The Overlooked Role of Oxygen in Plant and Soil Health
8 Jan 254m 35s

From improving soil aeration through methods like strip tillage to maintaining a balance for soil biology and plant growth, oxygen proves vital for healthy crop development.

00:00:05 So we gonna talk about oxygen and what, what I've seen with oxygen as a farmer, you know, and it'll look a lot of times, like, 00:00:12 almost like drought stress. You know, you take it, let's say early season auction, you know, we've, and, 00:00:17 and it's real harsh when I've no-till before. You know, when you no-till through a swag and you, you get two 00:00:23 or three rains, the corn gets six, eight inches tall and man, it's rolled up because it just can't get any air. You know, it used to be in the old times, you know, 00:00:30 every rain and dad would've to go out there and we could cultivate a field and corn would never look any better after, after you cultivate, you know, you put 00:00:37 that air back in the ground. So it's something to that, you know. So, um, for me, in a lot 00:00:42 of cases it's the strip till has helped me to create that auction. It gives that drying zone 00:00:48 and a zone that you can get air down into, around that seedling as it starts to grow. Taking CO2 from the air, converting it out, 00:00:59 pulling the carbon and the oxygen apart, and, uh, getting that carbon piece for the energy, uh, cycle. 00:01:05 And the plant really, the oxygen is just a byproduct of that process. And the plant really doesn't use a whole lot, converts 00:01:12 that CO2 into oxygen. So it's a very important process, very important nutrient that plant deals with. 00:01:17 Um, the other thing is too, just not with the plants, but in the soil, oxygen's the most abundant a nutrient in the soil as well. 00:01:23 So it's important in the soil for airspace, for the microbial life in the soil as that process of mineralizing nutrients and stuff for the plant. 00:01:32 Oxygen's very po there. If your soil gets too tight, it's too bound up. That's lack of oxygen. 00:01:37 So there's really negative effects of that. So some people use tillage to offset that. Uh, some people use other means to get better, uh, 00:01:45 oxygen abundance in the soil. So it's, it is a key. It's I think roughly around 45% of what the plant is made of. 00:01:53 Um, but uh, it's really just a byproduct of all the processes within the plant, You know, so when we're doing strip till, 00:02:05 we are almost like in a essence, creating it where it can get air around that plant. You know, when we're strip tilling in the fall 00:02:12 and there's a lot of, there's several months that go by, you know, before you plant, 00:02:16 but it's still, it's got a seed bed of six, eight inches, eight inches wide, six, eight inches deep 00:02:21 that it's loose ground, that it's not compacted. And so therefore it'll make it to where, you know, it's easier to get oxygen in 00:02:28 and around the root zone where, where it's needed. What can happen with an overabundance, like in an irrigation scenario, 00:02:36 you get too much oxygen in the soil can over an oxygen it cause you know, everything can go dormant 00:02:41 'cause there's too much oxygen that can process it, right? So it can be, can be a negative 00:02:46 effect and too much abundance. So it's kind of a balancing act there as well when we, when we irrigate with water 00:02:52 and stuff, especially in the drip world, not oversaturated the soil and really shutting down a lot of systems. 00:02:58 And, uh, you get that with like flooding events, big rains in these flat lands. Not, not here, but you know, go eastern, eastern Iowa, 00:03:04 even Matt down in the delta, you know, you get all that water on top of the soil, it could really just be a detriment to the soil biology. 00:03:10 So there's a balancing act with, with oxygen keeping it balanced out. And you know, you see it in the bottoms as well. 00:03:22 When I, when I see it looks like it's drought stress, it'll roll up when it can't get air and it'll have water on it because of lack of oxygen. 00:03:29 So oxygen is very important and I don't think us as farmers, you know, we wanna put talk about fertility and everything else, 00:03:36 but we don't always ever understand the power of oxygen. You know, I'd like to do some trials on figuring out how 00:03:42 to put oxygen back into the soil and oxygen of the plant. You know, there's things they do 00:03:46 with putting oxygenating water, you know, as well. So there's a lot of things to go from, but oxygen is a major, major player, you know, 00:03:54 in the whole development of a corn plant or any plants of that matter. So it's, it's not an essential, uh, nutrient, 00:04:03 we don't apply it like potassium or phosphorus, but it is very important in the plant's lifecycle as a byproduct of a bunch of energy processes 00:04:12 that the plant needs to go through to raise yields or go grow, uh, during vegetative stays or reproductive forms. 00:04:18 So it's, it, it's very important. It's important for us as humans, as we need oxygen. Breathe. The plants give us that as they convert CO2 110 00:04:26.925 --> 00:04:28.325

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