If incorporating biological products into your agronomy program sounds complicated or gives you pause, it’s helpful to break the process down into a few simple steps. Yes, you have to choose the right products for your goals, but you also have to take care to store, handle, and apply the products correctly. And, above all, you have to remain focused on the right goals. 

Work Closely with Your Biological Provider

There’s bound to be some trial and error whenever you’re introducing something new to your agronomy program. Or not necessarily error, but a process of fine-tuning as you go along. As I’ve said, I don’t think a farmer can really go wrong with incorporating biologicals. However, that’s with the understanding that the farmer understands how to use them correctly. That’s why at my company, Physagro, we focus heavily on educating our customers. 

Sometimes we see people who use biologicals and don’t get as much out of the products as they could because of the little things. For example, someone might leave a tote to bake in the summer while out spraying and not realize that you’re cooking the bugs. Or, someone might attempt to mix a biological product with a fungicide on a pass—that would just be counterintuitive. 

So it’s important to walk before you run, as they say. If I was a farmer who was new to the biological world, I would want to get a basic understanding about what they are and how they work first. Then, I’d want to try some products from a reputable company that can back up its claims with third-party research. 

Focus on Improving Soil Health Instead of the Almighty Bushel

When I first field a call from a farmer, I like to get a picture of the farm’s current practices and an idea of his goals for his operation. It’s the guys who are trying to make holistic changes—focusing on the health of the soil and the health of the plants—that are usually more receptive and open to what we’re trying to accomplish. Folks that are primarily looking for a certain increase, say five or six bushels per acre, in yields, are generally harder to get on board. 

Sometimes when people get laser focused on bushels, bushels, bushels, they’re not really willing or open to change anything else in their agronomy program. At that point, I’ll generally try to understand what their goals are and direct them to products more suited to their operations. If they’re still going to use synthetics and herbicides heavily, it might be more effective for them to stick to biostimulants and stress reducers (for plants) and hopefully see a consistent ROI year after year. 

That’s why those initial conversations are so important to figure out a farmer’s goals and outlook. And then, the education component kicks in, where my goal is to be as transparent as possible about what we’re trying to achieve. If our approach and the farmer’s goals don’t mesh, it’s not that a biological program wouldn’t work for that farm, it’s just that it may not be the best course of action for what the farmer is trying to accomplish. 

You could say that once someone starts down the biological road, it often leads to other discussions and other changes on the farm. It’s a snowball effect, which is cool. In this way, biologicals are a journey for everybody. What’s unique about what we’re doing here [with the FCLG], is that we’re able to put people in touch with farmers in other parts of the country or the world. Farmers can then share experiences and learn from each other. 

Treat Biologicals Like the Living Organisms They Are

On the subject of learning, it’s important for anyone considering biologicals that there is a learning curve when it comes to storing and handling the products. I’m careful to remind farmers that biologicals are not the same as fungicides, herbicides, fertilizers, or pesticides. In short, they’re alive.

That leads me to the basic care requirements. To put it one way, you want to treat your biologicals more like your dog and not a tote of fertilizer. For example, your dog isn’t going to want to be tied up in the sun all day long; if you want to be humane, you need to provide shade or another type of shelter. And would your dog want to be cooped up with you in the tractor cab all day? That would get old after a while. These might be odd analogies, but they hold true: Number one, you need to protect biologicals from the sun; and number two, you don’t want to leave them mixed up with a bunch of stuff overnight. Even though biological products are mostly designed to be forgiving and flexible, we do need to care for them prior to getting them in the ground. The better job we do with that, the better they’re going to work.

Another way you can help your biologicals out is to give them some food—an energy source—as you’re applying them. As far as applying them, it’s best to spray biologicals outside of the heat of the day. And if you can spray when there’s a dew, you can use that to your advantage as well. When you start to consider all these handling guidelines, you start to view these products as a living organism and not just another tote or jug of a commodity.  

See the Big Picture: Soil and Plant Health 

As far as actually taking that first step to invest in biologicals, there’s really no tried-and-true first step. I always prefer to have an initial discussion with the farmer around his needs and goals versus product this or product that. But I also realize that we have to be realistic with the world we live in. If your product doesn’t provide a clear return on investment, it’s not going to have much traction. So we have to be competitive in that world too, and address those concerns as we speak with potential customers. 

Are you going to notice something on the yield monitor? Yes. But I also want farmers to think about what the plants are telling them. Our goal is to make the soil healthier, and therefore grow healthier plants. Your test weights may improve, you may see less disease pressure in your fields, and you may see less nutrient deficiencies than you’ve seen in previous years. 

In our own testing, we’ve observed more nutrition and more nitrogen present when doing sap and tissue testing on the plants. And we’ve noticed clear color differences in the crops. There’s more energy in the plants; the Brix readings are higher. These data points are all measurable and a good way to assess how a product is performing.

I recently had this discussion with a farmer in the Midwest. I checked in with him following harvest after he had used two of our products on some of his ground. He said he saw a five-and-a-half-bushel increase on those acres, but wished that it was more. And then we got to talking about all the other improvements he saw. His test weight was twenty-two percent higher, and he was able to cut his nitrogen by fifteen percent. 

This all comes back around to those initial conversations—the education component. And, we have to make sure that we’re focused not just on yield and productivity, but on the big picture. The process of improving your soil health through soil biology results in an overall healthier farm where payback will come in many forms. 

Stay the Course

When we’re introducing our products to a farm, a farmer will often try them on half of one field and half of another—a sort of strip trial to test us out. Rarely do we find a farmer who wants to go ahead and apply one or more products across the board. A gradual introduction to a farm, and that initial skepticism, is entirely normal. Will the farm notice results the first year? Absolutely. But I always tell guys to give biologicals a more dedicated approach, because you’ll see those initial results but won’t understand the true benefits until you are able to see the results repeated and then get to the point where you’re backing away from some of the synthetics. 

Some of what the plants experience is sort of like being in the hospital on a feeding tube. After decades of heavy use with synthetic fertilizers and other chemicals, the plants are not used to having a natural way to sequester their own food and their own nutrition and mount a natural defense to pests and disease. Because we’ve spoon fed them with nutrition and other chemistries, they don’t have to work for it. If someone were to totally back off everything synthetic and switch to biologicals entirely, there would be a huge lag in performance because it would take time for the biologicals to grow and repopulate and regenerate the soil—to get the plants to a point where they could sustain themselves. 

So the biologicals journey is one that takes time. Yes, you’ll see those initial results. But the cumulative effects of investing in the regenerative side of agriculture appear beyond years one and two. It takes time to rebuild your organic matter and soil health.

Look for Long-Term Trends

There’s no special “biologicals test” that farmers can use to monitor the performance of biologicals. You can’t stick a probe in the ground and say, “okay, we’re at seventy-eight percent strength” or something. A farmer is going to use the same tools as he would otherwise use. 

I would just say that you have to be more prudent and diligent with your testing and monitoring. You have your tissue and sap tests and your other agronomy markers. As long as you’re diligent about collecting the data and recognizing responses and trends in your fields, you’re on the right track. 

Get Back to the Ways God Intended

My faith plays a big role in what we’re trying to accomplish. We’re trying to get things back to the way that God intended them to work on our farms. And that’s why I’m excited to share with others on this platform. Because it’s good for everyone in the industry, from those of us marketing products to the farmers who are out in the field every day. This is a fantastic opportunity to learn and grow with each other and honor our respect for God’s design of our natural world.