Farming Video| Digging Deeper: What Johnny Verell’s Field Day Taught Us About Root Health

00:00:00 Improving root architecture. That's what we're talking about here at Johnny Verell's Field Day. 00:00:04 And I've got a panel of experts. I've got my friend Greg Driver here from Sound Ag, joined by Extreme Ag Chad Henderson and North Delta biologicals. 00:00:12 Brewer Blessed it. Brewer is essentially the professor who's gonna be in this tent, is talking about this with a bunch 00:00:17 of farmers here that wanna learn how to farm better. You showed us some roots. I'm gonna let you take it from there. I promise you I was 00:00:23 gonna bring the ball to court and pass it to you. So, uh, quite a few things that we've got going on out here in the field today. 00:00:29 Um, uh, one of the major components is row spacing, but one of the other components is population. And, and all of these are targeted at influencing the, 00:00:38 the root architecture itself. Um, but in addition to just the root architecture, how much of the soil profile below that are we influencing? 00:00:46 Most people are common belief is that a narrower, narrower row spacing actually explores more of the profile. That's not really true. 00:00:53 The narrower the row spacing, the wider and flatter it may be, but if you actually want to explore depth it actually, 00:00:59 the wider row spacing does that. That's why areas like Australia have extremely wide row spacings. 00:01:05 Um, and so we're, we're looking at that. We think the thirties look really good. Um, we're getting deeper out of, say, 00:01:10 that six inch root zone where we measure, um, you know, p and K type fertility, pH, things like that. 00:01:16 There are other nutrients deeper in the profile. Um, unfortunately out here we have a really, uh, compacted unstructured soil. 00:01:22 You can see the Platy structure. And then about six inches deep, we've got, uh, a really, uh, tough, hard pan. 00:01:29 Um, we, uh, we do know that 300 pounds roots aren't gonna explore anymore. Roots have a hard time penetrating that. 00:01:36 Um, but, but we've brought in a third component to this, uh, u utilizing, um, symbiotic fungi, um, 00:01:44 to help us explore more of that profile. And Mike Eel fungi, I'll let Greg, uh, driver with sound touch on that a little bit. Yeah. Greg, 00:01:51 Will you touch on that a little bit? 'cause I'm still Absolutely, absolutely. So What, what is blueprint and, 00:01:56 and then the handoff from Brewer? Yeah. So Source has been around this particular region for about five years. 00:02:01 We've seen steady positive results because of that. Our company has explored other products such as a MF Road Colonization products. 00:02:09 That's why we have captured, uh, the new product blueprint, uh, which is going to be when it source 00:02:16 is at its most active. So source goes on V four over the top post suber on corn, soybeans, and cotton. 00:02:22 You come and hit it when it's at its most active, and it ignites that soil. And so we're happy to bring this combo to you guys. 00:02:29 We using this. Yes, yes. So a lot of the, the first part of it that got me onto this number one is I'm a farmer. 00:02:37 Okay? When a farmer, anytime you mention money back guarantee and reduction of in or reduction of p I'm in. So you got my attention then, you know, 00:02:45 and then when you start with that, um, I mean the game, well then when we start looking at what it's doing to the root system and in our dry climate, it's going 00:02:53 to get not only nutrients, but also water as well. You know, so it's an extension of the root system. And when we started seeing that, it's like, hey, 00:03:00 this is something we need, you know, in our dryer climate. Yep. And so a lot of times I mentioned that 300 PSI, uh, 00:03:06 penetration barrier for soil roots. It's not that way for fungi because the, the filaments 00:03:11 that come out are actually smaller diameter and they will grow and find pockets of high nutrient density and then carry that back 00:03:19 and exchange for carbon from the plant. So when you look at this and you see, you see the points he's talking about, 00:03:25 they'll mi they'll mine into places that the root system won't go. And so with that being said, you know, 00:03:30 we can pick up moisture, we can pick up phosphorous, Phosphorous, other things too. But those are the big two. And so one of the things in the, 00:03:36 in the source trial down here, um, we actually have blueprint alone, blueprint stacked on top of source, source alone. 00:03:42 Um, all of that. But one of the major active modes of action of source is increasing the actual infection rate of a MF. 00:03:51 Most plants have a really difficult time, uh, in that infection process. And I think your data, at least initially Greg, 00:03:56 was like 14 x the infection rate of A MF, which is really significant when it gets into the plant. But, but one thing I'd say, we pulled down here non-treated, 00:04:05 uh, uh, plants, and when I pulled them up, the soil around it was just extremely flaky and fell off. This is a source plus blueprint. 00:04:12 Not only do you have more soil that stuck to it, but if you'll shake it before it dries up, you can actually see these, uh, 00:04:18 filaments of the A MF out there. And again, those things will grow. I don't remember what, like a 400 x increase in, um, uh, 00:04:25 root mass equivalent with that. So it's all about how much outside of the current root zone that we understand are we, uh, 00:04:32 mining nutrients and water from. Um, and that's where we can also get that, that, that drawback in actual applied fertilizer. 00:04:38 We've had great success. All right. I I, I, I love this. We go to field days and we'll show roots and I get it. 00:04:43 You know, we're all farm people here. We get roots money. How much, okay. That's neat. That looks good. 00:04:47 You're spending money on a product and how, how much do I need to get more to justify this type of treatment? 00:04:54 I mean, talk to me about the economics of this. So we give an ROI guarantee, so that means that you're gonna make your money back 00:05:00 or we're gonna make you whole. So it's a risk free financial play for the farmer. Uh, additionally, you know, we're working at 00:05:06 around $12 an acre for blueprint and around $15 an acre for source. All right, so we're talking, if we get a couple more 00:05:12 bushels of soybeans, we're back at breakeven. That's in this case. Is that, does that root right there? Brewer i's the farmer first. 00:05:18 Is this two more bushels than this? Theoretically, yes. You know, you can't con Mother Nature's gonna win. You know, mother Nature's gonna win out. 00:05:27 But theoretically we have to have a better root system to feed this plant. We can make this plant, but then when it runs outta juice, 00:05:34 when we get a bad hot week, I like to say it's an, it's an extension of the window I need. Right? Right. Instead of a window this 00:05:40 big, I got a window this big. Well, the wider window I get, the more things I can mess up myself, 00:05:45 but then can come through with me. For the root system, You cover a lot, a lot of ground nutrients. You cover a lot of ground. From 00:05:51 My personal experience as source alone on soybeans at fungicide time is actually four, four to four and a half bushels. 00:05:59 Um, blueprint with Source is better than that. I firmly believe that. Have I got a firm number I rely on yet? 00:06:05 Not. Um, but uh, that's Why we're doing these experiments. That's right. But knowing the 4.4 bushels with Source, 00:06:10 I recommend it on all acres. I use it on my personal acres. And I'll take it a step further 00:06:14 and say if you cut back, uh, 25 pounds of p out of that equation, that that, uh, two to three bushels actually becomes 00:06:21 a whole lot more like one bushel. Yeah. So we do also offer a guaranteed program for both nitrogen and phosphorus with Source specifically. 00:06:28 You couple that with Blueprint, we're talking 30 pounds in guaranteed reduction, or you can just use it as a replacement in season. And, 00:06:35 And one further point on that, as we work towards a healthier, uh, just soil, uh, microbiome, meaning we're, 00:06:43 we're cutting back on certain synthetic fertilizer, certain sources, and we actually get a healthier soil root zone, that 4.4 actually probably goes up from that point. 00:06:52 The impact of all of these that either are biology or stimulate biology are greater if we're taking better care of our soil. 00:06:58 Got it. His name's Brewer Blessed. He's joined by Chad Henderson. He's with North Delta Biologicals, Chad's with Extreme Ag. 00:07:04 Our friend here, Greg Driver from Sound Ag. If you wanna learn more about how to get on this blueprint program, which 00:07:08 as you said is a guaranteed situation, they go to Sound Ag, we'll have all the information, fact sheets, data. 00:07:15 You can also connect with your, uh, local dealer on the website and find out more information about local data. 00:07:20 Got it. Till next time, coming at you from Johnny Verell Field Day, Brewer's gonna be putting on an absolute clinic 00:07:24 in this tent, uh, tomorrow. If you've missed our field days, you know what? They're awesome. You can check out a lot 00:07:28 of the highlights at Extreme Mag Farm. Also go to our YouTube channel. It's free. There's a absolute library of information out there, videos 00:07:35 that these guys shoot in the field. And also cutting the Curve podcast, as well as all our new show Lag Grain. 00:07:41 You go check it all out Extreme Mag Farm, or subscribe to the Extreme AG YouTube channel. Till next time, Damien Mason coming at you from Jackson, 214 00:07:47.765 --> 00:07:47.925