Ohio Farm Tours


Got invited to talk to Jesse all about soil - if you are bored, give him a listen. Jesse's dad was Lickcreek on the old QDMA forums who was extremely well known and respected for his deer hunting food plot tips/tricks. Jesse is a great guy and I had a ton of fun speaking with him.
 
I am also a SE Ohio guy. Place looks beautiful man! Congrats on your hunting and habitat success.

VV
 

Been writing some blogs on soil health recently. Hope you all enjoy.
 
Soil Health Friday: The importance of Soil Tests:

We had many people contact us with questions about soil testing, PH reading, etc. One of the most common questions that comes up is “I tested my PH, it’s good! However, my crop hasn’t been successful, why?"

Although charts like the above have been published and used all over the wildlife to garden industry, they are incomplete. These charts show how PH is correlated to nutrient uptake in the plant, this is great! However, this also assumes that all the adequate nutrients are available in the soil profile and in ample bio-available amounts. We know that there is variability even between soil tests and tissue tests, therefore relying only on PH tests, relative to nutrient uptake is a bit of a stretch and can mislead the grower.

This is why sound soil testing practices and consistencies can save you time, money, and heartache wondering why a crop failed. Soil labs, like our partner -WARD LABS, use the DTPA extraction method. This method shows what nutrients are available in the soil and in what quantities. This type of information allows us to fine-tune our amendment program if we so choose.

We are enormous fans of allowing biology to do the work for us at Vitalize Seed. We know that our highly diverse mixes are well formulated to take advantage of what is in the soil, and cycle these nutrients from deep into the soil profile to the plant and back!

However, we also recognize that many folks are just starting and the ground they have is far from the prime agricultural ground. This is where it can be tremendously helpful to soil sample, amend to get your PH and Base Saturations in the correct range, and even consider foliar feeding certain missing nutrients – if needed. This will help to jump-start your program!

This type of effort and using a well-balanced highly diverse seed mix like Vitalize Seed will allow you to cycle nutrients and create a system that relies on biology vs. inputs.

This is the tip of the iceberg as to why soil sampling is so critical to a grower's success.

checkout soil tests from WARD LABS on our website- full micros, macros,base sats, and more:

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Although my ramblings are endless, my passion is not.

I hope that my over explanations help to create a clear picture of the uniqueness and thoughtfulness that have gone into our mixes.

Erich Long and Cody Altizer are not only proud partners of Vitalize Seed, they are also true friends!

Jared Michael and I appreciate the opportunity to be on the podcast and look forward to working more closely together.

 
Soil Health Friday -

I love soil - I am always learning and I message and email PHDs at Ward Labs, within their respective focuses on a weekly basis to further understand the functionality - these guys/gals are so brilliant! This also allows me to answer customer questions to the very best of my ability with the most current available information.

To build soil or maybe maximize our soil's microbiome efficiency, is a better way to put it - we must follow sound processes. There is not a single mix on the planet that will "build soil" with one planting.

Now - if we are truly interested in maximizing our soils here are some of my suggestions:

1. Reduce chemical and mechanical disturbance (follow the 6 soil building principles) - this will help to increase our bacterial and eventually fungal-dominated systems.

2. Get a soil test completed - try to balance CA, K, MG saturations, and PH. Most of this can be done with lime! Be precise and try to eliminate as many variables as possible when soil testing (similar depth each time, similar locations, etc.) - I can do another post on this another day to further elaborate.

3. Diversify your plant mixes but do so strategically - mixes must be balanced. Some of these ideas of putting down insane amounts of grains or other N suckers are just asking for N tie-up in the future. Microbes need balance, too much N and we mine our OM. Too much Carbon and we don't have enough N to sustain a healthy microbe population.

4. CtoN ratios in your plants. Every plant is made up of Carbon and Nitrogen - the rate at which the breakdown, is directly related to this and the bacterial population in the soil. Regardless of the microbial populations in the soil, the rate at which higher CtoN plants breakdown will still be longer than lower CtoN crops. By having a balance here, we can set our systems up to cycle nutrients above and below ground.

5. Try to have multiple plant groups in a mix (diversity is important but again, strategic diversity). Legumes are awesome but having plants in a summer mix that also like N is great as well. N goes through a cycle and nitrate will leach out of the soil. The likelihood of total Nitrate capture is unlikely, but if we increase our ability to fix N and make N capture more efficient through our microbial underground community - we can keep the N in the system and again, cycle our nutrients efficiently reducing our needs for synthetics. This only works if we have a balanced system. As we further balance our system and bio-signaling from plant to microbes, we further increase our nitrogen and other nutrient efficiencies in the system. Furthermore, we increase our plant uptake of nutrients, reducing planting stress, and increasing the nutrient density of said plants.

6. Stick to a plan and implement it for multiple years, use soil testing ad observational analysis to tell you what/how things are working and bettering the structure and output of your soils. Consider soil test results as well as tissue sampling - if you are interested.

7. MANAGE BROWSE - I don't care how diverse our systems are, if we have 100% of the forage leaving the field, we are in trouble. Just like trying to have REGEN in an oak forest stand, if the deer eat all the oaks- we are in trouble.

Plant more food, shoot more deer or in many parts of the Midwest, do both.

Thanks for reading.

AT
 
Fantastic read!! Always good to learn from the row crop farmers!! Interesting to see some of the quantifiable data provided in this article, relating to nutrient release from worms to fungal networks breaking down residue.

Nutrient cycling works folks!! Just need to balance the system!!!

 
Really excited!!

“We are learning together!” Vitalize Seed is proud to be working together with MSU Deer Lab for evaluation purposes. Dr. Bronson Strickland & Graduate Research Assistant Luke Resop already have the Spring mix in the ground

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Love seeing the fall mix bouncing back so strong and healthy!! Can’t wait to get the spring mix in ground.

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Soil Health Friday:
Is nutrient density impacting the whitetail's plant selection?

It is not uncommon for habitat managers to list their favorite food plot species, only to have the next manager say, “my deer won’t eat that!” – this can make for some interesting debates around the campfire! After years of wondering “why?” I have finally come to a hypothesis, and that is…...it all starts with the SOIL!
There are incredible studies that show the deer’s ability to selectively browse the highest nutrient-dense plants (over a day to balance their rumen) is powerful and specific. So why is it that turnips or other brassicas, for example, are so highly selected in some areas and not in others? I believe it lies in what is assimilated by the plant!
Often with brassica plantings, we have been told to feed these with NITROGEN. If planting brassicas “till in urea”, if they look yellow “give them a shot of N”, and the advice goes on! Oftentimes, this advice can grow some impressive fields, but are the plants nutrient-dense?

Overfertilization has been shown to reduce a plant's ability to communicate with the soil’s microbiome, not to mention much is simply leached or volatilized - wasting money! A similar analogy would be giving steroids to someone, sure they can get enormous muscles but if not done for medical purposes or correctly, there will be consequences and the “gains” won’t be sustainable. Soil is no different!

When we reduce our soil and plant dependence on synthetic fertilizers, we increase our plant’s ability to communicate with the soil's bacterial and fungal populations, increasing their nutrient density and pest resistance. We will also increase our microbial populations, which will lend itself to better nutrient cycling in the future!
This is of critical importance, as our plants now can assimilate more nutrients, in less stressful forms, and easily convert these nutrients to plant proteins FAR more efficiently. By doing this, and optimizing our soils and the plant's synergistic relationships – we will increase the nutrient densities of our plants (this can be shown in Brix readings or full tissue analysis).

As we increase our soil health through the diversity of cover crop mixes, such as the Vitalize Seed system – we can reduce our reliance on fertilizers. We can cycle nutrients to feed the next crop and grow healthier plants. The whitetail is not necessarily drawn to the type of crop, but more so the soil from which it is derived - diversity is king!
On my farm, I have folks a couple of miles away telling me they cannot get deer to eat brassicas. I am watching 10+ deer a night pile into a field to eat our highly diverse mixes, with brassicas included.

Good soil health practices lead to healthier plants which leads to heather wildlife.

Build Better Soil –
AT
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Read up on the dilution effect. If people were aware of this, they'd quit with the bought fertilizers.

 
Read up on the dilution effect. If people were aware of this, they'd quit with the bought fertilizers.


Yes, sir - it is really interesting, kind of what I was getting at in the write-up or trying to show!

John Kempf had a very interested Ph.D. on his podcast about this topic and how it correlated to pest resistance of the plants as well - it was fascinating. I think it is also interesting how this correlated to animals who consume these plants as well! I believe it is Gabe Brown's book, where it shows the iron in beef is 80% reduced to what our grandpas ate in the 40s/50s.

I am not anti-fertilizers but I think in the majority of cases they are WAY overused. Thank you for the comment and article, very interesting stuff.
 
@Wild Thing - I feel like you might be a guy who likes the soil health posts, if not - no problem!!
 
@Wild Thing - I feel like you might be a guy who likes the soil health posts, if not - no problem!!

Absolutely! I've come a long way but still have a lot to learn....and I have read Gabe Brown's book:

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This free resource guide from Green Cover Seed was very informative as well...

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Absolutely! I've come a long way but still have a lot to learn....and I have read Gabe Brown's book:

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This free resource guide from Green Cover Seed was very informative as well...

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Yes!

Checkout
Soil Owners Manual
John Kempf - Regen Ag Podcast and blogs
Neil Kinsey - Hands-on Agronomy
William Albretch - WAY AHEAD OF HIS TIMES!! He was really brilliant
Dr. Christine Jones Webinars
Dr. Rick Haney Webinars
Ray Archuleta

Just a few off top of my head worth checking out. Hopefully, I can add some good content and information as well for folks.

Albert
 
Yes!

Checkout
Soil Owners Manual
John Kempf - Regen Ag Podcast and blogs
Neil Kinsey - Hands-on Agronomy
William Albretch - WAY AHEAD OF HIS TIMES!! He was really brilliant
Dr. Christine Jones Webinars
Dr. Rick Haney Webinars
Ray Archuleta

Just a few off top of my head worth checking out. Hopefully, I can add some good content and information as well for folks.

Albert

Thanks Albert - I have seen quite a bit from Ray "The Soil Guy" Archuleta and some of Dr Christine Jones but will definitely look into the others.

Thanks for the tip.
 
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Thanks Albert - I have seen quite a big from Ray "The Soil Guy" Archuleta and some of Dr Christine Jones but will definitely look into the others.

Thanks for the tip.

Yes sir. Anytime!
 
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I’ll be planting green next weekend!!

By having last years fall mix (carbon load) already established, it will make growing the spring (NitroBoost) very easy! Broadcast or drill will work just fine. The spring crop will help promote the microbial needs and help to cycle nutrients that the fall crop has been mining all fall and winter.

This allows us to keep the nutrients in our system in microbial and plant available forms - less stress to the plant = healthier plants and soil!!

All this nutrient cycling prepares us for next falls carbon load planting - keeping the nutrient where we want them - in our plants to feed our wildlife and soil!! Symbiosis.

Be safe and enjoy the outdoors.

AT
 
I recently reviewed my notes from a Dr. Christine Jones - webinar. With the prices of fert being so high - I thought this would be super helpful to all interested.

It’s not about what the plants look like folks - it’s what is in the plant. If we can increase natural amino acid uptake through symbiotic relationships in plant species and fungal networks - we increase forage quality. Brix readings, root examination for rhizosheats, diverse mixes, and tissue analysis are all a great start to and for this!
Notes below:
•Nitrogen - highly mobile in soil10-40% is taken up by plants
•60-90% goes elsewhere
•Nitrogen rapidly transformed does not accumulate, like phosphorus – volatilizes
•78% of the atmosphere is N2
•70million lbs per acre in N2 available
•N2 is inert
•Legumes don’t fix nitrogen - they symbiotically work with bacteria to fix nitrogen.
•Nitrogen fixation occurred insides rhizosheaths and water-stable aggregates – need to have functioning soil to make nitrogen available.
•Synthetic fertilizers - inhibit rhizosheaths and water-stable aggregates.
•A little bit can be stimulatory. Over 50lb per acre is too much (urea for example).
•Clean white roots - no rhizosheaths happening no natural nitrogen fixation occurs.
•Every green living plant has some possibility to access free-living nitrogen through microbial intermediaries, through the fungal network.
•Fungi are the conduits transport of organic nitrogen to plant roots, as amino acids. Once inside the plant, the plant can assemble the amino acids into proteins. This is important, some synthetics might get taken up by the plant but are not converted to proteins, therefore are consumed as nitrates.
•Huge metabolic cost to plant to convert synthetic nitrogen to usable protein. So it at times doesn’t convert, again leaving the amount a N in the plant vs. a protein, which is not helping the nutrient density of the plant for consumption.
•80-90% of plant nutrient acquisition is microbially mediated.
•Dissimilar microbiomes - growing together- function symbiotically vs. competitively.
•High analysis fertilizers are just substituting for plant diversity.
•800lbs of urea per acre - cannot produce the same biomass as 4+ groups of complimentary plants working together.
•Wean off N if needed - 20%,30%,50% - use an organic form of N fertilizer vs. urea, as an example.
•Can use 5lb per acre of synthetic N - without detrimental impacts. Not sure why this occurs but it does act as a jump start or stimulant for the microbiomes.
•Use plant leaf tests and apply as foliar - only if needed.
•Funny protein - is if a plant has N in the plant but the protein was never converted, yet the lab tests can be inconsistent. Labs test for N in the plant and then multiply it by a fixed number variable. This test is inconsistent as it assumes all N is converted to a protein. However, this is not the case as many synthetics are never converted and stay as N.
•4 functional groups without a legume will fix as much N - as with a legume. Too many legumes can be detrimental, like synthetics.
•More than half the N in manure is inorganic
•Avoid inorganic N all together
•If you put nitrogen fertilizer on a legume - the bacteria that fix nitrogen will stop.
•Synthetics make plants look good but they are weak below. Not nutrient-dense.
•4 plant functional groups - incredibly healthy microbiome.
 
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