Farming is more than an occupation for Mark and Lance Dobson. A sentiment shared by many farmers, the Lexington, Missouri, father-son team feel fortunate to be able to do what they love on land that has been in their family since 1932. And like most farmers, the Dobsons are committed to improving the quality of the acres they pass on to the next generation.
“We’ve always tried to do things to be nature conscious,” Mark, the patriarch of the family, says of the conservation-first practices their farming operation works to implement. “What we’re doing now with Pivot Bio is just icing on the cake.”
On July 21, the Dobsons, in conjunction with Pivot Bio, showcased one of the most extensive nitrogen management trials in the state, shared their findings.
Lance told guests that their management practices are always conscious of the 4 Rs to make sure the right rate, source, timing and placement of fertilizer is achieved. This year, the operation incorporated a new source of nitrogen that helped to elevate biological activity in their soils.
“One of the most important things we have learned is that high fertility levels don’t always equal (higher) yield,” Lance said as he introduced the different nitrogen management protocols tested in previous growing seasons. “When I looked at areas where we had more biological activity, those areas may not have had the higher fertility numbers, but they had higher yields.”
This year’s test plots included PROVEN 40, a product that provides naturally occurring microbes that deliver nitrogen when and where a corn plant needs it through biological nitrogen fixation. The second-generation product allows farmers to replace up to 40 pounds per acre of synthetic nitrogen. The new technology uses two strains that are very complementary to one another on the sugars and the root exudates that they eat, while producing more nitrogen.
As vice president of product development for Pivot Bio, Ernie Sanders has witnessed the progression of what he calls a growth company.
“Pivot Bio wanted to be able to do the same things that rhizobium and nodules do in soybeans, but they wanted to do it in cereals that don’t nodulate. To do that, they used heterotrophs—bacteria that naturally take nitrogen out of the air and use it make ammonia to feed themselves,” Sanders says of what he calls a simple but elegant solution to naturally produced nitrogen for cereal crops. “So they reprogrammed those bacteria to create nitrogen producers that make ammonia on a daily basis and feed it to the corn plant.”
Today, Sanders says PROVEN 40 delivers a clear, clean scientific mode of action to produce ammonia from nitrogen taken from the air.
“It makes ammonia, excretes it outside of the cell, and the corn roots take it up right away. So you’re really putting more nitrogen in the plant,” he says. “The only nitrogen that matters for your corn plant is the nitrogen that makes it inside of it.”
Technical Services Manager David Hughes says the results the test plots are providing are very exciting.
“This morning, I went out to look at and measure the untreated control and the PROVEN 40 that we planted with a 35-pound decrease in synthetic fertilizer. What’s exciting is the bigger plants and increase in biomass we’re seeing with the PROVEN 40, even with the reduction in synthetic fertilizer,” he says. “That’s exactly what we are trying to achieve.”
Laura Handke can be reached at [email protected].