Renewable Farming

Biologicals accelerate the crop, the Web accelerates the message

Crop scouting today has more “leverage” on getting the word out than before the era of sharing high-resolution cell phone photos via text messages and the internet. A grower can take a field photo and within minutes, the evidence of effects on crop are available to friends around the world.

May 30, 2018 by Jerry Carlson — Here are two more examples of a biological booster at work in early corn. These are from Indiana, sent to us by Gil Farley, president of Biodyne USA.

A line drawn down the center of this photo divides
control rows on the left from Environoc 410 treated rows on the right.

The “401+” tag on these photos indicate which corn was given an in-furrow treatment of “Environoc 401,” which is Biodyne’s beneficial bacteria blend formulated to unlock soil nutrients around the root zone.

Reports we’re getting from growers this spring indicate the same kind of response from across the Midwest. Back when I was a young associate editor at Farm Journal, such photo evidence would flow to farmers like this: The grower might invite an editor to take a look. The editor might call a photographer, or even take a color photo on a film camera. The photo would eventually find its way to Farm Journal’s crops editor in Philadelphia a few weeks later. If it looked significant, the “artwork” might be considered for a feature in a month or two. No, let’s wait until a winter issue. So about mid-December, farmers might see the story and consider doing something about it the following spring. 

Nowadays, you can see something, do something because information moves faster. Although most of the 2018-season corn is planted, there may still be some time to treat a few acres of late soybeans, or double-crop soybeans after wheat, with an in-furrow biological booster. One idea I’ve heard this spring: Since Environoc 401 is bacterial (no beneficial fungi) and AgriEnergy’s SP-1 biological has a wide blend of organisms, what would a mix of those microbes do for roots?  Worth a shot to find out. 

Here’s the second photo.  Next fall’s yield results should prove interesting…