Advancing Eco Agriculture, Product Science

So there has been a lot of buzz around the mag about
Advancing Eco Agriculture aka Biological Advantage. I figured its time to start a thread and lets discuss these products and the science behind them, good and bad. No paid sponsors, just real talk and opinions on what these things bring to the table.

AEA, or BA isnt just about the products its also about the methods used to achieve superior plant health and full genetic expression.

So lets talk plant health...

health monitoring, via Brix, Sap PH..

increasing health, via foliar feeding, trace minerals and balanced soils..

For those of you who dont know and would like to know what Im talking about. Here are some links to check out.

http://growbetterfood.com/

http://www.novacropcontrol.nl/en


listen to these talks:

2013 Soil & Nutrition Conference: Putting Principles into Practice
John Kempf: Part 1/ Part 2/Part 3/Part 4http://www.bionutrient.org/audio/2013_soil_nutrition_conference/d-01-31-2013-JohnKempf.mp3

Dan Kittredge

http://www.bionutrient.org/audio/2013_soil_nutrition_conference/g-02-01-2013-DerekandDan.mp3

http://www.bionutrient.org/audio/2013_soil_nutrition_conference/h-02-01-2013-DanDerekandJohn.mp3

http://www.bionutrient.org/audio/2013_soil_nutrition_conference/i-02-01-2013-DanDerekandJohn.mp3




FE

Here is a brix reading from a sample that was taken from an indoor plant, grown in balanced and amended soil, fed once weekly for 3 weeks an AEA foliar recipe that was gifted to me.





I checked several leaves from the same plant as well as different plants all in the same area on each. I got pretty consistent results. The highest readings coming from the new growth. One issue that may be affecting the reading is I took readings about 2 hours after a heavy watering. about 12 hours after a heavy foliar of the AEA recipe. I took samples from the 2 different plants, same cultivar, both were indoors different rooms, different medium. One soil one from coco. They both received foliar feedings at the same intervals and same days. The coco is fed botanicare the soil was an amendment blend I mix myself. to my surprise they both had the same brix reading. The coco plant is much much smaller although they are from the same batch of clones. Plant sap was 6.2 on the soil grown and I somehow spaced taking the sap PH of the coco grown plant.



So then I took a petiole cross section to examine under the microscope and I was surprised again. The larger plant from soil had holes in the petiole and some was even hollowed at the center. I took this as a negative sign akin to having hollow stems and boron deficiency. I did notice a large hollow stem when I topped my GG4's in the same soil. I have been experiencing some incredible growth rates using the aea foliar x balanced amended soil. Im wondering if I need to hit them harder or more often with foliars to keep up with the speed of growth. Possibly they are showing these symptoms because of accelerated growth and maybe they are unable to uptake the needed boron quickly enough? I have petiole pics but I want to sample again and see if I get the same results. I also noticed that the soil grown petiole had much thicker cell walls than the coco grown. Also that it was harder to cut slices of, even with a razor I could not make a clean slice without sliding the blade. Ill be back with some pics and data ... some pics from my other thread Big Soil Little Room. The soil plant that I mentioned earlier came from this space.

Day 1



Day 10



Day 15

Hmmm. I've never heard hollow stems being tied to a deficiency. Always thought it was genetic. Some girls with big hollow stems seem to pith up as they age and get larger. Glad you started this thread.

FatherEarth said:

So then I took a petiole cross section to examine under the microscope and I was surprised again. The larger plant from soil had holes in the petiole and some was even hollowed at the center. I took this as a negative sign akin to having hollow stems and boron deficiency. I did notice a large hollow stem when I topped my GG4's in the same soil. I have been experiencing some incredible growth rates using the aea foliar x balanced amended soil. Im wondering if I need to hit them harder or more often with foliars to keep up with the speed of growth. Possibly they are showing these symptoms because of accelerated growth and maybe they are unable to uptake the needed boron quickly enough?

Click to expand...

Interesting regarding your perspective about the hollow petioles/stems. Only thing I can relate is quite a few years back talking to Kempf about his Photomag and alfalfa. He said one of the benefits of use is alfalfa stems would fill out thus increasing yield. Growers with favorable growing seasons were also getting an extra cutting per year.

Great looking plants, awesome growth rate.

I will say we finally got a bottle of Rejuvenate that didn't blow up in shipment. Seems they did tweak the formula a bit or at least this is a new batch.

I can't provide any sap feedback this year and only anecdotal. For various reasons the soil mix at 3 locations not what we would have liked yet still getting awesome results with the foliar program which includes PHT calcium and phosphorous, Photomag, Seastim, Seashield, Rejuvenate, Albion calcium, Ca-25 and Sea-Crop. Everyone using the program noting a big difference this year

Next year our focus will be better soil and some sap testing.

Do you have a soil test? They are called plant health supplements for a reason.

Ca B and Si work synergistically. If you are taking up K In place of Ca you cannot make full use of the B in photomag.

Once you are comfortable take a look at aea Co. You can keep roots growing the entire plant cycle and combined with kelp that is a very good thing.

Take a look at the thread m astra is in.

CG,
Good to hear they got the rejuvenate working better, Mine still swells up but works fine as far as I can tell.


MJ

I have a bag of Co on hand I also have solubor as well. Yea I do have a soil test, 12 of them actually, lol. I can reference each bed specifically to see what levels were.. Ill have a look.. and get it posted here..


LB,

Kempf says hollow stems are B defs. Lots of ppl think its just what stems do. Kempf argues otherwise. Ive seen cultivars I had never seen a solid stem, get solid as an oak from foliar feeding B alone..

MJ here are the tests.. Ill have to wait til I can get in to see what number bed it is...

The Gorillas with the hollow stems are in SB8 looks like the K is rather high in that bed...

MJ,
What you said about the K in place of Ca not letting the plant utilize the B seems spot on looking at the soil tests
How does a plant not uptake what you foliar feed it? I understand in the soil but does it select minerals and nutrients when you foliar feed in the same way it does in the soil? Are you feeding photomag to the soil too?


Thanks

Tag

I amended heavily with gypsum btw.... so the Ca and S values are certainly much different now.. If I remember correctly if I went too hard the Ca could have pushed out some K in the base saturation...?

Thanks for starting this thread, FE.

I got a bunch of aea product recently...very timely thread for me.

I'll have to go through those links you posted before I ask my questions.

Thanks again!

HB.

FatherEarth said:

MJ,
What you said about the K in place of Ca not letting the plant utilize the B seems spot on looking at the soil tests
How does a plant not uptake what you foliar feed it? I understand in the soil but does it select minerals and nutrients when you foliar feed in the same way it does in the soil? Are you feeding photomag to the soil too?


Thanks

Click to expand...

Watch the nova crop control stuff again. The plant works just like the soil. Once you saturate it foliar or no it ain't taking anymore.

I would be willing to guess those lower ph beds are not the ones that have hollow stems...they can exchange H for base cations ie they can take up foliar Ca whereas the ones with higher ph probably cannot. This is espe cially true if your soil ec is where you like to run it.

You are leaving no room for the plant to correct. It is fine to run highish cec if your mix is dead nuts on. But if it isn't you aren't allowing the plant to choose

The ph was corrected before I ever added gypsum I added some spectrum extra and rejuvenate and kept the beds warm for two weeks. Within a week of that first watering the ph was 6.2 - 6.5... Thanks for the reply excellent info... Much appreciated.

I have spectrum extra and pepzyme c. My impression has been that it can remediate imbalance? So far, using as foliars and soil amendment, it seems to be a step up from not using it?

My plan is to alternate cal-phos slurry w/ kelpfalfa {bubbled in my brewer} as foliars {including the spectrum/pepzyme @ 1/4 tsp ea per 4~5 gals of bubbled foliar brews

Are yall following a guide or just going by the bottle's suggestions? I was told that the nutrients can be used in equal proportions. Tried everything at 1ml, rejuvenate 2ml per gallon and the plants loved it. Lookin forward to many good harvests with AEA.

An absolute shameless product endorsement coming so avert your eyes if you are opposed to such things.

FE...if you are buying bags of soil for beds allow me to suggest Keystone Bio Ag for one bed. It will be expensive because it comes from PA but you will get to see with your own peepers what a seriously biologically active soil with Albrecht balance is about...and it is a potting soil

That plant went from what I thought was good potting soil into the keystone stuff. You can see the transition was a bit rough but check out the new leaves. They are not N and K driven so they are no where near as dark as I am use to seeing. But check out the gloss...lots and lots of energy in those things. I was literally blind but now I see...it is different but you recognize immediately what is going on.

Now, it may not grow as fast as high N/K soil but the tradeoff is worth it in my opinion. This is at a minimum my new start plants and keep my mothers in soil.

edit...you can see it is probably still a hair short on Ca...the tips. But some albion ca foliar and maybe a touch of photomag will fix that no problem. It has the dry version of Sea Shield in it...good stuff.

cannascholar said:

Are yall following a guide or just going by the bottle's suggestions? I was told that the nutrients can be used in equal proportions. Tried everything at 1ml, rejuvenate 2ml per gallon and the plants loved it. Lookin forward to many good harvests with AEA.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm basically doing the same thing.

Did a simple soil test recently and found low N levels in all my containers. I'd been basically giving them water with a little liquid fish and mollasses up until a couple weeks ago. I top dressed the plants with a bit of bat guano (about 5 tbsp per 20 gallon pot). I'm going to check my soil again in a few days to see where my N levels are...plants already look better.

Since no one is willing to share their foliar formula, I've been giving the outdoor plants the following on a rotating basis...these are per gallon application rates all mixed in one container...

Present week:

1oz Photomag
1 oz pht Calcium
2 oz Rejuvenate
1oz seashield
5ml Pepzyme
1/8 micro 5k
5ml SE Wet

Mid week:

2oz Calmag
10ml Azamax or neem (rotating between the two)
2.5 tbls seacrop
5ml SE Wet

Following week:

Same as previous week, but I add 1/4 tsp of pk1k instead of micro5k.

My soil P and K levels are fine right now, but I'm checking my soil weekly to make sure they don't spike on me.

Went to the grow shop and asked for an ec meter for my soil and the guy didn't know they exist. He jumped on the computer because he couldn't believe that Hannah makes an EC meter for soil....I was going to ask if they carried any refractometers, but he seemed pretty annoyed by my first request so I didn't bother.

Milky or any of you other experienced aea folks, if you don't mind...can you suss what I'm doing and point out any glaring flaws? Thanks in advance.

HB.

Here is the exact program recommended by aea for tomatos:

weekly fertigation for one acre

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Weekly foliar and it is suggested mix in 20-30 gallons of water​

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Thanks, milky. One thing I just noticed about my foliar mix is that the Rejuvenate contains yucca (and I assume saponins) already. I might be over doing it by adding the SE Wet as a surfactant. Can't I just use Rejuvenate and skip the SE Wet?

I'll look into that soil mix for next year. Thanks for posting up those results you got with it. I'm curious to see how that dirt handles the rest of the season.

I just want to mention, for the sake of people like me who had never heard of John Kempf before this season.....his lecture linked on the first page here is pretty eye opening. The stuff about "sucking insect" digestive systems was cool. Also, I never knew how round up worked. Good thing I don't use that shit at my place.

HB.

No, Ive not bought any bagged soil in a while.. well, I put starts in black gold for the first two weeks but thats about it. Yea I got a quote from that company a while back when you mentioned them and they quoted me 17$ a bag delivered I believe. Im actually having my soil mixed and delivered to me now by a professional mixing company. Theyll add everything to exact specifications and the compost analysis they showed me is better than the stuff Ive had recently. I was told they would help aim for our favorite ratios with testing and amending til we get it right... 107$ a yard delivered or $8.68 bagged per 1.5 cu ft.

I am going to order some of your snake oil soil to try out though.. Thanks....


here is the compost analysis




surprising there are no inerts... currently I have to be careful mixing with my hands last time I dug into a bed while transplanting I got a nice gash from a piece of glass in the mix.. Ive always had some plastic or weird crap come out of green waste compost...