Optimizing Macronutrient Absorption During Peak Stress Periods
Damian talks to James Paterson from AgroTech USA about enhancing nutrient absorption during peak stress periods for crops, focusing on the impact of macronutrient timing and application methods.
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00:00 Alright, we're talking about peak stress periods on your crop and how macronutrients may 00:04 or may not be absorbed into the crop. It's a big deal and it might have a lot to do with timing and some of the practices that you might be doing. 00:11 Maybe you can do 'em a little bit better. We're talking to James Patterson here with Agritech USA. This is kind of a big deal. You gave me the example. 00:16 He said, Damien, what if you farm in a few different states and using the same recipe, so to speak, 00:21 but you've got different stresses and different time periods. It's gonna have a heck of a lot of then end result on how 00:26 that nutrient gets up in the crop. Talk to me. Yeah. It's not only the nutrient, it's what we're looking for in it. 00:30 So let's just take, you might be growing corn in North Carolina and in that situation in North Carolina you get nighttime cooling. 00:36 Yeah. Today it doesn't look like it here, but usually they'll run 10, 12 days. It's above 77 degrees at night. 00:42 So the nutrients that we apply from a macronutrient perspective can actually have a big impact on how this plant deals with stress. 00:49 Is that the magic number? You just said 77 degrees. It seems like they're always are these magic numbers, you know, don't spray after it's 85 all that. 00:56 We're at Matt Miles field day right now and we are in a unusually cool environment. Usually it's like a hundred and one ninety six, whatever, 01:04 and he says, my plants don't cool down at night. That means that they're not taking stuff up because, well, it's, 01:11 It's, it's double fold. So what happens when this corn plant, if it's above 70 degrees, 70 seven's the worst. 01:16 Yeah. If it's above that for a long period, what it it does is it increases respiration, which means carbohydrates stored in the plant 01:23 are being used at night. Yep. Yep. What that means is during the day, it's got less energy to do what conduct photosynthesis. 01:29 And as a result of that process, you're ending up in a situation where you've got a stress plant 01:34 and that plant needs nutrition from the soil. It needs potassium for water regulation. Right. It needs phosphorus obviously for energy in the plant. 01:41 Right. But in order for that plant to get access to it, what does it have to do? It has to burn energy to pull it out of the soil. 01:47 So you have a situation where you've got a plant that's under stress, burning energy. It needs to burn more energy 01:53 to get nutrition out of the soil. Right. To create energy. So Why, what ends up happening? 01:58 It just never gets the stuff out of the, is doing it so quickly that it's burning through it. Is it a problem that it doesn't use the resource 02:03 or does it use it too fast to burn Through it? It, it can't use enough of it. 02:07 'cause it's take, it's in survival mode here. Mm-Hmm. So it doesn't have the ability to take extra energy and pull phosphorus outta the soil or pull potassium. 02:15 So that's why having nutrients supplied later in the season and having things that make nutrition more accessible 02:22 so the plant doesn't have to burn energy to take it is really important. So What do I need to know? How do I make that happen? 02:27 You can't control the weather, but you can control timing, placements of nutrition and the form nutrition. Okay. 02:33 So let's talk about timing. Obviously put it out there when the plant needs it, you'd say, yep. Yes. Do I monitor it? 02:39 Am I out there looking at the, am I doing tissue samples and say, Hey man, I, I, I, 02:43 this plant's deficient. How do I, well, The hard thing to do is you can't actually tell some of these nutrient deficiencies behind us in this corn crop. 02:49 Now you couldn't tell if this crop's phosphorous deficient. You could tell if it's nitrogen deficient, you could see it. 02:53 Yeah. Potassium. You might be able to see. Yeah. So the challenge that you have in this situation is, is we put all our nutrition up front. 03:00 Yep. Yeah. And what does the soil want to do? It wants to, I guess, use it all at Once. Yeah. It wants to make, it 03:06 makes it less available. Right. So then when we get to this part of a corn crops growing cycle, it's depleted, it's, well, 03:12 there's less of it in a readily accessible form. Understood. Okay. Then you talk Okay. 03:16 Timing and then what'd you tell me then another idea then is on the, the source or the stuff 03:20 that they're putting out there late season. Yeah. So we've talked about source. So source is, you know, we put dry up front. Yep. 03:25 So what is everybody talking about now? Using liquids later. Yep. Because it gives us a window to get in 03:30 with a wide drop application. The closer we can apply nutrients to the plant needing it. Yep. The more of it 03:36 that will be available when the plant needs it. Got It. I can manage the stress 03:40 or help the plant through the stress on those macros. Do micros or do other other things help them? The uptake of the 03:47 Macros? Yeah, they can. There's certain interactions between micronutrients and macronutrients. Borns important for nitrogen insufficiency. 03:53 It's about creating a balanced plant to have that. But the most important thing, so if I asked you today, I said, Hey, go run a marathon. 03:59 Yeah. Alright. I give you Gatorade bottle. Yep. Yeah. But you've got this much in it and I ask you to run another marathon. 04:05 Yeah, yeah. Is that gonna work? No. So you wanna fill that bottle up with nutrition or in this case energy for you so that you don't have 04:11 to expend more energy to create your task. Got it. I'm gonna leave it right there because you know what? I don't plan on running any marathons. 04:17 Gatorade bottle full or empty doesn't really matter. Anyway, he's awesome. Company's called Agritech, USA. We are extreme ag. We are coming 04:23 to you from Matt Miles Field Day. Our third of five field days. If you're watching this new in front 04:27 of August 8th and August 22nd. That's our last two field days at Kevin Matthews, August 8th, temple Roads, August 22nd. 04:33 Really cool stuff. Great guys, resources like James are all of our field days answering questions 04:39 and making it interactive so you can take these practices and ideas and concepts home to your farm for bigger yields 04:44 and most importantly, bigger ROI. That's why we're here. Extreme mag.farm.