Episode 145: Proving Regenerative Ag Grows Nutrient-Dense Fruit with Herb Young

Regenerative Agriculture Podcast

AEA Marketing

Science, Natural Sciences, Earth Sciences

4.7 • 548 Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2025

⏱️ 74 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

After decades of working in conventional agriculture, Herb Young immersed himself in regenerative practices and planted a regenerative citrus orchard in Georgia. Herb has meticulously researched techniques to improve soil health and crop resilience and implemented them on his farm. His grove serves as a living research farm, where he conducts trials on soil microbiology, nutrient density, and pest management to push the boundaries of what's possible in citrus production.

Squeeze Citrus is Herb Young's brand, where he grows and sells regeneratively farmed citrus, focusing on nutrient density and flavor. His rigorous approach to soil health and plant nutrition has led to fruit with significantly higher levels of flavonoids, carotenoids, and vitamins compared to conventionally grown citrus.

In this episode, John and Herb discuss:

Trialing microbial inoculants, compost applications, and pest management strategies
How Herb's citrus contains up to eight times more nutrients than conventionally grown fruit
Marketing regenerative, nutrient-dense citrus direct-to-consumer
How his trees thrive in a mulch-rich, biologically active environment while facing fewer disease pressures
Advocating for a shift from a cheap food policy to a quality food policy

Additional Resources
To learn more about Herb Young and Squeeze Citrus and to order fruit (when in season), please visit: https://squeezecitrus.com/

About John Kempf
John Kempf is the founder of Advancing Eco Agriculture (AEA). A top expert in biological and regenerative farming, John founded AEA in 2006 to help fellow farmers by providing the education, tools, and strategies that will have a global effect on the food supply and those who grow it.

Through intense study and the knowledge gleaned from many industry leaders, John is building a comprehensive systems-based approach to plant nutrition – a system solidly based on the sciences of plant physiology, mineral nutrition, and soil microbiology.

Support For This Show & Helping You Grow
Since 2006, AEA has been on a mission to help growers become more resilient, efficient, and profitable with regenerative agriculture.

AEA works directly with growers to apply its unique line of liquid mineral crop nutrition products and biological inoculants. Informed by cutting-edge plant and soil data-gathering techniques, AEA's science-based programs empower farm operations to meet the crop quality markers that matter the most.

AEA has created real and lasting change on millions of acres with its products and data-driven services by working hand-in-hand with growers to produce healthier soil, stronger crops, and higher profits.

Beyond working on the ground with growers, AEA leads in regenerative agriculture media and education, producing and distributing the popular and highly-regarded Regenerative Agriculture Podcast, inspiring webinars, and other educational content that serve as go-to resources for growers worldwide.

Learn more about AEA's regenerative programs and products: https://www.advancingecoag.com

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, friends. Welcome back to the regenerative agriculture podcast.
0:05.0	You know all the types of conversations we have here related to soil health and human health and plant health and how those things all interconnect and intertwine.
0:13.0	And my guest for today is a conversation I've been wanting to have for quite some time.
0:18.0	It's Erb Young, a citrus grower from Florida, who has a fascinating story and some
0:25.6	interesting work he's been doing. He's been talking about it quite a bit online. Erb, thank you
0:30.2	for being here. Thank you for all the work that you're doing. I'm trying to remember where or when
0:33.9	was it that you and I met for the first time. Was it at an Acres conference? It was acres two years ago. Yeah, sure was. Only two years ago. A lot has happened in the last two years.
0:42.3	Sure has. Yeah. Yeah. So you have quite a fascinating story about the scope of the work that you've done historically and then some of this journey that you've been been on more recently tell us a little bit about your life story and what got you here so i
0:58.1	probably have a completely different uh background well maybe not you you came from traditional
1:04.0	ag also yeah all of us came from somewhere and we didn't start most of us didn't start in
1:08.9	regenerative organic ag ag. We did.
1:11.6	But actually, I had an interesting start.
1:15.6	I was a biology major in college, and I got fascinated with agriculture and ecology and ecology at the same time.
1:25.6	And I actually transferred universities and went to the University of Georgia because they had just opened an Institute of Ecology.
1:37.3	It was actually located right adjacent to the Ag School.
1:41.3	And I was a little naive and I thought, well, I can go and study both and integrate
1:46.7	them. Well, the Institute of Ecology was pretty esoteric and not practical. And the agronomy department
1:59.2	from the very first paper I wrote, the professor called me in and he said her
2:05.3	this ecology stuff you need to realize we've been doing that for a hundred years and so basically
2:16.7	I followed Sue and dove heavily into agronomy, you know, trusting the sages and the wisdom of the time.
2:29.3	After undergraduate, I worked for a year on a research farm for one of the chemical companies.
2:37.1	And I absolutely loved the research component. We were just doing field testing of all kinds of new
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from AEA Marketing, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of AEA Marketing and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.