Lalrise Start SC liquid inoculant aims to improve another key nutrient. The seed treatment designed to enhance phosphorus solubility has received full commercial registration and will be available in spring 2024 for spring wheat, oats, barley and rye.

Canola, corn, soybeans, pulses and winter wheat are also on the label and the product will be available for those crops in the future.

Why it matters: Phosphorus solubility has gained recent attention related to soil health, yet the full extent of its impact and activity are slowly being realized by researchers, extension personnel and service providers.

Traditional inoculants geared to pulses and legumes use Bradyrhizobium japonicum or Bacillus subtilis.

Lalrise Start SC employs a new strain in this product formulation – Bacillus velezensis.

It is a plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria selected to increase crop establishment via improved root vigour and nutrient availability.

“What you have is a highly concentrated suspension that will give the seed a package of growth promotion because of a biofilm of these bacteria,” says Matt Pfarr, field solutions manager with Lallemand Plant Care.

“This product is very different because it’s going to focus on phosphorus fertility. We’re complementing the grower’s fertility placement because up to 90 per cent of that can get tied up within one year of that dollar being spent, so we want to give the grower back that 90 cents in availability.”

In research and registration trials in 2022, Lallemand showed a 38 per cent increase in phosphorus availability in situations where phosphate is tied up in an organic or inorganic (mineral) form.

The plant uptake can be 25 per cent greater in the early stages of growth, helping with establishment and early vigour and leading to potential for healthy grain set. In theory, it should increase the number of grains on the head.

“With the Lalrise Start SC bacteria, they’re more like a probiotic, where we’re more interested in how they can colonize outside of the root, and plants are always giving carbon into that space,” says Pfarr.

“We’re hoping beneficial bacteria will come with beneficial fungi and colonize that root zone. We know Bacillus velezensis is aggressive and forms this biofilm and can colonize very well.”

More detail on soil

Pfarr acknowledges the industry is in its early stages where soil health and root zone interactions are concerned, and growers have questions about any new inoculant. What is the effect? What does it do for crops? What is the mode of action?

He likens the potential to investing in the root’s architecture at an early stage, so there’s growth stimulation, and the structure produces phyto-hormones that the plant will respond to and develop a more robust root system.

“We’re exploring that soil and then we enter an exponential growth phase of the vegetation of the shoot a little earlier than the non-treated,” says Pfarr. “There’s a bit of an investment period but then five to six weeks after emergence, we see improvement over the untreated, and that leads to higher yields.”

Lalrise Start SC is billed as a resource for growers that uses the right solution at the right time in the right form and at the right rate, similar to the 4R Nutrient Stewardship. The question from Pfarr’s perspective is the metric on what the inoculant will bring.

“Whether it’s for stress mitigation or promoting the diversity of the soil microbiome, there’s a lot to be done,” he says. “We’re just appreciating that more and we’re going to manage for that. But we have to be able to measure it and get more looks at it.”

– This article was originally published at the Manitoba Co-operator.

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The Weston Family Foundation — the philanthropic arm of the Weston business empire — has slated $10 million for those eight projects through the organization’s soil health initiative, it was announced Feb. 13.

The initiative is tagged under the foundation’s “environmental stewardship” stream — a category mandated towards biodiversity improvement, research and sustainable agriculture. Other projects in the stream have funded ecological renewal around the Great Lakes and promoted grasslands.

The new soil health initiative was launched in spring 2022. Successful projects would help spread practices like cover cropping, 4R nutrient management or diverse crop rotations to increase soil organic matter, according to the foundation’s website.

In total, 38 organizations made a bid for the funding, said Eliza Mitchell, chair of the foundation’s conservation committee. Of those, 16 were invited to make a full proposal, with the final lineup decided by a review panel.

“Several [reviewers] were active farmers, but they all had experience in soil health management, some were involved in conservation…and they were all in fair agreement of the outstanding eight,” Mitchell said.

Those standouts “had a really clear focus and a really clear way forward,” she said. “The projects that showed a defined and clear approach on how they would successfully help shift producers towards greater adoption were given more weight.”

The list of chosen projects includes digital soil mapping tools for better nitrogen management, a farmer-led peer network, a reverse auction model to incentivize small grain and cover crop acres, research into cover crop best practices, benchmarking soil in Ontario’s Greenbelt, soil health outreach, a registry to help underpin markets for ecosystem service credits and Indigenous-led education for managing First Nations farmland.

The project list spreads funds widely nationwide, although Mitchell said that was more happy accident than part of the selection criteria. First project assessments were largely blind in terms of location, she noted.

The final list also spans both industry and academic perspectives, she said, pointing to the split of producer groups and universities singled out for funding. Half of the awardees are post-secondary institutions.

“There’s a lot of complexity in soil health and in rebuilding healthy, fertile soil, so there’s lots of ways of going at it. But we wanted to find projects that would help promote beneficial management practices, not just to the individuals involved, but hopefully communicate it out into the wider farming community,” Mitchell said.

— Alexis Stockford reports for the Manitoba Co-operator from Brandon.

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Such reductions of nitrous oxide from 2020 levels would fall well short of the Canadian government’s voluntary target of a 30 per cent cut, however.

Some farmers say using less fertilizer would jeopardize crop production in Canada, the world’s third-biggest wheat exporter. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government maintains that deep emission reductions are possible without mandatory fertilizer cuts.

A similar debate between farmers and government has led to large protests in the Netherlands, where that country is taking much stricter measures than Canada.

“We support the federal government’s strong push to reduce Canada’s emissions, but we cannot sacrifice food productivity,” said Karen Proud, CEO of Fertilizer Canada, whose members include manufacturers Nutrien and CF Industries.

The 14 per cent emissions cut would result from a “moderate” increase in nitrogen use and farmers’ adoption of better management practices, called 4R, which emphasize applying fertilizer of the right source, at the right rate and time and in the right place, the report from Fertilizer Canada and Canola Council of Canada said. Some farmers have already used the 4R approach for more than a decade.

Under that scenario, crop yields would increase even as emissions fall.

Farmers will adopt more sustainable practices if their costs are offset elsewhere, such as by higher crop revenue or government incentives, the report said.

Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said she welcomed the finding that better nutrient management can cut emissions by nearly half of the government’s goal. Fertilizer companies should also keep developing new products that produce lower emissions, Bibeau said.

Agriculture emissions account for 10 per cent of Canada’s overall emissions, and Trudeau’s government is aiming to cut national emissions by 40-45 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030.

— Rod Nickel is a Reuters correspondent in Winnipeg.

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However, such reductions require growers to understand what nutrients are already present in soil, what portion is likely to be available for crops in the growing season and the significance of overapplication.

Support for cost-share programs and collaborative environmental policies could also help speed adoption of more efficient fertilizer-related technologies.

Why it matters: Fertilizer is expensive and a significant source of greenhouse gases. Reducing fertilizer use without incurring yield losses is possible with the right tools and a nutrient management program.

Claudia Wagner-Riddle, a professor in the university’s School of Environmental Sciences, believes 4R management (right source, right time, right rate and right placement) comprises a good overarching framework, though the concept is light on details when it comes to quantifying potential emission reductions.

She and colleagues from government and other academic institutions have been trying to measure the environmental impact of 4R fertilizer management practices.

Wagner-Riddle says truly significant reductions lean heavily on achieving each factor simultaneously. Getting the right fertilizer on the right place is all well and good, but if the timing is poor, fertility is lost as emissions anyway.

“The kind of elephant in the room is, eventually, we do need to work on the right rate. That’s the toughest nut to crack,” she says.

“It’s a lot about weather, but it also has that risk for insurance… You don’t want to be standing in the middle season saying, ‘oh I should have applied more.’

“In this area there is some [beneficial] application technology, but the other big part is that forecast of what the season is going to be like, what supply from the soil will be available and what the plants need… We can do that based on historical data, but what farmers are looking for is in this season.”

The solution is to monitor what the soil is providing alongside crop needs. It is critical to understand how nutrients are lost (via water and as ammonia for nitrogen) and what conditions are conducive to that loss.

Combined with on-farm experimentation, Wagner-Riddle says growers can determine whether the expense of repeatedly erring on the side of caution by applying extra fertilizer is offset by the occasional yield boost.

“Losses subtract from what you apply and makes the whole thing less efficient. … It goes back to behaviour and information,” she says, adding farmer-led research groups in the United States have been able to demonstrate emissions reductions by better balancing nitrogen inputs with what’s derived at season’s end.

In terms of the models developed through her own research, data suggest emissions reductions nearing 50 per cent could be achieved without negative yield impact.

Alfons Weersink, one of Wagner-Riddle’s research colleagues and professor of agricultural economics at Guelph, says both carrot and stick incentives — in addition to continued education efforts — will be important to meet emission reduction targets.

The nature of the proverbial carrots and sticks is up for debate.

“A tax on fertilizer has been used in some countries and American states, but it’s not necessarily that effective because there are not a lot of substitutes,” says Weersink.

A self-supporting system, where taxes on fertilizer are used to support further incentives and outreach programs, might have more impact.

Cost-share programs or subsidies for precision fertility equipment could also promote 4R management, though such an approach does not inherently mean less fertilizer will be used since application rates often shift from uniform coverage to more concentrated application in specific areas.

“Really you just try to educate people on the effects of fertilizer. Higher prices will make people more cognizant of what they’re applying,” says Weersink.

“When erosion was a big issue in the 1970s and 1980s, new technology and strategies helped reduce the environ- mental impact, but was also profitable for farmers to use it… It’s harder to see fertilizer loss to air and water.”

Slow-release inhibitors designed to allow greater crop nutrient absorption are an example of a technology that could help achieve emission reduction goals.

Clyde Graham, executive vice-president of Fertilizer Canada, believes the combination of new technologies and increased 4R management adoption is a practical and effective path forward. Other strategies such as subsurface banding and a greater focus on micronutrient deficiencies could go further.

In an ideal world, Graham says policies aimed at reducing fertilizer-based emissions would be based on incentives, including the ability for growers and the private sector to access offset programs.

“Where the growers are being encouraged rather than forced, that we think will have the best uptake,” he says.

“We would like to see a healthy debate around this issue, but I think the best way to achieve better climate outcomes is for farmers, companies, environmental organizations and governments to work together.”

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