Plant Health Pyramid

Good evening friends welcome to our webinar on the four stages of plant health so the topic for our discussion tonight is the four different stages of plant health and this is based on the context of how we have observed plant help shifting and developing as we have worked with different growers and different types of environments growing many different types of crops we've observed this gradual evolution of plant Health where plants become resistant to different types of diseases and different types of insects based on the different physiological processes that are happening within plants I developed this

diagram that we call a plant health pyramid to kind of describe the transitions and the effects that we're observing in plants as plants become resistant to different groups of insects diseases and also very importantly what we can do about them as growers what we Can do as growers and farmers to develop additional levels of plant health within each of these levels the first level of plant health is when plants achieve complete photosynthesis by complete photosynthesis we mean that there are two things happening one is we see the total quantity of photosynthetic volume increasing in each

24 hour photo period sometimes by as much as 3 to 4 times or more where the the crude analog that we have for measuring photosynthetic Capacity which can be measured in the laboratory is measuring it with a refractometer in the field measuring Brix readings within the leaves and it's not uncommon to see plants that have levels of three to five bricks move up to being as high as 12 to 15 so it's not uncommon to see substantial increases in photosynthetic volume and increased photosynthate production in each 24 hour photo period but the second thing that

we mean when we speak about complete Photosynthesis is also the production of complete carbohydrates where we have low levels of non-reducing sugars in plants aptly much more complex carbohydrates and all the sugars being produced in each 24-hour photo period are rapidly transitioned to more complex carbohydrates that's what we mean when we speak about complete photosynthesis there is an increase in volume in quantity of photos and a production There's also an increase in quality where we have higher quality of carbohydrate production in each one of our photo period the second stage is similar to the first

in the second stage we now have complete protein synthesis and what is happening here inside the plant is that each day and each 24-hour photo period all the nitrogen that plants absorb in the form of ammonium nitrate urea or amino acids from the soil profile that nitrogen is quickly Converted to complete proteins and there is no presence of nitrate or ammonium remaining within the plant SAP the third stage is when plants develop a surplus of energy and they begin storing that surplus energy in the form of lipids plant fats and oils we see that when

we have really good biological activity in the soil profile it's possible to achieve increased lipid synthesis by as much as two to three times sometimes as much as four times within plant Structure and then the fourth level of the plant health pyramid is when plants begin producing elevated levels of plant secondary metabolites so all these are compounds such as final alex and terpenoids sesqui terpenes etc that plants produce as plant protectors to protect themselves from ultraviolet radiation from insect attack from disease attack etc using active immune pathways such as the ISR pathway and the SAR

pathway so in over the next 15 Minutes or so I'm going to describe what we observed happening at each of these four levels what is happening within the plant and from a physiological perspective how that contributes to disease and insect resistance and lastly what we can do as farmers growers and agronomist to facilitate the transition from one level to the next and also speak about the specific groups of diseases and insects that we observe plants becoming resistant to at each of These stages so the first level level one a plant health what we're observing is

that the volume of photosynthesis increases I alluded briefly to our capacity to measure this with a refractometer it's actually possible to measure photosynthetic capacity within a lab but based on conversations that I've had with many plant biochemists and plant physiologist there seems to be a growing consensus that what we have come to accept as common and as being normal As plants which are photosynthesizing at only about 20 to 25 percent of their inherent genetic capacity now there is the potential the capacity to have greatly increased photosynthetic volume and each 24 hour photo period when plants

are supported with the right nutrition and they have all the needed and necessary enzyme cofactors the the second piece in addition to the increase in photosynthetic volume is that we also observe an increase in photosynthetic Quality where we have a shift in the carbohydrate profile and by the way this is this is routine these shifts in carbohydrate profiles are it's common to observe different shifts we have this idea that the carbohydrate profile of a plant can be is fixed or as a steady state and we now know that but this is not the case that

in fact carbohydrate profiles can vary quite substantially we can observe it when we're doing forage analysis and we do actually look at Different carbohydrate profiles so it's possible for the carbohydrate profile of a plant and the sugars within the plant SAP to change quite dramatically and one of the places that we can observe this actually is through the effects of genetic modification one of the unintended consequences of genetic modification that we're just learning about learning to understand better is the shifted amino acid profile in carbohydrate profile that can be present In modified crops versus none

genetically modified crops that's a whole other conversation in and of itself so what we observed happening at level one once we have a plant that is photosynthesizing really well has high volumes of sugar production in each 24 hour photo period and has good quality carbohydrates then plants seem to become much more resistant to all of the soil borne fungal pathogens this would particularly Be the pathogens such as Rhizoctonia verticillium Pythium etc for cerium as well and also Phytophthora Phytophthora isn't technically a fungal pathogen being a news for but we also see an observed resistance to

by Toffler at this level there's a number of different explanations for possible mechanisms a couple different hypothesis about how this effect might be working but I think from my current understanding of soil biology and plant interactions and what Is happening in the plant microbiome in the rhizosphere the the foundational pathway to resistance of these soil borne fungal pathogens is the quality of the carbohydrate profile the ratios of reducing versus non reducing sugars like carbohydrates that are sent out through the root systems as root exudates determine the microbial profile in the rhizosphere and they can develop

either what is terminate disease suppressive or disease enhancing microbiome so we Understand that each plant has a group of symbiotic microorganisms bacteria and fungi etcetera it has a symbiotic relationship with what I have learned is that that microbial profile that plants have a quote unquote symbiotic relationship with can shift and change completely based on the quality of the carbohydrates and and other compounds not just carbohydrates but the quality of the in states that plants are sending out Through the root system as root exudates an example of this is the shift that has occurred in oats

in the this is a story that was relayed by Dan Hueber personal communication in the late forget the exact timeframe but I want to say the late sixties early seventies there was a major oat disease if I'm I'm just recalling from personal conversation I want to say it was called silver leaf blight or gray leaf blight perhaps was gray leaf blight fairly cold and this Disease caused the loss of most of the North American oats crop for several consecutive years very devastating disease breeders were very actively working to develop resistance and when they eventually achieved

a strain of oats that were resistant to resistant to gray leaf mold that strain was adopted across all of the North American continent very very quickly prior to the development of this resistant strain oats had what was referred to as a Disease enhancing microbiome in the rhizosphere they had it oxidizing they had a microbial population in the rhizosphere that had an oxidizing effect on soil minerals and many of the biology in the rhizosphere had the effect of leaving oxidized minerals and oxidized anions behind them and as a result of their microbial processes after the development

of the new strain the new strain produced much higher concentrations of glucosinolates Which gave them increased resistance to this grey leaf mold and at the same time the microbiome also changed completely and it switched from being a disease enhancing microbiome to being a disease suppressive microbiome where now the biology and the bacteria all had the effect of reducing Treisman and reducing anions behind them as a result of microbial processes from that experience and from other stories as well other examples that we've observed And learned about it's possible for a plant's microbiome and the symbiotic microbial

community in the rhizosphere to shift completely based on the quality of photosynthate being sent out through the root system this is the one of the and my understanding today this is one of the foundational hypothesis for how plants can become resistant to these various soil borne fungal pathogens based on the quality of photosynthate is being produced and sent out through the Root systems to achieve this level de-spawn Dacian level of plant health we need to address these five minerals we need to have adequate levels of magnesium iron manganese nitrogen and phosphorus each of these the

first four are directly involved in the photosynthesis process magnesium and nitrogen are a part of the chlorophyll molecule and we can substantially increase chlorophyll levels within the chloroplasts of leaves iron is not a Part of chlorophyll but it's needed to put chlorophyll together manganese is also not a part of chlorophyll but manganese is the foundational enzyme cofactor that is needed for water hydrolysis so if you have a plant that has an optimal environment optimal sunshine adequate water a generous supply of carbon dioxide the photosynthesis should be at a very high level all the nutrition nutritional

support and everything is present if Manganese isn't present adequate supply photosynthesis will still be blocked because the first step in the photosynthesis process is when plants absorb water that water molecule needs to be split from h2o into H and O H this process is called water hydrolysis water hydrolysis is completely dependent on manganese so even if we have everything else being optimal and ideal the plants don't have adequate manganese water hydrolysis won't happen and you will Have limited photosynthesis in our observation our experience across most of the North American continent and for most crops unless

growers are addressing iron and manganese crops will have functional deficiencies of iron and manganese even in cases where soil analysis show that we have high levels of iron and tissue analysis show that we have high levels of iron consistently staff analysis will show low iron levels and plants respond Very strongly to iron applications because much of the iron that is present in the soil profile that showing up on tissue analysis is iron in a form that is not physiologically active it's present but it's not active and thus we see very strong crop responses both health

responses and increased photosynthesis responses from applications of reduced iron that is chelated so that it remains in the reduced form and the same what I just Described for iron also holds true for manganese phosphorus is has historically not been thought to be a part of the photosynthesis process there's some new research emerging which suggests we may need to revisit that but what we have observed is when we address these other four minerals and we get a tremendous upsurge in photosynthetic production that can mean that the plant now has to metabolize a lot more sugars which

can put a much greater strain on the Phosphorus supply since plants need phosphorous can metabolize photosynthate as ATP so there is a greater demand for adenosine triphosphate when we have this tremendous increase in sugar production so the important thing is that I'm not suggesting you need to add each of these five elements I'm suggesting you need to make sure that plants have enough that your crop has enough so if any of these elements is going to be in limited supply it will directly lead to a Reduction photosynthesis and a reduction in sugar production and an

increase of this susceptibility to all the pathogens at this level one of plant health and everything that is above it everything that happens above this level 1 2 3 & 4 are all dependent on level 1 functioning and photosynthesis functioning within the plant as it is intended to do it without photosynthesis working none of the other levels of plant health are Going to achieve their greatest potential so we look at level 2 of the plant health pyramid what we observe happening here is in each 24 hour photo period plants are rapidly converting all of the

nitrogen that they absorb in its various forms from the soil profile and converting it to amino acids and peptides and complete proteins on a sap analysis we measure nitrate and ammonium levels within the plant SAP and our objective is to observe nitrate and Ammonium levels be at zero and the plant to have an abundant level of total nitrogen this is very easy to achieve and it will lead to very strong resistance to some of these soluble some of the insects which have simpler digestive systems that are dependent on these nitrogen sources as to develop their

own proteins so at level 2 plants become resistant to a lot of the insects which has simple digesting system this is particularly all the larval of Sucking insects so European corn borer tomato hornworm corn earworm cabbage loopers aphids leaf hoppers etc there's a lot much longer list of insects than we're able to list here but essentially all of the larval insects we find that they are dependent on plants having soluble levels of nitrates as a source of protein for them to develop their own proteins that is what their digestive system is capable of handling and

consuming and similarly a slight sidebar To level 2 we observe that plants also coordinate level 2 plants which have high level of ammonium are susceptible to spider mites and thrips so it's possible to when we get ammonium levels down to zero it's possible to achieve resistance to spider mites and thrips in a dish in addition to what we have listed here so the spider mites and thrips aren't necessarily attracted to plants in high temperatures they're attracted to the Ammonium levels that show up when plants are being grown in high temperatures and switch from photosynthesis to

photorespiration to achieve level two of plant health we find that there are a group of four minerals for nutrients that we need to address and make sure that plants have enough of the first three are magnesium sulfur and molybdenum we find that when we address those three when observing a plant staff analysis report it's possible to get Nitrate levels to zero and have a generous supply of total nitrogen within the plant SAP when we have the presence of adequate magnesium salt for a molybdenum if we have adequate levels of two of them but the third

is low we will not we do not observe this effect so if we have adequate magnesium and molybdenum but sulphur remains low then we will still have high levels of nitrates showing up in the plant SAP the fourth element that we've added to this List is boron boron is not in our understanding is not an essential enzyme cofactor for converting the various forms of nitrogen on the nitrogen metabolism pathway and protein metabolism pathway but it does seem to contribute very substantially to increase pest resistance and insect resistance so we find that when we add these

four elements together into a foliar application we get a very strong insect resistance response and in fact We could even say that many times particularly for all the larval insects that I mentioned we often will see a very strong insect resistance effect that manifests in 24 to 48 hours and what often after application within 24 to 48 hours the client the insects are completely gone well that they're still present but they are dead it doesn't happen all the time but it happens often enough and consistently enough that it's worth Talking about and this is a

result of the plants biochemistry and protein profile completely changing and we're essentially removing the food source for the insects that are present so when you think about these first two levels of health on the plant health pyramid what I've described are essentially chemistry solutions that if we apply this group of nutrients we can shift plant health very substantially within this overall pyramid but this conversation changes When we get to level 3 level 3 is when plants begin increasing their lipid levels so we will always plants always have a foundational baseline level of lipids because they're

needed to form the cell membranes and the dual phospholipid cell membrane so when you look at most plants there's variations from crop to crop but many crops will have a baseline lipid concentration the neighborhood of about one and a half to one and three-quarter percent sometimes As high as 2 percent or brassicas and other crops that have a higher oil content when plants become really healthy these levels can increase to as much as 4% and 5% are relatively easy to obtain and even as high as 6% fat content on a dry matter basis is relatively

easy to achieve these increased lipid levels within plants can be observed in the field when we have this glassy waxy sheen on the lead surface as a result of strong biology in The rhizosphere in the microbiome so level 1 and level 2 of plant health can be achieved by making certain that we have the correct nutrients and the correct mineral attrition level 3 and level 4 require very strong biology we don't observe these increased levels of lipid synthesis and plants that can our metabolite synthesis in a hydroponic situation or when we have soils that have

a dysfunctional biology in the rhizosphere at level 3 to Achieve level 3 it is required if that plants begin absorbing the majority of their nutrition in the form of microbial metabolites so let me give you an example of what this means for the plant in terms of energy efficiency when a corn plant absorbs 80% of its nitrate nitrogen requirement in the form of nitrate it requires 16 percent of his total photosynthetic energy in every 24 hour period just to convert nitrates to amino acids so that's a tremendous Energy drain on the plant because it's now

consuming a lot of photosynthetic production just for nitrogen metabolism and nitrogen conversion and nitrate is the form of nitrogen which requires the greatest amount of energy for plants to convert on one hand on the other hand plants can also absorb amino acids which are a result of bacterial activity and microbial activity in the rhizosphere so when plants absorb amino acids they require none of that energy consumption To convert to amino acids because they're already in amino acid form in fact not only do they not require any energy for the conversion process but they actually contribute

energy to plant growth and development so on one hand we have a form of nitrogen which consumes a lot of energy and the other hand we have a microbial metabolites which contributes energy and adds energy to a plant and this is the difference between plants which are very energy efficient And store higher levels of lipids and those that don't have a surplus of energy so there's a lot more behind this and what is happening in plants as well but that's the foundational it's the equivalent of the plant being able to use prefabricated parts when plants

begin absorbing amino acids and organic acids directly from the slow profile we now know that plants have the capacity to absorb molecules from the soil profile up to a molecular weight of About a thousand so we're speaking about very relatively large complex compounds that they can absorb enzymes and proteins from the soil profile as well as amino acids and peptides and a broad range of different compounds when plants begin absorbing these microbial metabolites they now are absorbing the equivalent of prefabricated parts that allows them to be very energy efficient and then they begin storing that

surplus energy in the form of lipids and fats And oils what we observe in the field as though implants have higher levels elevated levels of these fats and oils they develop an increased resistance to all the airborne fungal and bacterial pathogens this includes downy and powdery mildew late blight fire blight angular leaf spot bacterial spec bacterial spot rusts and kind of all of these different organisms that land on the leaf surface and release a what is termed a Peck the lytic enzyme I see it's spelled incorrectly on on the slide but a Peck oolitic enzyme

is an enzyme that is intended to break down pectin in the cell membranes and allow the bacterial or fungal pathogen to invade the cell and use the cell nutrients as an energy source and which consequently leads to an infection it seems there are a couple of possible mechanisms occurring here one of them being that we have such an increased layer of waxes and oils on the leaf Surface combined with an increased density lipid layer in the cell membrane that we actually have a shield effect and prevent the enzymes the pec lytic enzymes from accessing and

connecting with detectives in the first place in addition we've also observed that when we have these high levels of fats and oils and lipids within the plant there seems to be a an analog with increased calcium absorption and increased silicon Absorption and we know that when we have increased calcium levels in the cell membranes calcium also these calcium high levels of calcium also had the effect of neutralizing the paralytic enzymes and preventing an infection and we also observe increased silicon levels which also have the effect of significantly and substantially increasing cell membrane strength so it

could be a combination of all those three factors or other perhaps as yet Factors that we aren't aware of that are leading to some of the resistance to these airborne fungal and bacterial pathogens when we have increased lipid levels this of course leads us to the actions that we can take what we can actually do plants need to have a very aggressive microbial community in the rhizosphere and they need to begin absorbing the majority of their nutrition in the form of microbial metabolites we observe that Level four when we have increased clients secondary metabolite synthesis

this can often occur in the field we put together this pyramid in four distinct stages to describe what is happening within plant physiology and how that correlates to different types of disease and insect resistance but of course there aren't any neat boundaries and neat lines in nature and in natural systems and from a management of pest management perspective was observed that It's fairly common for level 1 and level 2 to occur in about the same timeframe so level 1 and level 2 can happen concurrently with each other almost let's say we have a plant that

is susceptible to both the pest and level 1 and level 2 it's possible to supply any nutrients that are missing let's say with a foliar application and to observe plants shifting through level 1 and level 2 of plant health within a matter of 24 to 48 hours so it's possible to See that to see both level 1 and level 2 of resistance almost concurrently they happen at about the same time and we see a similar effect with level 3 and level 4 once we have really strong microbiology producing a lot of microbial metabolites and plants

begin absorbing them level 3 and level 4 can almost happen concurrently we don't see this throughout the entire measurement so there's this gap there's this shift Between level 2 and level 3 halfway through the pyramid so it's very uncommon for us to observe level 2 happening at the same time as level 3 it has happened occasionally but it's usually there's a much clearer boundary between the lower two levels and the upper two levels the point that I wanted to mention those that at this stage that we often see level 3 and level 4 happening concurrently

or very close together The plant moves through these these two stages relatively quickly when plants begin producing elevated levels of these plants secondary metabolites these are compounds that in plain English we referred to as essential oils they are vital Alex ins bioflavonoids terpenoids all various compounds that plants produce to protect themselves from ultraviolet radiation from overgrazing disease and insect attack etc and many of these compounds have incredibly Potent antibacterial and antifungal properties and they are the plant's protection mechanisms in the co-evolutionary arms race at level 4 what we are observing is that the plant's immune

pathways there's two different immune pathways thus our pathway which represents systemic acquired resistance and the is our pathway which stands for induced systemic resistance both of these immune pathways and one of them mediated by Just monic acid the second by salicylic acid so both of these pathways can be triggered by biology in the plants microbiome both on the leaf surface as well as in the rhizosphere and and they can also be triggered by applications of some immune triggers so for example one of the products that is now being recognized for having this effect has been

registered as such as regalia Japanese knotweed extract which basically triggers a plant's immune Response and immune pathways and it's essentially the the equivalent you can think of it almost as being a vaccination for plants which triggers their immune responses and keeps them elevated at much higher levels which is going to give them a much greater degree of resistance to many different diseases and insects and the important piece to consider is that these immune pathways are intended to constantly be stimulated by symbiotic beneficial microorganisms In the rhizosphere and the phyllo sphere and it's possible to have

these immune pathways functioning at much higher levels then what we've come to accept as being common or as being normal if we simply begin managing plants differently and managing biology a little bit differently what we've observed that at level 4 plants become resistant to the beetle family Japanese beetles marmorated stink bugs Colorado beetles Cucumber beetles squash bugs etc and also at this stage we see that they become resistant to nematodes root-knot nematodes which I see is also misspelled on the slide and then there's a note here about viruses is it possible for plants to become

resistant to viruses I'm not an expert on viruses and I'm not a geneticist it's not my understanding that plants are ability to actively resist viruses however what we've observed is that when plants get to this Level of plant health it seems a viral expression becomes dormant where we have had plans that where the presence of a virus was known and observed and testable but there were no physiological effects that had been there historically we've observed this with a number of different variety of viruses and potatoes and tomatoes and in a number of different crops so

we don't fully understand the mechanism or how this is working or if this is Something that is repeatable on scale but we have observed some interesting effects that I'm hoping to learn more about in the future so what is required at level 4 in order for plans to get to level 4 plant health is for plans to have the necessary of the correct microbes the disease suppressive microbes in the microbiome both on the final sphere and the rhizosphere to trigger this immune response and this is one of the tools that we speak about a Lot

we use a lot of foliar applications of micro 5000 and soil applications of spectrum microbials because they contain some of the bacteria that are known to trigger these immune reactions and trigger SAR and is our pathways and we also there are a number of different ingredients that are known to trigger these pathways as well kato-san and chitin applications for example are known to trigger these pathways as well as seaweed applications some types of Fulvic acid etc there's there's different types of organic and naturally occurring materials that can produce these types of immune triggering effects so

I'm going to switch to QA but each of you will receive weave in addition to this these slides that we put together in the video which will be posted online we've also put together an infographic that describes all these different pieces that we're observing at the various levels of how to manage them so You receive an email after this webinar with a link where you'll be able to download the complete info graph they can be able to look at that and also I've just shared a very high-level overview of what we observe happening within the

pyramid in the last 45 minutes or so 40 minutes but I've put together a much more in-depth and detailed course on the plant health pyramid describe a lot more than biochemistry and and what is happening Within plants at each of these levels that we've put together as an online course which will be launched at academy region AG in the next couple of weeks so really excited to see that launching and if you want to learn more in depth information about the plant health pyramid you'll be able to learn more about it there so we have

a number of questions coming in so the first question that came through is are there can I give a an example of the Stage of plant growth how large the plants are at each stages of plant health there there isn't a direct correlation and connection to plant growth and the level of plant health so it's possible to have a seedling that is six inches tall be at level four a plant health and be completely resistant to insects to diseases that when when plants reach level 4 plant health they are essentially completely resistant to all disease

infestations and all types Of insect attacks they're incredibly resilient and that can happen at any stage of plant development from when a seedling is six inches tall or in the spring when buds develop and emerge on perennial plants all the way through to the eventual harvest so there isn't necessarily a correlation between the stage of plant growth and the level of disease and insect resistance John Meredith asked a question hi John where do insects that feed on the wood Of trees like scale or bores fit into the health care of it um John that's a

good question my I would say that based on the research that I'm aware of they would probably fit at level four because many of the plants resistance mechanisms that against scale and bores that have been documented are based on triggering of the immune pathways and plant production of some of these specific plants secondary metabolite compounds so I think it would be at level four then Of course some of these organisms have developed symbiotic relationships so some boards for example I've developed symbiotic relationships with certain groups of fungus where the fungus will neutralize the plant sikander

metabolites that the that could kill the pores and allow the bores to invade there's a number of different interactions that are happening here but my understanding is that bores and scales would be at level 4 plant l question from Rika Anderson about Japanese knotweed extract - some know some that you can make yourself I don't know if it is something that you can make yourself I suspect with the right equipment and knowledge that it would be possible but it can be purchased as it is a branded labeled product called regalia from Merlin bio innovations that

is available commercially an anonymous attendee asked the question besides ensuring proper Plant nutrition what can you do to help increase the level of plant health and I would say that is it is the answer you don't need to do anything besides ensuring proper plant nutrition then the only modifier I would add to include to that what I want to speak about ensuring proper plant nutrition for me that automatically means we also have to apply really strong biology increasing levels of plant health is all about making sure that you have the right Biology in the rhizosphere

and a plant microbiome and the proper mental nutrients it's that's it that's where it begins and that's where it ends those the only two things you need to do to increase the levels of plant health on the pyramid Michael Grove asked the question have you heard of using a solution of black weeping willow branches soaked in water into plant growth if so what is the mechanism that caused improved plant Growth Michael intriguing question I haven't heard of that but it wouldn't surprise me um one of the things that we know about willow is that it

was the original it is the plant that in my understanding it has the highest concentrations of salicylic acid of any plant which is a trigger for the is our pathway induced systemic resistance so that would trigger a plant's immune responses and could lead to increased plant growth as A result of the salicylic acid that is present its plants dude there's there's some interesting research that was done decades ago on applying aspirin to plants with some really intriguing results sometimes performed very effectively and at other times it actually had a major negative effect they found that

the application rates were very sensitive and it was very easy to over apply and applications of the plants requirements are responses to Aspirin very dramatically at different stages of plant development so the research was eventually abandoned as being too temperamental quite another question that has come through can the plants get molybdenum from the mycorrhizal fungi for level 2 not necessarily plants can only get molybdenum when there is adequate molybdenum in the soil profile so it doesn't matter if you have micro fungi doesn't matter how much biology you have Or what type of biology whether fungal

or bacterial in the rhizosphere if the soil mineral matrix doesn't contain adequate molybdenum then there is not going to be enough molybdenum absorption Rob Jones asked a question hi Rob what you here are there any metabolic drawbacks to artificially stimulating the plant's immune system not in my understanding so think of it this way when you artificially stimulate the plant's immune so well first of all it Depends I want you to find as artificial remember that in optimal ecosystems and optimal environments these plants immune systems are being stimulated constantly by bacteria in the rhizosphere and on

the end of the Philo sphere so what we are what you may be thinking of these being artificial is actually a natural presence that is supposed to occur constantly so in from that sense it's not necessarily our something that is intended and supposed To be happening now when the immune system is triggered by biology etc then the plant will divert energy photosynthate energy sugar production energy to the formation of these immune compounds these plants secondary metabolites essential oils are very energy dense energy rich compounds so if you have a plant that hasn't yet reached level

1 a plant health that isn't photosynthesizing well and you simply put on let's say you put on regalia you Are going to get a much reduced response from the regalia then you would if you have plants that were photosynthesizing very well now you're going to get a much bigger response so in the case if you had plants that we're not at level 1 a plant health they were not photosynthesizing well and you put on an immune stimulant such as regalia then it's possible that the plant would divert energy to an immune reaction and you would

have less vegetative biomass And less growth and possibly less yield if there was a severe energy crisis and depending on which stage of plant growth it happened so it's possible that you might have a negative plant growth response from stimulating a plant immune system when the plant doesn't have good photosynthesis as long as the plant is big photosynthesis then there aren't any negative metabolic drawbacks at all it's a very good question Robin another question is there ever a case when soil Is too dead to revive you know that's one of the things that I'm amazed

about is the incredible resilience of nature and natural ecosystems I we have worked with soils which are essentially sterile for all practical intents and purposes there is no biology remaining in the upper a horizon of the soil because of continued intense fumigation and it's possible for those soils to revive extremely rapidly when they're supported with when biology is supported with a Food source and with good and microbial inoculants so I'm really intrigued by the incredible resilience of nature and I don't believe there is ever a case when soil is too dead to revive or and

currently I don't believe there's ever a case when soil contains too many toxins to be revived it's possible for us to remediate a tremendous overload of toxins and regenerate very quickly so I'm very excited to fly that possibility Actually Ryan asked the question do you have routine recommendations for eating a plant to reach level 3 and for plant health Ryan this is a good question and you would think considering that I addressed specific nutrients and specific minerals for level 1 and 2 could we give similar general recommendations for level 3 and 4 I can describe

what we do as a company we make sure that all the crops that were working with are treated with bio coat Gold and the spectrum in the rhizosphere so that we have the right biology to trigger those immune pathways and to provide a little microbial metabolites and then we also add micro 5000 as a failure and because of wanting to have the proper biology in the photosphere could trigger strong immune responses from the presence of biology on the lead surface in addition to that we also have developed foliar sprays particularly photo mag and accelerate and

a couple of Others that are intended and designed to be used as a foliar to trigger Andy's immune responses to bring the question right drink pennyroyal thank you very glad to see you here in the process is the process of bringing an older established vineyard to a higher trophic level functional level different from starting a new vineyard from a practical management perspective Greg the answer is no we would use the same tools and follow the same pathways To achieving those results so we still be using the same microbe inoculants in some situations we've observed older

established trees or vines to actually respond faster than a new planting and in a few cases we've observed the opposite so at this point I don't have a clear answers to which is the fastest but I will say that it's possible for vines and trees that are decades old that have gone into decline and are rapidly getting worse and we're at the Point of and girl managers the point of wanting to doze them out and start over it's possible to regenerate those in a matter of months sometimes in a matter of weeks we've observed as

little as six to eight weeks to get very rapid regrowth and new growth new chute development by regenerating the biology that's happening the Rises there's it's amazing how rapid it can happen TD hi Kati when plants reach level three and four they tend to stay there barring Major changes in soil or climate what conditions will knock a plant's function back down to level one or two okay this is an awesome question this is kind of an off-the-cuff answer just based on observation and mentally thinking about the different experiences that we've observed this when you see

plants declining from level three or four it's usually because of severe stress either to the plant itself which results in it not basically it's a result of microbial Functioning in the soil and on the leaf surface being substantially degraded so that can happen as a result of severe stress either to the plant or to the biology directly so let's say we have soils that become flooded and saturated for an extended period of a period long enough that the soils become a Gnostic over let's say you have soils that are saturated for a period of five

days that can be a level of stress that you've impacted the biology enough that'll do The plant's ability to achieve level three and four and that would be a direct effect on soil biology and then an indirect effect on soil biology by affecting the plant would be when you have a plant that is really stressed because of a high temperature environment let's say you have a plant that isn't able to photosynthesize and is in photorespiration mode for two weeks because of constant temperatures above 95 degrees Fahrenheit a plant in That state is essentially catalyzing its

proteins and a lot of its carbohydrates and a lot of the lipids and it doesn't have any pro any carbohydrates with which to feed at the soil biology so now the soil biology doesn't have a food source and at that stage when you have these plants that are really stressed that can also knock them down from level 3 and level 4 so it's really a question of how is the soil biology doing and when you have really good biology and Adequate food source plants will tend to stay at level 3 and level 4 relatively indefinitely

that's a very good question something that I'm going to continue thinking about is Zoe asked the question is diversity of microbiology more important to level 3 and 4 than specific microbe and fungi populations I would say the general answer is yes there is so much that we don't know and don't understand about bacteria fungi protozoa and nematodes etc and level 3 and level 4 the quantity that we know we don't know so greatly exceeds what a little bit that we do know that it's almost farce but the best answer that I have at this moment

is that our understanding is that diversity is more important than specific microbes now there are a number of microbes and fungi that we know to be generally important such as mycorrhizal fungi trichoderma and some of the bacteria such as Pseudomonas fluorescens and others that Are known to have plant growth promoting rise of bacteria effects so there are some that we know to be important but I'm just a certain that there for every one that we know that we believe to be important there are probably a hundred plus others that we don't know about yet so

diversity and maintaining diversity is absolutely critical michael grove asked the question can we apply amino acids and faster the soil or Do they have to come from the bacterial and fungal activity in the soil an intriguing question Michael the answer is yes you can apply them to the soil I think to some degree that may be a waste of of energy you can also apply them directly to plants and we have growers who have done so with very strong effects and very positive effects we see a very strong energy contribution when growers foliar apply amino

acids to plants we have less experience with Growers applying fats to plants but we do have some and in every case that it's been tried and experimented with there's there have been very positive responses I'm not aware of any negatives ever at this point of fat applications directly to plants so you can use those tools as foliar applications to support plants through a transition period or to help them achieve a higher level of plant health but I think ultimately the quantity that you can apply is cannot Begin to compete with what the soil biology can

deliver so from an economics perspective the reality is that you need soil biology to deliver hundreds of pounds or a hundred plus pounds of amino acids to a crop to most crops from the soil profile on a single year and making those applications as folios to plants would be cost prohibitive in most cases the same is true of fats etc so the short answer is yes you can't apply some as a band-aid but that they shouldn't we Shouldn't rely on those tools when the bacteria and the fungi can produce them for free for us essentially

when we're giving them the right food sources it's a very good question Michael actually related to that question I'm going to begin perhaps giving a little bit shorter answers because lots of questions are coming in which I appreciate thank you guys I love the questions Gregg stache asked the question what is the preferred Delivery method of using accelerate or fish oil to achieve improved plant lipids for a grapevine as a folio or on the soil surface I use ozone spray so I don't know if this will affect foliar or will affect microbial activity on leaf

applied fish oil or accelerates very good questions Greg so ozone applications in my understanding I believe will affect the microbial population I'm a co black to Be on the lead surface but you can still apply nutrients and minerals to the leaf surface they may not be absorbed as effectively as efficiently with with the limit of microbial activity but they still will be absorbed by the leaf surface so I would still prefer to use a foliar application rather than a soil surface application I expect you'll still get a substantially bigger response Don Smith asked the question

is it most economical to start with Treating your seeds to build a healthy micro microbiome from the beginning and the answer is absolutely yes using bio coat gold or microbial inoculants at planting as a seed treatment is the least expensive most cost-effective and greater greatest ROI application that almost any grower and any crop can use and this is true of perennial crops as well if you use a root dip planting at transplanting it's the least expensive product application that a grower can Apply that delivers the greatest economic response we observe that over and over and

over again Dennis demel hi Dennis if we have an earworm invasion can we analyze previous Sapa analysis and data folders to improve our actions the following year yes absolutely this is a very important use of SAP analysis is not to just use them as a tool for current year Corrections and what has happened the current year but actually to prevent any Imbalances from happening in the future so it's we can look at nutrient trends in South analysis and see how they changed in the growing season it can sometimes we can glean very valuable information from

just doing that for a single year but particularly once we have two years worth of data and we observe nutrient trends over the course of an entire year it's possible to use that data to prevent any nutritional imbalances from Showing up in future years and to give us the disease and insect resistance that we're looking for it's a very good question something that's a very important management strategy Darrin pets are asked the question are you aware of any in season cover plants that can aid in improving the reduction oxidation phase of minerals and hence growth

and help Darrin the we have a list and I also am putting this together in an online course that will be a part Of the Academy regen egg which I encourage you to check out and sign up for the brief answer is that all of the forage legumes clovers etc and buckwheat and oats would all fit into the profile that you're asking about of warm season annuals that would have that effect Noah Bresler asked the question on the west coast we have trouble with carrot rust fly growers either use row cover or distance rotation to

prevent the Flies Finding new care planting in your opinion if growers are able to get their carrots beyond the second level plant health pyramid can plant help replace these practices Noah the answer is absolutely unquestionably yes no hesitation no reservations no question marks the answer is yes the reason for my confidence in stating that is comes from two places one the tremendous field experience that we have had with achieving resistance to all types of These when you have a field once you have two fields of potatoes and one field is being consumed with Colorado potato

beetles and the next field of potato plants 20 feet away has no presence of potato beetles that has not been sprayed with any insecticides intend to give you a lot of confidence you multiply that experience a hundred times that gives you a lot more confidence and the real cherry on top of the sundae for me was when in a personal Conversation with Tom Dykstra an entomologist friend of mine who I interviewed on the podcast shared an observation experience that he had in Africa where fields who were managed with sound nutrition and plants had good nutritional

integrity were being avoided and not being consumed by hordes of locusts that were decimating everything around them so there's some of these fields in the middle of total crop decimation with no locusts present well You can achieve that it's pretty easy to expect you can achieve resistance to care a truss y so that's the reason for my confidence even though I have no experience with that particular insect these these principles have performed and have delivered on so many different crops so many different types of insects that from my perspective diseases and insects are simply they're

nature's survival the fittest mechanisms they're here to take unhealthy plants out of the System and when we have really healthy disease and insect resistant plants when we have really healthy plants with functional immune systems they're going to be resistant to just about everything across the board nicholas signa asks an intriguing question molybdenum was mentioned in a molecule in the PDP our plant growth promoting as a bacterial pathway as well as vanadium is vanadium is referencing an article that I read isman adium something worth monitoring Nikolas such a fascinating question there are now I haven't paid

close attention to recent list but I think there are now something like 20 additional minerals that are acknowledged as functioning as enzyme cofactors within plants in some capacity it includes the list includes vanadium and rhodium and iodine and tin and silver and just the list goes on and on 20 in addition to the 16 that are considered to be essential There's now a list of 20 or 22 additional elements including vanadium and including arsenic and other elements that you might not guess lanthanum for example there's I think there's a lot left in the mineral nutrient

area that we don't know yet as well and until we know more until we get to a spot where we have more information I think that our best approach is to use natural materials such as ocean water concentrates such as seaweeds that There's humic acids in various rock powders that have some of this broad array of trace minerals present in very small concentrations because I would expect with many of these the the active rates are likely in terms of grams per acre similar to molybdenum in selenium we're talking about only needing grams per acre and

so we don't need very much to supply what our plants requirements are Lisa ice camp asked the question have you Seen resistance to spotted wing Drosophila susceptible crops yes we have we've observed resistance to swd in blackberries red raspberries black raspberries strawberries cherries and blueberries not sure if there are other crops I think those are the most of the susceptible crops and we don't have a good explanation for when we think about swd we do not have a good explanation for what exactly the resistance mechanisms are our current hypothesis is That the Flies are still

present they're still laying eggs but when the larvae hatches and begins feeding on the fruit it immediately died as a result of the protein and carbohydrate profile that is present we have observed there is a greatly reduced presence of flies but there are still a limited presence in crops that are resistant and so even when the flies are present we're not able to find any of the larvae in the fruit and when we ask when growers ask The question well how do we achieve that the short answer is we don't have any specific nutrient or

combination of products we can point to that achieve that because we did everything we used sap analysis and we addressed every possible deficiency to make sure that we were doing everything across the board to achieve that resistance so we have achieved it on a large commercial scale by addressing plant health across the Board Alfred Hall asked an interesting question how drastic of an effect does over watering or under watering have on the state of the plant health water deprivation will definitely affect and also excess of soil saturation to the point of excluding oxygenating excluding gas

exchange we'll both have a negative effect on the soil biology and both have an effect on on the levels of plant health particularly level 3 and level 4 So I would say that in terms of having a negative impact on Plant Health soil saturation and maintaining soil saturation to the exclusion of gas exchange this probably is not probably but is definitely much more damaging than having dry soils plants can tolerate and biology can tolerate dry soils much better than they can tolerate constant saturation Malcolm Leadbeater ask the question with the magnesium sulfur molybdenum and boron

foliar Sprays with this in any way impact soil microbial activity is it microbe friendly yes it will impact soil microbe activity tremendously positively why because when you increase plants protein synthesis that means you are changing not just the carbohydrate profile but also the amino acid and protein profile of the compounds that plants are releasing out through the root system as root exudates and plants are also releasing enzymes and and other Compounds protein compounds out through the root system so in that sense it will have a positive impact a substantially positive impact on soil biology Chad

will ask the question in fields with Roundup Ready crops that have a history of glyphosate application for a number of years would you expect the tie-up of manganese to prevent moving up the pyramid if so how would you address that the answer is generally yes we do observe manganese Deficiencies and soils that have a history of glyphosate application and you need to address that in two ways one is you need to address it by putting on applications of microbe inoculants which are known to be able to remediate glyphosate and take that out of the system

and secondly and immediately you also need to address manganese supply to the plant not to the soil it's it's will not be beneficial to add manganese to the soil until the problem with Glyphosate has been addressed first but to apply foliar or in-furrow applications of a chelated manganese the plants can absorb very quickly abe mock ask the question applying this knowledge to pasture production comprised of diverse legumes grasses and forbs can we expect to avoid avoid major infestations of grasshoppers and harming worms and are there additional challenges managing many crop species together rather than a

monoculture crop so in my understanding A but the answer is yes you can avoid major in frustration of grasshoppers and armyworms as well as leaf hoppers and alfalfa weevils and etc etc and there are benefits to managing a diversity of crops species rather than a monoculture crop so when you have this diversity crop species there are a number of benefits to the soil microbiome that again that we don't fully understand but when we have we understand that different plants have symbiotic Relationships with different microbial communities so let's just making up hypothetical numbers let's say that

a clover plant has a symbiotic relationship with a thousand species and a rye grass plant has a symbiotic relationship with a thousand species when you bring the two of those together you would think that the slow microbial community would now contain two thousand species but it doesn't it might contain ten thousand species so you get this Tremendous algorithmic effect almost are definitely a nonlinear effect of increase in the soils microbial population and in microbial diversity as plant diversity increases and then of course when you add a third and a fourth different plant it just it

continues to expand even more and all of those that is a positive considering that many of these particularly the upper level to find health pyramid are dependent on biology so it's possible to achieve all The things that you're asking about with an even easier to achieve those in a diverse setting with a diverse number species and with monoculture crops John Meredith asked the question following up on Katie's question you mentioned stress bringing a plant level down do you have any thoughts on dormant pruning being stress inducing on trees pruning seems counterproductive to trying to get

the most amount of photosynthesis as I will have less branches with leaves during The pregnancy stage although pruning seems necessary to maintain tree structure and accessibility do I have any thoughts on dormant pruning being stress inducing I would say that from my observations I don't really think yes obviously pruning has a slight level it does produce a slight level of stress on the trees but it is offset by other increased positives and I don't actually perceive pruning as reducing photosynthesis it can if it's overdone If it's very severe but in many cases pruning can actually

increase photosynthesis because it increases light penetration to leaf layers lower on the canopy so unless you are pruning so severely that you're substantially limiting the number of leaves that a tree would have I could see that being a negative but for the most part most of a pruning management that I see in commercial operations you're not substantially limiting photosynthesis Because the sunlight is penetrating deeper into the tree canopy and you still have the same quantity of photosynthesis that you would have otherwise Rob Jones asked the question how do you manage late-season plant health stages three

and four in the context of desired senescence particularly in the case of organic potatoes so Rob I'm not sure I completely understand your question but you don't really manage it differently Than you do at any other stages so if you have really strong biology at earlier stages of plant development and plant growth as you're developing tubers and during vegetative and blossoming and bloom stages those plants will remain healthy and I think perhaps the question you're asking is how can you will that delay senescence and how can you ensure that it doesn't delay senescence too much

so that the that the plants still dry down earlier if you want to plant to Dry down and to mature earlier and to increase the nest because one of the things that can happen so it's possible to manage my nutrition in such a fashion as to increase or to delay senescence and postpone it and keep plants green for a much longer period of time it's also possible to speed-up senescence based on a plant's nutritional profile so if you want to speed up senescence it's relatively easy to actually just make sure that plants have a generous

Supply of boron because boron a generous supply of boron will trigger rapid movement of sugars and carbohydrates from the leaves to the plant sinks which in this case will be the tubers so you can actually trigger very rapid senescence just simply by making sure that plants have adequate levels of boron on the on the inverse side you can delay senescence but making sure that plants have a generous supply of cobalt because of the role that COBOL has in Ethylene synthesis and ethylene metabolism within the plant I hope that answered your question Rob Gregg asked the

question how do you measure lipid levels in the leaves that this part of the staff analysis report do you have a recommended lab Greg very good question we're not currently running this as a part of analysis my experience much of my experience in looking at fat content on leaves comes from forage analysis so It's very common within dairy and livestock feeding to submit samples to the laboratory where they will measure fat content as one of a number of metrics so many dairy labs will measure fat content that's what I'm familiar with and obviously we can

submit any plant matter for a forage analysis so that is the laboratory analysis but I would recommend that I would look for Dan BL ask the question can level one be achieved with an information so Dan the The question is can you supply adequate levels of magnesium nitrogen manganese and iron and phosphorus with an inferno application and the answer is yes you can but the follow-up question becomes for what period of time so you can achieve level one for let's say the first six or eight weeks of plant health or of planned development but then

what happens for the remainder of the growing season can you supply enough manganese and enough magnesium enough of these Elements to last for an entire growing season on some soils the answer may be yes on some soils the answer is probably no we need to think about the the length of the time period that you're speaking about it that's a very good question thank you Michael Grove ask the question in Pennsylvania we have a problem with CWD chronic wasting disease and whitetail deer it's just an indicator of low levels of on a plant health pyramid

Michael my understanding of CWD is that It is present when particularly when deer are consuming a lot of GMO crops specifically leading to imbalances of manganese copper and zinc and there's some research I forget exactly where I read this but it was in some peer-reviewed published papers and that research and information should be out there Rob asked a follow-up question to tubers we have fungal diseases that attack potato tubers after mine kill how can we control those diseases with micro Pal after the plant is dead gotcha Rob thank you for clarifying my understanding I'm not

sure exactly what fun J you're referring to but my understanding is that we could theoretically remove the food source of those fungi by altering the carbohydrate profile specific R but perhaps also amino acids but I would guess specifically the carbohydrate profile within the tuber itself and that will go back to probably the minerals of the Five minerals that are at level one of plant health and I'd be happy to explore that more in depth with you in an offline conversation but I expect that those would be the places that we would be looking it's a

very good question thank you for asking we have a couple more questions and then I'll be wrapping up in just a few minutes do you know of any side effects of starting or growing plants under led girl lights in regards to plant health Or plant nutrition so essentially I don't know of any negative side effects immediately other than we know that plants can consume a broad array of wavelengths in the photosynthesis process and we see that we get when we have the full spectrum of wavelengths that are needed for photosynthesis we get increased production of

the plant secondary metabolites so I think a broader wavelength is more beneficial in general more questions that I'll take And then we'll go to wrap up what you define as Zoe thin ask the question what do you define as the right or proper biology I don't Joey I don't think we know the answer to that question completely the tool that we are using that seems to be the least inaccurate is the Haney analysis being that was developed by Rick Haney there's a number of different laboratories that are conducting this analysis at this point well it

doesn't measure specific biology It measures the level of biological activity of what is happening at what's going on as low profile and then one last question Michael Grove asked the question you mentioned at level 1 & 2 or chemistry and it's done in hydroponics does this mean that hydroponic growing cannot reach level 3 or 4 the pyramid so my point was that level 1 and level 2 can be achieved in hydroponics not saying they necessarily are but they can Be achieved in hydroponics and I personally haven't experienced any hydroponic production that reached level 3 and

4 on a plant health pyramid but I'm not going to suggest that it cannot be done what I think would need to be done in order to get there would be to have good biology in the rhizosphere and on the lead surface and if that is done it may be very possible for plants to achieve level 3 and level 4 of plant health on the plant health pyramid in a Hydroponic growing environment I haven't I don't have a tremendous amount of experience with hydroponics the limited experience that I do have suggests that that isn't commonly

achieved particularly on fruit and vegetable crops I think the one area where that probably is achieved much more reliably and consistently is with cannabis production there are cannabis growers who are growing hydroponically you have probably achieved that level of plant Health to some degree and I believe that many of them are also using compost teas and using different forms of biology in their systems so I do think it is possible but it's it's so largely it's an area that I'm personally not very familiar with and I think it's probably largely unexplored so I want to

say thank you to all of you for attending many of you have stayed on for all the way through I'm just realizing I went a half an hour longer than I expected Thank you particularly for all the questions that came through I really enjoy the interaction the questions and I enjoy having the dialogue so thank you very much for attending and I look forward to seeing you with the online courses at academy regen and I hope that all of you have an awesome evening and enjoy the cold as best you can talk to you soon