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How Does PROLOGUE Enhance Phosphate Performance?

March 29, 2024 — Posted By Agricen

By Ronald Calhoun, PhD, Loveland Products

Crops need phosphorus (P) early in their development to help them get off to a good start. This important macronutrient not only helps them capture and convert sunlight into useful plant compounds, it also assists with plant growth, stalk strength and early root growth and development.

One challenge that growers need to think about each season is that phosphorus availability can be limited by soil fixation, poor root growth and cold temperatures that limit microbial activity. Much of the phosphorus that is applied each season is at risk of fixation with elements in the soil like iron (Fe), aluminum (Al) and calcium (Ca). Once those bonds have formed, the bound phosphate becomes essentially unavailable to the growing crop. For these reasons, it is difficult to access phosphate in the soil bank, making applied phosphate relatively inefficient.

Along with phosphorus, plants also need zinc (Zn). Zinc plays a role in the manufacturing of plant hormones that help drive root growth. It also has a unique relationship with phosphorus, interacting with phosphate to influence root growth. These two nutrients work best when they are available in a ratio in which neither one is limiting the other. Unfortunately, prevailing spring conditions, like cool temperatures and waterlogged soils, can limit the availability of zinc.

PROLOGUE (5-0-0 6.3% Zn) is a unique technology designed to enhance phosphate nutrition for a higher performing and more sustainable approach to crop nutrition. In the trial below, adding PROLOGUE to 10-34-0 starter led to an average yield increase of +8.9 bushels per acre across six sites.

PROLOGUE combines the critical early season micronutrient, zinc, with unique nutrient solubilizing technology that increases the efficiency of both applied phosphate and existing phosphate bound in the soil. Working together, these components enhance early germination and crop growth, helping crops better absorb both applied nutrition and soil bank nutrition:

Nutrient solubilizing technology - Microbial metabolites (biochemicals) and active, phosphorus-scavenging microbes that colonize within the root system to keep more applied nutrition available to the crop. They also help loosen the bonds of recalcitrant phosphorus in the soil to improve phosphorus availability during the growing season.
Chelated zinc - A plant-available form of zinc.

Many crops can benefit from PROLOGUE, especially those that do best with an early season application of liquid phosphate (including ammonium polyphosphate or liquid phosphate containing blends) near the developing root system.

With technology that drives more phosphorus into a developing crop, PROLOGUE can help growers realize big dividends at the end of the season.

Learn more by downloading the PROLOGUE booklet.

It’s All About the Roots!

April 1, 2019 — Posted By Agricen

By Maud Hinchee, PhD, Chief Science Officer, Agricen Sciences

It’s spring, and newly germinated seedlings are revving their engines!

Once a seedling has secured a foothold with its root, it uses the power of its photosynthetic engines to drive growth. Sunlight is the fuel source, enabling the plant to produce the proteins, lipids and carbohydrates it needs to make new leaves and new roots. To create these internal building blocks, the seedling must mine and extract raw materials from the soil in the form of water, macronutrients and micronutrients.

How does a root prospect? Unlike the “49ers” who picked up their stakes and often travelled great distances to join the California Gold Rush, a plant is literally rooted to its home. Often, its immediate home is not choice real estate with plentiful water and nutrients on tap, so the plant needs to be able to find water and nutrients, sometimes at great distance, and “sluice” them back through its root system to the growing shoot.

Crop plants are lucky, as growers work to ensure that the necessary nutrients, especially nitrogen and phosphorus, are available for their germinating seeds through careful fertilization. However, added nutrients are not necessarily distributed evenly in the soil. Nitrogen, typically applied as nitrate or ammonia, tends to move relatively easily and homogenously down through the soil, while phosphorus tends to be bound up quickly with metals and is typically found in patches nearer to the soil surface.

The most productive plants are ones that can efficiently find and utilize nutrients – no matter where they might be distributed in the soil – by “sniffing” them out with their growing root tip, which has nutrient receptors that function similarly to the receptors found in our nose. These receptors can sense whether or not a nutrient is present. If a root perceives a low or high concentration of a nutrient, it responds by changing its nutrient mining strategy.

If the seedling’s growing primary root senses a low quantity of phosphorus, the seedling shifts its nutrient excavation strategy. It slows its primary root growth and produces a higher density of long, lateral roots that can better prospect for bioavailable phosphorus typically found in the topsoil. If a lucky lateral root finds a rich pocket of bioavailable phosphorus, then additional root proliferation and root hair formation may occur to fully mine that motherlode.

In the case of nitrogen, which tends to be distributed more deeply and homogenously in the soil, the primary root continues to drive down into the soil, producing lateral roots that are relatively evenly distributed along its length. If the root senses that nitrogen levels are becoming low, then it devotes energy to lateral root growth to increase its access to larger soil volumes.

The root system doesn't find its nutrients by chance! As the seedling journeys towards its ultimate goal of reproducing, it actively modifies its root system to best drill into a rich vein of water or nutrients.

Growers can help, too, by using biocatalyst technologies that increase root mass and enhance root development, allowing plants to better mine the nutrients they need to grow and yield optimally.

Learn more about biocatalyst technologies by browsing Agricen's collection of resources, which includes product studies, videos and publications.

Why Soybean Growers Should Apply Extract PBA This Spring

April 28, 2016 — Posted By Agricen

By Randy Stockhorst, Loveland Products, Ohio

For soybean plants, R3 is a critical growth stage during which the plant's nutrient needs rise to support pod growth and development. By applying Extract PBA with a soybean pre-emerge herbicide, growers can ensure their plants will have the nutrition they need at this critical growth period, which will position them for an excellent yield outcome.

In our area of northwest Ohio, potassium deficiency is the most prevalent deficiency that we've seen in R3 soybean tissue samples over the past several years. The amount of potassium stored in corn stalks is a little more than a 1-to-1 ratio on yield. That means that in a 200 bushel corn crop, for example, there are approximately 205 lbs of potassium locked in the stalks.

By applying Extract PBA on corn residue now, growers can accelerate nutrient release and mineralization so that more nutrients–including potassium–are available to their soybean crop at the reproductive stages.

Farmers in our area who utilized this product last fall are indeed impressed with the activity on corn stalks, and those who utilize it this spring can expect similar results. As you can see below, the concentrated biochemistry in an application of Extract PBA breaks down the stalk, releasing nutrients for the next crop.

Untreated (left) vs Extract PBA-treated (right) corn stalks. Extract PBA was applied in the fall of 2015. Photo taken in March 2016 in Carey, Ohio.

In addition to nutrient release, other benefits of adding Extract PBA to a spring pre-emergence soybean herbicide application include:

An easier tillage pass on soybean stubble this fall
Soil that will be drier and warm up faster for the next year's corn planting
Less disease pressure from the stalks

I encourage anyone who is planting soybeans this spring to consider applying Extract PBA as part of their pre-emerge plan.

Learn more about using Extract PBA in the spring or fall by watching a webinar.

Root Intelligence Helps Plants Survive and Thrive

April 13, 2016 — Posted By Agricen

By Maud Hinchee, PhD, Chief Science Officer, Agricen Sciences

Getting a good start is key to a germinating seed’s need to “survive and thrive.” Essential to this process is establishing a root system that creates a strong foothold and provides access to available nutrients and water. But how does the emerging seedling root do this?

Plant roots It turns out that the new root is constantly making choices about where and when to grow based on the environment it encounters. Guided by its “root brain,” it makes decisions that maximize its access to water and nutrients as quickly as possible.

The root brain is found in the transition zone of the root tip – the area between the region of cell division and cell elongation. A good look at this control point in the root can be seen in this microscopic time-lapse view of a growing root. Here, the root receives and integrates multiple sensory signals in response to environmental cues. It can then respond to those cues by adjusting the rate and direction of its growth to ensure it has the best access to water and nutrients. By “deciding” which cells divide or elongate, the root can change where and how fast it moves through the soil.

This root brain does not act alone. Much as chemical signaling in our nervous system carries signals to and from our brains, similar processes happen in the plant. The plant hormone auxin, for instance, interacts with plant cells in a similar way that neurotransmitters (chemical messengers) interact with our own nerve cells to carry messages. Auxin is crucial to the root’s perception of and response to environmental signals, and helps to control things such as the timing and rate of cell elongation, as well as potential sites for lateral root production.

The plant can even call in allies to obtain more auxin and bolster its root growth potential. In a microscopic barter, roots exude carbohydrates that act as food offerings to soil microbes. The microbes, in turn, produce auxins to be consumed by the plant as a supplement that supports to the plant in its goal to produce larger, more branched root systems.

The root systems of young seedlings not only rely on their decision-making capacity to survive and thrive, but they also have another strong ally – the farmer. Farmers help by applying fertilizers, growth stimulators or other products that assist a plant in growing strong roots or accessing nutrients and water. For example, the signaling molecules in some agricultural biostimulants provide messages that assist the root brain in making critical decisions that affect when, where and how a root system develops.

The capacity for roots to assess and respond to the environment is a major part of how a plant wins the survival campaign for water, nutrients, light and space. Root growth and development decisions made now and in the future can make or break a plant’s success—and the farmer is a key partner in helping the plant survive and thrive.

Dig deeper into the soil by downloading our Soil Microbiology & Biochemistry Booklet.

Making the Case for In-Furrow Applications

April 11, 2016 — Posted By Agricen

By Jeremiah Butler

As we enter planting time and growers make final decisions for the coming crop year, many growers will consider using in-furrow products. There are several reasons why they should research and consider in-furrow applications.

Many of you have heard Dr. Fred Below of the University of Illinois talk about his “Seven Wonders of the Corn Yield World.” As we look at the factors below, we can see that there is no silver bullet. Attaining a high yield truly takes a systems approach!

Seven Wonders of the Corn Yield World and Their Potential Impact on Yield

The value of each factor is presented in bushels/acre as well as a percentage of the total (260 bushels/acre). Source: U Illinois Crop Physiology Lab

Although in-furrow products are not included on his list of major factors that impact corn yield, Dr. Below was recently asked whether in-furrow products are important in an interview with Farm Industry News. Here is his answer:

"We are starting to see synergistic advantages of in-furrow technologies, where a fungicide is applied with an insecticide along with a starter fertilizer. These products enhance and protect the plant or seedling, and by having the nutrients alongside them, can start the plant off to a faster growth trajectory. Ultimately, I think we will have other growth-enhancing technologies that can go in-furrow. I think it is one of the next new things in agriculture."

So, when should growers consider a starter fertilizer? There are several scenarios in which an in-furrow product can make a lot of sense:

When cultural practices such as no-till or minimum tillage are utilized
On coarse textured or low organic matter soils
On poorly drained or cold soils
On low testing P and K soils
When nodal root systems are severally impeded by challenging growing conditions
When soil pH is unusually high or low
When substantial drought stress is likely

Loveland Products has a variety of in-furrow technologies that can be used as part of a systems approach to obtaining a healthy, high yielding crop. In addition to the starter fertilizers Levitate and Riser, these include:

Accomplish LM, a biochemical technology that improves nutrient availability and uptake for better plant performance
Radiate, a growth regulator that can be used to promote a larger root mass for more water and nutrient interception
Organic acid technologies including Black Label Zn and BlackMax 22
Satori fungicide
Sniper LFR insecticide

We wish you the best of luck as you get growing this season.

Learn more about Accomplish LM by downloading the Accomplish LM booklet.

Using Biostimulants to Talk to Plants

October 26, 2015 — Posted By Agricen

By Maud Hinchee, PhD, Chief Science Officer, Agricen Sciences

Young Plants Plants are constantly responding to their senses. They can touch, smell, taste and otherwise sense water, food and predators—and they can remember. Of course, they don’t do all of this exactly the way a human does, but they do respond to the messages they receive from the world around them to survive, thrive and reproduce—much the way we do.

This is a pretty stimulating idea – that plants are actually sentient beings responding to stimuli in a purposeful manner and communicating with each other and with potential friends and foes. (For more on this, take a look at the “What Plants Talk About” episode from the PBS series, Nature.) It’s also an idea that has captivated researchers and companies in the agricultural space in recent years, most notably around the topic of biostimulants and other agricultural biologicals.

Biostimulants are any of a variety of naturally-derived products that signal plants through biochemical messages to improve their growth, health and nutritional value. Biostimulant products include humic and fulvic acids, seaweed extracts, protein hydrolysates, amino acids, microbial inoculants and biochemical products like Agricen’s, which are derived from naturally occurring microbial communities.

Typically, such products are organically complex, and we haven’t always immediately understood the way they work to influence plant growth and health. What we do know, however, is that they can have a positive effect on plants in the agricultural setting, a claim that is supported by significant and growing scientific evidence.

Biostimulants affect a variety of physiological and biochemical pathways in plants – influencing changes in plant behaviors such as increasing root growth, enhancing nutrient uptake and improving stress tolerance. Essentially, they provide a way to communicate with plants and “tip them off” on how to positively adjust to the environmental and biotic challenges typical of agricultural systems.

We are just beginning to comprehend the significant potential of these products. It will continue to be both exciting and challenging to explore the possibilities biostimulants offer as we work to increase agricultural production for future generations.

Learn more about biological products for agriculture:

Understanding Nutrient Requirements for High-Yielding Corn

September 17, 2014 — Posted By Agricen

By Fred E. Below, PhD, Professor of Plant Physiology, Department of Crop Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Agronomic advancements have brought corn yields to new heights, but producers have had little guidance on how to meet the nutrient requirements of modern, high-yield corn hybrids in a way that maximizes their yields. As a result, the high yields we see today have been accompanied in many places across the United States by a significant drop in soil nutrient levels, particularly phosphorus (P), potassium (K), sulfur (S) and zinc (Zn). This combination—higher yielding hybrids and decreasing soil fertility levels—suggests that producers have not sufficiently matched their maintenance fertilizer applications with nutrient uptake and removal by the corn.

By better understanding nutrient uptake and partitioning, producers can optimize their fertilization practices to meet their crop needs and attain maximum yield potential. I’ll focus here primarily on the uptake, partitioning, and utilization of P and K by corn.

Typical fertilization for corn in the United States is 180 lbs of N, 90 lbs of P₂O₅ and 160 lbs of K₂0 per acre, with no S or micronutrients. For modern corn hybrids in high-yielding systems, mineral nutrients with high requirements for production (i.e., nitrogen [N], P, K) or with a high harvest index (HI: the percentage of total plant uptake that is removed with the grain) (i.e., N, P, S, Zn) are important for obtaining high corn yield (Table 1).¹

Producers must consider the impact of increased grain and stover nutrient removal on the next crop and employ appropriate fertilizer strategies to ensure that adequate nutrients are available to the crop. Phosphorus is probably one of the most overlooked nutrients, and most farmers are not putting out enough. In relation to total uptake, nearly 80% of P is removed in corn grain, while K is retained to a higher percentage in stover.

Production practices that utilize above-ground stover (i.e., cellulosic ethanol, silage production) may remove an additional 20.8 lbs of N, 4.0 lbs of P₂O₅, and 23.3 lbs of K₂O per ton of dry matter, along with micronutrients. While farmers in Illinois, for example, fertilize 93 lbs P₂O₅ per acre, on average, for corn production², the large majority (~80%) of soybean fields receive no applied P. As a result, they would have only the remaining 13 lbs/acre of P₂O₅ available for soybean production in a corn–soybean rotation³, where P and K fertilizer are commonly applied for both crops in the corn production year. This value would be inadequate to meet soybean P needs for total uptake (48 lbs/acre P₂O₅) or nutrient removal (30 lbs/acre P₂O₅) based on a conservative yield estimate of 46 bushels/acre in Illinois.⁴ Clearly, typical fertilization practices may need to be adjusted to meet crop nutrient needs.

Mineral nutrients are not all acquired at the same time or used in the same way by corn plants, and some require season-long uptake by corn roots for the crop to achieve a high yield. During the V10 to V14 growth stages, 230 bushel corn requires 7.8 lbs of N, 2.1 lbs of P₂O₅ and 5.4 lbs of K₂O per day, but these needs change at other times. To optimize their programs, producers need fertilizer sources that supply nutrients at the rate and time that match their plants’ nutritional needs.

Potassium accumulates more than three-fourths of total uptake by VT/R1 (Figure 1)¹, while over 50% of total P uptake occurs during grain fill (after VT/R1) (Figure 2)¹, in addition to remobilization of 57% and 77% of the maximum measured leaf P and stalk P contents, respectively. This suggests that a season-long supply of P is critical for corn nutrition, while availability of K at levels that can meet the maximum rates of uptake during early season vegetative growth would be expected to meet corn nutritional needs, since the majority of K uptake occurs during vegetative growth. Thus, practices that are effective for one nutrient may not improve uptake of the other.

Nutrient management is complex, but improved fertilizer use can be achieved by understanding patterns of nutrient uptake, partitioning, and utilization. Producers should pay special attention to P requirements as productivity increases, as current data suggest a looming soil fertility crisis if adequate adjustments are not made in P usage rates. Agronomic advancements have brought corn yields to new heights, but understanding how to maintain soil nutrient levels can go a long way in helping to sustain high yields.

---

Learn how biocatalyst technologies can improve nutrient availability and uptake to help meet the nutrient needs of corn and other crops by downloading the Biocatalyst Technology FAQ Booklet.

References:

Bender RR, Haegele JW, Ruffo ML, Below FE. 2013. Nutrient uptake, partitioning, and remobilization in modern, transgenic insect-protected maize hybrids. Agron. J. 105:161–170.
National Agriculture Statistics Service (NASS), United States Department of Agriculture. Fertilizer and Chemical Usage. 2011. Illinois Farm Report. 32:8.
NASS. Fertilizer, Chemical Usage, and Biotechnology Varieties. 2010. Bulletin As11091, Illinois Agricultural Statistics.
Usherwood, N.R. 1998. Nutrient management for top-profit soybeans. News and views. Bulletin RN 98105. Potash and Phosphate Inst., Int. Plant Nutrition Inst., Norcross, GA.

Guest Blog: What to Expect When Banding Nutrients with Corn Seed

March 12, 2014 — Posted By Agricen

By Daniel Kaiser, PhD, University of Minnesota

In areas where spring is cool and wet, banding fertilizer with the planter can benefit corn crops. Although application of dry fertilizer with the corn planter has played an important role historically, it has become less common with increasing acreages and planter sizes. Instead, liquid fertilizers have steadily replaced dry for supplying nutrients to the corn plant early in the growing season.

The primary benefit of applying low rates of fertilizer directly on the corn seed is more rapid growth early in the growing season. Increased early growth can be viewed as an insurance policy, ensuring that plants reach critical periods of growth faster. Low rates of phosphorus can significantly increase the amount of growth, even in fields where soil phosphorous test levels are high. Our research in Minnesota has demonstrated that as little at 10 lbs P₂O₅ applied with the planter can produce sizeable increases in plant mass early in the growing season. This increase has been shown to speed development and decrease the time to silking by one to two days.

Despite large increases in early plant mass, the probability of an increase in grain yield when using traditional starter sources is low in our experience in Minnesota, occurring roughly 10-15% of the time in soils testing high in phosphorus. And, once soils warm, the potential yield benefits of banded nutrients can decrease. At this time, the potential for an increase in yield is typically dictated by the presence or absence of a deficiency in one or more nutrients. Trials conducted over three years in Southern Minnesota that utilized a starter containing nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (and compared to potassium alone), clearly showed the benefits of starter phosphorus for increasing early plant mass, but also demonstrated that increases in grain yield were due to elements such as potassium or sulfur. The magnitude of yield response was not related to the magnitude of increased early plant growth, reinforcing the disconnect between responses early in the growing season and potential increases in corn grain yield. In other words, a 50% increase in biomass does not necessarily translate into a 50% increase in yield.

Due to the added cost of fertilizer, producers that use starter must weigh all options when deciding where money should be spent. Current Minnesota fertilizer guidelines indicate that small rates of nutrients applied in a starter can supply crop needs when soils test high for phosphorous or potassium. However, if soils test low, the amount of fertilizer that can safely be applied with the seed may be too low to match crop needs. In these situations, additional broadcast phosphorous or potassium is warranted. If broadcast phosphorous or potassium is applied at high enough rates, there is little benefit of additional nutrients applied in a starter fertilizer, but what has not yet been addressed is whether broadcast phosphorous or potassium rates can be reduced sufficiently to make the cost more economical. However, since other benefits of starter include reduced grain moisture—which can range from an average decrease of 0.5% to as much 1.0-1.5% in extreme circumstances—this alone can be enough to pay for the cost of some fertilizer sources, especially in years when grain is wetter in the fall.

Over time, we have learned what to expect when banding nutrients with corn seed. Our experience in Minnesota shows that while a grain yield response is possible when banding nutrients with corn seed, a grain moisture response is much more likely. In addition, while starter (banded) potassium can provide a higher chance of return, it simply may not be economical compared to broadcast applications.

The 1st World Congress on Biostimulants in Agriculture

December 5, 2012 — Posted By AMSPressMaster

By David G. Beaudreau, Vice President of Environmental Policy, DC Legislative and Regulatory Services

Last week, I attended the First World Congress on the Use of Biostimulants in Agriculture. Over 700 people from more than 30 countries were also in attendance, all of whom seem to have a strong interest in and energy for this emerging field. Being an attendee offered a preview into what will likely be an expanding market and larger long-term issue in the agriculture industry.

Presentations focused on the scientific, technical, and legislative issues related to the application of biostimulants in crop production. Presenters ranged from representatives of biostimulant companies to academics who have done studies on numerous materials they consider to be biostimulants, including amino acids, humic acids, microbial inoculants, plant-derived extracts, and seaweed extracts, among others.

I was particularly interested to hear from the European regulatory officials who, along with the European Biostimulants Industry Consortium, have made fairly significant progress in their efforts to define "biostimulant" in Europe. This is a model that I hope is replicated in the US. It is clear that there is an intense focus within Europe to define what biostimulants are at the governmental level, as well as for industry to provide additional research funds to continue to demonstrate the benefits of biostimulants in agriculture. Bringing this message back to the US should help those in the emerging biostimulant industry gain further attention and recognition of the benefits our products bring to U.S. agriculture.

In my keynote, “The Legislative and Regulatory Approach to Biostimulants in the USA,” I discussed The Biostimulant Coalition, which was formed in 2011 to address the regulatory and legislative issues involving biological or naturally-derived additives and/or similar products for crop production. Agricen is one of the founding members of this effort.

We are actively working with state and federal regulators to coalesce around a definition of “biostimulant” in the US. Such a definition might include any material that, when applied to a plant, seed, soil, or growing media in conjunction with established fertilization plans, enhances the plant's nutrient use efficiency, or provides other direct or indirect benefits to plant development or stress response.

Our US regulators, which include the Association of American Plant Food Control Officials (AAPFCO), the EPA, and the USDA, are interested in learning more about this category and, we hope, in addressing the patchwork regulatory structure that currently exists. The Biostimulant Coalition will continue to work with them to establish a category that accommodates this technology.

The interest in this topic and the well-attended biostimulants conference are both indicators to me that a similar conference would be well received here by US regulators, researchers, and growers.

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