With planters running soon, Agricen's Scott Lay spoke with WITY Radio about utilizing Extract PBA and Accomplish MAX in the spring to minimize early season challenges related to nutrient availability and weather-related stress.

Dennis - WITY Radio: It has been an incredibly mild winter, but Mother Nature likes to change things up and throw a lot of stress our way, and that’s what the products from Agricen are so good at. It’s really a simple concept: Draw out more nutrients and help with the stress.

Scott - Agricen: That’s the essence of it. If you can’t minimize challenges with regard to weather-related stresses or the challenges that soil profiles present in terms of allowing plants to access nutrients, you’re not going to maximize your return.

Dennis - WITY Radio: Talk a little bit about your Extract product.

Scott - Agricen: We designed Extract for the farmer who does not utilize liquid in-furrow starter applications but wants to get that starter-like effect. It is applied in pre-plant broadcast applications with herbicide or liquid fertilizer.

Salt stress can significantly hamper soybean germination and development. Since Accomplish MAX is designed to help crops better tolerate abiotic stresses such as salt and cold, the Nutrien Ag Solutions Carolinas Division set up a trial in Ahoskie, North Carolina, to evaluate how well Accomplish MAX could help mitigate the effects of fertilizer salt stress on a soybean crop at planting.  

To intentionally elicit an adverse salinity response, 10-27-0 starter fertilizer was applied at 5 gallons per acre in-furrow with the soybean seed. Accomplish MAX was applied at 1 quart per acre with the liquid starter fertilizer on half of the field.

The addition of Accomplish MAX to the liquid starter fertilizer had a positive impact on germination and establishment in soybeans under fertilizer salt stress.

How can growers optimize early-season crop health and get more from their investment in their fertilizers, crops, and soil?

Watch our on-demand webinar, "Early Season Opportunities to Enhance Plant Nutrition & Health," to hear:

• How Accomplish MAX and Extract PBA improve nutrient availability in the soil
• Where these biocatalyst products fit into spring crop plans
• Details from recent corn and soybean trials

Soil health is the foundation of a successful crop. In our short video, The Plant Is Secondary, growers talk about their approach to improving their soil and keeping it healthy, including the role that Accomplish biocatalyst technology plays. 

"If your soil's healthy, obviously your crop's going to do what it needs to do," says Heath Cutrell, who farms in Virginia and across the state line into North Carolina.

Iowa farmer Kelly Garrett adds, "If we could take care of the biology of the soil, the plant is secondary. It's what happens when we do a good job with the biology." 

The corn growers in the video have seen firsthand how Accomplish technology can help with healthier soils and better nutrient availability for their crops. 

"Because of the Accomplish we're feeding the microbes, we're pushing that microbial activity and the mineralization, and we've giving ourselves nutrients," Don Stall, who farms in Michigan, says. "My soil tests have climbed and that's due to that fodder breaking down and returning that nutrient to us. It's a big deal."

As growers start crop planning for the upcoming season, where do fertilizer enhancers fit in? 

In a recent episode of Nutrien Ag Solutions' "The Future. Faster." podcast, Agricen's Dr. Brian Cornelious discusses where different fertility enhancement products—specifically Accomplish MAX, Extract PBA, Maritime, Prologue, and Titan XC—fit into growers' programs to help them more strategically manage their inputs.

"A lot of the Agricen products are very focused on nutrient efficiency and nutrient availability. And then, of course, we've got other products that focus on stress mitigation," says Brian.

Although crops take up many salts in the form of nutrients, they can be adversely affected if more salt is added to the soil system than can be taken up by the plant or flushed out of the root zone. This is especially a concern in irrigated cropping systems, where dissolved salts from irrigation water can lead to soil salinity problems that compound over time. Salts in applied fertilizers can also contribute to soil salinity.

Soils that are high in salts can limit water uptake, impede nutrient uptake, and negatively impact seed germination and crop development. Plants that do survive will exhibit less vigor, have slower physiological development and show signs of stress, preventing full yield potential from being realized. Taking steps to manage soil salinity is therefore critical to having balanced soil for optimal plant growth and productivity.

New Accomplish MAX, which is available through Nutrien Ag Solutions, is a next-generation biocatalyst designed to help plants better tolerate salt and other abiotic stresses.

Typical spring conditions create a challenging environment for a young crop. Too much or too little water, cold temperatures, and fertilizer salts may slow early season plant growth and can rob you of yield potential. 

Accomplish MAX, a new product available through Nutrien Ag Solutions, is designed to help you take on these challenges while also driving yield.

Watch our on-demand webinar, "Minimizing Crop Stresses for Increased Yields," to learn:

• How Accomplish MAX can help your crops succeed with "More Nutrients, Less Stress"
  
  
• Why this combination of proven biochemistry and cutting-edge kelp technology provides significant agronomic benefits
  
  
• How Accomplish MAX has performed in recent corn and cotton trials

Accomplish MAX, a next-generation biocatalyst that provides nutrient efficiency and crop stress tolerance benefits, is now available from Loveland Products through Nutrien Ag Solutions retail locations. It is designed for use with in-furrow starters, 2x2 placement of liquid fertilizers, and liquid sidedress applications.

Accomplish MAX is a proprietary combination of proven Accomplish biocatalyst technology, which growers have used for over a decade to improve nutrient mineralization and uptake on millions of acres across the United States, and cutting-edge kelp technology designed to enhance crop tolerance to abiotic stressors such as cold temperatures, drought and fertilizer salts. 

Key benefits of Accomplish MAX:

• Increases nutrient availability and uptake by mineralizing nutrients in the soil
• Improves plant tolerance to abiotic stresses such as cold temperatures and salinity from commercial fertilizers
• Enhances overall plant performance to help growers reach their yield potential

How high can corn yield go? In our short video, "Striving for Record Corn Yields," you'll see how some corn growers try to test the limits and push for record-setting yields.

"I wish I could tell you that high yield is a recipe, like following the cookbook. By gosh, it isn't that way. High yield...it is an art form," says Dr. Fred Below of the University of Illinois in the video. 

The growers featured in the video faced multiple obstacles during filming in 2020 — from hurricanes and tropical storms in the East to a derecho that flattened crops and caused billions of dollars worth of damage across the Midwest. 

"We had a tremendous crop out there. The storm just took part of it," says Iowa farmer Kelly Garrett, whose farm was in the path of the 2020 derecho that made records as the most destructive and costliest thunderstorm disaster in U.S. history.

"We had a hurricane come in here the other day. Raise a good corn crop and then it's sad to come in here and watch it laying on the ground the way it is, broke off," says Heath Cutrell, who farms in Virginia and North Carolina.

Farmers have a story to tell, and we wanted to capture it. During the 2020 growing season, Agricen hired a film crew to document the experiences of growers from four different farm operations in the United States. The result is Last Stand, a movie that follows some of America's top farmers as they try to grow the highest yields possible in a season full of challenges. The film can be watched by visiting LastStand.ag.

“While you can never predict what the growing season will be like, the 2020 season certainly did manage to throw many surprises into the mix. Excessive rain and hurricanes, the historic derecho in Iowa and across the upper Midwest – and that’s just the weather,” says Michael Totora, president and CEO of Agricen. “We think this is an important film that not only gives viewers a unique glimpse into the lives of the featured farmers, but also into the lives of farmers across the U.S. in 2020.”