By Jennifer Dorsett
Field Editor
Nitrogen-use efficiency is one piece of the crop input puzzle corn farmers must put together each year to maximize crop yields and efficiency.
Last year, crop solutions startup Sound Agriculture released their flagship product, a microbiome activator called Source. The product helps unlock nitrogen and phosphate in the soil.
“We’re working on the biology side to go both below ground with the soil microbiome and with the plant itself with next-generation traits. Sound is really focused on deep science, making sure our products work year after year, especially in the nutrient efficiency space where there’s been a lot of variability,” Litle told Farm Progress. “What’s really distinctive is no one else is doing this with a chemistry. Our founders have developed a way to look at the interaction between the plant root zone and soil microbiome. They identified hormones in the plant that signal to microbiome to release nitrogen and other nutrients that nourish the plant and create that ecosystem.”
Applied as a foliar spray, Source goes to work under the soil surface, activating beneficial microbes at the plant’s root zone. Litle noted the “unlocked” nutrients are more available to the plant, resulting in increased plant health and enhanced yields.
And the company has the science to back up its claims of efficiency.
“We launched Source last year for the 2020 growing season and had really great results, but it was really our fourth year out on the farm trialing different things,” he said.
Farmers who trialed Source in 2019 reported less ear “tip-back,” which is when kernels poorly develop or don’t develop on the last inch of the ear tip. Farmers also said there was more greenness, bigger ear size, higher kernel count, higher kernel weight and less leaf “firing,” which is a symptom of nitrogen deficiency.
“During the trials, we were focusing on yield boost and got some awesome results showing an average 7.5 bushel increase in corn and an 83 percent ‘win rate,’ which is quite high. Then, we flipped the switch to see what would happen if you reduced nitrogen. Can you maintain yields or also get a bit of a yield boost?” Litle said. “We finally got that data, and we have several years of data now showing that you can. You can reduce 25 to 50 pounds of nitrogen application, depending on your scenario and still maintain yields or still get a slight bump.”
Win rate, a metric used to determine effectiveness, is the percentage of fields in which the treated crop outperforms the non-treated crop.
Source works well across a variety of cultivation practices, according to Litle.
The product has an ultra-low application rate of less than one ounce per acre. Source exhibits good tank-mix compatibility, so it can be mixed with most early herbicides or late fungicides. According to Litle, those are the key periods when Source will have the highest impact. Company literature suggests the product can be applied at any stage of corn plant development from V4 through VT.
Sound Agriculture quickly sold out of Source in its introductory year, so the company is increasing Source production tenfold this year to try to keep up with demand.
“We will be able to get Source into the hands of more growers for the 2021 season,” he said. “But we aren’t just working on corn. While that was the first product we developed, we’ll soon have news for other crops.”
Visit Sound Agriculture to learn more.