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[00:00:08] Mike Howell:
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, news, and issues, helping farmers make better business decisions through actionable insights. Let’s dig in. Well, hello again, everyone. Welcome back for The Dirt. Glad you’re tuning in this week. Today, we have Elizabeth French with us. We’re going to be talking about soil health and testing your soil for different organisms. Elizabeth, welcome to the dirt. And if you will, take just a moment and introduce yourself to our listeners. Tell them what you do.
[00:00:55] Elizabeth French:
Thanks for having me, Mike. My name is Elizabeth French. I go by Lizzie, so you’ll hear that too. My background is all things soil, plant microbe related. I did my undergrad degree at Indiana Wesleyan, right in middle Indiana. I took a botany class and in my senior year I got excited about agriculture and how that related to microbiology. And so then after that, I went and did a PhD at Purdue, started looking at plant pathogens, and then I really broadened out to looking at overall soil health and how all those bugs living in our soil affect the plants. I stuck around for a couple more years to do a postdoc with another faculty member at Purdue. Still in that same space, but now we’re looking at how the soil microbes could impact whether or not insects were able to take over a plant and whether the plant was able to defend itself. Since then, been in the industry for about five years. I started with Nutrien. Now I work with Waypoint Analytical, developing tools for growers to say, hey, how can we use information about our soil biology to make better agronomic decisions?
[00:02:03] Mike Howell:
Elizabeth, we hear a lot about soil health these days, but I’m not sure that everybody is on the same page when we talk about soil health. So if you could take a few minutes and let our listeners understand exactly what we mean when we talk about soil health.
[00:02:15] Elizabeth French:
I work for Waypoint Analytical. We’re a big soil testing company in North America. Our focus when it comes to soil health is in agriculture, what does that mean? And really it comes down to the long-term productive capacity of that soil. Is this soil going to be able to support the crops that that farm family is trying to grow over the long term? And is it going to support that family economically as well? To break that down further, there’s really three main components to soil health that we think about. It’s not just… We’re talking about soil biology today. So that’s a big component of it and one that gets ignored a lot, but it’s really these three main things. There’s the physical component, what’s the texture of your soil? Was the parent material? What’s the structure of that soil? You have compaction issues, things like that.
[00:03:05] Elizabeth French:
The chemistry, do you have the nutrient levels required to raise that crop? And is your pH in a range where those nutrients are actually available? And then the last piece of biological piece, what level of organic matter do you have to provide nutrition and what level of soil biology do you have to mineralize the nutrients from that organic matter, to cycle the nutrients in your soil to actually make them available to the crop? Because you might have it in your soil, but if you don’t have biological activity, it’s just going to sit there. It’s not going to actually get turned into a form that your crop can take up.
[00:03:41] Mike Howell:
Well, Elizabeth, I understand that you’re with Waypoint now and I’m very familiar with Waypoint. I send a lot of soil samples to them every year. But if I understand right, you are at a new lab with Waypoint. It’s running some different samples, analyzing this soil biology. If you will, talk a little bit about the soil samples for these new samples that you’re analyzing now. Do we have to do anything different with these samples?
[00:04:02] Elizabeth French:
This is our newest offering at the lab. Waypoint does full service agricultural labs. We do soil testing, we do leaf tissues, we do pathogen testing, nematodes, water testing, everything you need for agriculture. But the piece that we felt was missing and that we’ve added in the last couple years, and that’s been what I’ve been working on the last five years is a tool to test the soil biology. The DNA-based analysis, similar to what you do with your chemistry extraction where we’re taking a soil sample and mixing it well to get a good representative sample, and then you’re going to do an extraction to get the nutrients so that you can see what levels of nutrients you have. We’re doing something really similar to that, but instead we are extracting the microbes from that sample and getting their DNA. And DNA tells us who is in your soil and what they’re capable of doing.
[00:04:55] Elizabeth French:
We can look at things like how many nitrogen fixers do you have in your soil? How many P&K solubilizers do you have in your soil? And that tells us what is the capacity of that soil to actually turn those nutrients into forms that are available to the crop. So that’s the test. Fortunately, we spent a lot of time setting it up so that you really don’t have to do anything different than what you would do with your normal soil test. You can actually add it on to your normal soil nutrient test. And we highly recommend that you do that because this information is complimentary. You need to know what are my nutrition levels in the soil? What’s my pH range? What’s my levels of organic matter? And then also, do I have that soil biology that I need to actually get that nutrition into the crop?
[00:05:42] Elizabeth French:
They’re very complimentary tests. They go together well. And really the only thing that’s different about soil biology piece is we highly recommend that you don’t leave the sample in the back of your truck or on your dashboard for a week before you ship it in. Keep it at room temperature, maybe throw it in the fridge if it’s going to be over the weekend before you ship it, but that’s really the only thing to think about from that perspective.
[00:06:04] Mike Howell:
I understand how some of those samples could stay in a truck for weeks at a time. That is a living organism in there that you’re looking at, so we need to make sure we keep them alive, I’m assuming.
[00:06:13] Elizabeth French:
Yes.
[00:06:14] Mike Howell:
Elizabeth, when I was taking basic soils years and years ago, seems like they were saying back then that a teaspoon of soil had more living organisms in it than the population of humans on earth. That’s a pretty impressive statistic, but one thing they didn’t talk about was, okay, what kind of organisms are those? You’ve mentioned fungi and bacteria a little bit. Talk a little bit about what kind of organisms you’re looking at and are all of these organisms beneficial or are there some that’s detrimental in the soil?
[00:06:40] Elizabeth French:
This is a big question just because the soil biology is so complex. We’re estimating now that about 25% of the species living on earth live in the soil. So there’s lots of different organisms, bacteria and fungi, those you mentioned. Those are really the main players. Those are the most abundant organisms in the soil, but you also have things like algaes actually that live in the soil, especially in your dryer areas, your arid regions, which is kind of interesting, but you’ll get a lot of algaes that live in those soils. They’re really important for providing carbon to those soils because they can actually fix carbon like a plant would, and they help build that soil structure as well. You also have these organisms called protozoa, which are really interesting. It’s just everything that’s not a plant and animal or a fungus. This is these little single-celled animals that live in the soil.
[00:07:36] Elizabeth French:
They are primarily predators, so they’re kind of like the lions of the soil. They keep the populations of everything else in check. And they’re really important for nutrient cycling because bacteria especially, they suck up a lot of nitrogen as part of their metabolism. They cycle through their lifecycle pretty quickly, but these protozoa can eat millions of them in a day. They’re actually able to then take that nitrogen that the bacteria is sucking up and put it back out into the environment so your crop’s able to take it up.
[00:08:07] Mike Howell:
What about detrimental microorganisms? Are there any detrimental microorganisms out there?
[00:08:12] Elizabeth French:
Absolutely. There are plant pathogenic organisms that are in the soil. Especially fungi are the most common. And we also have omicets like phytophthora. You’ve got some soil-borne bacteria. There can be an issue. Nematodes as well. You have both beneficial and we typically think of the plant parasitic nematodes, but there are actually beneficial nematodes as well, and those all can be present in the soil. We do typically see, and this is from academic literature as well is the more soil biology you have overall and the more diverse that community is, the less likely it is that one of those pathogenic organisms, that one of those detrimental organisms is going to be able to take over and infect your crops. The better you’re able to build up that soil community, it’s not a silver bullet, 100% protection, but it is helpful to keep the populations of the bad guys in check.
[00:09:11] Mike Howell:
Elizabeth, you mentioned your new lab and you all are analyzing for these microorganisms now. Tell our listeners what they’ll get back if they send a sample to you. What’s the report going to look like? What do they need to look for when they get that report back?
[00:09:23] Elizabeth French:
The report that we have today is focused on your overall soil health and your nutrient cycling capacity. We mainly look at those big groups of organisms that I just mentioned, your total levels of bacteria, fungi. We have a new version of the report coming up next week that’s also going to have produce and algaes on it. We are adding also carbon cycling. This is important. We need microbes to break down those residues, break down parts of your organic matter to get at those nutrients. And that’s what that carbon cycling piece looks at. We look at nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and sulfur cycling. We’re looking at all of the microbes that are in your soil that are transforming those nutrients into forms that are available for the crop. And in the case of nitrogen, we’re also looking at, to some extent, those detrimental organisms that are going to cause nitrogen losses, nitrification, denitrification.
[00:10:16] Elizabeth French:
That is all biological activity. We’re looking at those organisms. All of those metrics that I mentioned are given to you on a one to 100 scale. You get an idea of whether you’re at the low, medium, high levels of those. And then we make some general agronomic recommendations based around fertility management, cultural practices that you can use as well as biological products that might be a good fit for your operation based on your levels of soil biology.
[00:10:45] Mike Howell:
Let’s assume I sent a sample in and you send me a report that says my biology is very low. I have basically no microorganisms in my soil at all. What can I do to build these levels up and get a healthier soil?
[00:10:56] Elizabeth French:
Great question. Overall, the weather is labeled sustainability or regenerative agriculture or soil health practices. Anything in that realm is going to build up your soil biology, minimizing tillage, implementing any organic amendments that you can add, manure, compost, any of those, cover cropping, all of those things are going to be your foundation for building up your overall soil health and your levels of soil biology. On top of that, we do see that there are products out there that can help feed your soil biology as well. It’s sort of a shorter term boost. You really do need to develop the environment to be able to build that up, but there are modes of action and biological products out there that can help you to build up your soil health over time as well.
[00:11:47] Mike Howell:
Well, Elizabeth, I know I’ve learned a lot from our conversation here today, just trying to dig into soil health and all the microorganisms that are involved in it. Is there anything that we’ve missed today or any closing comments you want to leave our listeners with before we wrap up?
[00:12:00] Elizabeth French:
I would just say just to wrap it up that I realize this is a new type of testing. It’s a new type of data that maybe folks aren’t as used to thinking about, but it is a really helpful thing to have that full holistic view of what’s going on in your soil so you can make the best decisions for the long-term. Whether you’re thinking about it from a soil health perspective and keeping that soil productive long-term, or whether you’re thinking about it for this year, how can I be the most efficient with the fertility that I’m applying? Having an understanding of, do I have that soil biology that’s going to help make those nutrients available? Do I have a high potential to lose the nutrients that I’m putting out on my soil? That can be really helpful as you’re thinking about those fertility decisions.
[00:12:47] Mike Howell:
Well, in today’s economy, we want to make sure that we’re able to use every nutrient that we apply. And if we have nutrients in the soil, we want to be able to take full advantage of those.
[00:12:55] Elizabeth French:
Absolutely.
[00:12:56] Mike Howell:
I encourage everybody to take advantage of these new procedures that you have in your lab. Elizabeth, if somebody’s new to this and needs to find out more information, where could they go to find out more information about this?
[00:13:06] Elizabeth French:
They can go to our website, waypointanalytical.com. We have a whole section for soil biology, or they can email us at soilbiology@waypointanalytical.com and we’ll answer any questions folks have.
[00:13:18] Mike Howell:
Well, Elizabeth, we really appreciate you taking time out of your schedule to visit with us today. Listeners, we appreciate you tuning in, and if you’ll hang around for just a few moments, we’ll be right back with segment two. Farming isn’t farming without questions, and now there’s a place to go for answers. At economics, 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. Listeners, welcome back for segment two, where we’re going to do our ask an agronomist question of the week. Today, we’ve got Dr. Karl Wyant, director of agronomy with Nutrien. Karl, welcome back to the studio today.
[00:14:02] Karl Wyant:
Hi, thank you for having me.
[00:14:03] Mike Howell:
Karl, today’s question is about potassium. We all know that potassium plays an important part for yield, but how does potassium impact crop quality?
[00:14:11] Karl Wyant:
Potassium is one of your big three macronutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus, and then potassium. Got to make sure that’s in the nutrient management plan for the year. And we also know that it does give you a productivity boost on your field. What we don’t often talk about though is the impact on crop quality. When you think of crop quality, think of how sweet the fruit is that you’re eating. Think of how big the kernel size is, say in a corn cob. We can link this back to potassium because we know potassium helps transport sugars and carbohydrates from the plant into the harvested product, and that plays a big role in the crop quality at the end of the season.
[00:14:49] Mike Howell:
Carl, we really appreciate you joining us today. Listeners, thank you for tuning in. As always, if you have questions about anything we’ve talked about today, you can visit our website, that’s nutrien-ekonomics.com. Until next time, this is Mike Howell with The Dirt. Hey guys, if you like what you heard today, do us a favor and share this podcast with someone else. It could be your neighbor, your friend, your crop advisor, or whoever you think would enjoy it. Your support helps ensure future episodes. So please like, subscribe, share, and rate the show wherever you’re listening from.
