Advanced no tillage farming plus ExploGrow microbes on Soybeans and Maize

No till irrigated Maize control (left) versus ExploGrow treated (right)

Advanced No-Till Farming plus ExploGrow™ on Soybean and Maize

What is no-till? No tillage farming ("no-till") is an agricultural technique for growing crops or pasture without disturbing the soil through tillage.

The five principles/pillars for a healthy no-till ecosystem:

Armor (cover) on the soil surface
Minimum physical disturbance of the soil that incudes using as little chemicals as possible
Diversity of plants (cover crops), animals and insects
Living roots in the soil whenever possible
Animals integrated into the ecosystem

This healthy no-till ecosystem is a near perfect environment for inoculation with a bio-fertiliser containing 17 microorganisms, therefore we added some ExploGrow™, this is what happened:

Farm location: Bergville, KZN

Farmer: Egon Zunckel

Crops:

No-Till Dryland Soybeans
No-Till Maize

Result summary:

No-Till Dryland Soya beans + ExploGrow™:

ExploGrow™ treated area: estimated a harvest result of 4.5 tons per hectare
The ExploGrow™ benefit resulted in 71% more Soyas by weight than the control plants 5 weeks before harvest

No-Till Maize + ExploGrow™:

ExploGrow™ treated area: 7.6 ha.
Average yield of 16.64 t/ha
ExploGrow™ produced 1.51 extra tons of grain per ha

No-Till Dryland Soya beans:

Explogrow™ application rates:

Standard Rhizobium seed inoculation was replaced with an ExploGrow™ treatment *
ExploGrow™ was applied as a seed inoculation at 1 liter per ton of seed
ExploGrow™ applied in the furrow at planting
Total of 4 liters per ha applied in the field with dramatic effect on root nodulation and total seed production

* [Rhizobia bacteria can fix between 100kg and 300kg of Nitrogen per year depending on environmental factors. ExploGrow™ contains several Nitrogen fixing Rhizobia microbes, all of which can fix Nitrogen from the atmosphere into readily available Nitrogen in the soil and the plants’ cells [References: 1, 3-8, 10, 13-15].

[See visible improvement on Nitrogen nodulation in the photo below.]

Observation on plants inspected in the field 5 weeks before harvest:

Better nodulation on ExploGrow™ treated block
4 plants were taken randomly from control block and ExploGrow™ block and the total weight of the above ground plant material was weighed as well as the total pods and flowers on each plant
Significantly more branching in the ExploGrow™ treated plants resulted in 116% more above ground biomass production.
The ExploGrow™ treated plants produced 66% more pods
The ExploGrow™ treated plants produced 77% more seeds
The ExploGrow™ benefit resulted in 71% more Soyas by weight than the control plants

Image: Illustrating yield data and hail damage

Dryland Soya bean results at harvest: unfortunately, hail destroyed the treated area days before harvest. A neighboring farmer and former Agricultural Research Council (ARC) researcher, who also assisted the data gathering, estimated a harvest result on the ExploGrow™ treated area of 4.5 tons per hectare.

Soya Plant Showing Greater Root Development And Nitrogen Nodulation After Appling Nitrogen Fixing Bacteria

Photo: Visible improvement of Nitrogen nodulation on the ExploGrow™ treated area (RIGHT), compared with the standard Rhizobium seed inoculation on the Control (LEFT).

Larger Soya Bean Plants Compared With Control After Appling Nitrogen Fixing Explogrow

Photo: Significantly more branching in the ExploGrow™ treated plants (in the row below) resulted in 116% more above ground biomass production.