Alternative biological disease control

[J_Barty_J]

Hello, I am new here so apologies if this has already been asked.

A friend of mine gave me his copy of Direct Driller magazine. I must say, I was impressed with the content! Which also led me to create this account.

An article that struck me the most was a bio on Tim Parton (not sure if he is on this platform) and how he uses biology to control diseases.

I have had a look on Google and asked my agronomist (who's exact words were "it's only another product out of a can, usually 'snake oil' as they can't get products registered") my knowledge is very limited with regards to soils, etc too so I was hoping someone on here could shed light on it?

Is it only through Aiva Fertilisers that I can control diseases using biology or can I use my agronomist (he is going to dig out what he can find after some grumbling) as looking on the Aiva site it looks like their products are just mainly trace elements that I could potentially get from Hutch etc? Any insights would be great! Also, attached an image of the article for reference.

 

[Brisel]

Here's a large can of worms! No pun intended. Crop tonics, biologicals and other miracle cures in a can are about to be regulated more heavily. The market for pesticides is declining and the costs of developing new ones and getting them to market in Britain and the EU are prohibitive. Trace elements and stimulants are much cheaper to produce and regulate so have a higher mark up for the distributor.

This might be a better question to ask in the Direct drilling forums, where you will get feedback from users of more regenerative techniques. In my own limited experience, some of these products only provide a yield response where conventional pesticide inputs have been cut right back.

I haven't read the article you refer to, so can't comment too much, but Avia certainly aren't the only firm looking at this.

 

[Gong Farmer]

There's no argument that a plant suffering a nutrient deficiency will be more susceptible to disease, same as humans, the healthier we are the less sick we get. Hence application of these products can appear to reduce disease if they correct that deficiency and make the plant healthier and stronger. The question is are any of the nutrients, which are called 'trace' for a reason, ever sufficiently deficient for long enough to make the plant more susceptible to disease? (Many deficiencies are transient).
The answer is 'hardly ever'.

 

[ajd132]

There’s a thread on the direct drilling section I started about this a month or two ago, I also wrote an article in direct driller about it.
Jury’s out on it all. The main principles of regenerative ag are what should be focused on long before reaching for various products. The answer is not in a can whether that be fungicide or biological.

 

[J_Barty_J]

Thank you for all your responses, I have been asking a few more questions on various other platforms, and very similar responses have been coming back too.

There’s a thread on the direct drilling section I started about this a month or two ago, I also wrote an article in direct driller about it.
Jury’s out on it all. The main principles of regenerative ag are what should be focused on long before reaching for various products. The answer is not in a can whether that be fungicide or biological.

It looks to be exactly that, another product from a can, I am not qualified enough to say if anyones products are better than others, but I am not having much confidence in the biological approach just yet as only around 2 or 3 farmers seem to do it (in the UK). At the end of the day Aiva needs to sell their products and it looks like they've gone down the marketing route (Farmers Weekly etc) to really push their 2/3 successes? I could be completely wrong here!

I had a look at that thread you put there @ajd132 and that is near enough to what I am asking, you look to have had the same responses on snake oil merchants and that the jury is out on this 'organic/biological approach'.

Thank you @Brisel for your comments on the regulations, I can't believe these products are unregulated - does anyone actually know what they are doing to the soil long term? If pesticides have to jump through hundreds of scientific hoops to be approved (at a great cost) and these products don't need to be tested as vigorously as pesticides but claim to control diseases and produce high yields just as well as 'conventional' products, why aren't the bigger companies going hell for leather with these products that offer a greater ROI? We know the positive effects of pesticides, but we also know the negative effects too so we can make an informed decision.

Final point (sorry for the long-winded reply!) I read the recent report by ADAS into these biological products and their conclusion (heavily shortened by me here) was that there isn't any evidence supporting that these products work as they claim and they find it scary that these products/companies are making such spurious unquantified claims finishing by saying that they need more scientific evidence.

That's enough alarm bells for me to look at improving my soils using nature and not another product out of a can.

A good quote comes to mind "If it looks too good to be true, then it probably is!"

 

[Simon Chiles]

Thank you for all your responses, I have been asking a few more questions on various other platforms, and very similar responses have been coming back too.



It looks to be exactly that, another product from a can, I am not qualified enough to say if anyones products are better than others, but I am not having much confidence in the biological approach just yet as only around 2 or 3 farmers seem to do it (in the UK). At the end of the day Aiva needs to sell their products and it looks like they've gone down the marketing route (Farmers Weekly etc) to really push their 2/3 successes? I could be completely wrong here!

I had a look at that thread you put there @ajd132 and that is near enough to what I am asking, you look to have had the same responses on snake oil merchants and that the jury is out on this 'organic/biological approach'.

Thank you @Brisel for your comments on the regulations, I can't believe these products are unregulated - does anyone actually know what they are doing to the soil long term? If pesticides have to jump through hundreds of scientific hoops to be approved (at a great cost) and these products don't need to be tested as vigorously as pesticides but claim to control diseases and produce high yields just as well as 'conventional' products, why aren't the bigger companies going hell for leather with these products that offer a greater ROI? We know the positive effects of pesticides, but we also know the negative effects too so we can make an informed decision.

Final point (sorry for the long-winded reply!) I read the recent report by ADAS into these biological products and their conclusion (heavily shortened by me here) was that there isn't any evidence supporting that these products work as they claim and they find it scary that these products/companies are making such spurious unquantified claims finishing by saying that they need more scientific evidence.

That's enough alarm bells for me to look at improving my soils using nature and not another product out of a can.

A good quote comes to mind "If it looks too good to be true, then it probably is!"

@ajd132 is definitely right about the fact you really need to get your head around the basics of dd before you start worrying about buying cans of biologicals. They’re not a magic wand that can sort out all of your problems.
There are several things you need to understand about biologicals before you start buying them. Firstly not all of them are equal and you certainly can’t go just slapping anything on. From some of the trial work I’ve done with producers of these products you can get some dramatic positive results, you can also get some negative results if you apply the wrong product.
Secondly I’m not sure that all producers have fully tested their products on individual crops to assess the results.
Thirdly you’ve got to accept that you’re never going to get consistent results with a biological product, you’re dealing with a living thing and whether it thrives or not is very dependent on weather and its surrounding conditions.
Fourthly, and this is almost the best one, is that often the less you interfere the more the natural biology will kick in and do it all for you.
Having said all of this, Tim is probably one of the most advanced managers of this system, he is constantly testing sap readings, understands what those measurements are telling him, and very knowledgeable on the type of biology he needs to get the results that he does.

 

[Gong Farmer]

Fourthly, and this is almost the best one, is that often the less you interfere the more the natural biology will kick in and do it all for you.

This. Also, I tried to avoid saying it but the profit margin on these products is obscene and is behind a lot of this exposure at the moment.

 

[ajd132]

This. Also, I tried to avoid saying it but the profit margin on these products is obscene and is behind a lot of this exposure at the moment.

I think on the other thread someone suggested chucking abit of yeast and molasses in an old roundup can and re-labelling it as a new business we could do!

 

[Simon Chiles]

This. Also, I tried to avoid saying it but the profit margin on these products is obscene and is behind a lot of this exposure at the moment.

Is that any different to agrochemicals though, even I know it can’t cost £200 to make 5 litres of fungicide.
If, and it’s a very big if, you know what you’re doing, you’ve got the right product and the weather/soil conditions are right they definitely work and actually are cheaper than conventional chemistry. The down side is that not many agronomists understand them and coupled with the fact that suppliers are trying to jump on the bandwagon it’s becoming a recipe for failure. Unfortunately it’ll then give the majority the opinion that they don’t work unfortunately the producers of the decent products will get tarred with the snake oil brush.
Personally I think you need to master understanding the results from a Refractometer, sap pH and sap N results as a minimum before you start to think about biologicals.

 

[Flat 10]

Is that any different to agrochemicals though, even I know it can’t cost £200 to make 5 litres of fungicide.
If, and it’s a very big if, you know what you’re doing, you’ve got the right product and the weather/soil conditions are right they definitely work and actually are cheaper than conventional chemistry. The down side is that not many agronomists understand them and coupled with the fact that suppliers are trying to jump on the bandwagon it’s becoming a recipe for failure. Unfortunately it’ll then give the majority the opinion that they don’t work unfortunately the producers of the decent products will get tarred with the snake oil brush.
Personally I think you need to master understanding the results from a Refractometer, sap pH and sap N results as a minimum before you start to think about biologicals.

Really? Surely biologicals are slow to act so no point in reacting to plant results?

 

[Clive]

Hello, I am new here so apologies if this has already been asked.

A friend of mine gave me his copy of Direct Driller magazine. I must say, I was impressed with the content! Which also led me to create this account.

An article that struck me the most was a bio on Tim Parton (not sure if he is on this platform) and how he uses biology to control diseases.

I have had a look on Google and asked my agronomist (who's exact words were "it's only another product out of a can, usually 'snake oil' as they can't get products registered") my knowledge is very limited with regards to soils, etc too so I was hoping someone on here could shed light on it?

Is it only through Aiva Fertilisers that I can control diseases using biology or can I use my agronomist (he is going to dig out what he can find after some grumbling) as looking on the Aiva site it looks like their products are just mainly trace elements that I could potentially get from Hutch etc? Any insights would be great! Also, attached an image of the article for reference.

@parker ??

 

[J_Barty_J]

@ajd132 is definitely right about the fact you really need to get your head around the basics of dd before you start worrying about buying cans of biologicals. They’re not a magic wand that can sort out all of your problems.
There are several things you need to understand about biologicals before you start buying them. Firstly not all of them are equal and you certainly can’t go just slapping anything on. From some of the trial work I’ve done with producers of these products you can get some dramatic positive results, you can also get some negative results if you apply the wrong product.
Secondly I’m not sure that all producers have fully tested their products on individual crops to assess the results.
Thirdly you’ve got to accept that you’re never going to get consistent results with a biological product, you’re dealing with a living thing and whether it thrives or not is very dependent on weather and its surrounding conditions.
Fourthly, and this is almost the best one, is that often the less you interfere the more the natural biology will kick in and do it all for you.
Having said all of this, Tim is probably one of the most advanced managers of this system, he is constantly testing sap readings, understands what those measurements are telling him, and very knowledgeable on the type of biology he needs to get the results that he does.

These are some great points mentioned here. I completely agree that is a multi-layered approach when it comes to building soil health. It just seems that when looking into it there are lots of trials etc showing the benefits of DD, cover crops, and a broad rotation.

The area that seems to fall down is your second point mentioned there where the producers don't seem to have fully tested their products along with the lack of consistent results. I am all for progressing and becoming more sustainable but with the risks already high enough with the weather extremes we are seeing surely it would be sensible to mitigate that risk by using products that are tried and tested, even the new fungicides have years of trials data behind them.

Do you see think that the new plant genetics that are available now is contributing to these 'biological' products working as well as they are? From what I can gather some of these 'biological products' have been around since the late 1800s! (Bacillus products) if they have been around that long surely someone must have at least one trial showing how it's supposed to work as they are claiming?

Since posting this I have been looking into a lot of work behind cover crops and DD drills. I think I will probably ask my 'what is the best drill question' there! (after looking through previous posts - as I assume that question will have been asked too!)

 

[Brisel]

These are some great points mentioned here. I completely agree that is a multi-layered approach when it comes to building soil health. It just seems that when looking into it there are lots of trials etc showing the benefits of DD, cover crops, and a broad rotation.

The area that seems to fall down is your second point mentioned there where the producers don't seem to have fully tested their products along with the lack of consistent results. I am all for progressing and becoming more sustainable but with the risks already high enough with the weather extremes we are seeing surely it would be sensible to mitigate that risk by using products that are tried and tested, even the new fungicides have years of trials data behind them.

Do you see think that the new plant genetics that are available now is contributing to these 'biological' products working as well as they are? From what I can gather some of these 'biological products' have been around since the late 1800s! (Bacillus products) if they have been around that long surely someone must have at least one trial showing how it's supposed to work as they are claiming?

Since posting this I have been looking into a lot of work behind cover crops and DD drills. I think I will probably ask my 'what is the best drill question' there! (after looking through previous posts - as I assume that question will have been asked too!)

The problem is you don't put X in and get Y out. There are so many variables.

I recommend that you join BASE UK and sign up for Direct Driller magazine. You don't have to be a direct driller as there are lessons for us all in there and both are driven by farmers, not a sales drive by the manufacturers of "solutions" like much of the "free" press e.g. Arable Farmer, Crop Production.

 

[parker]

I have been using biology for 8 years now, carrying out my own trials to obtain the results needed to progress into the position I am in now. This is a systems approach, if you want a quick fix stick to the can, but you are only putting a band aid on to hide the real problem. Soil health being at the heart of the system, you cannot run before you can walk! There are a number of companies offering advice on biology I just happen to work well with Mike Harrington and Nick from Edaphos, as they have similar passion to me for the use of Biology. Most of the Biology Trials are being done in the wrong circumstances with no real aim, as far as i can tell and obviously giving poor or no results. I feel that there are a lot of products out there now being sold by people who don't understand the bigger picture of what is needed and what can be achieved, so @J_Barty_J if this is something you are interested I am happy to chat further if you would like to dm me or make sure you get the right advice, as farming with biology is a whole new way of farming which a chemical agronomist will not understand imo unless there is a real passion there (which often there isn't as there is not much money to be made) as @Simon Chiles says you do have understand what you are doing in order to be able to use biology properly to get the right results. I can normally brew biology for about £2.50/ha so big savings to be made, but the management side is a lot more hands on.
I can fix Nitrogen from the air (air78% N) from anything from 40-100kgs, this year I hope not to use any fungicides as I believe we have the correct strategy in place now, but I still have fungicides as a last resort if needed, every day is a learning day.
Tim Parton