You Keep Hearing the Word Biologicals in Agriculture

First off, why do we hear so much about biologicals?   

We know technology builds on technology, and as we advance, computing power becomes more reasonable in cost, time, and effort.  Today's computing power can manipulate and understand biologicals much better than even 10 years ago.  This makes biological products more consistent in use and output.  Another factor driving the R&D and use of biological products is the overall public concern for environmental stewardship.  Basically, people care about and voice their opinions more on how the earth is being cared for.

Biologicals - what are they and what can they do?

“Biological” is an umbrella term for something that is made from a living thing or organism.  There are three biological categories: biostimulants, biofertilizers, and biopesticides. We are primarily interested in biostimulants and biofertilizers.

• Biostimulants - help crops grow, make them “feel good,” and mitigate stresses.  They aren’t always a live product, some of them are derived from a live product.  
• Biofertilizers - these products often enhance plants' nutrient availability, uptake, and usage of nutrients.  

You might think, ” Yeah Right!  How can a jug of “stuff” magically help?”  Biologicals have been around agriculture for many years, but as previously stated, affordable technology made it available to really study and understand what material can do and is capable of doing for plants.

You probably wonder how a biological product will know it's supposed to help roots grow.  It’s sort of like roots and high fertilizer concentration.  Generally, roots will grow well in soil with a high concentration of fertilizer and nutrients.  The roots like to be around high concentrations of nutrients.  Microbes, which are a type of biological, act the same as soil nutrients.  When roots are near areas with high concentration of microbes living in the soil, they know that’s a good place to live, and they want to grow there as well.  Microbes can sense the sugar that roots exert and feed on that sugar to live.  So, the short story is, “You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.”

Here is where we get into the weeds….Stick with us, it’ll be worth it.  

Amino Acid based products are also a type  of biological, or, as Dr. Jake likes to call them, “non-traditional products.”  This is because amino acid based products are derived from a biological organism.  

There are 21 essential amino acids that build proteins.  Proteins, ultimately, build yield.  Whereas humans can eat amino acids and build protein, plants cannot.  Plants need to produce their own amino acids; building these amino acids takes energy.  Plants make these amino acids through 21 different molecular pathways.  If plants are required to use their energy to make their own amino acids to build protein which builds yield (are you seeing a pattern here? Can you hear the song, “and the green grass grows all around all around, and the green grass grows all around…”) **Back to the story of plants building their own protein.* If and when stress happens during the growing season, it slows down amino acid production and plants might not make proteins or become less efficient when building proteins, thus creating yield drag or loss of yield.  

Now, plants have the ability to store amino acids, so when you apply an amino acid to plants or the field, plants can store it until they need it.  So typically, we don’t have to be super exact in timing because plants can “save it for a rainy day”.  

You might wonder, how do they get into the plant? These amino acid based products are charged (think chemistry charges of negative and positive) in a way they can pass through the leaf tissue or go up directly through roots.  If plants are provided amino acids through the leaves or roots, they will take them instead of exerting energy to build them.  Basically, a free lunch.