Renewable Farming

Biggest, fastest payoff for high-quality soil biology: vegetables and fruit

Gil Farley, president of Biodyne USA, just sent us the nearby photo of three brilliant red tomatoes which won the tomato Grand Championship at the Indiana State Fair. The grower, Zachary Brazel, enhanced their flavor and total quality with two Biodyne products.

Grand Champion tomatoes, Indiana State Fair, 2018

August 7, 2018 — By Jerry Carlson We’ve always noted that the new biological developers focus first on the high-margin crops where buyers can see and taste the difference that nutrient dense, fully mineralized fruit and vegetables can actually yield in really healthy soils. 

Several of the new “bio” companies are only recently migrating their marketing to the big-acreage crops like corn and beans, after taking a commanding role in California, the land of fruits and nuts. Biodyne has its origins in Florida. The red tomatoes here were raised with the help of two Biodyne products:

1. Environoc 401, which we’re also using as an in-furrow inoculant for corn and soybeans. It’s primarily beneficial bacteria including species which enhance nitrogen fixation.

2. SG Advance, a new foliar spray with one of the first combinations we’ve seen of beneficial bacteria, essential micronutrients and NPK in a 3-4-7 analysis. For us, our instincts immediately recommend using WakeUP Summer to mobilize SG Advance for complete absorption and translocation. This is so new we haven’t had a chance to try it yet, but the season isn’t over. 

Biodyne USA came to the Midwest about three years ago, and we’ve one of just a few distributors testing and marketing their product line.

Our “new researcher” at Renewable Farming LLC, Blake Carlson, is using Biodyne’s products and others on multiple fruit and vegetable crops this season. Blake’s tomatoes are the best I’ve ever tasted in just over 40 years of veggie growing here. Part of that may be Blake’s selection of varieties, but it’s also due to complete mineralization. Blake regularly foliar-feeds, using a 12-volt sprayer and wand mounted on our Honda 350. Here’s a closeup of some of his sweet yellow pearl tomatoes on the vine. 

The personal payoff for our family is an abundance of delicious tomatoes of several varieties. The bowl of tomatoes below is an example:  

In addition to Biodyne’s Environoc 401 for a microbial source, Blake includes Vitazyme as a non-microbial biostimulant and a soluble 20-20-20 for NPK, plus a trace element mix and Redox Chemical’s calcium-silicone blend, MainstaySi. All of these are mobilized into the veggies with WakeUP Summer.

 

Blake and part of his tomato crop are in the final photo here. Note the staging of blooms, with a new wave of blooms coming on while lower branches of leaves are pushing fruit.