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Mike Howell (00:08):
The Dirt, with me, Mike Howell, an eKonomics podcast where I present the down-and-dirty agronomic science to help grow crops and bottom lines. Inspired by eKonomics.com, farming’s go-to informational resource, I’m here to break down the latest crop nutrition research, use, and issues, helping farmers make better business decisions through actionable insights. Let’s dig in.
(00:39):
Welcome back to The Dirt, everyone. Glad you’re tuning in again with us this week. Today, we have Mr. Craig Jorgenson with The Sulphur Institute joining us. Craig, thanks for being on The Dirt with us and if you will, take a few minutes and just introduce yourself to our listeners and tell us a little bit about what you do.
Craig Jorgenson (00:54):
Thank you, Mike, and I appreciate being on the podcast today. I am Craig Jorgenson, president of The Sulphur Institute. TSI is 63 years old, and we are a member-based organization advocating for the safe handling and safe transportation of sulfur and sulfuric acid. As a trade group, we represent TSI member companies of which there are 62 today on regulatory matters that might be affecting the industry as well as produce leading practice documents, host working groups and symposium to educate and train TSI members on various aspects of the sulfur, sulfuric acid industries.
Mike Howell (01:36):
Well, Craig, we appreciate you joining us today, I know you’ve got a lot going on. I first met you a couple of years ago at Tampa, Florida, when I attended my first Sulphur World Symposium. And up until that point, I knew we had different uses for sulfur, but the main thing I was concerned with with sulfur was the agronomic uses. We know we need sulfur. It’s the fourth major crop nutrient and we use sulfur pretty regularly in crop production.
(02:00):
We’ve had several episodes of the podcast dedicated to the use of sulfur in row crops. We’ve had Ron Olson there on your team join us a couple of times as well. So, Craig, today what I thought we’d talk about is some of the other uses of sulfur and that became apparent to me in attending several of these Sulphur World Symposiums and I really didn’t think about it that much. So if you would, give us a rundown, what are some of the other uses of sulfur?
Craig Jorgenson (02:24):
As you mentioned, Mike, sulfur is a crop nutrient, but beyond that, it really is a very, very important industrial raw material for many, many different industries. And TSI has four major industries that we focus on and that is agriculture, of course, energy, chemicals, and mining. In each one of those sectors of industry in the economy, sulfur and sulfuric acid can be found. You mentioned sulfur is a crop nutrient, but first and foremost, according to the United States Geological Survey, 54% of the 8 million or so tons produced each year go into the actual production of phosphate fertilizers.
(03:06):
So, it’s not necessarily a crop nutrient in that aspect, but that industrial raw material that breaks down the phosphate rock and produces phosphoric acid, which helps make, of course, the phosphate fertilizers. Coming in at second is actually right back into the refining process. Sulfur is recovered from the refining process and then when sulfuric acid is made from that sulfur, it goes right back into the petroleum refining alkylation process. And without getting too technical, the alkylation process is actually the process within the refinery that helps sets octane levels in gasoline. So between the 54 and 27%, that’s where the majority of use of sulfur goes in the United States.
Mike Howell (03:55):
Okay, Craig, well, we understand that it’s important for a lot of industrial uses and one thing that I’ve picked up recently is the need for sulfur in making these new batteries. Can you talk a little bit about the batteries and why sulfur is important in the batteries?
Craig Jorgenson (04:08):
Absolutely. As part of the energy transition in the need or desire to make more electric vehicles, lithium is going to be required. So there are a number of lithium projects around the United States that will require sulfur and sulfuric acid to help leach out those lithium deposits out of the rock. So that industrial process of extracting lithium will need a large amount of sulfur and sulfuric acid to do so.
Mike Howell (04:39):
Well, Craig, what are some of the other uses? We’ve talked a lot about it today. Is there anything else that sulfur is used for common practice things?
Craig Jorgenson (04:47):
Absolutely. And as you go down the list of things that require sulfur or sulfuric acid, you look at pulp and paper manufacturing. It’s a big sector and one of the major sectors following the phosphate fertilizer production. The storage batteries, lead batteries require sulfuric acid, low concentration sulfuric acid for them to maintain their charge. There’s other inorganic chemicals, paints and pigments, other chemical products. And one of the things that’s getting a lot of visibility today is sulfur and acid are used in water treatment compounds.
(05:23):
So any wastewater recycling, any wastewater that are being treated with chlorine, sulfuric acid is used as a pH balancer for those wastewater treatment streams for that water to be reused. In addition to the industrial processes, we are found in the recycling side of things on the water. But steel pickling, synthetic rubbers and plastics, pesticides, drugs and cosmetics, soaps and detergents, and the very tires that are on your car, that vulcanized rubber has sulfur contained within it.
Mike Howell (05:58):
Craig, there’s an awful lot of uses for sulfur. I think the list just goes on forever. Is there any danger in us running out of sulfur? Are we going to use up all our sulfur supply one of these days?
Craig Jorgenson (06:08):
Well, the trade flows are certainly changing with those lithium projects in Nevada and North Carolina. Some places where we don’t send sulfur today, we’ll find trade flows changing a little bit. I don’t know. Global production of sulfur at an all time high. From a global standpoint, it’s hard to say that we’ll ever run out, but getting the product to certain places around the world where it’s required for nickel production, cobalt production, lithium production for this energy transition that many are wanting to see, getting that sulfur to those locations may be more difficult in the future.
Mike Howell (06:49):
Farming isn’t farming without questions, and now, there’s a place to go for answers. At eKonomics, an entire team of agronomists is waiting and ready to help, for free. No question is too big or too small. Visit nutrien-eKonomics.com and submit your question with the Ask An Agronomist feature.
(07:12):
Craig, you mentioned a lot of different things. I was doing a little research and I knew some of these, but I didn’t know all of these, but sulfur is also used in matches. The head of that match that we use to strike a match has got a lot of sulfur in it. It’s used in a lot of explosive compounds. Cement that we use to make driveways and foundations for our houses has sulfur in it, as well as glass that we use in numerous products. All of these products require the use of sulfur.
(07:36):
Craig, you did mention the paper industry, paper and pulp. And I live about 20 miles from a paper mill, and if the wind gets blowing just right, we can definitely smell that paper mill and everybody assumes that it’s the sulfur coming off of that, but in its natural state, sulfur is an odorless product, it doesn’t have an odor. It has to be reacted with other products before we get that pungent smell that everybody’s used to, the rotten egg smell.
Craig Jorgenson (07:59):
Absolutely, Mike. What you actually smell is hydrogen sulfide, not the sulfur or sulfuric acid, which, in fact, is an odorless compound. So that hydrogen sulfide is a compound that occurs when there’s decomposing matter in the ecosystem.
Mike Howell (08:16):
Craig, well, that odor, it just irritates our nose, makes us notice that odor’s around, but there’s really nothing harmful in that that’s going to affect us as far as any respiratory problems or anything. It just lets us know that that sulfur is around, right?
Craig Jorgenson (08:28):
Exactly. And those who handle sulfur firsthand know the requirements to provide the proper personal protective equipment or PPE when handling sulfur as a professional.
Mike Howell (08:41):
And, Craig, that leads us to another thing I wanted to mention today. You told us before we started recording today that you had a training coming up training emergency response officials. And I know that’s a big part of what The Sulfur Institute does, responds to hazardous situations if there are any and things like that. Talk a little bit about the training you have coming up and who all is going to be attending that.
Craig Jorgenson (09:02):
Next week, in Hopewell, Virginia, we’re hosting a two-day event and we have over 50 first responders on each day from the Hopewell and Chesterfield area where a lot of sulfur and sulfuric acid transportation movements are done each and every day for a couple of the plants and TSI member companies in that area. Our main objectives next week for training is to teach first responders the physical and chemical properties of sulfur and sulfuric acid, what to do in the event that there’s a discharge from a truck or a rail car while in transportation, and we’ll have about 50 first responders.
(09:42):
We’ll have TSI member companies, which are routinely the shippers of these products as well as the carriers. We’ll have two railroads and all of this would not be possible without the assistance of a group called TRANSCAER. TRANSCAER is a nonprofit group that several trade associations subscribe to help us put on these type of events. And they have the reach to the first responders, they have the reach to local government officials. So the local government officials also know that we’re caring about their communities and providing this training to their first responders.
Mike Howell (10:19):
Craig, sounds like a great event. We’ve talked an awful lot this morning about sulfur and the sulfur uses. Is there anything else you want to leave our listeners with before we wrap this segment up?
Craig Jorgenson (10:29):
Well, Mike, you talked a little bit about some of the new and emerging uses, and one of them is the extraction of critical key minerals for electric vehicles or battery storage units, but also in the production of microchips. Ultra-pure sulfuric acid is a key cleanser of microchips as they begin to get through the manufacturing process. So under the CHIPS Act that was enacted by the current administration, microchip production will be advancing in the United States with many projects underway. So the market for ultra-pure sulfuric acid will be going up as well.
(11:06):
So that’s one thing to keep an eye on. And then finally, on the electronics recycling. Cell phones or televisions or other electronics or even solar panels or the magnets from windmills and wind power generation stations, those magnets contain critical minerals. The batteries contain minerals that can be recycled, so sulfuric acid will be used to help break down those materials and extract gold and nickel and other elements that are contained within those cell phones, solar panels, and wind turbines.
Mike Howell (11:43):
Quite a lot of uses for sulfur, Craig. Well, Craig, I’m going to throw one interesting fact out there and I don’t know if you’re even aware of this, but there is one thing that sulfur is used for and I wish it wasn’t, but a lot of people probably don’t know that the pungent smell that skunks produce is actually a combination of several sulfur compounds that they put together to make that odor that’s so displeasing to us. I wish we could figure out a way to keep it out of our skunk population, but that is another use for the sulfur and sulfuric acid. Craig, thanks a lot for joining us today. And listeners, we hope you enjoyed this segment. Stick around as we bring you another segment here in just a moment.
Craig Jorgenson (12:18):
Thank you, Mike. I appreciate your time.
Mike Howell (12:20):
Listeners, I hope you enjoyed the first segment of today’s show. If you did, please take a minute and give us a rating on your favorite podcast channel or app and give us some feedback as well. We want to hear from you to help make the show even better. And don’t keep it to yourself. Please share these episodes with coworkers, family, friends, anyone you think may benefit from the information we’re sharing here. Don’t forget to visit our website, nutrien-eKonomics.com to help find the latest crop nutrition news and research information, as well as market updates, a growing degree day calculator, a nutrient use calculator, a rainfall tracker, and much, much more. It’s all at nutrien-eKonomics.com. Most episodes of The Dirt are now available for CCA credits. Visit our website and click on the Agronomics tab to find these CCA credit opportunities. And if you have a question, you can ask one of our Agronomy team members. Simply ask your question and one of us will get back with you. Thanks for listening. Now, segment two of The Dirt.
(13:29):
Well, listeners, thanks for joining us for segment two today, and as you know, we’re taking a tour around the country visiting different research farms associated with our land grant system. Today, we’re visiting the state of Kansas and Kansas State University. And to help us talk about the research system there at Kansas State, we have Dr. Dorivar Ruiz Diaz with us today. Dorivar, thanks for being a guest here on The Dirt today.
Dr. Dorivar Ruiz Diaz (13:51):
Thank you.
Mike Howell (13:51):
Dorivar, if you will, before we get into it, if you will just introduce yourself to our listeners and tell them what you do there at Kansas State.
Dr. Dorivar Ruiz Diaz (13:58):
Yes, Mike. I’m a soil fertility specialist. I have a research and extension appointment. I also serve as extension leader for Agronomy. So I do get to travel quite a bit across the state and, obviously, do a lot of fieldwork at research stations across the state.
Mike Howell (14:12):
Well, Dorivar, if you will, tell us a little bit about the experiment station system there in Kansas. I know it’s a little bit different than some of the other states. Tell us how many experiment stations we have there and what they specialize in.
Dr. Dorivar Ruiz Diaz (14:24):
Yes, to understand this a little bit better, if you are familiar with Kansas, one thing that’s very particular about our states is the huge gradient that we have in terms of climate and precipitation, which really are required to have a large network of field stations, basically, to do research. Just to put a little bit in perspective, in the southeast corner of the state, we typically get a precipitation of about 45 inches per year. And as you go to the southwest corner of the state, we are basically dropping to about 18 inches of precipitation. So, that’s about one inch drop in precipitation for every 15 miles as you go west in the state. So that’s really just a huge range of conditions, obviously, that generate different soils and conditions across the state. That also opened the opportunity for very diverse different types of research, different crops, different cropping systems from rain fed, dry land, irrigated systems, and different crops in the state.
(15:23):
So that make it, in my opinion, a little bit unique because we do have such a diverse type of production systems. And like I say, this require really multiple experiment fields. Our the system is really divided primarily in two regions, if you will, the Eastern Kansas Research and Extension Centers, which is basically a group of experiment fields and research centers where we actually do have faculty. Typically, in these centers, we do have faculty in different disciplines of agronomy, entomology, plant pathology, animal science, which is very important for us, of course, and econ as well. Those are typically the colleagues that are in these different centers. We do have Eastern Kansas and then Western Kansas, which is equivalent as well with multiple experiment fields and centers, again, also with faculty in these locations. In addition to this, of course, on the extension side, Kansas have 105 counties and we do have presence in all 105 counties when it comes to extension.
(16:21):
It’s very strong local presence, I will say, for K-State across the state, which, again, is really exciting, pretty unique for doing research as well as, obviously, the extension component, which we’re trying to develop that research as relevant for local producers, which again, can be quite different as you go east to west in the state. In addition to this, I would also like to mention we do have horticulture centers, which again, those are perhaps the third group of centers that we have, which also serve primarily the forestry, topography research, and horticulture across the state.
Mike Howell (16:57):
Dorivar, when I think about Kansas, I naturally think about wheat and wheat production, but I know you grow other crops there. What all crops are y’all growing in Kansas these days?
Dr. Dorivar Ruiz Diaz (17:05):
Yes, we’re still the wheat state, of course, is then in terms of acres that winter wheat is still our main crop, but significant changes over the years. Of course, we are getting a lot more corn and soybeans. We have new hybrids and varieties that are performing very well in drier environments, so those keep moving west. And that’s, I would say, perhaps one of the main changes in the last 10 or 15 years. Sorghum is also one very important crop for us and actually Kansas is the main producer of sorghum in the US. That, for sure, is one of our main crops and especially, again, as we go west where we have very dry conditions, sorghum is a crop that performed very well.
(17:44):
So those, for sure, would be some of the main crops, but we also get other crops that are becoming more relevant for us. For example, winter canola is becoming more popular. And we are also getting some increasing acres, actually, for cotton in the southern tiers of counties in Kansas. So that’s something that’s a little bit, in a way, maybe a new crop for us in some ways, but definitely very important in increasing acres. I’m glad you mentioned this because when you think about Kansas, you think very flat, perhaps winter wheat as a main crop, but the diversity of soils and precipitation gradient that we have really allow us to have a very diverse cropping system.
Mike Howell (18:23):
Well, Dorivar, we know the goal of these experiment stations is to generate research-based scientific information and get that information back out to the clientele in the states. And I know you’ve got quite a history there in Kansas. Can you talk a little bit about some of the significant contributions that have been discovered here on the experiment stations and what that have meant for the growers in Kansas?
Dr. Dorivar Ruiz Diaz (18:43):
Yes, of course. Like you mentioned, very rich history, some stations that have been in places for many years and a lot of very important research, of course. Depending on the discipline, we can mention many of them. One of the things that perhaps is still very relevant for us here in Kansas when it comes to winter wheat, for example, is the development of varieties, which is Kansas State University typically is the lead in terms of varieties that are being cultivated across the region. So that’s one example of the contribution from all of these network of experiment fields and agronomy and different departments. One thing I like to mention, and I always like to mention this because I work in soil fertility and perhaps I’m a little bit biased, but we do have some experiments that are actually focused on soil fertility.
(19:30):
One in particular that I’m really excited about and I often try to go and visit is the one we have in Tribune, Kansas, which is one of the experiment fields in the western part of the state. This experiment field has both dry land and irrigated systems, and we do have one experiment there, a long-term experiment on soil fertility that’s been going on for more than 63 years. It’s actually one of the longest continuous soil fertility experiments, and I believe it’s the oldest one on irrigated corn specifically. This is specifically irrigated continuous corn. So there’s a lot of things that we learned from these type of long-term experiments, and again, the value of having these experiment fields, research centers in place. Some treatments in this experiment, for example, no phosphorus or fertilizer application for more than 63 years.
(20:19):
And we are learning that we’re still producing corn and we are learning what happen in terms of the chemistry, in terms of the nutrient reserves and implications in terms of soil health today, which is important, how the microbial activity and things like mycorrhizae continue to contribute to release mineral nutrients like phosphorus. So it is an experiment that has been in place for a long time, but we’re still learning a lot. And that’s what’s to me, always amazing about some of these long-term experiments. We never thought about the potential 60-plus years ago when this were established that we’re going to continue to learn something about this in some of the relevant topics today in terms of soil health, microbial activity, and so on, which is a little bit of a new interest in recent years.
Mike Howell (21:08):
Dorivar, I’m glad you mentioned the long-term plots. One of our first episodes this year, we had your neighbor from down at Oklahoma State on. Dr. Brian Arnall talked about the Magruder Plots and he said that there was a little bit of controversy about who had the oldest plots in the soil fertility realm. And I’ll let you have a chance to defend yourself there in Kansas and let us know who really had the longest-term plots.
Dr. Dorivar Ruiz Diaz (21:29):
Yes, that’s a very good point, and there’s always a little controversy. In our case, one thing that’s different is that it’s irrigated, specifically, I think it’s pretty unique. And I always enjoy long-term experiments. I went to grad school at the University of Illinois, and obviously, I walk by the Morrow Plots pretty much every day. And one thing that’s always interesting is that these experiments, in the case of the Morrow Plot, of course, it’s the second oldest in the world. And there’s no replication, right?
(21:55):
So some of these experiments were established even before we understood the needs of replication in statistics and so on. So there’s really a lot of history there that we’re learning in terms of the value of these treatments, but also things like statistics which are being developed over this time. Of course, in our case, it’s replicated already and it’s one of the oldest irrigated experiments.
Mike Howell (22:17):
Well, Dorivar, we’ve talked a lot about the history of the research farms and a lot about what they’re doing these days, but everybody I talk to, we ask them where they see these farms going in the future, and we’ve had a lot of people talk about urban sprawl and people moving in closer and closer to these farms and the need to change. And we also know we’ve got a lot of technology coming down the pipe these days. We’re looking at autonomous agriculture and things like that. How are these research farms going to have to change to keep up with the change in times in agriculture?
Dr. Dorivar Ruiz Diaz (22:46):
That’s an excellent question and very timely, I will say. Kansas State University actually started this initiative in the last couple of years focusing on agriculture in what’s called the Agriculture Innovation Initiative. And this initiative in particular is targeting significant improvements in facilities for research. Just to give you an example, this is obviously coming from the College of Ag in general, but there are some specific components that are being expanded and improved to bring the technology today. One of us is the Agronomy Research and Innovation Center, so specifically for the Department of Agronomy. We also have similar new facilities developed for animal science. And one big component as well of this initiative is the Global Center for Grain and Food Innovation, all of these are related to food security and agriculture, which is really relevant for us working in agriculture, all the components in terms of food security.
(23:42):
So this is a huge investment from the College of Agriculture. I really invite the listeners to check this Kansas State University Agriculture Innovation Initiative. If you search for that, you look at some of our information. We already have some of these new facilities. Construction basically started this spring and this is going to change a little bit the way we do things. You mentioned some of the new needs that we have today and one of the main factors of this initiative and some of the changes we are making here focus on interdisciplinary work. In recent years, I started to work more with engineer, social science, and just colleagues from different disciplines and we are tackling some very complex issues nowadays. And that’s very difficult to do it alone. We do need to collaborate with multiple disciplines, colleagues in other areas and across the US and international, for that matter.
(24:33):
That’s perhaps one of the main factors to keep in mind in K-State. We are emphasizing that approach in some of these new facilities that we are implementing. We are specifically designing some of these new research centers to facilitate a multidisciplinary work. We’ll see a lot more of that in the near future. Just that type of collaboration that we need to do essentially to target some of these complex issues. A lot of the things that we talk about today, you mentioned challenges in the urban region, full security, we pretty much have to be working with social science and other disciplines as well. Those are going to be some of the key changes moving forward and main focus in the near future.
Mike Howell (25:16):
Well, Dorivar, we appreciate you taking a few minutes to visit with us today. Is there anything else you want to add before we sign off?
Dr. Dorivar Ruiz Diaz (25:22):
In addition to all of these research centers that we just mentioned, I just want to emphasize other components that we have in our system such as the Soil Testing Lab. And of course, I’m a little bit biased here because I work in soil fertility, but it’s just a huge benefit of having this type of facility where we are actually providing service to farmers and researchers that work in these different research centers for analysis of nutrients. A lot of work going on now in terms of carbon and so on that is supported by the Soil Testing Lab.
(25:55):
So this is also one key component of our overall Kansas State University research and extension system, having facilities such as the Soil Testing lab, which again, I know some colleagues in other universities no longer have these type of facilities. And just having that, it’s a little bit different than what we see in the industry because we do have other mission related to research in addition to supporting their research and extension component.
Mike Howell (26:21):
And we really appreciate those soil testing facilities and plant tissue samples that we can send to the universities and get those results back. And we’ve done several episodes talking about how they do that testing and how to get good soil samples and plant tissue samples. So great work that y’all are doing there at Kansas State.
(26:37):
Well, listeners, we really hope you’ve enjoyed this episode, and as always, if you have any further questions, you can tune into our website, that’s nutrien-eKonomics.com. And until next time, this has been Mike Howell with The Dirt.
