Podcast Short #4: Plant Sap Analysis Management
Regenerative Agriculture Podcast
AEA Marketing
4.7 • 546 Ratings
🗓️ 2 July 2024
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, John speaks with Ethan Darling, an agronomist with Advancing Eco Agriculture, who has extensive experience with sap analysis. They discuss the challenges of timely sample collection and shipping. Ethan shares his background and how his innovative techniques have streamlined the process for the AEA team in the Pacific Northwest.
Ethan explains his journey from working in an agroecology lab to managing sap analysis processes at scale in Washington's Yakima Valley. He details his initial methods of collecting, processing, and analyzing sap samples – Ethan has worked with up to 29,000 data points in a season! By improving efficiency and sharing knowledge with the wider AEA team, Ethan has increased their capacity to collect more samples effectively across multiple states.
Additional Resources:
To learn more about plant sap analysis, please visit: https://advancingecoag.com/plant-sap-analysis/
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
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, friends, welcome back to the regenerative agriculture podcast. Today's short episode is on |
| 0:05.4 | SAP Analysis and SAP Analysis Collection and how you do that efficiently and how you do it well. |
| 0:11.9 | I've been at a number of conferences and field days over the last couple of weeks where the |
| 0:16.4 | prevailing conversation is around how difficult it is to do sap analysis because unlike tissue analysis, |
| 0:22.6 | the intention of course is to get fresh leaf samples that haven't dehydrated to the lab. |
| 0:28.6 | And so that means timeliness is important and how you ship them is important. |
| 0:33.6 | And so today I wanted to have a conversation with Ethan Darling, who is one of our consultants from our team in the Pacific Northwest. |
| 0:41.3 | And Ethan has led our team over the last half a dozen years to do SAP analysis very, very well. |
| 0:48.8 | So Ethan, thanks for being here. |
| 0:51.1 | Tell us a little bit about the context, if you would like, perhaps, how you came to |
| 0:56.5 | join the AEA team, how long you've been here, and what the early stages of your sap analysis |
| 1:05.4 | frustrations look like and how you've overcome them. Thanks, John, and thanks for having me on. |
| 1:09.7 | A little bit about me, I have a little bit of a non-traditional background in ag. |
| 1:15.2 | I started in 2016 working at my local extension office in North Platte, Nebraska. |
| 1:22.6 | From there, I did a lot of work in an agroecology lab studying Western bean cutworm. |
| 1:30.3 | And in that, I got to see how monoculturing systems worked and, you know, some of the pros and cons of it. |
| 1:41.3 | And from working in that, I was able to get a job in Yakima Valley, Washington, |
| 1:50.1 | which led me to my SAP experience, my initial SAP dilemma, if you will. I was working for a |
| 1:58.7 | 1,500-acre hot farm, working with my R&D director at the time to do sap analysis. |
| 2:07.6 | And the way I did it is a little bit different than how we work with NovaCrop Control. |
| 2:13.6 | I was getting the sap, processing the sap, entering the sap, and analyzing the sap. |
| 2:19.3 | I would do roughly... |
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