Managing Soil Nutrition | Webinar with Gary Zimmer

So, we're on. Thank you. >> We're on, but we'll we'll wait around for a minute here. So, yep, people are coming in. Hello to everyone who is uh logging on here. Um we will get going in a minute or two. All over 200 or more. >> Oh, how hot is it there today, Gary? >> Oh, it's comfortable in the 70s and Drizzly rain. So, it's a perfect day. Well, another I'm tired of heat. I'm glad July's over. It's like having January over now. We're on a downhill slope. I'd rather have >> I'd rather have a

winter than summer. That's our our life. >> Mhm. Yeah. That's good that you think that way being in Wisconsin. >> Yes. You almost have to. No. And you know the cattle struggle when it's hot out there and nobody likes it Particularly. >> Yeah. >> I'm building a greenhouse which is really kind of a struggle to do in the hot weather too. A little hot out there. So >> just a your house. You're building a greenhouse? >> No, not a farmhouse. Just a small one. It's like, you know, 8 by10. So, I can start my plants

and get my stuff in my greenhouse. So, so I >> I've been buying lots of plants. I extend my gardening season just a little bit. >> You get old, you got to have something to do in gardening. I got way too much to do, by the way. But anyway, gardening is something I enjoy doing. I grew enough garden. I'm giving it away in bushel baskets. I I got volunteer summer squash for some reason. I got enough to feed the whole township I live in. >> Good. All righty. Well, we'll get going Here. So, uh, welcome

to everyone who's here for our webinar today. Um, my name is Paul Meyer. I'm the editor of Acres USA magazine and privileged to have Gary Zimmer here to talk about nutrient nutrition and crops. And, um, just a couple notes here at the beginning. Number one, this webinar is sponsored by the USDA's top program, the transition to organic partnership program. We're very grateful to them. Uh secondly, um we will add some links in the chat Below. Uh just a couple events to let people know about coming up. Uh our EcoAG conference, the big conference of the

year for us is 1 to4 December. Uh Gary will be there, lots of other great speakers. Uh you can learn about that at uh all of our events at acresusa.comvents. Um we also have one event just want to mention real quick. It is uh in Wisconsin, Montfort, Wisconsin, August 19th to 20. Uh building profitable, Resilient farms. Uh today's the last day for early bird signup. So again, acresa.com/e events. Um so we'll get going. The schedule here is that Gary's going to speak for about 30 minutes or so, then we'll do a Q&A. And um if

you have a question, you can type it into uh either to the chat or there's a little Q&A block as well. So, and this is recording and we'll we'll send out The recording uh after it's done to everyone and it'll be on our YouTube page as well. So, with that, I will pass it on to Gary. >> All right. Well, it's a pleasure to be here. Uh, you know, I guess I was just at a meeting yesterday in in potato country and uh it's kind of interesting because uh I can't go anywhere where someone probably

doesn't really know me. So I probably been involved in this biological we call it biological farming And now of course they got the word regenerative and of course then there's organic and it was sustainable. But I've been involved in it for gosh getting I'm going tomorrow to my I used to teach at a tech college in Minnesota. It's a 50y year class reunion. So my students are now all retiring. And of course I'm not figuring out how to do that. But uh uh I'm passionate about what I do. I got quite involved with it. So

in the last 50 years uh I got introduced to it. So I I I don't have any classes. I'm selftaught in soil. So I'm a dairy nutritionist, but cows and soils and it was such a common ground between humans and how the digestive systems work and all these other little things out here. But uh getting in involved with it 50 years ago was to make uh I was at the teaching at the tech college and and we put some different I made the students do projects in the summertime and one of them put some gyps

and some it was Actually planters fertilizer from Colorado had some trace minerals and calcium and sulfur on a hay field and the feed test changed and I said oh my gosh I said uh I spent nine years at the university studying dairy cows and I said nobody ever told me I could change feed. So I said, "What would ideal feed for a dairy cow look like?" We need to do this with humans because there's a lot of base information. So calcium was one of the big things that made a Difference. Calcium, sulfur, and borne really

made a difference on this feed quality. And then we started putting on a balance of all these kind of minerals and nutrition. So I got involved in it for a long time ago and then I left the teaching world and I started working with Brookside Laboratory Farms as a consultant following all brick principles and then uh uh I was making recommendations and I couldn't get the products I wanted. There was no such Thing around like today you can find products all over the countryside. They just got to figure out how to use them and where

to use them and what fits your farm and you got to be convinced there's the right movement if you're going to spend that kind of money. Uh kind of a thing out here. So, so anyway, then I started uh I I quit the consulting and I started uh and farmers, by the way, aren't very good at paying for consulting. They'd rather buy the wrong Product than pay someone for advice. I kind of figured that out too because I'm one of those farmers myself. So then I started a company called Midwestern Bio Egg and we started

looking and in the beginning just at different sources of minerals. So instead of using potassium chloride, why not potassium sulfate? Instead of using MAP, why not DAP? And and why would we want all our fertilizer to be soluble? Then we looked at different calcium sources. Then we Looked at trace minerals and oxide trace minerals. Then we started mixing humans with fertilizer. So the first step was choosing a better nutrient instead of fertilizer sold on price and solubility not performance and it's got some negatives. It's got some side effects to it. So so the sources did

made a quite a difference. And we had a fertilizer that uh was made out of a was a adding humates to lime or gypson or taking in burnt hydrated lime give me a a soluble Calcium source. See we take rock phosphate and we make commercial phosphorus out of it. Now you can take lime and make a soluble fertilizer calcium source out of it. And see that still hasn't caught on greatly. People have played around with different things and so that really started the business. So then the second phase was uh um we I bought Ampel,

American Pelling Company down in in in Harvey, Iowa is to make uh because I my books came out through Acres and back about 2000 and then that got me whipped all over this planet. I have followed farmers everywhere and I gained a lot of ideas. I pay a lot of attention. So then I'm in Australia and these guys said, "Uh what about humates?" AND I SAID, "AH, I bought a truckload of hummates and I bulk spread them on some of our land. I didn't see anything." And the guy said, "Look, uh, there's 2 million pounds

in the top 6 in of your soil." And he said, "You put A,000 pounds of humates out there. How much of that humate came in contact with your fertilizer?" I said, "I know, probably not any." So, why don't you go home and mix the two together? Put the humates with your fertilizer. And oh my gosh, that was eye opening. So we bought a pelleting mill and we started pelletizing humifas and humale and everything else but uh we're not manufacturers and my people was a long ways from where our offices were and we Had lots of

production problems and the thing finally burned to the ground and we never rebuilt it. But the idea then of putting your minerals in a carbon biological cycle and then see then the last thing. So when I also by the way when I first started the business we worked with we had uh compost turners. We were running around the countryside on small dairy farms. We were dairy people and uh taking their bedding pack materials and things and making compost On those farms. Well it was a hard business and struggle to make a go of it. And

so now I spend my time working with a composting operation. And so uh what the shift really was is is uh is how do I get nutrients more efficient? Isn't this what regenerative egg is all about? What are we regenerating? I think when we look at regenerative egg, we got to say this that uh uh I tell people uh you know what are the rules to regenerative egg? Everybody says you got To go no till. I said, "Ah, I'm not so sure about that one." I said, "But livestock definitely fits a farm, but let's be

real. You do the eye states, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, they're not going to fence it and put livestock back out on pastures. Let's get over it. Do we have to have livestock to make a farm work? Now, what that really does for you with livestock, it leaves gives a chance for the farm to have a rest and also puts forage crops in rotation. You can't Just grow till tillage crops year after year. You can't do corn beans, corn beans, corn beans, and expect the farm to be successful. So, I think so, so there's all kinds of

things that happen out here. So, regenerative egg then is really it's all over the place. What regenerative egg is really all about is that we recognize it's broken. Why would you regenerate if it's not broken? And so something's wrong. What's wrong? What's wrong with most farmers? Yes, Mineral balance would be a big part of it. Biology would be a big part of it and tillage. Now I say this all the time and people have heard me speak and I travel around in my lifetime in the last 50 years of my lifetime of being involved in

biological organic regenerative farming. We have got it figured out. We know it. We know the basis. Most farmers are looking for a silver bullet somewhere when they better get the basis right. What are the basis? Let's get get the minerals. We understand there's more than NPK. We know there's 17 18 different minerals. We know there's ratios between those minerals. We know there's different sources. We know there's sufficiency levels of those minerals, but it doesn't really matter what a salt test says. I like to do a salt test and a crop test. We got to get

the minerals that are in your soil or that you apply into the plant. And that's called soil fertility. See, if I had to change things out here, I would now call my business I would I would want my business to focus on what I call soil fertility. And that's the exchange of nutrients. And that's what people are trying to regenerate is trying to pull them from the soil and to get them better. So if you're going to pull them from the soil, how about doubling your root system and cut your fertilizer and water in half?

Are you going to double root system when the Ground is as hard as concrete and when you got tons of soluble nutrients? Everything on this planet is lazy. So why would that plant want to grow a big root system when you just dumped all kinds of commercial fertilizer and soluble nutrients right down on top the seed and there's plenty of water? That's the old phrase from 50 years ago was if you plant in dust in fall your bins will bust. And because you see when it's dry the plants got to grow a bigger root System.

And you see that's why years ago we had hay in rotation. We also had my father-in-law he said he said what saved our farms back during during the 30s and 40s he said was quackrass. We had these massive roots of quackrass and they couldn't get rid of it. Everybody was in battle with quackrass. When chemicals came around they thought it was a miracle. And he said that's what's destroying our farms. Those quackrass root which held our soil in place. You See? So there's all kinds of things out here. It's really dry. Your plant and the

soil structure is there. Your your plan will grow a huge root system looking for water and nutrients. And that's why again dumping soluble nutrients. I be careful what we do to these plants. So So anyway, we if we go back to this thing about here of what we all got figured out. We understand the minerals. We know there's different sources. We know there's there's ratios Between them. We know there's sufficiency levels of those minerals. You got to get on a salt test. And uh right now Acres will be releasing a Saul's book that Mark Shepard

and I have put together about uh something I put together years ago about interpreting understanding a salt test. It's not that we don't we understand the fertility. We understand the nutrients. We understand we got to get them exchangeable. We understand we have to have certain Sufficiency levels and certain ratios. That's all understood and all figured out. bought you see we now so so but people get see a lot of salt testing is done by the people that sell fertilizer and all they're measuring is P&K because that's what they sell they don't really understand the salt

test is and see salt testing and some people try to make a religion out of salt testing so you take a soil test and you go back to the one that's been around for 100 years and That salt test is different extraction methods and there's a lot of companies out here it's really interesting because all kind of started this thing with Brookside Laboratory farms they started talking about four minerals and I cast them and then of that ANL lab, Midwest Labs, the Logan lab, on and on the list goes are all offshoots with the same

concepts and ideas as started out with. And so you can now get a complete salt test. But see who's going to interpret It for you? That's why you got to get yourself educated. There's a book that Mark Shepard and I are putting together is to take a salt test and go through step by step. So salt testing has got one major thing in it. I always if I take a piece of land I can tell if it's biologically active or not but I cannot tell what the minerals are by just looking at the soil. I

can taste it. I can kick and I can dig. I have no idea what the mineral levels are. I need to Test and you have enough faith in there. What you're looking for is limiting factors or things that are deficient. I look at that test. I divided a salt test into five major categories. What type of soil is it? I need to know where organic matter is. I need to know where the cat exchange capacity is. I need to know where the pH is. If I get a salt test back and the pH is five,

the rest of the test has no value whatsoever. You got to fix what's broken. So, so I need to know What kind of soil I'm working with. And I don't need to test I don't mind grid sampling. I like to sample by soil types. I like a vary machine that runs electric probes through the ground and measures conductivity. So, it gives me different soil types. So, I can now sample by soil type. I don't want to take and mix all the soil types together. And grid sampling is an expensive way to get started. is not

something you need to keep doing. And Then once I see what that soil looks like, I need to sample about every 3 to 5 years. I don't need to sample every year. It's not going to change that much. I'm using the soil test to measure deficiencies or correct things. See, now we quit soil sampling all together on our farm. The only reason I do it is because we're organic and I can't use trace minerals without having a soil test to prove I need them. And so boron's the only mineral we buy now Because we've already

fixed our soils. So our input cost sulfur and boron the only two inputs we buy and then we make some compost to put on the land. So uh so there's all kinds of things out here. So every three to five years so if I did a straw test in the beginning and I needed the phosphorus was low and I need I need more calcium and magnesium was high. I lay out a plan to address those situations and three to five years later I want to see how well I've done. I Don't need to look tomorrow.

It's not going to change that quick. If you sample every year you're under the opinion it changes really fast. So then the the second thing then so uh on these soil testes out here is that I also then so once I got my soil test and I want to go back to the same area but you got to be really careful. A salt test does not tell you the minerals that are on if they're available to the plant. They do not tell you if there's any biology in The soil. They don't tell you if the

ground is as hard as a stone and the roots are shallow and can't even get into the soil. They don't tell you any of that stuff. And and so you got to really dig a little bit deeper into this thing. So they do have that base mineral. Now I can do sap test and I can do pedial test and I'm a real believer in tissue testing. Now you got to realize that I'm a dairy nutritionist. So every year when we started this thing I took my soil samples and then we tested every cutting of hay

every year on every acre. So I knew I had a picture of what was going on with the plant. See a a a feed tester or a tissue test tells me what happened during the growing season. Now, I measure the corn right now when it's a foot tall and I measure the leaf opposite the ear and and I measures my small grains and my forages. I still take hay test out here. I want to monitor the plant. Yes, I can do a Sap test and yes, I can do other tests along the way that tells

me what's happening that day. I want to know what happened throughout the growing season and I got to do those over a long period of time. And also, when you take a salt test, our farm is radically different. We uh farm. I I'm trying to demonstrate something and yet I have very few people. They think I'm crazy. They very few people are following what we do. And they ought to really take a real serious Look. We have a farming system of one year soil building and one year corn. And we're organic. And uh you can't

believe how well our crops are doing and how much our soil changed. So now we're only doing tillillage once every 18 months. And so uh so you know after corn we plant rye and then in the spring we frost seed clover. We just finished combining rye. Uh we don't have a market for all the rye we grow. We farm, you know, 1,200 acres or so. And so we got 600 acres of rye. Uh and so it doesn't really matter. We batwing mow it down if there's any weeds in it. We just leave it. We're interested

in the cover crop. So the clover is a three-way mix of clovers. Red clover, white clover, and sweet clover. I want the tapits down in here. And then we just let that grow for a year. And so then next spring, we planted the clover this spring. Next spring in May, we when the clover the fourth growth of clover, we buy Expensive red clover. That's a four cut system. When that gets a foot tall in the spring, we take it down and plant corn. Our soils are radically changed. Now, see, I don't need livestock, but I

need to give my land a rest. See, we understand that I can't just constantly do commodity crops and these a lot of these organic guys getting corn beans, corn beans, and rye as a cover crop. That's not that doesn't then you got to buy all your input. See, our system out Here, uh, I sold one of my farms to my nephew, my wife's grand nephew, actually, and it's turning into a Savannah Institute, agroforestry kind of a farm. It's got trees and stuff, but uh, so he wanted to do a corn maze. It's a touristy kind

of a thing. And so I planted corn on corn. So a year ago it was corn. Two years ago it was clover. So this year it's corn again. You can't believe what we see. We such a carryover of nitrogen. corn on corn on an organic System and you would not know and we had no inputs, zero inputs, just stuck the seeds in the ground cuz we weren't even going to we were giving up the farm and he wanted to do this corn maze. So I said, "Well, I'll just plant corn to see what it does."

There's enough buildup of nitrogen. Our cover crops bring up 400 pounds of nitrogen a year on an organic farm that we can grow. Nitrogen is the only nutrient we can grow. Now, it's really interesting if I let the clover Crop and right now we just mowed back. We mowed everything down after we harvested the rye. The straw stays, the clover stays, and it grows up. Now, when the clover gets knee high again, if I went and soil sampled, I'm only measuring a part of the picture. I am not measuring what's in the cover crop. I'm

not measuring what's in the crop above ground. I'm only measuring. So, you got to be really careful when you take your soil samples. And so, I've Also measured what's in those cover crops that we grow all that clover. And there's a lot of nutrients in there. So, we understand those minerals got to get exchangeable. So, now those minerals are in that clover. They're in the carbon biological cycle. It's exactly where I need them. And I've done a lot of testing and measuring of that. So, uh, so the salt test is just one. Don't make a

religion. That's just one piece of the puzzle. So, then the second thing is the Reason I got this radical farming system is because I said, how what would extreme soil building look like? I want to get the most biology active out here. I need to create an ideal home and I need to feed them. And yes, I we do some tills. We're organic. I'm a real believer in shallow incorporating. We understand the minerals. We understand that it's the soil correction, but you can then do the crop fertilizer. Now, on our farm, our soils are corrected.

I've Been doing it for 25 years. I don't need any more minerals. In fact, the only thing we need is sulfur and boron. Like I said, and so we make compost. We get the chicken manure back from a place we sell our organic corn to. And then we uh we're going to actually cut down on the amount of compost. We don't need near as much, but I need sulfur and boron. And that's the only minerals I really need in my system. I don't need to make any other corrections. Now, if I'm not in That position,

I might need to use some starter fertilizer. I might need to spoon feed it. Everybody says, everybody wants to get where we are. Our crops do really well with very little input. We've been at it for 25 years, years and years ago. I'll never forget old Roy. He was a vegetable farmer from Madison, Wisconsin, and he came to the organic event and he stood up and he made a statement. He said, "You can be certified organic after three years of Farming." He said, "You're not even in kindergarten yet. How in the world could that be

organic?" He wanted us to make it 15 years of farming before you could call it organic. Now, you got to realize there wouldn't be many many organic farmers around if that was the case out here. But I do think it takes some time. You got to give it time. That's why I want to get this thing going out here on time. So, what is radical biology? How do I build the biology? Do I really need To test and measure it? I can smell. I can see my measure of sustainability is 25 worms in a cubic

foot. See, years ago, sustainable was the first farming system that came along. Why didn't it survive? Because it wasn't sustainable. They didn't. All they did was turn their back on fertilizer. I'm just going to grow cover crops. I'm just going to put my manure out here. Well, none of those guys are left anymore because you see it takes that didn't fix the system. There's more to it to fix that system than that. So then the biology, yes, every have a cocktail mix. I do recognize that we know we know a lot of these things that

plants determine the soil life. plants will feed a certain organism in the soil to get a certain mineral that it wants. It's a really interesting story from Colorado on sandy soil out in center Colorado. Uh uh I I took a sample of their cover crop cocktail cover crop mix and it's real High in sulfur because he had mustard in there. Now the problem is their soils are really low on sulfur and he doesn't buy any. So that plant learned how to accumulate sulfur. That's why these cocktail mixes for for us rye is the only thing

I can plant when the after the corn's harvested in the fall. And I did a three season, three mix on clovers as a joke because I was going to tell that's my cocktail mix. But they're all still clovers, but they all do something Different. And if you read your acres magazine from an issue ago, there was a story in there about a farmer from Holland that I actually traveled in Ireland with. And so uh he really got he really got into this this thing out here. And so uh uh so so his his planting systems

out here and these cocktail mixes out here. And so, uh, how they how they get extracted and bring up minerals and there's a lot. So, we we understand this all over the place. And So, uh, so my clover mixer and he came along and said, you know, each clover does something different. The red clover gives you more nitrates and the sweet clover gives you more ammonia. So, you got a nitrogen balance. I was in beginning, I was really nervous. We produce 400 lb of nitrogen that we put in the ground before we plant corn. If

you did conventional nitrogen, that corn would be full of diseases and insects and it' be a disaster. we never see a Problem and now we have enough nitrogen carryover so the following year I can grow another corn crop with no inputs it's unbelievable so this is extreme soil building is what I would call it so now I'm a real believer in shallow incorporating so now there's the tillage part of it so I don't mind these cocktail mixes these different plants I think they work really well you see the other thing we figured out over the

years is that all these years it's not What we know it's what we know that wasn't so as old uh Mark Twain used to always say and is what's not so is the fact that if you want to build organic matter, putting organic matter in the soil isn't really the right answer. It isn't the only answer. It is. It's just a piece of the puzzle. Plants photosynthesizing, putting exidates back in the soil and sugars back in the soil. Having a healthy plant, dumping half of the sugar it produces back in the soil To feed the

soil life because a plant determines the soil life is how you build organic matter. It's the liquid carbon path just like soil function, soil health, soil fertility, soil resilience. All these words out here, I think you better understand what they are. The resilience on our farm. We're getting rain today, but we've been really, really dry. Our corn is not rolled up. And I'll guarantee you drive around our neighborhood, it looks like Like like pineapples growing out here in these fields and see that's the resilience from all the organic matter, water holding capacity, the soil structure.

See, the best way to measure soil health, take a five gallon bucket of water and dump it on the ground. If it runs off, you got a problem. It needs to soak in. And that's called soil aggregation. Why would the soil life make your soil look like a chocolate cake? Because it wants to breathe and it Has to have air. And that's why when you pour water, it can't be saturated with water because it kills the soil. It's got to soak in. So we understand the biology. We understand there's diversity involved. We understand we got

to create an ID home. We understand we got to feed them. But Jill Clapperan, some of you know who she is. She's a cover crop lady from out west. I traveled across Australia with her. And after about the third meeting I did with her, I finally Got it. She said major crops are grown after major killoffs and that's why it's hard to beat mole board plowing cuz you kill so much. You kill the worms. You kill the bugs. You're killing the plants. But when they die, they give up their nutrients. So now after our 18

months of sitting idle, giving it a rest, growing all these cover crops, we come up with our big high-speed disc. We're a real believer in shallow incorporating our residues. We take that Cover crop and work it in. And there's so many residues up on top. We have to have specialized equipment. We got road cleaners on the planter cuz our land has got a blanket on top of it of 4 in thick of residues that have been digesting down. And so uh so there's two things with shallow incorporated residue. The fence post rot off here. You

cannot have a crust. See what's wrong with no tail. A crust nutrient stratification and compaction. And that's the big three Issues with no tail is why mo a lot of them fail. I was on on a no-ill farm this summer. I stuck the shovel in the ground and I about fell on my face. I have never been on a no tail farm. Now, you got to realize you farmed a lot of acres. And I was in one spot on this farm. I was in awe cuz most of the time you don't see that. Most of

the time 3 in deep and you're you're into concrete. So shallow incorporating residues to make sure there's no crust on top of the Ground and mixing those residues in that surface and then running inline rippers, not the not a chisel pow, an inline ripper that cuts slots. So the water has got to soak in. You cannot let that soil get water logged if you want to have life in the soil. So we understand all those things about life. They need minerals. What minerals make soil healthy? We understand soil health. What is soil health? Living roots

into the plant, plant diversity out here, having Something photosynthesizing all the time out here. And it's a matter of getting rid of that crust on top of the ground. And it's a matter of there's certain minerals involved. What minerals really affect soil health, calcium and phosphorus, phosphorus is a good guy. Phosphorus is energy. You need energy out here. So minerals really set the stage. And I wrote myself a note because I'd forget how to say this if I didn't. It says uh uh uh nutrients enable the Potential. All these minerals give you the potential. Energy

gives you the crop. That means photosynthesis, healthy plants, wide leaves, catching all the sugars and letting a plant put as much photosynthetic exates into the soil as possible. So the energy is the expression of what you did with mineral balance out here. So anyway, so the tillage and we understand the tillage. We understand what that is. It's not that we're never going to till. It's not that we because we need to grow crops, you see. So, we got to So, it's a matter of having a system that works because you're really farming a system. Our

system of farming is maybe too radical for most people because most people say, "Oh, I pay too much rent. I can't leave my land lay idle." Well, you ought to check our finances sometimes. We do really well. We think we're going to tip 200 bushel corn this year on organic farm. $12 bushel corn. Our input costs are really low. We don't buy much of anything out here. The farm makes really good money and yet we farm every other year. My son can farm 1,200 acres all by himself in a 45 mile circle. We don't grow

diversity of crops. We we got our our clover mixes out here. So in my 30 minute time is up your phrase right now. So what message I wanted to get across is we do understand the basis. Get the Basis right. Don't go out and look for mucka magic and buy that's an a South African term for I think specialized kind of a thing. So it's mucka magic. So uh get the bases right. Get do your soil testing. Do your plant tissue testing. Take a look at your soil life out. You can tell if you got

25 worms in a foot. Come on. You pretty well got life working out here. Feed them. Create an ideal home. Make sure they got air. Make sure they don't get water logged. That's Why you got to run rippers if necessary. We have parked the ripper in the shed and that's why we're growing the sweet clover. Once your soil is fixed, you don't need to keep fixing if you don't destroy it. So that's my story and that's my message out here. And so then I guess I'm open to some questions. I hope I laid enough of

the groundwork out here to give you an idea where I'm coming from. >> This has got to be a first, Gary. I Think this is the first time you've ever stopped actually voluntarily before time is up. >> Maybe I'm getting so old I'm GETTING GOOD AT IT. I don't know. Internal clock in my head. >> It's impressive. This is the first time I've ever seen that at many conferences. That's great. But that's good because there are a lot of really good questions here. So, um, first of all, uh, I'm going to the Q&A Block. So,

again, if you want, you can ask a question in the Q&A block there or even in the chat, but I'll see it first in the Q&A. So, Phil is in Armenia. He says, "Our soils are mainly high heavy calcus calccarious soils. How can we deal with high calcium base saturation? Ours is 82%. In order to get the right balance between calcium, magnesium, is there any solution other than compost at organic matter? The compost there is expensive. >> Yeah. >> And and and what's wrong with being see some soils can't be fixed. If we live in

southwestern Wisconsin, we need a dolommitic limestone soil. We start out with 35% magnesium. We've got it down to 20. Everybody say, "Oh, get it down to 12." No, no, 20 is fine. We started at 35 by adding more calcium. See the trouble is if he's got that calcic soils and the calcium levels are that high the pHes are probably pretty high. So some Things are not fixable at least don't add anymore. But the other thing even though that calcium is high if you monitor the plant that does not necessarily mean that's in the plant you

better use boron. You better get some of that calcium transferred out the farm. You can grow alalfa or forages and take some calcium off your farm. And because calcium is really high, you're going to need to address magnesium and you're going to need to address potassium to Make sure you're you might have to spoon feed those. Now, I wouldn't want to put on dolommitic lime. I could put on KG, potassium, magnesium sulfate, sulf may fit that farm really, really well. Yes, I'd like to have my nutrients living in compost because what if your biology is

your soil is way out of whack. See, when I put my minerals in a carbon biological site, I want my minerals in the plant. I want my minerals in the compost. I want my minerals so they're in a carbon Biological cycle. If they're in there, then the soil tested. If the pH is eight, doesn't make any difference. If the pH is four, doesn't make any difference because my minerals are delivered outside of that system and some soils aren't fixable. There's things you can do with those soils. Great. Uh Lyle is asking what tillage tools and

processes to use. You touched on this some, but especially he says coming out of long-term sod. >> Yes. Now that so I can really say some things out. You got you got to weigh out all your averages. I was just up here on a potato farm and so you can't have residues around potatoes because they get scab. So they still got a mboard plow sitting behind the shed. A mboard plow is a double-edged razor blade in the hands of an ape, but every ape doesn't have to cut themselves. So every so often, maybe instead of

dissing it six times and trying to fight that sod, Maybe a shallow moleboard plowing just once might be an issue. Because you see, yes, you're going to kill a lot of things. Yes, you're going to disturb some things, but you don't keep doing that. You keep then you put in a new system of farming. Now, we run uh a Lmin highspeed disc and then we also run a crow center. We got high-speed disc and then we run an inline ripper. So, we would go through there with our uh I like to do my cover crops.

He is only Everybody said, "How do you kill that clover?" I said, "It's only a year old." Easy to kill a euro crop. If it's a 10-year-old sad and a 5-year-old alalfa stand and you got roots as big around as your wrist, you might have to do something a little different. We go through with that high that Lkin disc in the first week in May when the clover is about that tall. And yes, it didn't kill till everything. We fluffed it up. We wait a week and we till it again with The call interceptor which

is a little bit lighter vertical tillillage machine. And then uh fields get really rough. There's a lot of resides on top and then we can go plant. But now we have been running a soil finisher to try to get our fields smoothed out. There's so many residues. We got speed bumps all over our farm. You can't even rotary ho. There's so many things just like we could never use a tine meter. There's certain things that don't fit because we Got so many residues. But that really is what soil really wants. So, so, so our main

killer tools are those high-speed discs. We just got two of them. I I don't mind a rotivator. If I had a smaller farm, I used to like rotators. Rotivator is orange Roundup. You can go just a couple inches deep. Don't go a foot deep with the thing. That just to destroy soil. And never take those tillillage tools on bare ground. Tilling on bare ground is how you destroy. So Discing a field three, four times and working bare ground. Now you're cutting and smearing and slabbing and doing all kinds of things. But you got that sod

out there and all those roots and you take a plow and you go and plow that over. You see there's still all kinds of channels and roots still stuck down below that plow. Don't plow down into bare ground. >> Related to that, there was one question. I'm trying to find it here. Uh it was Submitted earlier. How quickly will microisal fungi reestablish and become effective after tillage? >> Yes. And I think here's where people are really messed up. First of all, how would I know? I said someone said, "Oh, I was at a meeting at

Orain conference here in Madison as a professor from the University of Missouri stood up right during my speech and yelling. I said, "Your tillage is killing the microisate." I SAID, "HOW WOULD YOU KNOW?" And I said, "If my phosphorus levels are double uptake, see phosphorus is a biological mineral." See, phosphorus is one of the indicators from a salt test, not the salt. I don't care what's in your salt. I want to know what's in your plant. We've doubled our phosphorus uptake in our plants. If I double my phosphorus uptake, YOU CAN'T BUY your way into

phosphorus. You have to biologically get your phosphorus. So, I Said the microisery doesn't live in the top three four inches. It lives in the profile. It lives all throughout that soil. So, I can I can beat them up a little bit up on top. That's not a problem. There's all kinds of other roots. So one of the indicators if I did damage if I didn't have microisa if I didn't have it in my soil and of course I'm adding a lot of fungus when I do my compost if I didn't have it in there obviously

there would be some indicators I wouldn't be able to attract all these minerals and I wouldn't get these high levels of phosphorus so I think we got so I think people make religion oh we got to go no tail to save the micro but the ground's so tight and hard there's no air in it and they can't survive then either >> yes it would be nice to have some more studies on that particular question so >> they're doing the first studies right now ever comparing no till to shallow Incorporation farming and having cover crops out

here and shallow incorporating. It's always been no till compared to chiseling or mole boarding and that's not fair. Come on. There's other systems of farming that allow you to have healthy soils and mineral exchange and grow beautiful crops and not and build your soils in the same time. That potato farmer yesterday had all kinds of disc and tools out here. I've been with him for 35 years. He Started out with 2% organic matter. Now there's 3% organic matter. Obviously, he's doing something and his crop is pretty clean and pretty healthy and pretty nice. So, even

though all that tillage, he still hasn't destroyed his life. He hasn't destroyed organic matter. He's been building it. >> Mhm. Uh Robert is asking, uh he says he has spent mushroom soil or substrate, I guess, available. What do you think about spreading that and incorporating It in biologically weak hay fields? Might he ask might he risk adding unwanted chemicals from the addition? Yeah, I'm under the opinion now that some of these mushroom farms that I've worked with were pretty more they weren't very chemical intense, but maybe that's not true for all of them. Now, they

were getting chicken manure from a conventional farm as part of their compost they were putting in to grow the mushrooms on and the spent material in There, I guess, like everything else. And they had sawdust and other complex carbons and it depends on are those nutrients going to be released. See, I'm one of those guys that Yeah, I don't want to add chemicals to my farm. We're so we're so pure organic that even the manure we put on our farm is organic. But it's not that. And just like composting, everybody says, "Oh my gosh, you

know, we got all these chemicals." I said, "Look, if biology doesn't clean up The mess we made, then we need a new planet. We need it right now. You better get behind Elon Musk and throw him some money." No, because you see, biology is going to clean it up. Biology is going to fix this thing. Composting breaks down a lot of stuff. Now, I know they had the story out there that compost doesn't get rid of glyphosates. And I said I argue with that. who composted it and how well and what did and what did

they all add to it. Did they really make An ideal composter? Some biology is going to break those chemistry down or we're really in trouble on this planet. >> Yeah. And there are bi biologies that that do that. >> Yes, there are. >> I know that there OP8 and you know some others. >> Okay. So, here's a longer question. Uh this is from Cameron in in Georgia, state of Georgia. Um but it's got good details. Can we succeed in balancing Soil mineral status long term without first addressing our irrigation water quality? Irrigating blueberries and blackberries

pH 7.4 water uh with 392 parts per million carbonates which is high. Uh the water lag a lab test suggests being very cautious with using this well water for crop irrigation. They also recommended injecting sulfuric acid which they don't want to do. Their goal is to build a robust uh microbiological community in the soil so They can climb to the top of the plant paral plant pyramid health pyramid um etc. Let me just see if there's any other details. Um in Georgia red clay soil um is I think they're really asking is cleaning up the

water they're really their first step. >> Yes. Now it's sad to say I I don't I'm not doing a promotion to Wisconsin. We got enough people up here. But see, we got so much rain, we never have to worry About that. Now, Wisconsin's on that list of nice places to go to cuz we got the water and we got a little better climate except for January. You don't want to be here then maybe. But you see, so but I have done a lot of work out west and I don't know. And I'd have done a

lot of work with yesterday. We were talking about that with that potato farmer out here. See, I think if you're going to run irrigation water of any kind, you need to monitor your water in Your soil. I was on a farm in South Africa and it was a vineyard and it go wasn't doing well and the guy was all brick and he was balancing the minerals and then we started watching the water. First of all, he had junk in the water and the second process was he wasn't irrigating properly. He was he wasn't getting enough

at the right time. So once we started monitoring the water and the farm really changed. Now can biology clean that up? I was in Idaho and there Are some technologies out here right now and I don't remember what they all were because I don't have to deal with on a regular basis. I know sulfur burners and all those things people use but these were some other kind of systems that they use that people really like that they set in there that would whether were magnets or whatever else they all did. So I think there's some

things you could do to clean up that water. Now that is a real issue because uh you know That's why years ago see out here that people would have u uh iron or something in their waters. They dug a well deeper, then the water got worse. The deeper you go, the worse it get cuz now you're picking up other junk down in there. Down in there and and you have filters and all those things. So that's not an area I I understand the dilemma. I understand the problem. I don't know what the solution to that

problem really is. Can we use that water and still grow A healthy, wonderful crop by addressing some of the things that some of the negative like maybe putting on compost, maybe delivering minerals in another. What does it interfere with? Does it interfere with biology? Is it tying up minerals? What is that water really doing? Is it putting chemistry into my crops that's causing trouble? I guess that's where I'd have to start. >> Good. Yeah, fair enough. Um, Joseph from from Wisconsin is asking how Big of an issue low copper levels are in some fields. >>

Yes. Uh, here's the thing is that uh copper and I was on that farm yesterday out here and of course they they're organic potatoes and their copper levels are really high. Now, uh, you see my first copper is probably something that we don't have enough in salt. I know it's it's a fungicide. You got to be really careful how much you put on that thing out here. So, if I had issues, See, our soils, I like to be like five parts per million on a salt test from Midwest Labs on copper. Uh, but most farms

are one or two on copper or lower. So, if I'm having white mold in soybeans, see, I was did a study in Michigan in the thumb because they got that humidity over there along the lake. They always got white mold issues on soybeans. And I went around every field didn't get wiped out. So if you go into the fall and look around, this guy Doesn't have white mold. So we went and took all those salt samples. 90% of the salt samples that did not have white mold were high in copper. So if I had issues

like white mold or something and and issues out here with it, I think copper affects the health of a plant and the balance of minerals, but you can achieve it other ways. But uh I can also spoon feed a small amount of copper as compared to driving my levels really high. the best crops I ever stood in my Life. And this is 30 years ago and it was a Hawaii chili. My daughter was an exchange student. It was at a vineyard and the guy was growing some corn there and I went and took soil samples

and brought them back to the states. It's probably illegal to do that today. It might have been then do nobody asked. I've never seen anything quite like it. Boron was 10 parts per million and so was copper. They were the healthiest, cleanest, nicest crops I'd ever stood in My life. In a Chile, I thought a third world country. What can they be doing? Oh my gosh. It was it was irrigated mountain milk water they called it from the up in the mountains and kind of thing but see so we fool around trying to get like

now boron's kind of the flavor of the month everybody wants to do bor we have not done enough boron boron has been skimped on farms boron's calcium uptake boron sugar transllocation boron's got a lot to do With pollination healthier plant and copper's got to do with the immune systems and all these minerals got a function and a use but how high can we really go see I think you can get a lot higher but what's it's hard to build it up I took uh we put boron in our compost piles with sulfur and boron. So

I took my bucket on my little tractor and dumped it on my garden. So I took the salt test. I'm at six parts per million of boron on my salt. You need to see my Garden. It's not a disease or a bug. Outer mildo doesn't exist. And that garden's really clean and I got boron levels much. Will they hold with all this rain and stuff? It'll probably wash it out. It's hard to hold it, you know. But mixing the compost, I got a best shot mixing it with humates or carbon of some kind. >> What

form of boron are you doing? are you putting into your compost? >> Well, we use just regular sodium borate. Now, I have bought a whole semi-load of boron from Turkey, which is kind of expensive to do, and that's calcium borate. They do a quite a bit of that. It's actually it's like putting on rock phosphate. They put on like every 5 years 200 lbs of product, like 20 pounds of actual boron every 5 years. This is in Australia where I first got introduced to it. I went and got a load. It's hard to measure. It's

not very solid like rock phosphate. Are we Getting enough boron uptake? And you know, I like to monitor the plant. I constantly am doing borons, but we're using regular sodium borate. But my whole thing is because that's improved organically is to get it in the compost so I can get it hooked in a carbon biological cycle so I can get it tied to some kind of humate or some kind of carbon so I can reduce its leeching. >> Yeah. Good. Um, there's a question from Alberta, Canada. Uh, they just started a market garden and had

to scrape sod off of the site. Uh they added some compost manure, but they had to rake it pretty thin. What are some good strategies to kickstart fertility early on? So I think that obviously don't have enough compost. I I would think I would start out if I got to get the sod off the top. I would want to get So I got to make sure I got I'm feeding my soil life. So the compost is a little bit of Feed. So see see if I'm a vegetable gardener, if if they're starting that vegetable market,

you have one year soil building and one year gardening. Oh my gosh. I said, "You got to give it rest cuz gardening is intensive tillillage, intensive working it." So, if I took that land and I got some air in it and got some different cocktail mixture of plants planted in there and and and put on compost, whatever I could afford or mulch that land or look whatever Resource I could get and then build it for a year, then the next year that becomes my garden and then take the one that you garden last year and

do that too. So, that's how I got started on our farming system from BTOC Gardens in Virginia. one year so building, one year gardening really works for vegetable people. If you're going to run a 10acre vegetable farm, you need 20 acres of land. >> Yeah. Um Uh you basically answered this one already. Uh people are always taught in sustainable egg courses that any tillage is death to soil. Uh we went through a phase on our farm with no tillillage and no spray and ended up with major perennial weed problems. always always had thistle issues. Um,

and I was taught that shallow tillillage uh through rotations or ve issues with weeds uh going to seed and cover crops that were kept as a tourist maze. You know, that is see I have a lot of fun with that out here because I said here see I don't want to pick on Monsanto or the chemical they made a lot of darn money talking people of pulling the wool over their eyes and talking they had to be no tail. No tail, no thrill, no scale, no fun, no money, no profit, you know. So, so you

don't stand up at a no tail conference and say that unless you're me. When you you got to take care of yourself. You get to be 80 Years old. You can say and do what you want. They just laugh at you. They just think you're old. But, uh, here's I one more thing in that garden that previous question was that popped in my mind. What does a soil test look like? I got to start with a salt test. Maybe I need some calcium. Maybe I need some mineral inputs >> to start out with also to

make sure that that I I set I got to set the I got to prime the pot so I have a chance of Making this work. >> Mhm. Good. Uh if your soil is deficient in sulfur, is it worth a mid-season application in a perennial stand of alpha alpha after the first cut? Or is it better to apply am Oh, separately. Is it better to apply AMS after the cut or folure during the regrowth stage? I think during the season you're maybe you see see years ago I'm dairy I'm a dairy guy the number one

practice I changed on a lot of farms The first thing you do in Wisconsin in the spring in March when the snow is gone you put on a fertilizer on your alalfa and ammonium sulfate better be a part of it 100 to 200 lb an acre it's not organic see now because every well the alpha alpha produces it own nitrogen not until the soil temperature gets to be 50 degrees what's the soil temperature in March here so 100 pounds of morning sulfate gives me you know It's it's 50 pounds of sulfur. See, I Used to

say 25 pounds of sulfur and now 50. Now, hopefully that would carry through the season. So, if it's not really, I I usually figured it did, but then we use potassium sulfate. We use calcium sulfate. We add quite a bit of sulfur. I've gone as much as 200 lbs of sulfur per acre with these different sources when I was fixing soil. Now, we're down to putting on 40 lbs of sulfur every other year with my cover crops. And I don't I don't see an issue With that. I don't not opposed to say until I get

the system working, am I getting it? I think sulfur is a really critical thing as we cleaned up our atmosphere and we just people aren't getting enough and sulfur makes complete proteins. Sulfur has a lot to do see why the bugs and diseases and things out. Usually it's too much free nitrogen and not enough protein. See I did my graduate work on methane back in the 1960s about feeding methane to dairy Cows sulfur containing amino acid. When I got done with the trial and what I said until we put sulfur on the land why are

we fooling around supplementing the cow? So how you address that? I guess I'd test my hay and say I like my nitrogen to sulfur ratio in my forges to be 10 to one 12 to1 at most. That mean if I got if I don't if I'm a 15 or 16 to1 nitrogen to sulfur ratio I got too much free nitrogen I'm going to have disease And insect problems and that >> that's in the forge not the soil. >> In the forge. In the forge. That's right. And that's why years ago 1950s University of Wisconsin came

out you put grass with your alalfa you have less disease and insect problems. What did the grass do? sucked up the excess free nitrogen. Nitrogen is the problem. So, how do I get rid of the nitrogen? That's why I want to make sure I got it sucked up and I got to have enough sulfur to Make complete proteins and let the biology do their work. But that's not always easy thing to do. >> When you put sulfur into your compost piles, what form do you use? >> We actually uh uh combination. See, our soil tests

are quite high in in calcium. I I might have overdone it. I've made more than one mistake in my life, but here's a mistake I made. And I was trained under the Oric system and all that. You get your salt test back and The calcium levels. Let's say they're 60% base saturation. I want to get them up to 70. So we dump on a ton or two of lime and we do it on rock phosphates. And in a couple years we got them up there 68. But they didn't stop. Next thing they're 70, 72, 74,

76, 78, 80. I put on too much. I should have spoonfed it and never more than a ton of lime at a time. And so then I now have high calcium. So, for the first time in my life, we did it for a few years, we put Elemental sulfur on. I don't need potassium sulfate anymore. I don't need calcium sulfate anymore. And so, where am I going to get my sulfur? So, now now we're back to saying that on lighter soils, maybe my calcium levels, if I just put on uh, you know, 200 lb, 100

pounds of gyps a year, I'd get 17 pounds of sulfur out of that. So, we're going to put on, we're going back to gypsson in our compost pile, I can find elemental pieces. I never used elemental Sulfur in my life before. I can find little elemental pieces of my soil two years after I put it on. They're still out there. You can still find them IF YOU GOT GOOD EYES. >> MHM. GOOD. Uh here's a question from the UK. How can you build soil health during drought? >> The drought doesn't last forever. >> That's a

really at least you're not disturbing it. So then what do you do during that drought out here? And then You know what happens in the soil is pretty interesting. everything kind of goes dormant, you know, just like the biology does in the winter time. It kind of sits they all make their spores and they all learn to survive. So, I'd get ready so when I came out of the out of the drought out here that I could I'd get I'd have plants I could get my living roots. The plants will come back. You know, I

realize some of the grasses might have died off. A lot of these Brown lawns I see around here right now might not come back as well as people think they will, but legumes and things are going to recover from that out here. So, I I would then use that period of time. At least you can drive out there and not compact the soil in the middle of a drought and say, "What can I do to get ready for when this ends?" >> Yeah. Good. Uh, back to Wisconsin. Uh, they go 28 to 30 tons per

acre of corn silage. What are your optimal phosphate And potach potach levels on a soil test to maintain this yield long term? They use dairy cow manure as their main source of crop nutrients. >> Yes. And so you're taking off corn silage is really an interesting plant. It's a tropical grass. And why does corn most dairy farms use a lot of corn salads? Because alalfa, you can really mess it up. You can get potassium levels off the charts and you can get so corn salad does not take up very many Minerals and that's why it

works so well for dairy cows. Feeding a blend of corn salads and alalfa. Alalfa has excesses and the corn salads dilutes them down. So I'm not I'm taking some nutrients off. And I guess that's the part I would monitor my soils and my plant. If I put manure out there now, I'd say one thing. I'd be more concerned about my soil biology. If I take that corn sage out, I bloody well want to plant critically or plant rye or get some kind of a cover Crop or first thing in the spring. Plant oats if I

couldn't get that done in the fall to make sure I got more root masses in the soil. I've removed all the organic matter. I want to make sure I'm getting more. I'm putting manure back out here, but I want to get more living roots into the soil. I would try to get something planted afterwards, extract some of those minerals from that manure and get them from the soil and get a better soil structure by having Something green growing in there, photosynthesizing the rest of the year because the corn sals that's going to be that's that's

a 100 day crop and the rest of the year you're going to do what? You better have something photosynthesizing growing in there. I'm not as concerned about the minerals as I am the biology putting all that manure out there. Most farmers have excesses. They dump all that manure out there and then they get excess of those nutrients. I think you can do corn sage longterm as long as you're doing something else to provide more carbon. >> Great. I got two more questions. Uh first, uh an acidic soil that also needs phosphorus. How long should I

wait before applying lime if I want to use the acidity to break down the rock phosphate? Or should you just try to correct both at the same time? >> Ah, interesting. Because see that's another way I learned that something one of my consultants taught that to me. He said you know if you if you put rock phosphate if you put acidity that's why adding humates to rock phosphate works so well. Adding humates to lime gives you fertilizer grade calcium. I said so so if my pHes are too low like down into the fives and I

put rock phosphate out there. Phosphorus gets your release gets tied up with iron and aluminum. You go To Sedara University in southern South Africa they do aluminum aluminium they call it aluminum toxicity test. I SAID JUST LIME THE BLOODY THING. and they said, "You don't understand. We tried it." And I said, "You didn't do enough." So, I would be concerned about I like to do the rock phosphor. I say my pH should be getting up there in that six category, then putting on the rock phosphate. The acidity of that soil will release some of that

phosphor. I don't Want to have it too acidic that it ties up with iron or aluminum, the phosphorus, because then that's a triple negative and a triple positive tied together. It might not break apart so easily. But yes, if I get a salt test back and he needs phosphorus and the pH is around six or 62 or somewhere in a we always start with rock phosphate for the first year and then the second year we come with the calcium. >> Great. Good. And last question. What Would be your approach to mineral balancing on a soil

with a CAC of five and less than 1% organic matter? >> Uh you're not mineral balance isn't possible. It's not possible. So that kind of land is is called hydroponic farming. You know, you're going to have to spoon feed that thing because you don't have enough capacity. You don't have enough organic matter for biology. You don't have enough capacity to hold minerals. So So 10 8 to 10 CCS, we can Get everything out of the soil to grow bumper crops out here. But at the fives, now we got a problem. So now I got to

add potassium. I got to add and and I don't have enough organic. I see compost fits really well, but I also gonna need more other minerals. I'm going to need to add potassium. If you're on light sandy soil, the advantage is you can get out there. Weed control is easier if you're organic. You get out there the day after it rains and go to work out Here because you're probably going to have to pump water if you want to grow a nice crop, but I don't have the capacity to hold enough minerals. So, I think

that I think compost really fits that lighter sandy soils really, really well. And then I still might need more potassium. And of course, I got to deal with nitrogen depends what kind of farm I'm running and what crops I'm growing. >> Good. One followup actually to that previous question. Does it make sense to Add soft rock phosphate to high pH soils? >> Uh yes. And the thing is that you know I've done it and higher pH soils out here. But see yes I I would rather take that rock phosphate and put it in the compost

pile or get yourself a load of humates. Humates got a 34 pH. See I made humifos for years and you just take lime and add 10% humate to it. Get some natural mind humates that right out of the M. Don't get the processed humic Acid because that's got 11 pH because they use bases to extract it. Get the natural humates and mix it with that rock phosphate or put it in the compost pile or put it in the manure if you got manure available. Putting it out there at that 11 pH or high pH right

now 11 pH getting out that higher pH soil. So if they're the chemistry is not going to break it down anymore. Now it's going to have to be the life in the soil and root extrates and see a lot of plants like Growing oats. Oats have a very acidic root. They might be able to extract more of that phos. That's why grandpa grew a lot of oats because they can bring up phos buckwheat and oats can bring up phosphorus out of a tight out of high pH soils, but I wouldn't want to add just the

rock phosphate without adding it something to it to make sure I get better use out of my money. >> Great. Well, thank you so much, Gary. I really appreciate it again. Uh this has Been really informative. Um >> my pleasure. And uh you can learn more about uh Gary's new venture at um Oh shoot, where was the link? >> Carbon Cycle Consulting. >> Carbon cycle consulting.com. Yes. >> Yeah. I'm making what we call designer compost. We're adding minerals to that compost and making what I call designer compost. That's where I'd add my rock phosphates. I'd

add different things to the compost. And then we're putting in a Pelleting operation so we can get that pelletized. So it is we got all these big farms and got all that manure around here. So, we better turn it into something we can use. >> Yep. Great. Again, this recording will be will be emailed out to everyone. The link for it, it'll be on our YouTube page soon. Um, visit acresusa.com to learn about our magazine and books and conference coming up in December. Um, and also very soon we'll have a new Short book out from

Gary and Mark Shepard about soil nutrition handbook uh, balancing soils. >> So, it's excited about that. And >> yeah, and I'm doing a pre-conference one day thing on on carbon based fertilizers. How do we get our how do we get more nutrient use efficiency? How do we get our minerals into compost into plants and all those things to deliver our minerals in a different source besides just dumping them on the ground And hoping for success. >> Great. All right. Thanks again every have a great day everyone. D scary.