00:00:15 Uh, nickel's considered probably a micronutrient, uh, in the agronomy world. Uh, it is considered a micronutrient agronomy world 00:00:23 and really we, I haven't paid attention much like anybody else in the last recent 10, 20 years to nickel either. 00:00:29 But recently we've spent more time learning about it, uh, understanding that, uh, nickel's kind of an another one 00:00:36 of those need unknown, um, nutrients that the plant deals with. So probably the main thing 00:00:43 that I learned about nickel is it's really a key nutrient in the urease enzyme. 00:00:49 You go, well, what's the uase enzyme? So on the nitrogen side of application, uh, in, in, in agriculture we use, we'll use urea, which is 46 oh oh 00:01:01 or a dry granular of nitrogen. So it's called urea. That's the way it's formulated. We use that and we spread it on fields 00:01:07 for corn more specifically to, uh, get the plant nitrogen. Well, as that comes in the plant, it needs to be broken down 00:01:14 and converted into a usable form. It's not plant available right away. It needs to be converted. So nickel 00:01:21 is a key in that urease enzyme. The U enzyme breaks that urea up down into ammonium and the plant can use it to 00:01:27 do its functions within the plant. Otherwise, if it doesn't have that urease enzyme activated and the plant, the plant will store it, store 00:01:34 that urea in a negative way in the plant and become a kind of a detriment to, uh, plant functions and can make your yield go backwards. 00:01:41 So it's been kind of neat to, uh, learn about that and do some applications with it to know if you're deficient in nickel. 00:01:47 There ain't really a good way, uh, that I know of today. I mean, I'm sure there's some tests out there 00:01:53 probably cost prohibitive potentially to guys I haven't found. I found one, uh, way we can measure it and, 00:02:00 and really we don't know if we're deficient yet 'cause it's just so much unknown about it right now as far as, uh, what values we need in the plant, 00:02:08 how much do we need, how much we don't need. So it really is, it's one of those unknown elements of how much we knew. 00:02:14 We're still learning a lot about it. And so if a guy wants to go measure going, I want to know if I'm nickel deficient, well, you're gonna have 00:02:20 to do all that research, kind of do some study on farm to kind of figure out, especially I'd recommend guys that spend a lot of time with your read products. 00:02:27 Uh, probably want to spend a little bit more time researching nickel and if they're using it on the farm or if they're not, 00:02:33 or maybe try to use some products to see if they get a benefit out of it. Um, but today you just can't go out there. 00:02:39 I'm gonna take a nickel tissue test and see a value and understand that I'm short or not. Probably isn't a lot of research out there today 00:02:44 that would guide you anywhere. You know, beyond that, beyond that nitrogen piece, which is an important piece. 00:02:50 Uh, you know, nickel has some plant defense mechanisms within the plant. The plant, uh, uses nickel to create some proteins 00:02:57 to help fight defense. So it's got some plant defense like a lot of the micronutrients do. 00:03:02 So it's a key in that. Um, and then kind of going, where do you get it? Where's the plant? A lot of it just drive from the soil. 00:03:09 Um, we've done some tests on Kelly's Farms here in western Iowa and there's a lot of nickel available. 00:03:15 It's just getting the plant and that's probably the disconnect there. There's a lot available. 00:03:20 Again, plant available is another story. So, and then another way to look at it, uh, is probably soil pH you know, 00:03:28 they do not understand the nickel if it's higher, pH probably harder for the plant to get it, stuff like that. So, you know, go back to, oh, am I sure? What am I doing? 00:03:35 Well, maybe look at some of your soil stuff and research that side that, uh, you might need some nickel applications 00:03:41 to help you with the program. 00:03:42.225 --> 00:03:42.445