AEA

Checking in on the Ruthruff family and their quest for record-breaking giant pumpkins (with a little help from AEA). "We're well ahead of any previous year with much healthier plants. It's going to be a very exciting season!" says dad Derek. ➡️ Seeds started on 4/15, germinated 3 days later. ➡️ 4/24: transplanted into 5 gallon bags. ➡️ 5/4: planted outside into mini greenhouses (seen here, with Tucker hard at work). The Ruthruffs have used BioCoat Gold™ heavily: not just as seed treatment, but to inoculate both the germination mix and the transplant mix, and spread in the greenhouse. They also used Rejuvenate™ on the outdoor soil, and added MicroPak™ and MacroPak™ when planting outside. "I noticed that after applying Biocoat Gold to the entire interior of the hut, my CO2 levels started spiking," says Derek. "At night, when it's completely sealed up, we get CO2 levels well over 1000ppm. When the vent blower kicks on, this level drops to around 600, which is expected, but the night time spike is indicating lots of biological activity." Follow along for updates throughout the season! Check out BioCoat Gold: loom.ly/R0CcMpk

Here's AEA's very own Jeff Kleypas showing off his zinnia blooms! "Even though we started with poor quality transplants, the AEA foliar and chicken litter program is producing the size of bloom the buyer is looking for. I can't wait to see how these look next month when we start harvesting," says Jeff. Jeff will soon top the plants to build a bushier plant with more flowering sites to harvest in June and July. "Pinion is probably the main standout: I am not seeing any disease issues even with a full week of cloud cover and drizzle, along with 106° heat index days all week and extreme morning dew." Check out Pinion™: loom.ly/HfT5CzE

Today on the podcast, we're featuring @JohnKempf's Ask Me Anything from last month. John covers a lot of ground answering grower questions, including: ➡️ Including molybdenum in all nitrogen applications as the enzyme cofactor for nitrate reductase. ➡️ Achieving geometric yield effects through the synergistic stacking of diverse inoculants and biostimulants. ➡️ Remediating high sodium in soil and water ➡️ Fixing hard water to ensure the best possible crop response to foliar sprays. ➡️ Using Pinion as a broad-spectrum biocontrol that activates the plant’s own immune, genetic, and microbiome pathways. . . . and a whole lot more! 🎧 loom.ly/UkwLlno

Megan Neubauer of Pure Land Farm is excited to try out Pinion™ this year! Pinion is a disease control product designed to enhance the plant's overall microbiome. 🦅 More about Pinion™: advancingecoag.com/land/pinion

Thanks to @dpicassomu for the pun!

Not just our opinion. In field trials, Pinion has provided comparable powdery mildew control to conventional fungicides. Unlike those, Pinion is designed to support overall, long-term plant health. What's more: We're running 125+ active field trials testing Pinion on a wide variety of plant/disease combos. Stay tuned for lots of results coming out this year! 🦅 advancingecoag.com/land/pinion [pictured: organic pumpkins. Left: untreated. Right: 14 days after Pinion treatment. Treatment applied after Powdery Mildew symptoms appeared.]

Corn at 41 days. Field trials run by @BASS_Hybrids at their research station in Puerto Rico. 3 AEA products tested individually against a control. All are seriously outperforming the control at this stage. Some observations: ➡️ Greater root mass, with more lateral development and fine branching ➡️ Taller, more robust plants with better leaf growth ➡️ Significant increase in SPAD (a measure of chlorophyll content): BioCoat Gold +28%, Pinion +22%, Revenant +20%. Application rates and methods were: ➡️ Revenant Charge™: broadcast on soil surface. 2 gallons per acre. ➡️ Pinion™: 2 foliar applications, at 21 and 28 days after planting (V5 and V7). 2 quarts per acre each. ➡️ BioCoat Gold™: Seed-applied before planting. 4oz/100lb seed. All 4 trial groups were treated with insecticide. Fall armyworm is brutal down there. We'll continue monitoring this trial all the way through harvest to see how these early physiological advantages translate into $$$$. Check out Revenant Charge™: advancingecoag.com/product/revena…

AEA foliars sure look nice in a drone! Thanks to Ryan McCrery for sharing this video with us. Ryan runs a u-pick honeyberry farm in Idaho, and does contract drone applications. If you're in the inland Northwest (ID, WA) and looking for a drone operator for your AEA foliars or anything else, check him out! bluebirdprecisionag.com @indigoacresidaho on Instagram

What would happen if we "rebooted" cattle to restore their innate herd instincts and selective grazing habits? Bob Kinford joins John Kempf on the podcast to discuss: ➡️ The inherent intelligence and decision-making capabilities of livestock ➡️ Managing large herds across vast landscapes without fencing ➡️ Creating murmurations in cattle to guide their movement ➡️ The three-day “reboot” process that triggers cattle to begin eating highly nutritious invasive plants ➡️ Strategies for increasing animal weight gain by reducing stress associated with traditional feeding and moving ➡️ The relationship between animal bedding patterns and the development of mycorrhizal fungi in the soil 🎧 Listen: loom.ly/8WC6ZmI

How to manage an offramp from synthetic fertilizers? It's a delicate process to wean off synthetics while providing an onramp for biology to take over. Here are 7 keys we've distilled from our 20 years helping farmers implement biological systems. We go into a lot more detail on our website: advancingecoag.com/article/reduce…

@turnersophiegrn We appreciate your skepticism. In short, the science is: 1. Altering phyllosphere redox 2. Microbiome modification 3. Activation of systemic immune pathways In long, the science is: youtube.com/watch?v=jhX6L2…

Rust ruins my grasses every year! Two weeks is impressive, but my greenwashing radar pings at 'miracle' cures. What's the science?

@dpicassomu Good questions all! Too much to go into depth here. I'd direct you to John Kempf's webinar: "The Benefits of Seaweed in Agriculture" youtube.com/watch?v=y989xR…

@AdvancingEcoAg Whats the role of seaweed? is it a specific one? And why is it non negotiable?

Our hearts go out to all the orchardists who have lost their crops this year. In the silver linings category, we heard from Green's Fruit Farm in Pennsylvania that their trees got a second wind and may bounce back from last week's freeze! When considering frost resistance, the goal is essentially to turn your plants' sap into antifreeze by packing it with as much sugar and minerals as possible to lower the freezing point. ➡️ Potassium is the primary regulator that moves these solutes into plant cells. ➡️ Calcium and Boron work together to build elastic cell walls that can withstand rupturing. ➡️ Seaweed is non-negotiable to help plants survive stress. A few AEA products we regularly recommend to help deal with temperature stress are SeaStim, SeaCrop, and PhotoMag. Of course, the most important thing is having excellent nutrition the prior year, and building a really tough bud in the fall using bud optimization foliars. We can help design those for you. Get in touch.

Pinion for Home and Garden suppressed Rust in Bluebunch Wheatgrass. These photos came from Great Basin Nursery, in Bend, OR: one of our 130+ greenhouse trials. They were taken 2 weeks apart, after a single application of Pinion for Home and Garden. The grower was ecstatic with the results! We keep testing Pinion on new diseases; it keeps working. 🦅 Shop: loom.ly/Z4tzWlw

Congrats to @merritt_groves ! Our lucky winner. Thanks to everyone for participating!

Giveaway time! We are giving away 5 gallons of Pinion™ to one lucky winner on X. Like, share, or comment on this post to enter! We will pick the winner this Monday April 27th and will contact you by DM. Good luck! [winner must be in a state where Pinion is registered] 🦅 What is Pinion? advancingecoag.com/land/pinion

@JohnKempf drew a rapt crowd at the Homestead Conference last week in Waco! Everyone was really excited to learn about the connections between plant health, soil health, pest resistance, and human health. Quite a queue lined up to ask followup questions outside after John's talks. John was also a panelist alongside Anne Biklé and Dr. Ben Edwards discussing "soil health is human health." We met a lot of great people and had some really intersting conversations. Thank you to the conference organizers and the city of Waco!

We had a great visit to Alexandre Family Farm recently! Their pastures loved the 2" of rain more than AEA Agronomists Ethan Darling and Jim Dunlop 😁. This will be our second year working with Alexandre Family Farm, which is already renowned for the quality and nutritional value of their organic A2/A2 milk. They're working with AEA to push pasture quality and animal health even higher, and see if we can get their milk quality to immunotherapy levels. Everyone is excited about the progress we've seen so far! 🎧 You can hear owners Blake and Stephanie Alexandre on the Regenerative Agriculture Podcast from 2024: loom.ly/PaFr-mA

"We fixed the soil, and then it fixed the cow." 🎧 Full episode: loom.ly/NIQXUCM Alex Udermann is a fifth-generation farmer from Minnesota whose family manages a diverse dairy operation that includes milk cows, steers, and row crops. In 2016, facing significant financial struggles and equity erosion, Alex transitioned the farm to regenerative practices to ensure its survival and profitability. Today on the Regenerative Agriculture Podcast, Alex and @JohnKempf discuss: ⚕️ The dramatic reduction in veterinary expenses and improvements in livestock health following soil health changes 🏦 Dealing with unsupportive banks and traditional agronomy managers 🚜 Switching to no-till soybeans with a small investment in existing equipment 🦠 The use of drones and compost extracts to increase fungal levels and biological diversity in the soil 💦 Massive improvements in water infiltration compared to neighboring conventional fields after heavy rains 🎧 Listen: loom.ly/NIQXUCM

@TheChefsGarden grows such exceptional produce that it has spurred demand from the nation’s top chefs in all 50 states. They are a poster child for the myriad benefits that can come from regenerative agriculture: profitability, crop quality, soil health, human health, win-win relationships, and an inter-generational farm legacy. What people may not know is that The Chef’s Garden was one of AEA’s first customers: they started working with John Kempf 15 years ago, back in the days when he was concocting biologicals in the family barn. If you missed it on the blog: we talked with Bob Jones Jr., co-owner and CEO of the Chef’s Garden, on the occasion of AEA’s 20th anniversary. We had a wide-ranging conversation covering: ➡️ the benefits of regenerative agriculture ➡️ his long relationship with AEA ➡️ finding product-market fit ➡️ his first impressions of a young @JohnKempf 📖 Read: advancingecoag.com/article/rising…

Want to use less fertilizer in 2026? Soil biology can supply crop nutrition, but it's a delicate balance to maintain profitability while transitioning from a chemical model to a biological model. The key is to simultaneously provide an onramp for biology and an offramp for chemistry. Luckily, we're here to help. Learn More: advancingecoag.com/offramp