Any tests show profit in biologicals?

Question

Of the numerous companies offering biological products (fungi, bacteria, enzymes, amino acids, etc) who has done test and seen them show yield or not show yield? Let's get a big list here.  I'm trying several this year for the first time, so I'll have some answers in a couple of months.

Remember that these products will not likely show a yield advantage in conditions where there are other, more basic, limiting factors such as nutrients, compaction, and water.

Answer

have seen response in the past.  this year toggle and take off on corn,  toggle and voyagro on corn,  kriss and vine and veg on beans.  toggle take off kriss and vine n veg on beans.

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This is our first year testing it. So we will see come harvest. We replaced it with some of more traditional fertilizer. So even if our harvest is within 5% of last year, then we still saved a ton of money on fertilizer cost. We did a "test plot" on my wife's flower bed. One side of the flower's got the biological and the other nothing, and the Bio flowers were about 2X bigger than the non-bio flowers when they were growing.

Answer

I have been using Advanced Ag ACF-SR and have had pretty good success with it. I will be applying it in furrow on all my acres next year. The largest response was on Barley and chickpeas for yield. The benefits beside yield is a reduction to nil fungicide use.

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Roots mass with addition of ACF is exponentially larger than where none is used

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Biological work when under stress. If you plant into warm soil forget about it at plant and always forget about it on a broadleaf crop.

I hate foliar micronutrients always that claim to be biological. There is simply not enough nutrients in each gallon! That being said a true biological can increase bushels when a crop is under stress.

The thing I always tell myself is crops start in the bag at the most yield potential and everything we do from that point only saves bushels. We never add.

Answer

Biologicals work. You just need to know the variables and what you want to accomplish with your soil types. Some products will work and some won't. It's complicated. For example, a true PSB (Phosphate solubilizing bacteria) will help convert tied up (for many reasons)phosphate and make it more available. Everyone accepts that Bradyrhizobia help soybeans make nitrogen, but they won't help corn make nitrogen.

If you have a goal and do the research there is nearly a product for every system, the trick is timing, application, and getting the "bug" to survive. I've tested several products over the last five years and have seen mixed results. A few products work every year and some are snake oils, there should be someone to hold the poor products accountable.

There are several categories of stimulants.... 
*Microbes... EndoPrime, Foster FC, SabrEx
*Plant Hormones .... Ascend, Triad
*Extracts.... Sugar, Humics, Fulvics...
*Synthetics.... Optum, other chemical compounds
and many combinations among the above groups

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I am thinking of more of the torques, and ascends of the world. When I think of biologicals I put them in 3 categories. Micronutrients based, the stinks like rotting fish (High carbon) and the wtf is that's (ascend, torque)

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I am doing trials this year with three different companies. Only biological's in furrow and nitrogen in my 2x2. first round on tissue samples show just as good as nutrient levels in furrow as fields with fertilizer in furrow. I think the corn looks better with biological's only in furrow as well.

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I'm doing a test with 2 different companies. Genesis Ag and Agxplorer. Both on corn and one with beans. All test have a infurrow package and a foliar treatment. I have never used these kinds of products before so each test is on 50 acres. The corn tests are right at $30/acre and the bean test is just under $50/acre for the products that is why im only doing 150 acres total, to see if they actually have an ROI or i just blew $5500 on Snake Oils.

Answer

Agri Energy Resources, based in Princeton IL, We have been using their products since the late 80's and have seen our soils biology and nutrient ratios naturally balance. Our PH started in the 5's and now is a perfect 6.7-7 PH we farm in SE Nebraska where an average PH is about 5.2 - 6.2.  most farmers are doing good job of building soils and PH's get better every year through a variety of different methods.  One thing about Biologicals is the amount of actual biological product in the gallon or tote you are purchasing.  We have found many local suppliers claiming to supply the same Biological inputs, but as we test every tote of Bio for actual contents to be sure were not buying "snake oil" we have found Agri Energy to be the most honest and consistent and they actually offer products that are 100% concentrate, not pre watered down, for example my local Coop sells Humic and Folic acids when I look at the 2 1/2 gallon jug as I mix I notice that the Coop Humic and Folic are 50%-70% water in the jug!, in contrast Agri Energy Humic, Folic is 100% product, with better additives.  Agri Energy is a research company first and the retail outlet was created by osmosis, Farmers want Biological products they can trust!  I believe in the products so much we supply many area farmers with Agri Energy biological products.  Agri Energy trace pac (trace elements 'micro nutrients') is second to none, best starter micronutrient i have ever applied, and ive tried them all from many different companies,  Agri Energy have many excellent products like CF55 Corn sugar, (sugar is important part of bio) SP1, BioHume (humates, tricaderms etc) that will enable full yield potential.  Also if your PH is on the lower end consider applying LIQUID LIME, not pot ash, not even ag lime in pellet form, the truest available form of Lime is liquid, yes it is difficult to find a good applicator and it is expensive but I applied about 1/4 ton of liguid lime (with the full Agri Energy fall program)for 3 years (in the fall) to a new piece of ground I rented with a 5.2 PH in 3 years I have changed the soil balance through biologicals and chemistry, part of a total systems approach to unlocking 100% of yield potential. The PH is now 6.5!  astounding!  Well balanced biological soils will naturally balance your nutrient ratios out (like cal to mag ratios)  and make every nutrient convert to available form more quickly making it much more available to your crop.  Just to give you an idea I am having their product trucked from Princeton Illinois to SE Nebraska, we pay for the trucking because we simply cant find a better more trustworthy supplier of Biologicals locally.  It is worth it!  Its not that the local fertilizer providers are doing a poor job, they simply lack the depth of knowledge of Agri Energy as Agri Energy is a full time Biological farming research company, we still use the same old 28-0-0, 10-34-0 32-0-0 (and dry, never anhydrous) fertilizers and we mix the Agri energy biological products like sugar and SP1 with Bio-hume etc.   They will handle soil samples and give you a recommendation.  Biologicals became a buzzword about a decade ago, but lack of understanding on the part of many fertilizer suppliers and the fact that Agri Energy specializes is Soil Biology since the 1970's and 1980's before many universities even bothered researching Biodiversity in soils, Agri Energy was there first and they are still in business always creating better products.  Once you get your soils Biologically balanced you will find all you need is "maintenance" levels of products every few years, you don't need to put these products on every year forever,  they never hurt to apply, but im a farmer, when you have a tuff year and $$$ are tight you still get the benefits of Biologically balanced soils without applying any product at all.  For example I have some farms I have been using Biologicals from Agri energy on for 20 years and now I just maintain the biological balance with the biological fall program about every 3rd or 4th year.  The soil will begin to take care of itself and you will see much less need for variable rate fertilizer applications, and less need for tillage if you do any. We are independent seed growers and retailers also, We grow a lot of seed corn,  even growth in our seed fields is paramount to making high quality seed, in fact we have designed a hybrid seed corn fertility program (and soybean fertility program also) that gets the nutrients into the seed, many seed companies are treating the exterior of the seed with Biologicals but why not just get the seed with the nutrients already in the paracarp also?  there is nothing wrong with treating seed with additional product but we have found our excellent saturated cold germ tests on our corn/ soybean seed is the difference maker in yield, in years like this seed vigor is very important and its easy to see who is growing quality seed that preforms in less than ideal conditions.  If you add biologicals to your farms inputs, along with seed that has biological fertility specifically designed to generate higher sat cold germs and higher quality seed is a good starting point to go for the 350+ bu corn crops and 100+ bu soybean yields in the good years and they will protect and perform better in tuff weather years. From Nebraska, YES Biologicals show huge ROI just don't get 'snake bit'!  go with a company you trust, this happens to be the one I trust.

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Any tests show profit in biologicals?

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