Fighting Farm Pests By Improving Plant Sap with Dr. Dykstra

In this episode of The Whole Farm Podcast, presented by CHONEX, we welcome back Dr. Tom Dykstra for Part 2 of our conversation on plant health, Brix, and insect resistance. In this episode, Dr. Dykstra walks through his leaf Brix insect chart and explains how different Brix levels relate to plant health, insect feeding behavior, disease pressure, and crop resilience. 

Dr. Dykstra explains why he focuses on leaf Brix rather than fruit, stem, or root Brix when evaluating plant health. He breaks down what different Brix ranges can indicate, from plants that may require “force feeding,” to plants beginning to develop stronger secondary metabolites, to healthier plants that are better able to resist insects and disease. He also discusses how different insect groups—aphids, sucking insects, chewing insects, and grasshoppers—tend to correspond with different plant health levels. 

The conversation then turns practical, with a focus on how farmers can use this information in the field. Dr. Dykstra emphasizes the importance of sugar, carbon, and micronutrients in supporting microbial activity, improving plant function, and increasing Brix levels. He explains why sugar applications are often the first step when dealing with very low-Brix plants, and why micronutrient availability can become a limiting factor in photosynthesis and plant performance. 

We also discuss how Brix testing can fit alongside traditional scouting practices. Dr. Dykstra shares that farmers may see measurable plant response within 24 to 72 hours after applying the right nutrition, and that Brix can help show whether a treatment is moving the plant in the right direction. The episode explores how this approach compares to conventional insecticide responses, especially when growers are trying to stop insect feeding before crop damage worsens. 

Later in the episode, Dr. Dykstra connects Brix and soil health to drought resilience, explaining how carbon, sugar, organic matter, and microbial activity all influence water retention in the rhizosphere. He also shares his perspective on nitrogen management, including why excess salt-based nitrogen applications may lower Brix and how free-living nitrogen-fixing bacteria can support crops when soil biology is functioning well. 

This episode is a practical follow-up for growers, agronomists, and soil health professionals who want to better understand how plant health measurements can inform pest management, nutrient decisions, and whole-farm resilience.

In This Episode

•  Why Dr. Dykstra focuses on leaf Brix as a plant health measurement 
•  What different Brix ranges can tell farmers about plant stress and resilience 
•  How insect feeding groups relate to plant Brix levels 
•  Why sugar and carbon are central to soil biology and plant health 
•  The role of micronutrients in photosynthesis and Brix response 
•  How quickly farmers may see a response after nutritional applications 
•  Why Brix testing can complement traditional insect scouting 
•  How soil carbon and microbial activity support drought resilience 
•  Dr. Dykstra’s perspective on nitrogen, salt-based fertilizers, and plant health 
•  Why “you can’t change what you don’t measure” applies to both soil and plants 

To learn more about CHONEX, explore additional resources, and receive future episodes to your inbox, visit chonex.ag. If you found this episode valuable, subscribe to the podcast and share it with someone in your network.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Whole Farm Podcast brought to you by Chonex, where we explore soil health, nutrient management, and the systems that help crops and farms perform better over time. Each episode features conversations with growers and industry experts focused on practical insights you can apply in the field. Whether you're managing nutrients, building healthier soils, or looking for data-driven ways to improve outcomes, this podcast is built to support real decisions and real results.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Welcome back to another episode of the Whole Farm Podcast presented by Chonex. I'm here with Les from Mississippi, back with Dr. Tom Dykstra. And we're so thankful he was able to join us again. What I would say is we had a lot of comments related to this chart. And so we figured it would be best, since we do have some video capabilities, to let Dr. Dykstra actually walk through this Bricks insect chart. And so I'm really excited to turn it over to him, and then I'm going to let Les jump in with some practical farming questions, and uh we will we will see where the conversation goes. So, Dr. Dykstra, the floor is yours.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

All right. What I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna pull up the chart real quick. All right, so uh here is the chart that was causing a little bit of hubbub, and so let me just briefly go through this chart so that we all understand uh what this is all about. You'll see that it has leaf bricks at the top. That's because I do differentiate between uh fruit bricks, stem bricks, root bricks, and uh, we want to stick to the leaves because that's where you're gonna get the consistent measurements. Uh Michael, I remember last week, was mentioning that he was testing fruit. Fruit is on a different scale, especially whether it's a sweet fruit or a non-sweet fruit. But when we're looking at uh plant health, we want to measure the leaves. And so right now, almost all the leaves, almost all of the time, are between one to 20. Anytime they break 20, they're usually shunting sugar to other parts of the plant, and that's why we stop it at 20. But anytime you have something between one to two bricks for the leaf, uh force feeding is usually necessary. The plants cannot take care of themselves, and that's why we need to force feed them. So we find this on the greens of golf courses. It's very common where they're having to feed the uh grass uh once, in some cases, even twice a day. And then once we do that, we have the capabilities of keeping the grass relatively healthy. Once you get between three to seven bricks, uh, we now have plants that have a fighting chance of survival. They're doing okay. They don't have to be as force-fed, but they're not doing great. At this point, uh, we've got relatively healthy plants, but they need more. Plant secondary metabolites start to increase at six. This is when uh the plant secondary metabolites are those chemicals that add taste, that add flavor, that add color to the plant. That's what those things are. You really don't see them much below six bricks. Once we move up to eight to twelve bricks, we now have insect resistance beginning. The plant has a sword and a shield, it can defend itself, does a really good job of it. Water retention abilities increase in the plant considerably. Uh, so for those of you who are in drier parts of the country, uh, if you are in that eight to twelve range, you are gonna need less water than you would otherwise. And so that's those are some of the things that happen between eight to twelve. Now, once we get to about twelve to twenty, we have a plant that is objectively healthy. Objectively meaning it's absolutely healthy. There is no there is no test that will tell you that it's unhealthy. We are every test is gonna tell us that, and we are able to determine that very quickly in the bricks. Food is now produced, at least real food, the food that you want to eat, that tastes good, that's gonna give you a long life so you can live to 70, 80, 90, 100 years or so. That's the type of food that we want to produce. It's now fit for human consumption. And the big plus, there are no insects and no disease on these plants. So the 12 to 20 range is what we are looking for. We would prefer something a little bit higher. I prefer to be in the 14 range at a minimum if I can get it, but 12 is usually good enough for some people. Now, what I've done is I've superimposed insect feeding guilds on this same chart because I've determined that some insects are found on higher bricks plants and others are found on lower bricks plants. So we have the aphid group, which includes the aphids and includes the uh scale insects, uh phyloxerins, um, things like that. Uh they're gonna leave a plant once it reaches six bricks, sometimes seven, and by eight or eight point five, they're all gone. Uh other sucking insects, not the aphids, such as you know, leafhoppers, plant hoppers, frog hoppers, uh, stick uh stink bugs, uh, lantern bugs, things of that sort, they're gonna leave a plant once it reaches seven bricks, sometimes eight bricks, and sometimes nine, depending upon what's uh the species. Then we have the chewing insects, uh, which are going to leave the plant at nine or ten or eleven bricks. And the chewing insects are the lepidopter and pestos are the caterpillars. Uh the beetles, beetle larvae, are uh uh another type of chewing insect, which are commonly found in agriculture. And then by the time we get to the grasshopper group, uh they are, shall we say, a little bit closer to humans than uh I would like them to be. Uh, but they're looking, they will leave a plant at about 10, 11, and at 12 bricks, even though they're not interested in a plant, they will take a bite. That's why I have the 12 plus there. And so this grasshopper group, which includes the grasshoppers, the cadet, uh, the crickets, and things of that sort, have the ability to eat higher quality food than some of the others. So this is the chart that I alluded to before, and uh, we've now got uh the two variations of the chart that I often use during my presentations.

SPEAKER_03 6:12

This is actually really, really helpful to have the visual to go with it. Um, and uh, and thank you for pulling that up for us. Um so in in our world um at Chonex and in Michael's background as agronomist, my background work in both conventional and regenerative agriculture, we we talk a lot about soil health and building soil health as a way to reduce um dependence on synthetic uh fertilizers to you know to get uh more bang for your buck on yield to improve your soil health. But let's talk uh a little bit about um how a farmer might take the knowledge that you're giving to us today on bricks and you know how to apply that practically uh in terms of uh developing soil functionality in a way that will um will drive these bricks numbers and help us achieve this um insect and disease resistance we're we're talking about this morning.

SPEAKER_02 7:09

Okay, uh there are a few general principles that I can describe, and then there are specific principles that are really keying in on the particular farm. I do consulting all over the world. Because I'm consulting all over the world, I'm dealing with different lands, different uh different cultures too, but you're uh and sometimes that affects agriculture, but there are some things you can and cannot do. And at that point, I do have to get specific. So let me talk first about generalities. So if you are dealing with insects attacking your plant and you have unhealthy plants, which also usually means you have unhealthy soil too, because it's hard to raise healthy plants in unhealthy soil and vice versa, then we have a problem that needs to be taken care of. And the obvious, the first thing that should be obvious to everyone is that we have a sugar problem. So if we have low bricks plants, we have a sugar problem. If sugar is the main problem, and it is, because that's what the plants are putting into the soil. We know from last week I mentioned that the root exudates are putting out 85 to 90 percent sugar. So we know instinctively as scientists that the plants feel that the most important thing that they can put in the soil is sugar, and that's what they do. The rest of the 10 to 15 percent can include, you know, humic acids, folvic acids, it can include amino acids, it can include a lot of other things that the plant uh may want to get into the soil, but sugar is at the root of it. Therefore, if you want to start increasing bricks levels, usually the first thing, especially when you're dealing with a very low bricks plant, and so if I'm dealing with a 3.9 bricks plant in the field, we're in big trouble. We're in huge trouble right now. And the first thing to put down is going to be sugar. It's hands down, it's gonna be the first thing. Because if you don't have the sugar, nothing works, nothing moves, no energy is occurring. The microbes need sugar, the fungi need sugar, the plants need sugar, we need sugar. This is our main um energy uh molecule that we use in order to make ATP. So we need sugar. So when you are putting down something in order to health up the plant, the first and most important thing is going to be sugar. It's not the only thing though, but it is going to be first and foremost. And so that's one of the first general things that needs to be said. Many people usually ask, at what level are we putting this stuff down? Well, I don't know. It depends upon the farm. So for farms that have never put sugar down before in their lives, and they are dealing with three, four, five bricks plants, we are going to be looking at putting down between 20 to 80 pounds of sugar per acre in order to boost, to jump start the system. If you do not have if you are dealing with relatively healthy plants, 9, 10, and 11, we don't need uh to put down 20 to 80 pounds of sugar because the plants are putting down a lot of sugar into the soil already. And since sugar is the most important ingredient in healthy plants, not the only one, but it is the most important in the first. Well, we don't need to put as much sugar down when we are dealing with an 11.5 bricks plant. At that point, there are usually other things that we want to do. So those are some of the general things that farmers need to consider is they need to put down a massive amount of sugar, and then if they want, they can start backing off over time. So for your information, the best sources of sugar are usually molasses, especially in organic molasses that doesn't have any of the uh glyphosate in it, which you will sometimes find in some of the other um uh molasses. Uh brown sugar is certainly adequate, you just have to turn it into a uh uh you have to dilute it. Uh so uh dilute it in water because we always want to be applying as a water-based. If you put it out as a solid and spread the sugar out, as I alluded to last week, the ants are going to carry the stuff off. So once you put it down as a liquid, it it just soaks into the soil and it feeds the microbes, and that's what we want to do. So that's what we are looking to do. That's the first thing. If you are looking for some other things to do, usually it is to put down micronutrients. The micronutrients, and and some people will say, well, what micronutrients are you talking about? All of them. You may be short copper, you may be short iron, you may be short manganese, you may be short uh uh uh you may be short uh any one of the other uh nutrients that are out there, you could be short cobalt, you might even be short nickel, even though you don't need that much of it, but you're gonna need these micronutrients. And when if you don't have these micronutrients around, you are going to have slight drops in bricks. And at that point, if a plant is usually liking to be at 14 plus bricks, it will drop down to 12 or 11 or maybe even 10 if it is missing a micronutrient. That's usually the second thing that is required. Which micronutrient do you need? In a sense, it's usually a pretty good idea to put down all the micronutrients that you can, because it's too sometimes time consuming to figure out what you need. But if you do know that you have a genuine deficiency in cobalt, well, have at it. You know, put down some cobalt and uh you should be able to uh improve the situation and you can measure this with bricks. Within 24 hours after you put the stuff down, you can see whether or not the cobalt, which should be put down in conjunction with sugar, by the way, uh if the cobalt that you're deficient in is the magic love potion number nine that you may need for your crops. But if you are dealing with even lower bricks levels, you may be missing more than one micronutrient. And at that point, you could be short cobalt, you could be short manganese, you could be short uh uh uh iron, you could be short copper. When you are short several of them, what's usually happening is that you have pesticides which are chelating the micronutrients. That's usually what's happening. Not always, but usually. And so I'm gonna ask the farmer, are you using pesticides? Because they're holding on to the micronutrients and preventing them from getting inside the plant. And at that point, we're gonna need to start backing off. Some farmers want to go cold turkey and stop it immediately. This will release the micronutrients. If uh they're going to need some uh, if they're not comfortable doing that, then at that point we need to start backing off because those micronutrients are the second thing, which I usually find. So those are the general things. We need sugar, we need micronutrients, but specifically, it's really done on a per farm basis when I get very, very specific with the recommendations that I am making. But those two generalities really kind of set the tone uh for uh uh for um uh any discussion for any farmer, and I mean any farmer anywhere in the world.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

These farmers might be able to know via a soil test, you know, if they're short of micronutrient. Right. They're also gonna see on that same soil test, they're gonna see an organic matter percentage. And on that soil test, they they feel like that's some sort of indicator on maybe plant health or where their soil is going or has been. Can you can you talk a little bit about the organic matter interplay into this conversation, Dr. Doster?

SPEAKER_02 14:44

Absolutely. Uh let's take a look at what the plants think, and that will answer your question. The plants feel that sugar is the most important thing, and that is a carbon source. So we understand that carbon is the most important thing, and we also understand that carbon is adding to the organic matter of the soil. So that's the most important thing. If you want to increase organic matter, you have to be putting the sugar down because that's what the plants feel is the most important thing. There are other forms of organic matter, other force forms of carbon. You will notice if you take a look at the root exudates that they have some humic acids. They will have some folvic acids. We also have compost. We also have biochar. All of these forms of carbon can be put down into the soil. But I want to point out that the plant is not putting down prodigious amounts of compost, prodigious amounts of biochar, prodigious amounts of humic acids, folvic acids, and things of that nature, the amino acids. It's not putting down a lot. So you we we understand that they're all important. I'm not gonna de-emphasize anything that I just mentioned, but if you decide to pass on the sugar and just want to put down biochar, you will find you are gonna come up short because you're not gonna be able to afford to put down enough biochar or compost or other things. You can afford to put the sugar down. That stuff is relatively cheap, and that's the sugar source that you want. Once you've got that down, you are now increasing organic matter, which is your question. And when we are increasing organic matter, everything changes for the better, because that organic substance is going to be holding on to the micronutrients rather than the pesticides. It's gonna make it available to the plant. That carbon is gonna become part of the material in the microbes. It's gonna become part of the material, even more so in the fungi, including the mycorrhizal fungi. They're all carbon-based, even more so than the microbes. So you've got carbon, carbon, carbon, carbon, carbon. It's all this carbon that needs to be there. And if we have a genuine shortage, our plants will not do well. So these are the things that need to be done. As you can see, we need to put that which is first first, and that which is second, third, fourth, and fifth. Make sure that they're in the right order. Otherwise, you can spend a lot of money that you don't want to spend because right now we have very low margins among farming nowadays. So I want to make sure that we focus on that which is most important while not forgetting that the plant has other things that it wants to put out there too. Even the secondary plant metabolites, uh, which I have on the screen right now. Those plant secondary metabolites are included in the root exudates, but there are not a lot of them. They've got very specific plant secondary metabolites, some terpenes, some glucosinolates, some flavonoids, whatever it is. Some of that stuff goes down in the roots with the sugar, and therefore there can be a benefit to using some of these plant secondary metabolites. And many companies have successfully used plant secondary metabolites because they are an important part of the picture, as the plant tells us. So that's kind of the big umbrella overview of carbon and organic matter for you, Michael.

SPEAKER_03 18:09

One of the things you mentioned is that you see a response within 24 hours on the sugar. So if a farmer, you know, has a scout go out and say, You've got these particular insect problems, spray this pyretheroid, spray this particular insecticide, and you know, you spray it and you start seeing bugs die. Um, what is the response time on, you know, you've got a bricks of you know 7.5 and you do you make a an application of a biological and some some sugar to try to get your uh your brick score up. What is the timeline on when you see the insect start stop feeding?

SPEAKER_02 18:49

Uh the timeline on the insects is very similar to what we measure on the brick scale, which is usually about 24 hours. If you have to wait more than 72 hours, you've kind of waited too long. So at this point, the effect upon the plant is going to be very, very obvious. Because as soon as the plant, for example, if you put down a micronutrient that it's missing that it needs for photosynthesis, you're going to get a jump in photosynthesis. And immediately the plant, after it starts photosynthesizing, will put out more sugar because that's the end product, and our bricks go up. So I am looking for a minimum of 0.5 bricks. I mentioned it last week. I'm mentioning again is that if you put something down and you don't get it to move at least 0.5 bricks within 24 hours, then you may not be dealing with a uh the plant may not be utilizing uh the way that you would like it to. However, having said that, oh, we've had jumps of two bricks. And a jump of two bricks is just about as big as it gets in 24 hours. And so when you are jump starting the system and getting the plants to photosynthesize, they're now producing sugar and it starts spreading throughout the plant, and it does so very quickly, that's where we get the jumps in bricks. So anything between 0.5 and 2 is usually a good sign that you are going in the right direction. I should tell you too, since you asked that question, if you do put pesticides down in some of the salt-based fertilizers, you get a drop in bricks. That's another reason why I'm not a big fan of this, because the plants are telling me they really don't like that stuff. So I'm trying to go up, and in some of the things that we put down, it goes down, and I want to be able to go uh as close to 14 as I can. I'm trying to avoid getting it down to two or three, which we can effectively do uh with some of the products that we are putting down in conventional agriculture today.

SPEAKER_03 20:45

You're you're saying that um if a farmer has a particular insect issue in a field and he's already, you know, doing some of the right things to make his soil and his plant healthier, um he could take half that field and take the the conventional recommendation and spray a pesticide on it, and take the other half and make a um uh make an application or make uh follow a recommendation and increase brick score, and in a similar time frame, he would see equal or better results on the uh side of the field that he uh um dealt with the bricks instead of a pesticide.

SPEAKER_02 21:24

Yeah, the uh the result though, I do want to point out, is going to be measured in bricks. So you may not notice the difference with your eyes in 24 hours, therefore you you do have to use the instrumentation. So for those of you who are thinking, oh, I get to avoid soil tests or plant sap analysis, that type of thing. Well, I mean, they all have their place. And I and I like testing and I use that testing all the time. But as far as visually seeing something, sometimes you do have to wait. So, for example, if you are spraying corn and the ear hasn't appeared yet, you know, how how well is the ear going to respond to the application that you put. Down. Well, you're going to have to wait for it. It takes a while for a corn plant to produce an ear. And so there are some things you're going to have to wait for, other things you won't. And so by focusing on the leaves, you can get an answer very, very quickly within 24 to 72 hours, depending upon. Most of the time it's within 24 hours. Occasionally you will need 48 to 72. But within 24 hours, I'm looking for a change. And if that change is in the right direction, fantastic. That's all thumbs up, all power ahead. Let's continue going in that direction. And you should be able to notice the difference on two sides of the field, one of which has the pesticides, which is actively chelating the micronutrients, preventing them from getting in the plant, therefore reducing photosynthesis, therefore reducing the bricks levels. And on the other side of the field, you start to put down some nutritionals, which essentially is just another word for food. Stuff that the plant wants. So sugar is not something that the plant wants, I should mention. That's just to feed the microbes. When you put the sugar down, it doesn't go inside the plant. All of the sugar inside the plant comes from photosynthesis. So when you are putting down the sugar applications, it should be in the soil. Sugar is not efficiently taken in through the leaves. Does some of it get through? Yeah. Is it efficient? No, because I have never seen a tree bend over and start eating the ground with its leaves. Maybe you have in some dreams before, but this is not reality. And so we do not feed trees through their leaves, but we do feed it through the soil. That's why all these applications should be done into the soil in order to be optimal. However, sometimes we have some problems.

SPEAKER_03 24:08

But let's say, you know, in a row crop setting, uh, a farmer is growing soybeans and he's got um got indication of a flight of insects come in and started feeding. And you know, his response would be, I need to spray something and kill those insects, and he'll see the he'll see a response in the insects to stop feeding, the plant starts to look healthier in several days or a week. And whereas if he doesn't spray, the plant's gonna get worse. So that that's what I was looking at response time. So if you if you treat um to improve the bricks, you're gonna get a similar better response in actually stopping to see the insects feeding.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

That would be correct. That would be correct. If you get there early enough. If you get there early enough.

SPEAKER_03 24:55

Yeah, so so so if you if you if you respond as quickly as you would with an insecticide, you'll see as as quick or uh or quicker response in insect stopping to feed.

SPEAKER_02 25:06

Absolutely, you do. Yeah, it's usually pretty cool within a few days. That's a good rule of thumb. Within a few days, you're gonna see a difference in the application that you put down, which could make it worse or better, but you should be able to see something, and that will also come with the eyes, too. The eyes will start to notice things that it didn't notice before.

SPEAKER_03 25:23

You've consulted on all kinds of different crops, all kinds of different settings all over the world. Um, and you know, Mike and I are both in the south. Chonex works all over the country. We've got a great guy we work with out in California, but even here in the south, we've got a lot of diversity, or even in my area. So, you know, I go from a rice farm in the Delta that's that's heavy clay, that's all irrigated, and then you go into the hills and you're working with a sweet potato grower that's you know on sandy soil, and um so you can't go out and visit thousands of farmers that are watching. Are there some general things that you've seen as far as different um different impacts on different types of crop, like or different conditions, like we're facing a serious drought here in Ireland this year? Um is the impact of uh on bricks any different for a different type of crop or a different type of uh growing environment?

SPEAKER_02 26:20

Okay, well, drought. Let me talk about drought because that's a very specific problem that all farmers all over the world deal with. And so when you are dealing with drought, obviously we all know this, it means a lack of water. If you have a lack of water, there are two things that could be occurring. Either one, there's not enough water maybe coming down on the plant, either through rain or irrigation, or you're not able to retain water. Now, the second one I can talk about a little bit more. I can't control the weather and I can't uh irrigation, we do have some control over, but as far as water retention, and I alluded to that, and there it is right on the screen right now. Maybe that's why I'm thinking of it right now. You have the ability to hold on to water, and that is through carbon. So that ties back to Michael's question right now is that the more carbon you have on the soil, the more water is retained. It doesn't percolate through and pass through to the water table. It remains available in the rhizosphere. And so by putting plenty of carbon into that organic matter, you are able to retain it. In addition to the carbon component, you also have the pure sugar component. Sugar is hygroscopic. You leave it out on the table in a high humidity environment such as Florida, where I'm from, and it will pull in water. You will actually see the weight increase of the sugar over time as it pulls in water and gets heavier. So sugar has that probability. So it can actually hold on to water. That's another form of water retention. When you have more carbon and more sugar in the soil, and I realize they're kind of synonymous, you usually have more microbes in the soil. When you have more microbes in the soil, they do not survive without water. And so they must take a sip of water, very, very small, much, much less than a drop, a small sip of water in order to keep their bodies going. Well, hello, that's water retention right there. And that's even more important than the soil. So you can hold more water in a soil with a high concentration of microbes than you can by focusing on the type of soil. How many presentations have I been to over the past few decades where, you know, guys are getting out there talking about water retention and sandy soil is not good, water retention in clay is too good, sometimes it washes off it. We need a little bit of a mixture because it's all about water retention, water retention this, water retention that. Virtually no one talks about the microbes. The microbes will hold on to water better than the type of soil that you have. So when I am dealing with the different countries and the different soils and the different crops, we need to make sure that we have some of the basics involved, and that's what you're asking. And that is going back to what Michael said. It's carbon, it's sugar. And when you've got those, you've got more microbes in the soil. You've now got water retention such that a farmer, literally on opposite sides of the set of the fence, and I have heard this literally dozens of times in the past year, that a farmer, his crop is dying because of the drought. And the farmer on the other side of the fence is able to get his crop and keep it alive for just two more weeks. It's not doing great, but just two more weeks where he's actually able to get his crop and get it into the silo, the grain bin. Uh he's able to harvest his crop and make money. And that is from water retention. So there is something on the opposite side of the fence, always, which is able to hold on to that water, and that's what gets you through the drought. I did mention to you, I just used a figure of two weeks, but I do want you to be aware you can't go without water forever. You got to have water. Uh it's the most important thing. It's what it's what makes photosynthesis go. So you've got to have water. But if you're able to retain it just a little bit longer, you can usually get through another week or two and save your crop. And that is a lot of money to a farmer. So that's how I would respond to the drought thing. And that would be indicative of anywhere in the world. Whether or not you have sandy soil, whether you have the clay soil, uh, you do want to be able to keep that water in the soil. And some of the things that I just mentioned allow you to do just that.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

That's that's fantastic, Dr. Dijkstra. Um, we we have about three minutes left for one more question, and I'm gonna ask you basically an impossible question. So instead of you having to answer specifically, I'm just gonna say if you could guide our thinking a little bit on this topic. Uh, and this topic is around nitrogen rates for growing crops like corn and cotton, uh, even pastures, for instance. And I'm just gonna say this just because I have heard so many different things. You know, too high nitrogen rates, my plants are gonna crash out, they're not gonna be doing well, it's gonna attract a bunch of insects. Then I've also heard that it has nothing to do with it, that nitrogen makes plants healthy, therefore they don't, you know, they probably have higher brick scores. And I say probably because I know every circumstance is different. So, my question to you is can you guide our thinking a little bit on how we should look at nitrogen as it's related to this conversation?

SPEAKER_02 31:49

Sure. Uh excess nitrogen, which is usually the through the application of the salt-based MPK fertilizers, lowers the bricks level. So go ahead, spray it, measure the bricks, go ahead and spray it, and go measure the bricks again, you know, 24, 72 hours that we talked about right now, and look to see what happens to the bricks levels. Generally speaking, they're all going to remain about the same or they're gonna go down. And this is an indication that the plant doesn't really like what you just put down in it. So that's an indication that the nitrogen is not as beneficial as we think it is. So nitrogen is absolutely important. It is imperative. But how do we do this a hundred years ago? How do we do this a thousand years ago? We were raising plants that long ago, but we weren't putting down nitrogen, and yet they did just well. They produced their own nitrogen. And that is really where the question, the crux of the question that you're asking is right now. Soil has the ability to produce nitrogen. It is not just the legumes, it's not just the rhizobia and the uh and the legume crop and the nitrogen nodules. They have the ability to produce nitrogen. There are three types of nitrogen-fixing bacteria, and one of them is the free-living nitrogen. That's the one that the corn and the grasses, the monocots often use. And if you allow them to do their thing, they will make nitrogen. Usually they are inhibited from making the nitrogen, and that's why raising crops has changed over the past few decades. A thousand years ago, a hundred years ago, we weren't dealing with this problem, but we are now. And so when you're dealing with a high nitrogen crop, you need to have a lot of nitrogen produced. If the nitrogen fixing bacteria are not fed by the sugar and other night nutrients that it needs, they will not produce the nitrogen. The crop will start to uh turn yellow, which means you will have chlorosis developing, and then the crop uh the farmer will shrug his shoulders and say, I'm getting chlorosis, I don't have enough nitrogen, I have to make an application, and then they will go out and they will spray the nitrogen down, it will force it into the plant, it will green up the plant, it will usually lower the bricks, but it will green up the plant, it will make them look healthier, and that is how we bypass the problem of not producing enough nitrogen.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

You know, as a practical agronomy thing for me, you know, what I've kind of taken away from this conversation is, you know, if I'm out there looking at pest thresholds and I'm walking a field, you know, bring your refractometer. You know, I think it's almost a more immediate uh ability to do something versus you know, me even collect insects. You know, I can take a refractometer test, a bricks test, before I actually go and even assess pest pressure. Yes. You know, I I I think, you know, to get to Les's question a little bit more direct because there was this kind of side-by-side thought, you know, I I think as an agronomist, you we we we need to be very on top of things that are planned and scheduled and intentional about this. And so I think from a standpoint of where I am, I think you know, it's it's easy once you get in that thought process of testing bricks when you're out there in conjunction with assessing pest thresholds, because most conventional guys are going to be out there with a swoop net. We're gonna be looking, we're gonna be counting, we're gonna be doing other things, but alongside that, can we do something where we're more proactive around understanding what's really happening in the plant and where it's going directionally? So, you know, I just really appreciative of this thought, really appreciative of the soil first mentality that you brought to this conversation, Dr. Dijkstra. You know, I want to remind our listeners, there are lots of really good soil health assessments. That's part of this whole farm podcast, is you know, doing nothing is not an option when it comes to understanding the soil health that you have on your farm. We have to have some sort of baseline. Lots of laboratories that are conventional chemical extraction analysis soil laboratories have some sort of soil health offering now. So if you're not asking your laboratory that question, please do that. Ask what they have and ask how they read it. Ask how you're supposed to read it. And so, you know, you can't change what you can't measure. You know, we we have to start somewhere. And so this BRICS conversation has really been a great extension of this. You know, you can't change what you can't measure, you don't measure. And so I just want to say thank you, Dr. Dykster, for bringing this message out there, getting this message out to all growers. That's the purpose. All growers are curious about some of these topics. And so just want to say thank you. Uh, do you have we maybe have one more minute left? Do you have any parting thoughts, Dr. Dykster?

SPEAKER_02 37:07

Uh well, you just mentioned one parting thought, which I can do in a minute or less, maybe 30 seconds, and that is when you're counting insects, you can tell how low the bricks is by how many insects are on the field. So if you have a very, very bad infestation, that's going to be indicative of a lower bricks, whereas a casual infestation usually means that the bricks may be at least two points higher, but still somewhat attractive to the insect. So measuring by counting is still important, and this actually has a correlate with bricks. So that's that's my uh 32nd edition right there.

SPEAKER_03 37:46

I'm grateful that you were able to do this with us, uh, Dr. Dokstra. And I think this is information that we need to get to all our farmers. Um, you know, to not only help them grow healthy food for people, but healthy food to not have as many insects.

SPEAKER_02 38:00

So it's that's what we're all trying to do, Les.

SPEAKER_00 38:03

Yeah. Fantastic. Thank you to all our listeners out there. We'll have some more information in the show notes. Thanks, Dr. Dijkstra, and uh hope you guys enjoyed this episode of the Whole Farm Podcast by Chonex.

SPEAKER_01 38:19

Thanks for listening to the Whole Farm Podcast by Chonex. If you found this episode helpful, be sure to subscribe and share it with someone in your network. For resources or to learn more about Chonex, visit choneux.ag. Thanks again for joining us, and we'll see you next time.