Episódios
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Resilience is part of the DNA in agriculture, but there’s a massive difference when the adversity being faced is away from the farm and involves a loved one.
Grower James Rickert and his wife Casey faced such adversity when their young daughter Emersyn contracted Hemolytic-uremic syndrome caused by E.coli.
Earlier this year, Emersyn battled through a multi system shutdown, kidney failure, coma, seizures, neurological complications, a collapsed lung and multiple infections.
After 10 weeks in the hospital, Emersyn is home and vastly improved. She started her first day in kindergarten and even had a visit with Santa and Mrs. Claus.
The Rickert family hopes Emersyn’s courage will inspire others facing huge life challenges.
“She’s my hero, and I don’t know how she does what she does every day,” Casey said. “She’s still processing the trauma in her own way. Nothing phases this kid. She is defying the odds after what she went through.”
“I look at life differently,” James said. “I realize that every day with my family is special. I have never appreciated it as much as I do today.”
Emersyn continues her recovery and recently made a Gingerbread house with a horse on top. She also put her Christmas request in to Santa Claus for a tiny dog.
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The rural-urban divide in our country continues to widen. Mike Twining of Willard Agri-Service, one of our great ag retailers, is working hard to help bridge the gap between farmers and consumers.
Twining was among the speakers at TedX Talks in Arizona and Philadelphia. His speeches presented a compelling case for smarter food buying decisions and a continuation of sustainable agriculture, meaning doing more with less.
He said his work in this area has been very encouraging.
“It has been really exciting to see the engagement I’ve had,” Twining remarked. “It’s such a neat opportunity to get outside of my normal obit and talk to people, who are sometimes two or three plus generations removed from the farm. ... It has been really gratifying to see how excited they get to actually learn about it and talk with someone still involved in agriculture. I think the vast majority of people are genuinely curious and generally think positively about farmers and agriculture. That has certainly been my experience.”
Find out more about Mike’s talks on the TedX YouTube Page: https://www.youtube.com/user/TEDxTalks
More from Mike:
Saving the Planet With Your Food
Eating Our Way to a Cleaner Planet -
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The start of summer 2025 will mark the end of Michael Parrella’s near decade as dean of the University of Idaho’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. Parrella also spent nearly 30 years as a key agricultural figure in California at UC Davis and UC Riverside.
As retirement nears, Parrella said he’s optimistic that research at the university level and through Redox and others in the private sector will help growers do more with less.
“Ultimately what we really want to do is grow a healthy plant and use less traditional fertilizer,” Parrella said. “Less nitrogen and less potassium. I think the work with micronutrients is going to enable us to do that. That’s a huge part of dealing with sustainability of agriculture and healthy soils moving forward.”He said he’d like his time at the University of Idaho to be remembered for two primary areas: hiring the best early career faculty possible, supporting the existing faculty and having updated facilities for them to carry out effective work.
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As their farm entered a rough patch, fourth generation orchardist Kaitlyn Thornton in Tonasket, Washington, ventured into social media to reach a larger audience.
Her engaging approach has elevated her into a popular agricultural influencer, who now regularly reaches millions of people with photos and videos of their apple and pear harvests, cultural practices and everyday farm life.
As the average farm operator continues to get older, Thornton said there are many opportunities for Gen Z to contribute. She said her generation has the knowledge and interest in helping, but many lack self-confidence and need a boost from the older generations.
You can follow Kaitlyn at Apple Girl Kait on Instagram and TikTok and Kaitlyn Thornton on LinkedIn.
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Potassium is one of the most used crop inputs. Redox Lead Agronomist John Kelly says it also represents a key opportunity for growers to improve their bottom line.
“I often feel like of all of the macronutrients, potassium is the one nutrient that represents opportunities in crops,” he said. “In other words, better potassium nutrition can enhance yield and quality.”
Potassium regulates water and nutrient uptake, and movement within the plant. It also plays a key role in plant charge balance. The plant must balance itself electrically, with an equal amount of negatively and positively charged elements. Potassium is responsible for about 80 percent of the positive charge. When it’s out of balance, the plant must allocate excessive resources, excessive energy in getting back into balance. In the process of doing that, yield and quality potential are diminished.
Kelly said applying more potassium isn’t always the best solution in growing crops.
Early season crop growth, during the cell wall formation stage, an oversupply of potassium can effectively block other positively charged elements, from being taken up in the plant, harming crop quality.
Kelly said improving soil health is a crucial ingredient in crop performance, and inputs and practices can improve it very quickly.
He said more growers are taking positive steps in this direction.
“We’re seeing less about just throwing pounds out without any regard for timing or input, and targeting input and performance,” Kelly said. “When it comes to potassium, you can really up the performance potential of those crops.”
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N, P and K are standard inputs on farms across the U.S., but new scientific understandings can make a huge difference their efficient use.
Phosphorus is fundamental to everything in the plant. It facilitates the transfer of sunlight energy to chemical energy that leads to plant growth.
A lot of phosphorus applied in fields gets tied up and never makes it to the plant. This inefficiency is a growing concern on efficiency and environmental fronts.
Redox Lead Agronomist John Kelly said Rootex™ provides an excellent source of phosphorus with biostimulants. The combination stimulates lateral root branching and increases specialized proteins in the root system, which promote drought stress tolerance.
Kelly said Redox technology brings efficiency and helps farm profitability.
“While it’s great to understand the technology, the thing that gets me most excited is the consistency of these benefits across crops and professional turf grass,” he said. “The efficiency is there, and the consistency of performance is there.”
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Many growers seeking success for the long term continually look for the best technology, including plant nutrition. Bio-stimulants are a promising frontier for many, and greater scientific understanding of what they can do is helping the process.
Distinguished professor Dr. Patrick Brown of UC Davis is one of the world’s foremost bio-stimulant experts. He’s the chair of this year’s Biostimulants World Congress, and said greater understanding of specific biostimulant benefits is crucial to their adoption. He said many bio-stimulant products have been sold with broad statements, which won’t be sufficient moving forward.
“I think there’s an innate recognition and interest amongst farmers that a more biological approach would be useful, and at least a hope, if not yet a belief, that bio-stimulants might be part of that solution,” Brown said.
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Used advanced data for agronomic decisions continues to gain ground, especially as margins tighten for many crops.
Vice President of Product Trials for Total Acre, Brian Mattix, facilitates trials with participating growers to determine the best path to increasing their return on investment.
He said analytics can be a huge component to maximizing a grower’s returns.
“Data is invaluable if it is accurate and it focuses on fixing the right problems,” Mattix said. “You’re not going to fix all of the problems, so you’ve just got to work on fixing the right problems and having a good plan to address those problems.”Redox has more than a dozen trials with Midwest growers with our pathway sequential program, including Mainstay Si™, RDX-N™ and Banx™.
Mattix said too much data analysis may lead to fixing the symptoms, instead of trying to put plans together by studying good trend analysis and getting in front of the problem moving forward.
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Agriculture will play a fundamental role to help ensure good health for future generations. Scientific advancements are key to more nutritious food that is grown in an environmentally and economically sustainable way.
Dr. Debatosh Das recently joined the Redox team, and he is diving deeper into helping unlock the full potential of our premium plant nutrition and carefully sourced biostimulants. He said plant charge balance, or Redox Homeostasis, is at the very foundation of productive farms.
“Balancing the charge in plants helps them avoid expending energy on maintaining charge homeostasis,” Das stated. “When nutrients are supplied in the correct ratios, the plant doesn’t need to divert energy to correct charge imbalances. Instead, that energy can be used more efficiently for growth, development, and ultimately increasing yield.”
Redox products are specially formulated to help with plant charge balance.
Das said new, more exciting discoveries appear on the horizon, as he continues to help Redox Bio-Nutrients fulfill its vision of being the catalyst for change, by redefining agronomic standards with the best verified solutions.
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As harvest season largely winds down, it’s time to give strong consideration to steps that will aid your crops next year.
Proper nutrition is a great way to add carbohydrates to your trees and vines, which provide many benefits."A lot of the reproductive growth for next year occurred during those stressful months,” remarked Redox lead agronomist John Kelly. “There’s a high probability that many of the orchards did not have the energy necessary for adequate bud differentiation. What that means is that many of the orchards did not have the energy necessary for adequate bud differentiation. What that means is it’s all that much more important that we give that plant a lot of stored energy for next spring to protect what it will produce, because there’s a probability that the heat from this summer means lower set next spring. We need as much energy as possible to maintain that crop.”
Kelly and Redox Sales Manager Jared Sanner agree Banx™ is an excellent choice to boost trees and vines following harvest, as it provides an effective nutrition boost from potassium, phosphorus, zinc and boron, as well as excellent abiotic stress defense.
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Potatoes are in the upper echelon in importance to the world’s diet, yet many have little idea of what it takes to get them from farm to French fry.
Dustin Begovich intends to change that.
The Idaho Studio filmmaker is nearly complete capturing two years’ worth of footage, and he soon shift to editing the interviews and activity. The documentary film, SPUDS, should have its first airings in 2025, and Redox is a sponsor.
“It is important that I’m reaching the consumer at their level and walking alongside them,” he said. “I want to bring them into agriculture and farming and help them understand it from more of a layperson’s perspective. … As much as this is a large project for the industry to make sure that their story is out there, it’s coming from a perspective of your average person that’s never thought ‘where the heck did that potato come from?’
Find out more about Dustin’s film and follow how it progresses at https://spudsmovie.com.
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Farmers are the key link in keeping bountiful, affordable food to feed the world. There are many others that help growers do their work, including ag retailers.
“If you just look at the top 100 ag retailers, as far as the biggest ones in the country, the last couple of years, it has been over $40 billion worth of products and services that have been provided to farmers,” remarked Daren Coppock, CEO of the Agricultural Retailers Association. “It’s a significant contribution, and essential to raising the food that we need in the country and around the world.”
Coppock has led the ARA since 2009, and said every aspect of agriculture, including retailers, continues to evolve and become more complex. New areas include artificial intelligence and the rise of biological products, including biostimulants.
He said the ag retail industry has a lot of optimism for the future, although areas to watch incudes impacts the interest rate environment and a lack of sufficient labor.
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American agriculture not only has a wide range of crops and growing methods, there are also a wide variety of backgrounds among the farming community.
One case in point is Tommy McMurren of Five Patriots Farms in Illinois, a farmer, veteran, crop consultant and ag history afficionado whose Instagram page, tattooed agronomist, reflects another of his passions.
A common thread among those in agriculture is a dedication to getting the best results in the field, by growing their knowledge of new technologies, including in crop nutrition.
“We have evolved,” McMurren said. “When I first started working with clients, it was the very basics. Here’s our chemical program. Here’s our fertility program. Working with companies like Redox, I do have people that are more open to looking outside the box, that we need to be doing something different. We have stagnated. Even if it’s not a monetary thing, it’s more of just a preservation of the farm.”
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Third party research is crucial to making sure agricultural inputs work as advertised, and David Holden has been a trusted evaluator for many companies, including ours.
Holden Research and Consulting in Ventura County has worked with more than 100 crops, ranging from avocados to zucchini.Holden has carried out at least 750 biostimulant-type trials in the last 20 years. He said biostmulants hold promise in fighting abiotic stress, in particular.
“I have quite often seen a reduction in the effect of various diseases, mites and insects when you use some of these products,” he said. “In other words, healthier plants are happier plants, and they live under stress situations better.”
Holden said his research helps show how biostimulants work, but growers would be interested in knowing why they are working. He said better answers to those questions would entice more farmers to try this newer technology.
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Thirty years in business is no easy feat. It was in 1994 that Redox started in business and speaker, podcaster and author Damian Mason branched out with independent work.
Damian travels across the U.S. for keynote addresses to agricultural groups and hosts three podcasts, including The Business of Agriculture. He provides insight and commentary on critical subjects in a way that few others can.
He said he expects an increasing call for reducing overall synthetic nitrogen in agriculture, a reduction in acreage in future years based on which ground is best suited for farming, more of a premium paid for better-tasting food and the likelihood of reduced food demand from China based on expectations their population will plummet within the next years.
As for any anxiety over a potential drop in farm income, he pointed out that the recent track record for growers has been excellent.
“I think the mode is a little doomy and gloomy that perhaps is warranted,” he remarked. “Here we are in the first year of a downturn. It’s good to keep in mind that the three years prior to this were the highest agricultural income years in the history of the United States of America.”
Find out more about Damian at DamianMason.com.
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Growing up on a farm helped Ben Jauregui form his deep appreciation for agriculture, and it shows in his work.
As a Pest Control Advisor working at AgRx, one of our ag retailers, Ben guides decisions for about 1,800 acres of crops on California’s Central Coast, with strawberries commanding the greatest acreage.
“The most important thing is trust,” he said. “Carrying that relationship with the growers to where they can trust you, especially with the decisions that we’re making every week. There’s a lot of money at stake.”
Every weekday, Ben starts his day at 6:30 am. With the help of a co-worker, they walk every acre, every week. They write recommendations, and after a spray or if they find an area of concern, they will return and review that crop within three to four days.
Ben is active on social media, as he wants to show off crops and many longtime farmers. He’s on Instagram and LinkedIn at #BenNPK. -
From the small town of Pauanui, New Zealand, to Gonzales, Louisiana, is 8,000 air miles and a world of difference. That’s the trek Mike “Kiwi” Robinson made as a young adult, and he’s now running the highly regarded Pelican Point Golf Club in the Bayou State.
Louisiana summers usually come with heat and tremendous humidity, so Mike has countered with well thought out plant nutrition from the Redox TurfRx™ line, with a variety of products as stables, including K+, NatureCur, C-85, Supreme™, and CA.
He said Redox not only helps keep his course in great shape, it has taken a significant amount of his stress away.
“Apart from having healthy turf, the biggest thing I get from using Redox is my stress levels are down,” he remarked.
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California is a world leader in strawberry production, growing $3 billion of the fruit annually. Getting the most out of the crop was the focus of the annual Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Strawberry Center Field Day.
Areas covered included non-chemical pest and disease solutions such as bug vacuums and the use of UV-C light for disease suppression. A myriad of other issues were addressed, including workplace efficiency and safety, as well as mechanical ag plastic removal and recycling.
“The thing that impresses me the most is the variety of innovative products,” remarked Leo Stoeckle, a longtime strawberry industry official. “Everything from fertility products to ag chemicals to disease control to strawberry genetic resistance. We get the whole gamut here.”
The Cal Poly Strawberry Center recently celebrated its 10th anniversary and is operated in partnership with the California Strawberry Commission.
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Agricultural research is the cornerstone of productive farms and abundant food. The investment Redox Bio-Nutrients has made continues to grow and pay dividends.
“The is really a banner year for Redox,” said Head of Research, Dr. Gifford Gillette. He said the addition of Dr. Debatosh Das to the team and a second year for Faith Talley, who started as an intern and now works with the research team on carrying over protocols and adding new ones.
The understanding of and benefits from biostimulants continue to grow, leading to rising optimism about the ability for this technology to help growers.
“Dr. Das has put together a 56 biostimulant mode of action checklist,” Gillette said. “We probably never will measure all 56 of the modes of action, but they’re all on our radar. This matches well with what we know about the science of biostimulants in agriculture and what they do for crops.”
The global biostimulant market has seen rapid growth, with estimates that the value of sales may triple within the next decade.
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Margins for farmers are tight, so there’s more emphasis than ever on finding innovative new ways to innovate and stay in the black.
Dave Handsaker is with AGNETWORX in Iowa, which helps efficiently connect farmers to new technology and better understand its effectiveness.
He said, with corn and soybean prices down, growers are especially interested in increased efficiencies and maximizing production wherever possible.
Matt Rohlik with ARVA Intelligence helps boost revenue for growers, by making them aware of incentives available from consumer-packaged goods companies to help sustainability through agronomic practices, including reducing commercial or synthetic inputs, split applying nitrogen, foliar feeding, tillage, cover crops and biologicals.
Shane Forney with Sentinel Fertigation helps growers maximize efficiency by leveraging satellite imagery to help growers improve nitrogen recommendations throughout the growing season, all done without a negative impact on yields.
Handsaker, Rohlik, and Forney were among the speakers at the Farmer Innovation Forum in Omaha, presented by Redox. - Mostrar mais
