Episode 27: Grower’s Guide: Phosphorus and Potassium Management

The Dirt with me, Mike Howell, an economics 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 to the Dirt. We’ve got another great episode coming to you today. We have Dr. Antonio Mallarino, and Dr. Alan Blaylock. They’re going to be talking with us today about some P and K recommendations. We know it’s getting into fall and right in the middle of harvest season now.

(00:56)
Everybody is getting excited about this harvest. As soon as harvest is over, everybody will be looking to start making some applications. We want to remind you to get those soil tests done. Make sure we know what’s been taken out of these fields and what your fields actually need before you start making these applications. Today, we’re going to talk a little bit about some P and K recommendations. Before we get into it, I’m going to ask each of our guests to introduce themselves a little bit. First, Dr. Mallarino, if you would, let everybody know who you are and what you’re doing.

Okay. I am now Professor Emeritus because I’m retired since last December, but I’m still working as usual. So I was research and extension specialist at the Department of Agronomy, and I started in 1993. So I went all the way from assistant professor to emeritus now, and I have been … my work focus is mostly on P, K, lime, micronutrients, anything except nitrogen.

Okay.

That was my emphasis.

Okay. Well, Dr. Mallarino, we appreciate you taking a day off of retirement and coming and visiting with us. I know you don’t retire very easily. You’re still working, I think you did several talks yesterday. Our next guest is Dr. Alan Blaylock. Now he is no stranger to the Dirt. Alan has been on multiple times with us. Alan, for those who are just tuning in for the first time today, if you would remind everybody who you are and what you do.

Yes, Mike. So I’m senior agronomist with Nutrien, the wholesale part of our company. I’m based out of Colorado, and one of my primary responsibilities is to cover a lot of the Western US, although I get over into the corn belt quite a bit, I’m also an Iowa State alum. Antonio and I kind of overlapped in our graduate work back in … a long time ago.

Don’t say.

So, I’ve known Antonio for many years and we’ve associated through a variety of professional activities over the last several decades. So good friends, good colleagues over that time.

Well, I was going to add up how many years experience we had sitting here at the table today, but I think we’ll not pull the calculator out today. We just say we have a lot of experience here to talk about P and K recommendations. Now, Alan, I know you travel all over the world really and do presentations everywhere. Before we get into P and K recommendations, I’ve got an off-the-wall question for you, what’s the biggest crowd you’ve ever spoken to?

Live or via webcast?

A live crowd.

Live audience. I’ve probably spoken to audiences in excess of a thousand.

Okay, well that’s a pretty good crowd, but don’t get nervous or anything. But I’m told we’re going to have 300,000 people here today and we’re projecting out here to everybody. So you’ve got a 300,000 crowd audience today. You can add that to your resume.

That’s awesome.

Well guys, let’s go ahead and get started. Dr. Mallarino, the reason we ask you on today is I saw a recent publication that you did right before you retired. It was entitled Newly Updated P and K Guidelines. Now, in this publication you identified some reasons why the recommendations needed to be updated, so let’s get started off. What were the main reasons for the change to these guidelines?

Well, part of my work was interpretation of soil tests and fertilizer recommendations for Iowa State. And in this area of research, you need to be doing continued research because things changed, the high breeds changed, the climate change, the monitoring changed. So we have this publication started to be published I believe in the middle 80s and every five, six years we do an update. So in fact, since I started to work in Iowa State as a professor in ’93, we have updated it about four times. So the last one was in 2013 and since then, until 2020, I may have about 200 field trials for P, another 200 for K, looking at all kind of things.

(04:48)
Placement methods, rates, but also, soil test calibration. So when data started to accumulate and I saw a few things that have to be updated, that’s why we made the update last year.

Okay. Alan, is this the same as in some other areas? I think maybe some other states are reviewing their data as well, maybe some other state is making updates as well.

Yes. I think we’re seeing a renewed interest in updating some of these recommendations. I think Dr. Mallarino has done a pretty good job in comparison to maybe some of our other institutions. And it’s a challenge because oftentimes we don’t have a lot of research dollars allocated to these updates and doing the trials that are necessary to update those recommendations. So, we see sometimes changes in management and changes in varieties, and these things that Antonio mentioned are happening faster than sometimes we’re able to keep up with those recommendations.

(05:44)
But I have seen a renewed interest from a number of our land-grant institutions in trying to bring those recommendations current and there are some national efforts, and programs being established to help support that activity, and bring all of the trial data into updating these recommendations. So it’s a really important activity because these fertilizer recommendations are a key piece in the farmer’s profitability equation.

Okay. Well, Dr. Mallarino, what actually changed in the recommendations this year?

Okay, even though I work a lot in soil testing, I never was a lab mouse. You see, I was a fertility guy with dirty boots in the field, and one of the reasons that I had been able to do all this research is see, I’m known for the maniac of number of trials on farmer fields and so forth, is because of the support. Mainly, I truly appreciate the help over many years by the Iowa Soybean Association. And there are many industries you see like PCS, Agrium before nutrient and even seed companies like Monsanto before Bayer now, and Pioneer, things like that. And then, the institutions such as the now defunct IPNI, that was close two, three years ago in what I believe was the worst mistake the fertilizer companies have made.

(07:04)
So all those things helped me keep up to date and then, seeing that some things needed to change. So in summary, there are three main reasons. One is that, as I said, we do these response trials continuously because things change. So I noticed that some things have to be changed. For example, the phosphorus salt interpretation had to be increased a little bit. We are recommending to maintain a bit higher levels than before, potassium also. And by the way, since I started working in ’93, we updated four times the potassium levels, every time going up, all the way. That’s what the research shows you see. So that’s part of it, but when we look at the comparison of all these four-handed trials over the last … since 2013, and the previous one.

(08:00)
That’s a reason, but not that much. You see there is a need to increase. You see the Iowa State philosophy for recommendation for P and K has been that P and K are the basis of production. Yeah, nitrogen is important, but P and K should be there. And then, we are blessed with the soils we have in Iowa here, much of the humid convert, that if you apply a little bit more P or K that you need, I mean, it’s not a waste. It will be there next year because of these residual effects that we call. So our philosophy has always been to clearly define what we call the interpretation categories, the very long and low, the medium optimal, things like that.

(08:45)
And we are one of the few universities that very clearly in our publications, explain what the heck those things mean. What is very low? What is low, what is optimal? How do you define the range of soil test values that you recommend to maintain based on removal? So we have been doing that very well since the early 90s. So we base these limits, these interpretations, the boundaries based on the probability of responses. So then when I was looking at our interpretations that we had from 2013 and looking at the new data, I saw that we needed some adjustments because we define, “Okay, the very low, we should have at least a probability of 80% response or higher, in the low 65.”

(09:33)
In the optimum, in some states they call it medium, which is the range that we recommend to maintain for long-term profitability, about 25% or less. And then, the high 5% and so forth. Okay, so I had to, we had to, we were four or five that work in the publication. I had to update that and the indication one that we needed to increase a bit, those PPM. So that’s the first reason, but there are two other reasons which may be actually more important. One is that I have been doing so much soil sampling, research grid sampling, zone sampling, all that stuff, soil testing. I have been representing Iowa State in the NCI 13, the central region committee and the nationals and all these things.

(10:20)
And I know better than anybody. Soil test sampling and testing is good. It’s a good tool, but by no means it’s perfect. That is lots of variability out there, especially variability with spatial variability, small scale and large scale. And also, with death. You see some people don’t sample always, the six inches I would say. Maybe seven, maybe four, who knows? So I noticed that the range, the category that we recommend apply removal based rates that optimum, that it was too narrow. For example, for phosphorous Bray or Mehlich-3 was four parts per million. And that has been bothering me for long because four parts per million. I mean, that’s the variability that you get even in the labs, it is too much.

(11:10)
So even if you do grid sampling 2.5 acres, and taking 10, 12 cores per sample that nobody does, they take just four or five. I mean there is too much error. And one of the main philosophies of the state is that if we’re going to make a mistake with our recommendations is that we are recommending too much, not too little. For example, what we recommend for the very low and low categories is to maximize yield, it’s not to get the maximum economic yield because you really don’t know one year before what the heck the prices will be. And even people that rent or subcontracts, as long as they know that they will have that field next year or the other one, they should not make the mistake of applying too little P or K in those load testings.

(12:01)
Then in the removal, it’s okay. You see there is more flexibility in the removal category in that optimum, but it was too narrow. So the main change actually was the border between the optimum and the high that was made wider. So now, it’s about seven-eighths parts per million for P, for the Bray and the Mehlich-3 for potassium, I believe it’s like 12, 15 PPM. So that means most people wants to maintain what they have. They want to build up and then maintain. We feel more comfortable that we are … With our recommendation, we are not limiting yield, actually. You see. That’s the reason. So that’s one reason.

(12:44)
That was too narrow. We are not so perfect and often, we fight among state. We say 25 PPM, the other say 20 they say. That’s nothing. That’s we themed the spatial variability that we see out there. So that’s why. Now, the other reason, and some of my fellow researchers and soil testing, they don’t like too much when I say that, but I’m known for saying what I think and being honest. There is lots of bias and difference between laboratories, using a sample to one lab, using the same sample to another. You get a different number. So we have been working on that for many years. And I say we, because I was one of the ones that helped develop the NAPT, the North American Proficiency Testing program.

(13:32)
I don’t remember when. I think it was in the late 90s or something like that. So since then, now the NAPT has, I think, 160, 170 labs from the United States and Canada and Mexico and other places. Things have improved. You see, when you look at all the samples that they get and you look at the distribution, the deviation, things like that, there has been an improvement. There is not so much why differences before, but it still is there. I’m sorry, I know that, because I’ve sent samples, the same sample, mixed ground, exactly same, and I send to a different lab and in the Bray, we may get … some may get 15 and the other may get 25 or 20.

(14:16)
I mean, it is important, the bias, and I believe that sometimes we want to … not to show that too much in soil testing. We want to put that under the rug because hey, we worked 20 years in the NAPT and the other proficient testing, the ALP, many labs joined there and the state certification programs, things like that. So how can this guy now come and say that there is too much bias, too much difference? Well, there is. So we need to recognize that. So because of that, I recognize that. So that’s why I decided to make … we decided, I convinced two or three guys in Iowa State to follow me, to make that thing wider, that range wider.

(14:58)
And I feel good about it because now, I could retire in peace, that I have not been compromising the profitability of the yield levels of the farmers, because the farmers are spending lots of money in the great hybrids in the combines and the pickup trucks and the land and all these things. And then, when it comes to P and K and soil testing, sometimes they say … I tell them, “You should take soil samples every two years instead of every four year. Oh, I can’t afford that.” Yeah, but they can afford 40, $50 per acre in some snake oil that doesn’t do anything, but they don’t invest in soil testing. We need to recognize this difference.

(15:37)
So I believe that now, our recommendations reflect better what’s going on out there. And then, always about half of all my trial has been in research farms or in farmer fields. So I think they really represent what’s going on out there.

Well, Dr. Mallarino, you touched on a lot of different topics there and a lot of information. And I think you probably redid about probably 10 or 12 podcasts that we’ve done over the years. We’ve touched on a lot of topics there. But Alan, one of the things that Dr. Mallarino mentioned was that in his updates, I think he said all four of the updates, the K levels or the K response needs to increase, add more K in these recommendations. And that reminded me of a podcast that we did a few months ago where we talked about the levels are still showing less and less in the soil test. Do you think we may need to keep looking at this and increase those levels even more?

(16:30)
I mean, the levels in the soil are going down, the levels in the food is going down. Why are we increasing it in the soil and we can’t see the results in the plants?

Well, the last part of that question I think is …. some of that is a bit unknown, but when I look at soil test values, and I look a lot at something called the North American Soil Test Inventory, which was started a couple of decades ago by IPNI and has been continued in recent years, and that’s done every five years where they solicit samples from all the commercial laboratories and state laboratories that are willing to submit samples, and then they look at the trends in that soil test data. And for much of the corn belt, soil potassium continues to decline. Now, I think Iowa State, it’s leveled out and maybe starting to increase a little bit and it could be result of those improved recommendations.

(17:21)
But nonetheless, potassium is a nutrient that crops take up in pretty large quantities like corn is pretty similar to nitrogen, the total uptake amount. And so, it’s not something that we can ignore. The crop is removing a lot, and we’re often not applying amounts equal to what the crop is removing. Now, there’s certainly large reservoirs of potassium in many of our soils. Not all of it is crop available in any given year, of course, and the soil test is attempting to measure that. I guess nonetheless, what I’m getting to is I think potassium is sometimes not given as much attention as it needs, and you referenced potassium in the food. There was a paper published a couple of years ago that sampled a very large number of food products in the US.

(18:06)
This was stimulated by some study of blood samples of the US population just testing random blood samples and finding that an increasing percentage of the population has a disorder called hypokalemia, which just really means potassium deficiency in the blood that led them to go look at the foods. Are people getting potassium in their foods? And so, they tested a bunch of these food products and found that, lo and behold, the potassium content of a lot of our foods is decreasing, and they tested processed foods and fresh foods, and meat and dairy and all these different products.

(18:39)
And so then, they looked back to the soil test in Ontario said, “Well, wait a minute. Soil test potassium is declining as well. There seems to be a connection between soil test, fertilizer use, potassium in the food, and this potassium deficiency in the human population. So that’s a good indicator that maybe we need more attention on this potassium issue. So the work that Antonio has been doing with these potassium recommendations is not just about yield. Yes, it is about yield, but it’s also about food quality and human nutrition. The way we grow our crops can have a profound influence on human nutrition. And so making sure that the crops are adequately fertilized, that they have proper nutrition.

(19:25)
We don’t want excess of course, but adequate nutrition to grow the healthiest crop that we can, which translates again to human health and impacts our human health in a variety of ways. Good quality food is critical. And so, it’s about maintaining productivity and farmer profitability, but also, I think it’s connected to food quality. And it’s been something I’ve been watching in recent years, and especially with this paper being published, that kind of was a wake-up to me. I said, “Whoa, wait a minute, maybe this needs more attention.” And I think Antonio’s work is showing this, and I think other institutions are finding similar things as well.

Three, four years ago, I laughed with my doctor when he said, after some blood analysis, “You know you should take some potassium pills.” I said, “What? You know my work is, that’s great. I can just get a couple of granules of potash and eat every day.” Anyway, I just want to say that I agree 100% with what Alan said, but I would like to say a couple of things. One is that we need to be careful when one interprets those … so the summaries, because for example, in Iowa we have different worlds inside Iowa. So, if you look for example, the major parts of Iowa where manure is applied and most people apply according to the nitrogen needs of corn, which is okay.

(20:50)
So in many cases that means that there’s a huge build-up of phosphorus. And I have been working on phosphorus and water quality too. And we have fields in Iowa, let’s say … we say, okay, the optimum for corn and soybean is 25 parts per million, that we have 40, 50, 100, 200, 300 parts per million. You go to the Malvada Peninsula in the east, there may be a thousand, 2000. So actually, if there is a decrease there, that means good management of phosphorus. But in the same areas, I have found huge deficiency of potassium. Why? Because when you apply manure with some manures, some potassium was lost already, especially when they just put the poultry manure there in piles outside.

(21:35)
We need to be careful, you see? So some decrease in some areas is good if it is, I mean, in the right fields, but there are others that yes, I was worried. And all of us people are hesitant to change … I mean, there are some that are revolutionaries once in a while, but all of us start to change. And what’s happening in Iowa, I mean is that … and that has been my main fight with potassium over the last few years, is that they don’t recognize that corn in 10 years, we have 20, 30, 40 bushels more average yield, but they keep applying the same removal rate that they have been applying before. It just doesn’t make sense.

(22:23)
And then, in corn now, we have lots of people that harvest the corn stalks for ethanol. And when you remove grain and the corn stalks, you are increasing by at least twice, maybe three times the potassium removal. And people, don’t recognize that. So essentially, there is no magic guys. They have high yields, they have all these things, but if you don’t put what you should in order to maintain those rates, you are not going to do good management. It’s bad economics. It’s bad for the yield, it’s bad for the composition of the nutrients. And then, the other thing that happened with potassium, and every time … you see when people listen to me speaking in Iowa nearby states about potassium and … it seems that I were selling potassium.

(23:12)
And I say, listen, I have no stocks on the fertilizer companies, nothing, okay? But we have this issue with potassium. Soil testing for potassium is much more complicated than for phosphorus or pH or lime requirement, for example. There is uncertainty. In spite of all the work, there is more uncertainty there. And when you look at the agronomics of the potassium and interaction with other things, for example, if you have a phosphorus deficiency, yeah, you get yield loss, but the response of corn to the nitrogen applied is proportionally the same. Okay? If you had a phosphorous deficiency or not, the diseases in soybean, things like that, they’re about the same.

(23:58)
But with potassium, there is a huge interaction, and I was suspicious what old timers were saying that I never see good data, but now, I have the data. So it is very clear that if you have a potassium deficiency, that reduces the capacity of the corn to respond to the nitrogen that they are applying. Okay? It is not that you need to have very high potassium. Don’t risk a potassium deficiency because then all that nitrogen, plant to the corn is not producing yield. In soybean, I mean, you have a potassium deficiency, and I work with several plant pathologists about that. You get all the incidents, all these diseases, which I don’t have a clue. That’s why I work with plant pathologists, Cercospora, frog eye, all these things.

(24:46)
You get a huge increase in the incidents. So aphids, now, we are having a problem with aphids in soybean in Iowa. Now, maybe you have heard, the aphids are so smart that they see a potassium deficiency in soybean. That’s where they go, so when we are working with potassium, there are all these considerations that we need to apply. The other thing is phosphorus, for example, an excess of phosphorus not only make farmers lose money or profits, but creates problems in water quality. And then of course, we have EPA and the Department of Natural Resources on our back with regulation. We don’t want that. We want to be the best job that we can, but potassium is not an issue.

(25:32)
You can eat it. Actually, my doctor recommended for me. So there is risk on everything. Don’t be careful with excess phosphorus, but be careful with potassium. Hey, it’s not an environmental problem, and we have all these uncertainties in terms of the testing and the rates to apply, and we have all this interaction with other things that you have a potassium deficiency, you are shooting your toes because you are decreasing yield and the profitability of production in several ways due to several reasons.

Dr. Mallarino, that’s exactly my theory on a lot of things that the plants are deficient in potassium, you’re going to lose that yield. And you said, don’t take a risk on that. And I don’t take a risk. I try to never get hungry, because I don’t want to lose anything. I’ve worked hard to get this yield. So it’s the same theory. So Dr. Mallarino, we talked a lot about what did change in your recommendations. There’s also some things that didn’t change. If you want to highlight a few of the things that stayed the same over the recommendations?

Yes. When I started, I was working here as a postdoc and assistant scientist for four years before ’93. So I was working already in P and K. The first thing I noticed is that, it seems that the current interpretations are not right. I mean, I noticed that there were a few fields that were in the optimum according to the recommendation. We heard these huge responses there. So that’s where I start. The other was that in the early 90s, late 80s, it seems that no teal were going to be 100% all over Iowa and the north central region. Of course, it was not, but there was very, very little research in fertilizer placement and management for no teal.

(27:18)
And Alan knows that very well because he worked with a couple of groups that they were doing some research on that, but it wasn’t enough in my view. So I started with the help of the Soybean Association, Monsanto and Bioneer, BCS, all those. I started this major fertilizer placement research. So I’ve done all kind of experiments, hundreds with banding with the plant, the liquid, dry in-furrow, not in-furrow, starter, deep banding, banding in the fall, banding in the spring, all these things. And at about 10 years ago, essentially, I stopped most of task research. It was very expensive. I remember having all over Iowa with a deep band application because I also look at strip-teal know with or without the fertilizer.

(28:07)
That was huge expense. In spite of my ability to get funding, I was getting tired. And then, I was getting the same result. So I kept just a few experiments in five recent firms that we have P, K, rates, placement, broadcast, planter band, all the stuff just to keep studying. We had 44 years of systems comparisons. I closed them two, three years ago. So when we made the changes in the recommendations in 1999, there were major changes. One was introduction of the Olsen and the Mehlich-3. There were no interpretations for Olsen and Mehlich-3 in Iowa. But also, we introduced changes in the fertilizer placement recommendation because essentially there was none. And then … that was in ’99.

(28:54)
Then in 2013, we updated them again. Over the last … since 2013, all this additional research that I did, show that they didn’t change. So we did not change those. So we are blessed in Iowa. We are in a humid region. Yeah, once in a while we have a drought, but we have these great soils. They’re good organic matter. Roots can go deep. It’s not like some soils in Northern Missouri or in other places. So there is not really much crop response to the band application, except for starter once in a while. So that, we did not change that. We left as they were because I didn’t see any obvious reason. The other thing is that I forgot to say we also increase the recommended rates for the very low and low categories.

(29:48)
That’s because, we have higher yields, because I am convinced that farmers should not have deficiencies in those ranges. So we increase a bit the recommended rates for corn, soybean for the two-year rotation, for alfalfa, things like that. Now, I remember we did all these changes, it essentially means to put a bit more fertilizer that now, we have corn of 350 per bushel, but that’s not what research shows. But I believe that avoiding expenses in some things that are not needed, that could help. So I believe that that had to be done.

Well, that kind of leads me into my next question, Alan, we hear a lot of growers talking about reducing their P and K rates and their main reason for doing this is to cut expense when these fertilizer prices get really high. In your opinion, what are the concerns with this? Can we reduce these too much or is it possible to reduce these for a year or two?

Mike, that’s a question we hear a great deal, as you know, and I think I’m on the same page with Antonio with this, but I’ll give you my general philosophy. And that is that if the farmer has done a good job maintaining soil fertility, they’re in this optimum range or maybe even a little above. So Antonio talked about maybe put on a little bit extra and build that soil up. If they’ve done a good job of that, we can on occasion, when prices are high and maybe the cash flow isn’t so good, we can rely on what we’ve banked in the soil. That’s a term that sometimes use. We have this bank of nutrients in the soil that are there for the plant to extract.

(31:27)
And a lot of the soils, especially here in Iowa are pretty highly buffered. There’s a large reserve capacity that we can tap into. So if I don’t have good cash flow, for example, my costs are pretty high and I have to manage that, I may be able to cut back on my P and K for a year, maybe a couple of years, but be very cautious. As Antonio says, you don’t want to risk yield loss because of those nutrients. Now, if you have not done a good job maintaining soil fertility and you’re down in one of these lower categories that Antonio referenced, then you can’t really cut back without economic cost. You will suffer on the profitability because that affects yield.

(32:08)
Now, I think we all recognize that yield is one of the biggest components of that profitability equation. And farmers can do a number of different things to influence yield. There are a variety of practices. It’s fertility, it’s weed control, it’s a lot of those things. That’s something over which the farmer has some control. Not total control, because weather is still a factor, but fertility is a big part of that yield equation, and that’s something over which the farmer has control. So therefore, that’s a component, the profitability equation that the farmer can influence. He can’t change the weather. It’s not predictable, but he can adjust fertility practices.

(32:47)
So my philosophy on that is the farmer should not be skimping or cutting back on things that are going to have a direct impact on yield, because yield is so important to profitability. There may be other places you can save, and there may be things you can save on even infertility that maybe don’t have an immediate impact on yield, but over the long term could. I would not recommend to the farmer that he cut back on P and K for a number of consecutive years because that then starts to deplete the soil. Then you’re going to start suffering yield increases, and in order to bring that soil back to where you want it to be is going to be even more expensive, because it’s going to take more larger applications to get back to that fertility level that we want to maintain.

(33:33)
So there may be cases where … back to your direct question, where we can reduce those applications in the short term without suffering, if we’ve done a good job with soil fertility, but not if we have low testing soils, if we have not maintained soil fertility, that’s very difficult to cut back without directly impacting yield, and that’s not what you want to do because that starts to cut into profit. So that’s kind of my position on that. I like the idea of maintaining an adequate soil test. I don’t need access, but maintaining a kind of soil test that gives me that flexibility to use that bank when I need to.

Yeah, I agree 100%. That has been the Iowa State philosophy since the 50s, really. I have just continued that. See, it is very important. That’s why we define very clearly what do we mean by that category that we recommend reposition, application and removal. You see a 25% response. One year things are bad. You don’t apply anything or just go with a starter. It will be okay, but if you don’t, then you have to apply more next year or the following, but that’s the good thing that we have here in the north central region. We have this flexibility for P and K, which we don’t have in some other states. See, we have states in the south that are extremely acid with exchangeable aluminum, things like that.

(35:01)
Some soils that are developing the ash, volcanic ash or basalts in the west. I mean, there, people are afraid because seems that fixation, things like that because the soil is a black hole that will eat your fossil, your potash. Well, we don’t have that issue. So it’s not exactly a good bank, the soil, because it always charges you interest. For example, you lose something with runoff, things like that. But we have this capability of this flexibility on the application, we can apply every two years. We can apply for the rotation. If somebody wants to apply every year, that’s okay, but you don’t have to.

(35:46)
So all these things, I believe that that’s what we want. We don’t want excess, but we don’t risk. And then, you know what happened when things are bad with the farmers, the first thing that they cut is lime, which also is an issue. I mean, we have … in spite of all our work for so many years, still, I get samples of 5.2, 5.3. Nobody should have that. So that’s an issue, but they cut it. Then, they cut P and K. Now, they don’t cut nitrogen because in corn, you can see.

You can see the difference.

You can see the fight, and you can see the things you know. So they’re on cut, which actually some should cut. Anyway, that’s another story. Yes, I agree with Alan said very well. I do agree.

Well, gentlemen, I’m really enjoying our discussion today. I think we’re hitting on a lot of great topics, but our listeners can only digest so much at one time. So if it’s okay with you all, we’re going to stop this one here and we’ll pick back up next week. And listeners, we want to invite you to tune back in next week as we continue our discussion with Dr. Mallarino And Dr. Blaylock, talking more about P and K recommendations and how to make these applications correctly. We’re going to take a short break and come back here in a few minutes for segment two. Listeners, I hope you enjoyed the first segment of today’s show.

(37:01)
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.

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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. Listeners, welcome back to segment two. As you know, by now, we’re continuing our tour around North America, looking at different research farms. Today, we’re going to be traveling to the state of Colorado. We’re visiting with Dr. Eugene Kelly with Colorado State, and he is going to tell us a little bit about a research farm associated with Colorado State. Dr. Kelly, welcome to The Dirt.

Well, good morning, Mike. Thanks for having me. I’m looking forward to sharing information about the great state of Colorado with you.

Dr. Kelly, before we get into that, if you would, introduce yourself to our listeners and let them know what you do.

Sure. My name is Gene Kelly. I am a professor of pedology here at Colorado State University. I’m also the director of the Agricultural Experiment Station. I oversee the research for the CSU campus with the hedge monies and Max Dennis money that we get from the federal government and state match. I oversee all the … what we call the research center system, which consists of 11 production systems around the state. So I’ll talk broadly about that, but I am a CSU alum. I got my PhD at University of California Berkeley, and I’ve been at CSU for almost 30 years.

Dr. Kelly. I’m a soil scientist by training, and I know what pedology is, but some of our listeners may not know what pedology is.

That’s why I always say that, right? Because I want to be able to define it every time I say … if I say soil scientist, then that’s … it makes me like everybody else. Well, many of you might know pedology as the study of the origin and evolution of soils. And for many stakeholders, it’s really that group of people that do the soil mapping and soil survey. And we work a lot on the chemical, physical, and biological properties of soils. And I’ve spent most of my career doing that all over the world and more recently and kind of really grounded in the Great Plains and also, here in Colorado.

Well, Dr. Kelly, let’s dive in and talk a little bit about your experiment station system and tell us a little bit more about the experiment stations there in the state of Colorado.

Yeah, so we’re really blessed here in Colorado. We have obviously, the geography and biogeography quote-unquote is really different. In the eastern part of our states, we have the western portions of the very dry parts of the Great Plains, physiographic province. Most of our dry land weed is out there. We produce lots of livestock. And then, we have pockets of different types of production systems based on access to water. Then we have our mountain systems. And over on the Western slope, we have the iconic Nile of North America, the Colorado River Basin, the Grand Valley, and we have lots of activities over there. And then of course, down in the San Luis Valley, which is the highest dry valley in North America, these systems, we have 10 research centers all over the place.

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And they go everything from livestock production to horticultural crops. We do potatoes in the San Luis Valley. Western slope is all peaches, grapes, mostly perennial cropping systems. And then, we just open up our newest research center in Denver. We actually have an urban agricultural system that we opened up at a place called the Spur Campus, which is a new … it’s a educational facility for Colorado State University. And it’s the coolest one because it’s an ag experiment station centered in an urban area. It’s one of the few, right next to … just adjacent to the National Western Center, the National Western Stock Show down in Denver.

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So it’s a remarkable place to work because our experiment station system, if you squint your eyes, you think of Colorado. We have all these different pockets of different types of production systems, and yet, we not only address the local needs of farmers, for example, peach growers versus livestock people, versus people producing cantaloupes. But we also address the challenges that we face regionally and nationally in terms of climate change, water management, invasive species, cropping systems, regenerative agriculture and regenerative grazing, those types of things. So we address of those things at all of our research centers.

Well, Dr. Kelly, you’ve talked a lot about the diversity that’s associated with Colorado agriculture, and I guess I did not realize there was quite so much diversity out there, but if you would, talk a little bit about why these experiment stations are so important to the residents of Colorado and even beyond the borders.

Yeah, that’s a really good question. In terms of the system we have, they are in a sense distributed around the state and they’re affiliated with the central campus here in Fort Collins. And they really provide us access to our rural communities and stakeholders. They are geographically located in remote parts of the state. We really ratcheted up the technology at these places, in terms of connectivity and internet and being able to reach out to our stakeholders. We operate as an observatory. All of our sites act as one. And we are connected through data, human resources, fiscal resources.

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And they become very important because they really are here to the ground in terms of the agricultural communities. For example, over in the Western Slope with our peach crops or in our viticultural programs or potato crops down in the San Luis Valley. We really hear firsthand what the challenges are from all of our stakeholders. So what that allows us to do is to really address the specific needs of local stakeholders. And then, what we can do with our program is kind of reach out to partners in industry or in the federal government to get funding to address some of the challenges with, for example, pathogens in the San Luis Valley.

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And then, of course, over in Western Colorado now, we have our big challenges, the corn borer, knocking out our sweet corn crops. So we’re able to work directly with stakeholders. The good thing is that we’re doing more of what we call, co-creation. We’re actually doing a lot. Our sites themselves geographically and fiscally are small. They’re small to mid scale. They’re for research. We look at large scale production systems, but the only way we get to test everything is out with our farmers. So we work closely with farmers and we either lease land or we work out an agreement with a farmer to do production scale kind of research.

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So we try to do scale, we do plot scale, mid-scale, but also, large scale. And that’s … we’re trying to really design our research programs to meet the needs of the farmers. And by having these distributed throughout these communities, it really makes us connected to those communities. And that’s kind of our challenge. I think it’s a challenge nationally and also, how do we connect and make sure that the work we’re doing on campus is relevant and actually meets the needs of those. And that’s kind of my job. I mean, what I have to do is to sort of yeah, go chase those federal dollars and big grants and all that, but then, I got to turn around and I got to flip that into creating sound science that our stakeholders can actually use.

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And that, what I mean by actual use. I mean they are partners in what we do. We say, well, what do you guys really need? And we try to work collaboratively. We don’t like to do things one off, because we need long-term data. And then, at each of our research centers, we have advisory groups that are local. So those individuals provide us with valuable input. Sometimes we don’t want to hear it, but they are really great in that way. And so, we have a really good … we have great dialogue with our stakeholders and we feel like they’re invested in the university. And of course, we’re all invested in agriculture and the success of agriculture. It provides a huge economic engine in Colorado, and it’s a really, really important part of our culture and our fabric at the university.

Dr. Kelly, I really appreciate the way you answered that and your connection back to the producers. That’s what it’s all about. If we’re not generating information that’s going to apply back to their farm, we’re really missing the boat. And that’s what it’s all about.

Well, I think you’re right. We could use this carbon thing as an example, right? We always do … You go to these meetings and all these people say, “We need to do this and we need to do that.” And then I say, “Hold on. It’s not we, it’s them.” And so, we do a lot of them. We’re understand the conceptual act, but why aren’t farmers signing on to voluntary programs as well? Because they don’t trust us and they don’t trust the tools. And so, what we’re trying to do is we use, the adage here is we move at the speed of trust, right? So we make progress when we have trust with our stakeholders and our scientists too. Our scientists have to have trust. So this idea, moving at the speed of trust is one of the narratives that we use.

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And it really is relevant to the kind of work that we do here and again, to the diverse systems we have, I mean, you look at the livestock communities versus the small growers, all the organic farmers up in Paonia. And then, we have large scale wheat production in Eastern Colorado and down in Southwestern, Colorado, we’re really working with perennial cropping systems now because we have no water, so we got to figure out another option. So we’re really into … our big challenge is water, obviously, but we’re really into adapting or production systems to the needs of farmers, to the needs of the communities, but also, what the market is telling us. Again, it’s really about dialogue.

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And my partner and I to re-buff, we put it … people forget how big Colorado is, man. We go all over the place. So we put in miles and miles of road time, and it’s not the Zoom stuff. I mean, I appreciate this, but stakeholders want you in the field. They want you in those communities, and you got to be there. And I just return from the San Luis Valley on Thursday and Friday of this week, and I’m heading out to our organic production systems up near Paonia and Hotchkiss. So it’s what we do and it’s a pleasure to serve the people of Colorado and I am an advocate for agriculture in Colorado and also, nationally and globally.

Dr. Kelly, I can think of a lot worse places to get the windshield time that you’re getting these days, but-

Yeah, I kind of say that, and I can see that in your eyes. I’m sort of blessed that I get to do this. I really mean that in so many ways.

Dr. Kelly, I’ve visited numerous research farms across the country during my career, and everyone I go to always has something significant that they want to brag about and some significant findings that they’ve found at these research farms. I’m sure that’s the same in Colorado. Anything you want to focus on today?

We have so many different … like I said, in our diversity, that’s a part of our strength, right? I think one of the things that we’re really well-known for, obviously, Colorado is a livestock state. I mean, if you look at our systems and everything like that, we have industries or parts of the agricultural systems that support not only the grazing activities, feed lots that we work with and nutrition of animals, but also, the smaller production systems as well. So we work across that. And then, of course, most of our folks are producing some sort of a forage. So we’re trying to look at developing drought tolerance. So looking at forages that use less water.

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I mean, we got to get away from alfalfa. Let’s look at some of these other crops that we can use for livestock feed. The other thing that we do that we’re really good at Colorado is our wheat breeding program. One of the best in the world, quite frankly, and looking at drought tolerant species. And we’ve had amazing discoveries in terms of that, we’re able to sort of breed wheat to be drought tolerant. And of course now, when you look at the science, what we’re finding out is that when you breed something to be drought tolerant, starts becoming more vulnerable to disease, right? So what do you do with that? So I think one of our major flagship programs are breeding programs.

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And particularly with wheat, we have a great potato breeding program as well, or livestock programs. We have grazing. We have livestock nutrition. Our genetics are off the charts. We have a group called AgNext, I don’t know if you’ve heard of them before. Kim Stackhouse and her team, and they’re looking at methane emissions in different livestock systems. And that’s a new entity at our research centers. And she works up at the site in north of town. But really, trying to dive into this question of how can we have sustainable agricultural systems and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions?

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It’s not about sequestering. It’s about reducing our emissions is the key thing. So we focus a lot on that. And then, I think our newest … not our newest, but I think what we’re really pushing now is water, right? Colorado River Basin obviously is, like I said, it’s the canary in the coal mine in terms of the way in Colorado … I don’t want to get into it, the water policy and the way we manage water and access to water and access to technology. So we’re innovating with … we use quote-unquote precision tools. We’re not necessarily precision ag, but we use remote sensing. We use robots. We have drones. We’re applying all of our … a lot of our chemicals now with drones at the scale that we can work at.

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And they actually work pretty well. And then, the other thing that we’re doing, which is kind of way out there for the ag community is we’re adopting large language models to democratize agriculture. We want to create models that any farmer can ask a question in any language from any part in the state and get a valuable answer. And so, that’s a forward-thinking thing, but we use that word democratizing agriculture because it’s one of the things where a lot of people don’t have access to information. It depends on where they are in the state, how their internet connections are, how often do extension agents get down there.

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So we need to change that because we have less staff. So we need to figure out better ways to be able to talk to our farmers and communicate. And so, the idea of using the … I call it the promise of AI, and it freaks people out, but I take it very seriously. And what we’re looking for is safe AI use, but also, innovative AI use and accessible AI use, so that it’s not something that only the people in New York City or San Francisco are using. People in Akron and in Springfield and in Cortez are going to be using it. And we’re trying to integrate it into our agricultural system. So I’m really proud of our wheat breeding program, and the breeding programs are livestock work.

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And I’m also really, really proud of the work that our guys do in water management. We’re a drought state, so we’re in the drought network and we work at creating … we just received money from Senators Bennet and Hickenlooper to establish a framework for soil moisture monitoring. We’re using our ag research sites as the backbone for that, and then working along with the forest service and the NRCS and other conservation districts, and we’re going to wire the whole state. I tell people, what’s the largest reservoir of freshwater in Colorado? Do you know what that is, Mike?

I do not.

Soil.

Yep. Yep. Makes perfect sense.

Right? That’s the way we do things, right? It makes the largest reservoir of freshwater in Colorado, soil. So, we need to measure it better. We’re driving a car without a fuel gauge, right? So we need to know what’s in there. So we’re trying to change that, and our stakeholders are jumping on board. Our soil health program is really about water.

Well, Dr. Kelly, you touched on this several times in other questions, but the last question … and I’m asking this with all of my guests this year, we know the face of agriculture is changing. You’ve mentioned artificial intelligence and robotics. There’s all kind of new technology coming on board these days, and we’re also faced with urban sprawl. We’re losing more and more land, but to keep pace, agriculture is going to have to change and these farms are going to have to change with it. What do you see is your vision, where do you see the farms changing to keep up with the pace of agriculture over the next 50 years?

That’s a great question. And it’s one that we struggle with like everybody across the country. And so, this idea of we need the next generation of practitioners and farmers, and I forget what the average age is, like 68 or something like that, by now, the average age of farmers in Colorado, anyway. And so, we’re losing family farms. I mean, people are having trouble staying in the business. And I think one of the challenges we have is to create pathways and opportunities to do that. And that would be investments, some critical investments in rural communities. We need critical investments in capacity and training the next generation, I mean, a lot of the people that work in our programs are not from urban areas.

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And they’re not from farmers, but they’re very interested in it. So I think there are opportunities to integrate things like technology and attract a whole new population of people that are interested in food production and sustainable food production systems. So we’re working in recruiting a different group of students to come in and become the next agricultural practitioners. In terms of our farmers, what we really need to do is we need to just really stay engaged and listen. So what we’re doing now is this idea of the innovation or this idea of adoption of innovation. And if you think about it, agriculture is not bad at that.

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We’re pretty good at adopting new … I mean. I talked to these guys. You’ve been using AI for 30 years with your tractors and your GPSs, right? I mean, so this is not unheard of, but what I find is that the newer people coming into the business, we’re, like everybody else. I mean the numbers of farms are going down and they’re getting bigger. I mean, I get that. But I also, think at some point, we’re going to have to take a look at, do we have the right design in place? Maybe that’s not … I want to be really clear, I’m not saying that that’s a good thing, but if that’s the way things are going, we need to adjust to that. So we need to develop systems that are scaled appropriately for different types of, albeit, cropping systems, livestock systems, the way we manage water.

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And I think that’s the real challenge for us is really getting the right scale and then, making sure that we’re really looking at the entire system. And again, when we think of the system, we’re incorporating our communities into these systems, not just the wheat product or the production, or not just the potato production. It’s about how is it impacting the local communities and how can we sustain businesses. I mean, one of the problems we have is like we’ve lost a lot of our processing and then, that requires a lot more money to ship it all the way over to the front range of Colorado. So I think the future is … and we did some work on this national climate change roadmap, and I can send that to you at some point.

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But we did this whole thing. What we really find out is that we have to look at the system. It’s the entire system, the supply chain, everything. And that’s really going to take … We have really brilliant people on this planet, and I’m not convinced that we’re at any end point. I think we’re at the beginning and we just need to get all these really creative minds together and really rethink how we can retrofit our agricultural systems. And what I know I’m not guessing about this, is we need a substantial investment in infrastructure. And I mean everything from roads and trucks and tractors to irrigation systems to energy systems.

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I mean, this idea of agrivoltaics that works perfectly in Colorado, it’s the perfect system to use in our rangelands. We’re not light limited in Colorado, we’re water limited. So we’re a perfect place to be doing that kind of stuff. So that’s just an example, but I think this idea of new innovations, new technologies, and creating a new culture. Agriculture is humanity’s largest industry. Everybody in Colorado should be involved in agriculture, and we’re trying to make that conversation happen. Our city folks, they all know where this stuff comes from, and that Spur campus is actually a great place to be doing this right in the city.

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But it really is looking forward … and I’m more interested, I’m an old dude, right? So I worry about what’s going on on a day-to-day basis, but I’m more interested in what’s going to happen in 20, 30 years. And I think we need to keep thinking that way, and that’s what we’re responsible for at the Land Grant Institution. We’re supposed to be thinking long term, yet, meet the needs of local stakeholders and growers, and then bring in that next generation of people who can work with us, right, from all these different types of backgrounds.

Well, Dr. Kelly, we really appreciate you taking a few minutes to share your story about the research farms there in Colorado. We know we have to have these farms to make farmers more productive and people like you to keep these things going. Listeners, we appreciate you tuning in today. And as always, if you need more information on anything we’ve talked about today, you can visit our website. That’s nutrien-eKonomics.com. Until next time, this has been Mike Howell with The Dirt.