As George explained in his last article, carbon products are entirely unregulated. And while no one enjoys government regulations, this does pose a problem for farmers who want to decrease their dependence on synthetic man-made fertilizers with carbon products. As George told us, “it’s the wild west out there” when it comes to the claims some companies will make. However, George himself markets his own brand of carbon products, CarbonWorks, to farmers across the country. He’s explored and developed the technology since 2005 and has spent years and countless miles traveling across the United States to learn from and work with farmers to enhance their farms for future generations. 

In this article, George will continue the discussion about carbon products, specifically CarbonWorks products, and how farmers can incorporate them into their agronomy plans: real-world advice that stems from more than a decade of independent testing, on-farm trials, and feedback from farmers like you.  

Earning a Farmer's Trust on His Worst Ground

I find that I have to work extra-hard when bringing my products to farmers because I’m offering products that don’t come from their traditional sources—their co-op or seed dealer or whoever handles their other inputs. And I don’t blame them; there are a lot of snake oil salesmen out there with all kinds of wild claims. When you hear enough of those, you start to distrust everything you hear. So, when I get my products on a farm I’m typically offered the worst piece of ground that a farmer has. The farmer is saying, ‘If this stuff is magic and it works so well, let’s see your miracle work over there. And if it works there, then I’ll put you on my good ground’. That’s what I run into more often than not. But that’s okay; most times I’m introducing a new concept to them, so I have to work to earn trust. 

I start by looking at each farm as a whole. What are the farmer’s goals? What is he planting? What are the yield expectations? Then, we break a farm into its individual parts to understand the soil, the weather, the biologicals (or lack thereof), and the different inputs the farmer is using. You have to dig deeper and look at the soil’s level of biological activity, the amount of organic matter, the salts in the soil, and the water quality. 

CarbonWorks: Delivering Carbon, Energy and Oxygen

Based on all that information I gather, we can then incorporate our CarbonWorks products into a farm’s agronomy program in the correct quantities. We can improve every line item—soil health, yields, biological activity—because we’re adding something that has biological value. Yes, CarbonWorks is carbon “food,” but our products also carry energy and oxygen. As I’ve mentioned before, a lack of oxygen is going to tip us over in two minutes. It’s going to disrupt our soil health. Think of what happens when the ground floods; all the oxygen is pushed out. Adding a bunch of nitrogen to the ground isn’t going to magically turn the corn green again.  You’ve got to get in there with a cultivator and open it up to let oxygen in again. So what I’m telling farmers shouldn’t be that much of a stretch.

When I tell farmers that my products are loaded with energy and oxygen, they often ask, “what is the energy?” I like to talk about last year’s crop residue that’s still in the ground. Why did it not break down? There was plenty of food there for the microbes. That residual material needs to be broken down into carbon and especially organic carbon and be incorporated into the soil to increase the amount of organic material to continue the life cycle. The missing link is energy. By adding something that delivers energy and oxygen, we accelerate that process. 

Salt-Based Fertilizers Kill Your Soil Biology

About fifteen years ago I was standing in a Minnesota farmer’s kitchen, along with Nate Firle of AgRevival, staring at a cookie tray covered with paper towels. The farmer pulled the towels off and there were rows of seeds, all in different stages of germination. Nate explained to me that they were doing a germination test. It was an ah-ha moment for me, because I realized that those seeds germinated on wet paper towels. There was no soil, no fertilizer, no chemicals—nothing except water and oxygen. 

Now, in the real world, we want the seeds to germinate quickly and uniformly in our fields. This is why I wanted CarbonWorks’ products to deliver energy and oxygen, which is tied to carbon, unlike all the other man-made synthetic products out there that are full of salts. Do you recall what you gargle with when you have a sore throat? What people used to use to cure meat? To pack wounds before antibiotics? Salt. Salt kills biology, and will take a toll on your soil biology as well. What will help your soil biology and your plants? Carbon food, energy, and oxygen. 

That’s our goal: to help your farm grow more. I know we’re not for everybody. We’re not trying to conquer the world, but instead offer products that we have proven over many, many years on a multitude of crops across the United States and now Canada. That’s what I pride myself on: CarbonWorks has paid our dues. As a result of our hard work and the countless miles we’ve racked up over the years traveling across the country, I believe we have one one of the best nitrogen stabilizers on the market—CarbonWorks CetaiN. Yes, the carbon in CetaiN is able to hold the nitrogen in the soil, but, remember, we’re also delivering energy and oxygen as well to support the soil biology that’s responsible for converting the nitrogen into a plant-available form. 

How to Use CarbonWorks on Your Farm

On most farms, especially on row crops that farmers plant once a year, the first time you use CarbonWorks I’d like to be in furrow right on top of the seed. The carbon food, energy, and oxygen greatly enhances the germination of the seed and the building of that initial root system. That’s so critical in farming—a fast start to life; that initial taproot going down to find water and nutrients to start that sugar factory and the coleoptile pushing through the soil surface so the plant can begin to gather CO₂ and sunlight.

Is our product safe to apply with your other chemicals? Well, I always tell people to read our label directions. And, it’s a good idea to do a jar test—test a small amount of our product and whatever you’re going to mix with it in the spray tank just to be sure. CarbonWorks products traditionally have very few issues mixing with other products

When I started, our products were used on edibles like strawberries, watermelons, green beans, bell peppers, potatoes, and citrus. And eventually, CarbonWorks moved into the conventional market—corn and soybeans. Farmers up in the Midwest are very fortunate to have incredibly fertile soil. And yes, I get this question all the time: Hey, my soil is already jet black; ‘why would I want to add more carbon to it’? Like I’ve already said, what you need is energy and oxygen. After eighteen, nineteen years in R and D, I haven’t seen any other carbon products with an ultra-low pH and a positive oxygen level like our CarbonWorks products. 

One thing I’d like everyone to keep in mind is that I’m not in the humic business. I just happen to use a humic as a base—an activated humic as a base carrier. A base, unactivated humic is just a commodity to be traded like P and K. No matter what you grow, it’s the energy and oxygen, along with the carbon, that makes our approach so powerful and useful to a farm, no matter what you grow. 

Soil: The Lifeblood of Your Farm

And that brings me around to the very first comment I made for these articles: don’t treat your soil like dirt. It’s not dirt, it’s the lifeblood of your farm. For seventy plus years, since World War II, we’ve been treating our soils like dirt. The biologicals there are responsible for breaking down the nutrients and making them available for whatever you’re growing. Everything has to be in balance, between the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and water. We could only live for a very short time without oxygen, which is why CarbonWorks’ products deliver molecular oxygen to the soil to help farmers increase their yields. 

This is a far different approach than what the big fertilizer companies have been telling us for decades, which amounts to ‘more, more, more’ of nitrogen or whatever nutrient they’re selling. When we focus instead on supporting our soil biology and allowing nature to work as God intended, we all benefit with higher yields for our next crop and more productive farms for the next generation.