56 And it could be from the micronutrients to the hormone mix, or it could be the hormones aren't there. Are not there. Or 14:02 The weather's holding them back. Yeah. Or they break down, you know, the, the high temperatures. Everybody knows you gotta control temperature. 14:09 It's that heat is really causing a loss of cytokine. Cytokine is critical for development of that seed no matter what that crop is. His 14:16 Name's Dale Hanky. I gotta tell you something. When we started this, he said, yeah, I got a few things, talked about hormones, 14:21 and I think he could go on for another hour talking about hormones. And he's been over my head for a good portion of this Very 14:26 Good stuff. We start ing, I'm Chad Hens from Extreme Ag, and that's about hot far is on you. 14:31 All right. So anyway, if you wanna learn more about this Stoler, which is now part of Corteva, eh, 14:35 we can learn more about this cuz this is a pretty fascinating thing. Can we learn more about this by going to a website? Yeah, 14:40 Definitely. Go to the website and go to the, uh, the tsm, the Territory Sales Manager page on there. Contact your territory sales rep. 14:46 We make it easy. This sounds complicated. We make it easy with going in with solutions you can use at each stage when you're going across the field. Stoler usa.com. 14:53 Stoler, s a, that's s T O L L E R S a.com. He's Dale Hankey. He's Chad Henderson. My Dave Mason asking a question, 15:01 are your hormones imbalanced? Probably.