Crop Growth Regenerative Agriculture. The Way Forward.

Applications

• Orchards
• Vineyards
• Dry Land Crops
• Irrigated Crops

Your profitability is our success.

We’ve been doing things the same way for the past seventy years, and it’s worked—at least, until recently. Now, we’re seeing diminishing returns: the more pesticides we spray and fertilizers we use, the less effective they seem. And we’re aware that we’re running out of essential chemicals to sustain food security, especially with climate change intensifying.

The devil is truly in the details. Some might say that because yields are rising higher than ever before there is nothing wrong with the way we manage. However, I would argue that the reason for higher yields is because of improved genetics and not management. Genetics have changed more than management. The fact we prescribe fertility recommendations on the nutrient removal rate is crazy to us. This seems like it would benefit the fertilizer company more than the grower. The fact that less than 25% of farms soil test every year is also crazy to us. We know fertiliser is at best 30% efficient and very costly, why would you apply it blindly? And when test are done, they only look at chemistry?? When best practices are recommended by councils that are staffed with vested interests that’s when things begin to smell. And the whole thing wreaks to us. Again, lots of crazy, but that is for a whole other chat.

The external pressures on farm profitability has never been greater on farmers than today outside of the 1930’s. With ever increasing upward pressure on input costs and downward pressure on commodity prices, the successful farmers of the future either have to get really big and leverage economies of scale- with big bucks or they need to diversify.

Our approach combines elements from both traditional and modern agronomic practices. We aim to find a middle ground, developing strategies that utilize every available tool while also preserving and rewarding sustainable practices. This takes into account the system as a whole for a new way to think about crop production.

Think of crops like tractors. Tractors need water, air, spark, oil, and fuel to run efficiently. Similarly, plants need water infiltration, gas exchange, sunlight, carbon, and minerals to grow properly. Just like with a machine, how well a crop performs depends on getting the balance just right. Any of these factors can limit growth if over- or under-supplied. We all know what happens if you put diesel in a gas engine, forget to change the oil, or let the water pump fails—things go wrong fast and getting thing wrong brings down the whole machine. Similarly, the key to efficient crop growth is doing the right thing at the right time.

Plants and engines make a great analogy. Just as a weak spark causes misfires in an engine, cloudy days reduce a plant’s energy intake. So, applying a year’s worth of nitrogen to seedlings is like flooding the engine—it’s too much, too soon. Over-tilling the soil is like using low-viscosity oil; it “thins” the soil’s carbon reserves, suggesting that reduced tillage is often better. Using only synthetic fertilizers is like running an engine exclusively on high-octane fuel—it might work in the short term, but it impacts longevity. Plants and soil function like parts of an engine—together, they create something greater than the sum of their parts.

What to Expect

Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water.

Soluble fertilizers at high rates effect soil microbes ability to colonize roots. Plants need good colonization to protect from drought and disease. Soil microbes can build good soil structure for better water infiltration and gas exchange. So let’s limit how much soluble fertilizers we put down there.

Organically chelated or complexed synthetic fertilizers, applied to leaves, can correct for in season deficiencies more efficiently than purely organic forms of minerals. So let’s use efficient chemistry up there.

The combination of the old and the new encompassed in The Biological Method will help you build resilient soils for tomorrow while growing productive crops for today.

Change ain’t Easy

Reimagining ourselves as microbe farmers and deciding to spray minerals a little more than chemicals, helps to take the first steps towards regenerative practices and sustainable profitability.

The Biological Method, is a three-pronged approach that works by:

• Improving the biological properties of the soil
• Farming microbes that open up and mine nutrients from the soil while crowding out disease
• Boosting those biological processes with the right nutrients, in the right place, at the right time.

Visit our dedicated website to all things Agriculture for more information!