# Episode 193: A Different Perspective on Fusarium with Heber Hall and Kirk Mersil

An episode of [Regenerative Agriculture Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1372359995), 22 Oct 2026, 1 h 46 min.

Audio: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/regenerativeagriculture/Ep_193_Final_Audio.mp3?dest-id=4976130

In this episode, commercial indoor producer Kirk Mersil shares his journey managing a 10,000-square-foot controlled-environment facility through an unexpected crop health crisis. Facing harvest losses exceeding 50% due to extreme plant brittleness and severe quality collapse, Kirk resisted conventional advice to destroy the operation and instead partnered with researcher and consultant Heber Hall to diagnose the root physiological drivers behind the outbreak. Drawing on plant pathology and biochemistry, Heber explains that Fusarium is not inherently an aggressive pathogen, but rather a ubiquitous fungal endophyte capable of conferring disease protection and facilitating nutrient reduction in healthy crops. By shifting away from pathogen eradication toward terrain management, their collaboration demonstrates how regulating fertility inputs, sustaining photosynthetic sugar supply, and preventing oxidative cascades can downregulate pathogenic gene expression and restore resilient crop health. In this episode, some of the topics discussed are: • How Fusarium naturally functions as a beneficial endophyte in most plants and only turns pathogenic under specific environmental or nutritional stress. • The hierarchy of fungal food preferences, shifting from plant sugars to nitrates and oxidized minerals as plant energy declines. • Critical nitrate thresholds, including how levels above 120 parts per million activate pathogenic genes and drops below 40 parts per million cause sudden wilt. • Utilizing foliar sprays of reduced trace minerals to bypass stem blockages and restore vital antioxidant enzymes. • The vital role of soluble calcium and calcium signaling in fortifying internal plant defenses against fungal disease. • How fungal quorum sensing coordinates communication to transform localized infection into systemic crop virulence. • Preemptive applications of molasses and calcium prior to heavy rains to buffer root zones against stress-induced disease triggers. Additional Resources Click here to order Heber's book, Understanding Fusarium In Non-Field High Density And Contained Media Cropping Click here to order James' book, Microbial Endophytes Click here to order John Ott's book, Health and Light To lern more about Heber's work, please visit: mycogasm.bio 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.

## Transcript

[0:03] Speaker 1: Hi friends, this is John.
[0:05] Speaker 1: Welcome to the Regenerative Agriculture
[0:07] Speaker 1: Podcast. Today we're having a conversation
[0:10] Speaker 1: that even just thinking about it brings a
[0:13] Speaker 1: big smile to my face.
[0:15] Speaker 1: You know, my understanding of what
[0:18] Speaker 1: pathogenicity means and when fungi cause
[0:20] Speaker 1: problems has evolved quite a lot over the
[0:24] Speaker 1: last 15 years. And I've talked about some
[0:27] Speaker 1: of this in previous podcast episodes.
[0:30] Speaker 1: I've talked about how first Don Huber and
[0:33] Speaker 1: His work in plant pathology, he described
[0:36] Speaker 1: how Fusarium specifically can behave not
[0:38] Speaker 1: as a pathogen, but as a saprophyte, as
[0:42] Speaker 1: a decomposer. And then a few years went
[0:45] Speaker 1: by and James White started talking about
[0:48] Speaker 1: how Fusarium can actually have a
[0:51] Speaker 1: beneficial relationship with the plant,
[0:53] Speaker 1: not as a pathogen or even as a
[0:56] Speaker 1: saprophyte, but it has this symbiosis and
[0:59] Speaker 1: can have a beneficial relationship.
[1:03] Speaker 1: And I think by the time We get done
[1:06] Speaker 1: with this conversation, it's not outside
[1:08] Speaker 1: the realm of possibility that you might be
[1:12] Speaker 1: desiring to have Fusarium as an inoculant
[1:14] Speaker 1: for some crops. At least that was one of
[1:18] Speaker 1: the thoughts that I came away with in
[1:21] Speaker 1: reading some of this information.
[1:23] Speaker 1: So I'm delighted to have here with me for
[1:26] Speaker 1: this conversation Heber Hall and Kirk.
[1:29] Speaker 1: And Kirk, I missed asking you the question
[1:32] Speaker 1: before we started this recording, but how
[1:34] Speaker 1: do you properly pronounce your last name?
[1:37] Speaker 1: Mersil. Mersil. Here with Heber Hall and
[1:40] Speaker 1: Kirk Mersil for a fascinating story that
[1:42] Speaker 1: will give you a very different perspective
[1:45] Speaker 1: on Fusarium. And Fusarium, with this
[1:47] Speaker 1: conversation, we're going to be focusing
[1:50] Speaker 1: on a Fusarium, but I have a feeling that
[1:53] Speaker 1: as we learn more and as you dig into
[1:57] Speaker 1: it, we will discover that this overarching
[1:59] Speaker 1: narrative of Fusarium being and its
[2:02] Speaker 1: virulence and its pathogenicity being an
[2:04] Speaker 1: expression of environment, we will find
[2:06] Speaker 1: that to be true for most of the organisms
[2:10] Speaker 1: that we today call pathogens.
[2:12] Speaker 1: So I'm very excited and looking forward to
[2:16] Speaker 1: this discussion. Heber, thank you very
[2:18] Speaker 1: much for being willing here, both of you
[2:22] Speaker 1: for being willing to be here and to
[2:25] Speaker 1: share your wisdom and your experiences.
[2:28] Speaker 1: Heber, I'm going to open by asking you,
[2:31] Speaker 1: tell us a bit about your story your
[2:35] Speaker 1: background, the context, and what led you
[2:38] Speaker 1: to doing this deep dive on Fusarium
[2:41] Speaker 1: specifically and what you've been
[2:43] Speaker 1: learning. So, thank you, John, for having
[2:46] Speaker 1: us and I appreciate the time.
[2:48] Speaker 1: So, I first encountered Fusarium myself in
[2:51] Speaker 1: a home medical cannabis grow back in 2018,
[2:55] Speaker 1: and I tried every single thing that I
[2:58] Speaker 1: could find any information on.
[3:01] Speaker 1: I tried everything I could think of.
[3:03] Speaker 1: And I have a, you know, heavy organic
[3:07] Speaker 1: chemistry background and a background in
[3:09] Speaker 1: human health. So, you know, I kind of had
[3:13] Speaker 1: a pretty good understanding of what to
[3:16] Speaker 1: throw at it. And nothing worked.
[3:18] Speaker 1: I ended up quarantining a couple cuts and
[3:22] Speaker 1: getting rid of everything else so that I
[3:25] Speaker 1: could still finish some product.
[3:27] Speaker 1: And so a couple years later, I came across
[3:31] Speaker 1: some information regarding polyphenols.
[3:32] Speaker 1: And I was applying that information in the
[3:36] Speaker 1: rest of my grow. And I had some in
[3:39] Speaker 1: the water while I was passing that tent
[3:43] Speaker 1: and decided to throw it on these two
[3:46] Speaker 1: quarantined plants, which had been there
[3:48] Speaker 1: for a year and a half.
[3:51] Speaker 1: And you know, no sign of recovery, I could
[3:55] Speaker 1: barely keep them alive, etc.
[3:57] Speaker 1: etc. And I put that stuff on them, and
[4:00] Speaker 1: a couple weeks later, or 10 days later,
[4:04] Speaker 1: when I went into water again, the plants
[4:07] Speaker 1: looked completely different, and there was
[4:09] Speaker 1: new growth and everything.
[4:11] Speaker 1: I was quite puzzled by it because I had
[4:15] Speaker 1: no idea that it would have any effect on
[4:18] Speaker 1: them, you know, I didn't document it or
[4:22] Speaker 1: anything. And they ended up growing out of
[4:25] Speaker 1: that over the course of a couple more
[4:28] Speaker 1: weeks and I took cuts and ran those
[4:32] Speaker 1: through the full vegetative and flowering
[4:34] Speaker 1: cycle and they came back better than I'd
[4:37] Speaker 1: ever gotten pre-infection or anything else
[4:40] Speaker 1: off of those cuts.
[4:42] Speaker 1: And that blew my mind.
[4:44] Speaker 1: So I started sharing it with friends that
[4:47] Speaker 1: had pathogen problems and it, you know,
[4:50] Speaker 1: those things were correct in them.
[4:53] Speaker 1: And so, Kirk had been given my number by
[4:56] Speaker 1: a mutual friend at a hydro shop.
[4:59] Speaker 1: And I went up there and consulted with
[5:02] Speaker 1: Kirk in the hopes for getting some data
[5:05] Speaker 1: behind this because I'd seen results, but
[5:08] Speaker 1: we'd gotten no data.
[5:10] Speaker 1: And he was, you know, voluntary to get
[5:13] Speaker 1: data in and work together.
[5:15] Speaker 1: And we were able to turn around his
[5:18] Speaker 1: facility, but not as easily as we thought.
[5:21] Speaker 1: We thought it would go quickly and easily
[5:24] Speaker 1: like the others, and we encountered
[5:27] Speaker 1: extreme stressor after extreme stressor
[5:29] Speaker 1: while we're trying to come out of this.
[5:32] Speaker 1: And what it ended up showing us, I felt
[5:36] Speaker 1: so horrible for Kurt, because it almost
[5:38] Speaker 1: looked like the things I was saying
[5:41] Speaker 1: weren't true, but at the same time, he saw
[5:45] Speaker 1: this plant health that wasn't there
[5:47] Speaker 1: before, you know, he started doing these
[5:50] Speaker 1: things. And so, you know, he hung on for
[5:54] Speaker 1: the ride. And we were able to start
[5:57] Speaker 1: pinpointing nutritional things that were
[5:59] Speaker 1: causing pathogenic expression.
[6:00] Speaker 1: That we may or may not see anything in
[6:04] Speaker 1: the plant unless an environmental trigger
[6:06] Speaker 1: comes along and turns that into virulence
[6:09] Speaker 1: and makes it take off and then we see
[6:12] Speaker 1: it all of a sudden, you know.
[6:16] Speaker 1: And so we are start, starting to be able
[6:19] Speaker 1: through these stressors to be able to peel
[6:23] Speaker 1: these two things apart that I didn't
[6:25] Speaker 1: really understand before.
[6:27] Speaker 1: And, um, some of John Kemp's things that I
[6:30] Speaker 1: watched, you know helped me go in the
[6:34] Speaker 1: right direction. He at one point alluded
[6:36] Speaker 1: to it being an endophyte and I started
[6:40] Speaker 1: digging down that path and that changed
[6:42] Speaker 1: what we were doing.
[6:44] Speaker 1: We started looking at these inputs, what
[6:47] Speaker 1: makes it not be an endophyte?
[6:49] Speaker 1: And I started looking into James White's
[6:52] Speaker 1: work and some studies that he has
[6:55] Speaker 1: published in his book, Microbial
[6:57] Speaker 1: Endophytes, and I started seeing that this
[7:00] Speaker 1: is in almost every single plant worldwide.
[7:03] Speaker 1: And it's very, very rare, especially with
[7:05] Speaker 1: the incidence of endophytic infection as
[7:08] Speaker 1: far as pathogenic.
[7:09] Speaker 1: Like it's a 0.01 or less, you know, that
[7:13] Speaker 1: we see. It's very rarely pathogenic, yep.
[7:16] Speaker 1: In the scheme of things, right?
[7:18] Speaker 1: And so I'm like, okay, there has something
[7:22] Speaker 1: gives here. And so I start looking into
[7:25] Speaker 1: that and differentiating between that when
[7:28] Speaker 1: I'm looking at studies, differentiating
[7:30] Speaker 1: between endophytic.
[7:31] Speaker 1: And pathogenic, and started realizing that
[7:33] Speaker 1: these polyphenols were working on all
[7:36] Speaker 1: these different levels of this expression,
[7:38] Speaker 1: and then doing different things with these
[7:41] Speaker 1: compounds if they were expressed you know,
[7:44] Speaker 1: if you came in late and changing it
[7:48] Speaker 1: even on the backside post transcript
[7:50] Speaker 1: transcriptional. And so it started all.
[7:53] Speaker 1: Transcriptional. And so it started opening
[7:55] Speaker 1: up. Okay, like we're doing so much on
[7:59] Speaker 1: this good side, but we're still not
[8:02] Speaker 1: tackling it. Why, when this stressor comes
[8:05] Speaker 1: in, do we see a percentage that still
[8:08] Speaker 1: goes down? Like it's not gone and we
[8:12] Speaker 1: still have pathogenicity there.
[8:13] Speaker 1: And so I was able to start diving
[8:17] Speaker 1: into particular nutrient triggers and they
[8:19] Speaker 1: highly revolve around nitrate, nitrogen,
[8:22] Speaker 1: like excessively revolve around nitrate,
[8:24] Speaker 1: nitrogen, what starts this cycle.
[8:26] Speaker 1: Once that cycle started there's two
[8:29] Speaker 1: directions it can go based off your
[8:32] Speaker 1: nitrate levels. And that's where you
[8:34] Speaker 1: differentiate between wilt and sudden
[8:36] Speaker 1: death syndrome, like we see in soybeans
[8:39] Speaker 1: and things like that, versus the wilt we
[8:43] Speaker 1: see in curcubit. It never even has a
[8:46] Speaker 1: chance to go to that level in curcubits
[8:49] Speaker 1: because they're too easy to occupy that
[8:52] Speaker 1: asylum and just boom.
[8:54] Speaker 1: Heber, I have. >> Hey, Bert, I have --
[8:58] Speaker 1: you and I are going to go down lots
[9:01] Speaker 1: of interesting earthworm holes.
[9:03] Speaker 1: Out of curiosity, are you familiar with
[9:06] Speaker 1: Olivier Hussain's work on redox and EHPH
[9:09] Speaker 1: homeostasis? >> Yes.
[9:10] Speaker 1: >> Yeah, all right.
[9:12] Speaker 1: Well, then we're going to go down some
[9:15] Speaker 1: more interesting earthworm holes.
[9:17] Speaker 1: Before we go much further, Kirk.
[9:19] Speaker 1: Can you give us some of your background
[9:23] Speaker 1: and story of what led you to this whole
[9:26] Speaker 1: -- conversation and interaction and what
[9:29] Speaker 1: you've been up to.
[9:31] Speaker 1: Yeah, like Heber said, I'm an owner
[9:34] Speaker 1: operator of a cannabis producer processor
[9:36] Speaker 1: in Washington. We operate about 10,000
[9:39] Speaker 1: square feet of canopy and we've been doing
[9:42] Speaker 1: it for about 10 years.
[9:44] Speaker 1: Things have been up and down the entire
[9:47] Speaker 1: time, but for the most part, nothing too
[9:51] Speaker 1: major going on. And a few years back,
[9:54] Speaker 1: while we had some kind of persistent plant
[9:58] Speaker 1: health issues kind of hanging out, at one
[10:01] Speaker 1: point something that I did triggered kind
[10:04] Speaker 1: of a more massive event.
[10:06] Speaker 1: And we got to the point where, you
[10:10] Speaker 1: know, if traditionally when we might lose,
[10:13] Speaker 1: let's say, less than 5% of our harvests
[10:16] Speaker 1: to disease or, you know, poor, I just
[10:20] Speaker 1: kind disease or poor, I just kind of
[10:23] Speaker 1: chalked it up to, oh, it's a bad
[10:26] Speaker 1: cut or something along those lines and
[10:29] Speaker 1: didn't look too much farther into it.
[10:32] Speaker 1: We got to the point after this triggering
[10:36] Speaker 1: event that it was well over 50% of
[10:39] Speaker 1: every single harvest we were losing.
[10:42] Speaker 1: And it wasn't like the classic like wilt
[10:45] Speaker 1: events or sudden death.
[10:47] Speaker 1: We did have some of those You know,
[10:50] Speaker 1: looking back on it kind of correlated to
[10:54] Speaker 1: other events, severe dry downs or
[10:57] Speaker 1: mechanical issues, whatnot.
[10:58] Speaker 1: What we were dealing with was a persistent
[11:01] Speaker 1: lack of quality. I describe it as dudding,
[11:05] Speaker 1: where the plants weren't producing all of
[11:08] Speaker 1: their trichomes, they weren't producing
[11:10] Speaker 1: their terpenes, all of the symptomatic
[11:12] Speaker 1: plants would have a similar terpene
[11:15] Speaker 1: profile. So the sick ones would all smell
[11:18] Speaker 1: the same and they wouldn't smell anything
[11:21] Speaker 1: like what a healthy version of that
[11:24] Speaker 1: genetic would smell like.
[11:27] Speaker 1: I'm sure you're familiar, but cannabis has
[11:29] Speaker 1: got a lot of unique terpene profiles, and
[11:33] Speaker 1: that's part of our selection process when
[11:35] Speaker 1: we're looking for a cultivar to grow is
[11:38] Speaker 1: what they smell like.
[11:40] Speaker 1: You're muted, John.
[11:41] Speaker 1: You might laugh at me, but I'm going to
[11:45] Speaker 1: say unfortunately, yes, I know what it
[11:47] Speaker 1: smells like. Yeah.
[11:48] Speaker 1: I, you know, when you're growing it, I
[11:52] Speaker 1: think it's really, there's so many unique
[11:54] Speaker 1: ones and they're so, they're, they smell
[11:57] Speaker 1: so much different on the plant versus when
[12:00] Speaker 1: it's actually being consumed.
[12:02] Speaker 1: I'm not, I'm not a big consumer myself,
[12:05] Speaker 1: but I really do enjoy growing the plant.
[12:08] Speaker 1: But anyway, you know, we had this
[12:10] Speaker 1: underlying persistent, just a few plants
[12:13] Speaker 1: with this deading issue, you know, a
[12:16] Speaker 1: couple, Certain genetics would be.
[12:17] Speaker 1: A little bit more problematic than others,
[12:20] Speaker 1: but it wasn't a big enough loss to really
[12:24] Speaker 1: worry that much about it.
[12:26] Speaker 1: And until we had our whole facility get
[12:29] Speaker 1: turned upside down.
[12:31] Speaker 1: And then it was kind of just a battle
[12:34] Speaker 1: for over a year, I would say, or well,
[12:38] Speaker 1: probably eight months to a year before we
[12:41] Speaker 1: actually figured out what we were dealing
[12:44] Speaker 1: with. And then Were introduced to Heber
[12:47] Speaker 1: because everything that I would look up to
[12:51] Speaker 1: try to research the symptoms that we were
[12:54] Speaker 1: dealing with pointed to hop latent
[12:56] Speaker 1: thyroid, the dudding and whatnot.
[12:59] Speaker 1: But it didn't make a lot of sense to
[13:02] Speaker 1: me that that's what we were dealing with
[13:06] Speaker 1: just because of personal experience.
[13:08] Speaker 1: We weren't seeing the contagion thing.
[13:10] Speaker 1: And years ago, I kind of Saw my
[13:14] Speaker 1: personal beliefs with my own health and
[13:17] Speaker 1: human health kind of aligned more with
[13:20] Speaker 1: terrain theory than germ theory and that
[13:23] Speaker 1: kind of aligned with what we were dealing
[13:26] Speaker 1: with in the facility that you know.
[13:29] Speaker 1: We I could have really industry standard
[13:32] Speaker 1: unsafe practices as far as vectors for
[13:35] Speaker 1: transmission because I we have a mom room
[13:38] Speaker 1: and and it has probably 40 to 50
[13:42] Speaker 1: plants at any time, 15 different cultures.
[13:45] Speaker 1: 50 plants at any time, 15 different
[13:48] Speaker 1: cultivars, and we do cloning every two
[13:51] Speaker 1: weeks where we'll cut 12 to 1500 clones.
[13:54] Speaker 1: And my practices weren't, I wasn't
[13:57] Speaker 1: sterilizing equipment between cuts and
[13:59] Speaker 1: whatnot, but I wasn't seeing this problem
[14:02] Speaker 1: transmit between all of our genetics until
[14:05] Speaker 1: we had one event happen.
[14:07] Speaker 1: So I wasn't really in line with the
[14:10] Speaker 1: idea that it was hoplite and viroid.
[14:14] Speaker 1: And then I started doing a little bit of
[14:18] Speaker 1: research and, like, hey what's going to
[14:20] Speaker 1: cause these brittle plants that we were
[14:23] Speaker 1: seeing?" Because they were extremely
[14:25] Speaker 1: brittle. And I came across Fusarium and
[14:28] Speaker 1: I'd never heard of it before.
[14:30] Speaker 1: I don't have an agronomist background or
[14:33] Speaker 1: any formal education.
[14:34] Speaker 1: My education is self-taught, started in my
[14:36] Speaker 1: basement years and years ago.
[14:38] Speaker 1: But when I came across Viserion, this is a
[14:42] Speaker 1: very interesting book.
[14:43] Speaker 1: But when I came across Fusarium, the
[14:46] Speaker 1: surface level research was kind of
[14:48] Speaker 1: inconclusive. A lot of the people that I
[14:51] Speaker 1: talked to, I got two responses I got, I've
[14:54] Speaker 1: never heard of that, or you got to burn
[14:58] Speaker 1: the place down and start over.
[15:00] Speaker 1: And we weren't really in a position to
[15:03] Speaker 1: burn it down and start it over.
[15:06] Speaker 1: So we were trying to approach any avenue
[15:09] Speaker 1: that we could that kind of wasn't that
[15:12] Speaker 1: pathway. And I'd reached out to a
[15:15] Speaker 1: formulator of a trichoderm.
[15:16] Speaker 1: Out to a formulator of a trichoderma
[15:19] Speaker 1: product, and you know that was supposed to
[15:22] Speaker 1: help. We started implementing those
[15:24] Speaker 1: things, didn't see too much of an
[15:27] Speaker 1: immediate response from it, but and then
[15:30] Speaker 1: somewhere along that time frame, not too
[15:32] Speaker 1: short, not too long after, is when I met
[15:36] Speaker 1: Heber through our mutual friend.
[15:38] Speaker 1: He drove up to the facility, we started
[15:41] Speaker 1: implementing some protocols that he had
[15:43] Speaker 1: for his product and some other
[15:46] Speaker 1: inoculations and stuff to try to fix the
[15:49] Speaker 1: issue. All good. And we had some success
[15:52] Speaker 1: at the beginning, but I think the problem
[15:55] Speaker 1: ended up being a little bit more
[15:58] Speaker 1: persistent and nuanced than either of us
[16:01] Speaker 1: thought when he first arrived.
[16:03] Speaker 1: And that kind of just led down this
[16:06] Speaker 1: pathway of really trial and error, a lot
[16:09] Speaker 1: of research on his part, you know.
[16:12] Speaker 1: We kick around ideas.
[16:13] Speaker 1: I'd say, what do you think of this?
[16:16] Speaker 1: And he'd look it up and, you know, hey,
[16:20] Speaker 1: maybe there's something there.
[16:22] Speaker 1: And over the course of, I don't know,
[16:25] Speaker 1: probably six to eight months, we got plant
[16:28] Speaker 1: health restored. You know, I think a lot
[16:31] Speaker 1: of people in my industry that have dealt
[16:34] Speaker 1: with this, they're not able to get their
[16:37] Speaker 1: genetics that have been affected to
[16:40] Speaker 1: actually perform the way they did, you
[16:42] Speaker 1: know pre. Expression, I guess you could
[16:45] Speaker 1: say. But we've managed to be able to
[16:49] Speaker 1: turn it around. Yeah.
[16:51] Speaker 1: So I know we're going to get into
[16:54] Speaker 1: some of the mechanisms of what changes
[16:57] Speaker 1: Fusarium from a symbiotic endophyte to
[17:00] Speaker 1: being pathogenic. What are some of those
[17:03] Speaker 1: mechanisms and triggers?
[17:04] Speaker 1: But as people Mechanisms and triggers.
[17:07] Speaker 1: But as before we go there, just to
[17:10] Speaker 1: offer some context, can you provide some
[17:13] Speaker 1: background of what were some of the
[17:16] Speaker 1: specific triggers?
[17:17] Speaker 1: What were some of the specific events that
[17:21] Speaker 1: happened that caused it to really both
[17:24] Speaker 1: right at the beginning, what caused it to
[17:27] Speaker 1: really take off? And then also as you
[17:30] Speaker 1: went through this transition, what were
[17:33] Speaker 1: some of the setbacks that you experienced?
[17:36] Speaker 1: So I think initially it was nutrient
[17:39] Speaker 1: based. I mean like the foundation for the
[17:43] Speaker 1: problem was that what we were feeding the
[17:46] Speaker 1: plants, because we're 100% hydroponic,
[17:48] Speaker 1: we're growing in rock wool.
[17:50] Speaker 1: I have gone through many iterations of
[17:53] Speaker 1: different nutrient solutions in the past,
[17:56] Speaker 1: and with the tight margins that we're
[17:59] Speaker 1: working with, at one point, I decided.
[18:02] Speaker 1: That, and it was with the help of
[18:06] Speaker 1: a different consultant that I was going to
[18:09] Speaker 1: formulate our own nutrient solution.
[18:12] Speaker 1: I did some testing, took just some regular
[18:15] Speaker 1: commercial formulas that I'd used, had
[18:17] Speaker 1: them sent out for analysis, took that
[18:20] Speaker 1: information and kind of created just an
[18:22] Speaker 1: aggregate of it and decided to start
[18:25] Speaker 1: mixing my own solution.
[18:26] Speaker 1: And I don't think that my and I don't
[18:30] Speaker 1: think that many, I just thought that those
[18:32] Speaker 1: were okay numbers to be at.
[18:35] Speaker 1: And I'm sure we'll get into some of the
[18:38] Speaker 1: stuff, nitrate specific and whatnot.
[18:40] Speaker 1: But I think we found that my nitrates were
[18:43] Speaker 1: too high. My phosphorus was too high to
[18:46] Speaker 1: the point where we weren't getting any
[18:48] Speaker 1: association with any type of microbiology.
[18:51] Speaker 1: I wasn't doing anything for microbiology
[18:53] Speaker 1: because we were in Rockwell and I'd always
[18:57] Speaker 1: just been the understanding that that's a
[18:59] Speaker 1: sterile growth media and you're not going
[19:02] Speaker 1: to be able to support anything beneficial
[19:05] Speaker 1: in there. So we just Didn't do it.
[19:08] Speaker 1: But what I think we did do was create
[19:12] Speaker 1: an environment for Fusarium to thrive
[19:14] Speaker 1: without any type of balance.
[19:16] Speaker 1: And what we can't say for certain, but I
[19:20] Speaker 1: think the triggering event was introducing
[19:22] Speaker 1: a biological, like some beneficial
[19:24] Speaker 1: bacteria and stuff.
[19:25] Speaker 1: And what we think may have happened was
[19:29] Speaker 1: that there was just an overwhelming
[19:31] Speaker 1: competition. For the auction.
[19:33] Speaker 1: The overwhelming competition for the
[19:35] Speaker 1: oxygen at that point between the two and
[19:38] Speaker 1: it just set things off down a pathway that
[19:42] Speaker 1: was it would have it was controllable
[19:44] Speaker 1: before that after that it was just almost
[19:48] Speaker 1: total loss you set things on fire at that
[19:51] Speaker 1: point right and then that was a major
[19:54] Speaker 1: thing we also saw issues where you know if
[19:58] Speaker 1: we had a mechanical issue.
[20:00] Speaker 1: If we had a pump fail or a valve
[20:04] Speaker 1: fail. Or something like that, if we had an
[20:07] Speaker 1: extreme dryback for whatever portion of
[20:10] Speaker 1: plants that that affected, then we would
[20:12] Speaker 1: see the sudden death within a day or two.
[20:18] Speaker 1: So, sudden death for us was mostly based
[20:21] Speaker 1: off of environmental conditions being
[20:24] Speaker 1: wrong, but the persistent problems were
[20:26] Speaker 1: the underlying health, you know, what we
[20:29] Speaker 1: were feeding the plants.
[20:31] Speaker 1: And can you just bring us flash forward
[20:35] Speaker 1: to today? You mentioned that you've
[20:37] Speaker 1: largely had this resolved.
[20:39] Speaker 1: But what does your operation and what does
[20:43] Speaker 1: plant health look like today?
[20:45] Speaker 1: It's improving consistently.
[20:46] Speaker 1: I don't think we are exactly where we
[20:50] Speaker 1: want to be, but it's been a process
[20:53] Speaker 1: of a little bit of trial and error
[20:57] Speaker 1: and trying to get this formulation
[21:00] Speaker 1: correct. I actually worked with your AI to
[21:03] Speaker 1: help develop some things that we're doing
[21:06] Speaker 1: because there's a lot of different
[21:09] Speaker 1: information out there as far as what you
[21:13] Speaker 1: know proper NPK numbers are and your mic
[21:16] Speaker 1: I think we're doing things a little bit
[21:20] Speaker 1: different, but it's really showing up in
[21:23] Speaker 1: plant health. And plant health, we're
[21:26] Speaker 1: just, I mean, if we go off of,
[21:29] Speaker 1: you know, your plant health pyramid
[21:32] Speaker 1: concept and whatnot, we're also seeing
[21:35] Speaker 1: improved pest pressures gone down as these
[21:38] Speaker 1: things improve, 'cause we're, you know,
[21:40] Speaker 1: likely getting better photosynthesis and
[21:43] Speaker 1: whatnot. We're definitely getting better
[21:45] Speaker 1: secondary metabolites.
[21:46] Speaker 1: I recently had a room that had our
[21:49] Speaker 1: dehumidification equipment fail.
[21:51] Speaker 1: Uh, in week six. Equipment fail in week
[21:54] Speaker 1: six. So we run eight weeks in our
[21:58] Speaker 1: flowering cycle. So for the last two weeks
[22:01] Speaker 1: of the flowering cycle, when typically the
[22:04] Speaker 1: suggestion is that we need to maintain our
[22:07] Speaker 1: environment pretty precisely or we're
[22:09] Speaker 1: going to be susceptible to powdery mildew
[22:12] Speaker 1: or bud rot or things like that.
[22:15] Speaker 1: I was seeing lights out humidities of over
[22:18] Speaker 1: 90% and we didn't have a spot of PM
[22:22] Speaker 1: on the whole harvest.
[22:24] Speaker 1: I think, well, that it kind of lends back
[22:28] Speaker 1: to your light bulb moment, right?
[22:30] Speaker 1: With the healthy plants and the unhealthy
[22:33] Speaker 1: plants on the different fields.
[22:36] Speaker 1: And there was minimal bud rot.
[22:38] Speaker 1: I think out of a hundred pounds harvested,
[22:42] Speaker 1: maybe we had less than a half a
[22:46] Speaker 1: pound of botrytis in that harvest.
[22:48] Speaker 1: And that was with two weeks of extreme
[22:52] Speaker 1: lights out humidities.
[22:53] Speaker 1: Wow. So you Described how at the beginning
[22:57] Speaker 1: of this, the very early stages when
[23:00] Speaker 1: Fazarium was present, you weren't fully
[23:03] Speaker 1: aware what the challenge was.
[23:05] Speaker 1: You described as having plants that you
[23:09] Speaker 1: just considered duds.
[23:10] Speaker 1: How is that today?
[23:12] Speaker 1: Do you still have some of those and
[23:15] Speaker 1: how are they in proportion to the grow
[23:19] Speaker 1: as a whole? Yes, there's very, very little
[23:23] Speaker 1: though. I mean, it's kind of genetics
[23:26] Speaker 1: specific. There's a couple that...
[23:28] Speaker 1: I would say less than 1%, and it's
[23:32] Speaker 1: less than 1% of certain genetics that are
[23:35] Speaker 1: actually still expressing that dudding.
[23:38] Speaker 1: And we do have one genetic that hasn't
[23:41] Speaker 1: gone through all of the protocols that
[23:44] Speaker 1: we've implemented, that we're kind of
[23:47] Speaker 1: holding it back to develop some tests to
[23:51] Speaker 1: see what we can do to help snap
[23:55] Speaker 1: it out of it.
[23:57] Speaker 1: Because when Heber first got here and we
[24:00] Speaker 1: started going down these rabbit holes of
[24:03] Speaker 1: different what's causing this thing, it
[24:06] Speaker 1: was kind of a kitchen sink approach rather
[24:09] Speaker 1: than a scientific approach as much because
[24:12] Speaker 1: it was survival mode.
[24:13] Speaker 1: Like we were very much in jeopardy of, you
[24:17] Speaker 1: know, losing everything.
[24:18] Speaker 1: Of losing everything.
[24:19] Speaker 1: So we just kind of like, okay, we think
[24:23] Speaker 1: this is causing something.
[24:24] Speaker 1: Let's do this. And this.
[24:26] Speaker 1: And while we, I think we know the
[24:29] Speaker 1: mechanisms and whatnot, and Heber will be
[24:32] Speaker 1: able to expand on this a lot better than
[24:36] Speaker 1: I will. We're also trying to narrow down
[24:39] Speaker 1: what part of it worked the best, I
[24:42] Speaker 1: suppose, because this dudding that we're
[24:45] Speaker 1: talking about seems to be, I think the way
[24:48] Speaker 1: that we would describe it is like a
[24:51] Speaker 1: runaway oxidative stress.
[24:52] Speaker 1: Like, it's, it's. Way oxidative stress,
[24:55] Speaker 1: like it's oxidizing the mineral metals
[24:57] Speaker 1: that are available.
[24:58] Speaker 1: Like, we don't think we're seeing the
[25:01] Speaker 1: manganese getting oxidized, that's why
[25:03] Speaker 1: we're not seeing any terpene profiles or
[25:06] Speaker 1: oils being produced.
[25:07] Speaker 1: And you know, zinc oxidation could be
[25:10] Speaker 1: causing some of the leaf structure issues
[25:13] Speaker 1: and whatnot. So, we attacked it in a way
[25:16] Speaker 1: kind of an antioxidant way as well as the
[25:20] Speaker 1: microbiological way.
[25:23] Speaker 1: Thank you. Microbiological way.
[25:25] Speaker 1: Awesome. I'm trying to think of what else.
[25:29] Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure as we go through
[25:32] Speaker 1: this conversation, I'd like to shift gears
[25:36] Speaker 1: a bit and talk about some of the
[25:39] Speaker 1: mechanisms. But if there's anything that I
[25:42] Speaker 1: missed asking you about that is important
[25:45] Speaker 1: for us to bring up in the conversation,
[25:49] Speaker 1: just dive right into it.
[25:51] Speaker 1: Heber, there's a lot to unwrap here, but
[25:55] Speaker 1: let's start with. I learned originally to
[25:58] Speaker 1: think of Vazarium as a pathogen.
[26:01] Speaker 1: And as we spoke before the microphone was
[26:04] Speaker 1: on, it's, I think you said, it's the
[26:08] Speaker 1: second greatest economic, most
[26:10] Speaker 1: economically damaging pathogen globally.
[26:12] Speaker 1: And it's, I think it's the most widespread
[26:16] Speaker 1: one that I know of.
[26:18] Speaker 1: I mean, all the way from take all and
[26:22] Speaker 1: wheat, I mean, it's just there are many,
[26:25] Speaker 1: many crops are affected by Fusarium.
[26:27] Speaker 1: I think I can perhaps safely say most.
[26:31] Speaker 1: So it is this universal organism and one
[26:34] Speaker 1: of the things that I was so intrigued by
[26:38] Speaker 1: was your description of Fusarium as a
[26:41] Speaker 1: beneficial organism instead of as a
[26:43] Speaker 1: pathogen. What is your thinking today and
[26:46] Speaker 1: how did you arrive at that point point,
[26:50] Speaker 1: after all the wormholes I've gone down and
[26:53] Speaker 1: researched, because I did go up there and
[26:56] Speaker 1: promise Kirk we'd turn his facility
[26:59] Speaker 1: around. So when it didn't turn around very
[27:02] Speaker 1: quickly like I thought it was going to, I
[27:06] Speaker 1: started digging in because I wasn't going
[27:08] Speaker 1: to A, fail what I told him, but B,
[27:12] Speaker 1: you know, if there was anything I could do
[27:15] Speaker 1: to stop that, I was going to.
[27:18] Speaker 1: So I tugged in. I listened to all of
[27:21] Speaker 1: your podcasts. I think there were a couple
[27:24] Speaker 1: key things that drove me in the right
[27:28] Speaker 1: direction. And one was that you said it
[27:31] Speaker 1: was an arrow. But up to that point, I
[27:34] Speaker 1: I honestly thought it was an anarobe, you
[27:37] Speaker 1: know? And so, that kinda got me looking
[27:40] Speaker 1: another way but then you mentioned
[27:43] Speaker 1: something about it being an end of fight
[27:46] Speaker 1: and you didn't get into it.
[27:48] Speaker 1: It was just very short, sweet, I came
[27:51] Speaker 1: across some of James White's work, his
[27:54] Speaker 1: Book has a study by Coldo and Yates that
[27:57] Speaker 1: really opened my eyes.
[27:59] Speaker 1: They studied 400 and some odd plants
[28:01] Speaker 1: between crops and wild plant species and I
[28:04] Speaker 1: think it was in all of them.
[28:07] Speaker 1: There might, it might have not been in one
[28:11] Speaker 1: or two, but I was literally going through
[28:14] Speaker 1: scanning the whole thing.
[28:15] Speaker 1: I'm like, man, this is in every single
[28:18] Speaker 1: one.
[28:19] Speaker 1: And then it had it notated whether it
[28:23] Speaker 1: caused disease. And I found 14 that were
[28:26] Speaker 1: disease. And out of those 14, 10 of
[28:30] Speaker 1: those started out as endophytic and moved
[28:33] Speaker 1: to disease while only four started out as
[28:37] Speaker 1: pathogens. And I'm like, okay, something's
[28:39] Speaker 1: going on here, something's wrong.
[28:42] Speaker 1: We're looking at this wrong entirely.
[28:44] Speaker 1: And so I started digging into what makes
[28:48] Speaker 1: endophytic Fusarium switch and there's it
[28:51] Speaker 1: turns out that Fusarium switch.
[28:53] Speaker 1: And there's, it turns out there's a lot
[28:57] Speaker 1: of different things in nature.
[28:59] Speaker 1: But what I found as a broad thing
[29:03] Speaker 1: across all the species is that metabolic
[29:06] Speaker 1: issues, like if it has trouble getting
[29:09] Speaker 1: food from this source it would prefer to
[29:13] Speaker 1: have, and I'll get into that later, then
[29:16] Speaker 1: it will express genetic framework to use
[29:19] Speaker 1: this other food that's available.
[29:22] Speaker 1: And when these other foods are available
[29:25] Speaker 1: In large amounts, sometimes even when that
[29:28] Speaker 1: preferred food's available, it will
[29:30] Speaker 1: express that genetic machinery to use
[29:33] Speaker 1: that.
[29:34] Speaker 1: And then, after it's like that genetic
[29:38] Speaker 1: machinery is actually considered
[29:40] Speaker 1: pathogenic genes, even though it's not
[29:43] Speaker 1: negatively affecting the plant right away,
[29:46] Speaker 1: it's just changing how it can use
[29:49] Speaker 1: nutrients in the in you know times
[29:53] Speaker 1: of need or stress.
[29:55] Speaker 1: And then, when those stressors come along.
[29:58] Speaker 1: If that's already expressed, then it will
[30:02] Speaker 1: ramp that expression up very quickly, and
[30:06] Speaker 1: you'll end up with virulence and rapid
[30:09] Speaker 1: spread and different things like that.
[30:12] Speaker 1: Sorry, my bulldog is.
[30:14] Speaker 1: Okay. Editors. And then, you know, that
[30:18] Speaker 1: was a. Figuring that out was a
[30:21] Speaker 1: big factor in being able to turn
[30:25] Speaker 1: these genes down, down-regulate these
[30:27] Speaker 1: expressions because they don't have access
[30:30] Speaker 1: to those other things, right, or not
[30:34] Speaker 1: enough access that they'll keep that
[30:37] Speaker 1: ramped up. And while we're doing that,
[30:41] Speaker 1: give this preferred food for the end
[30:44] Speaker 1: of fight and allow it to start
[30:48] Speaker 1: turning back to that food in a
[30:51] Speaker 1: way from the one that was causing
[30:55] Speaker 1: the expression.
[30:56] Speaker 1: So those things need to happen at the same
[31:00] Speaker 1: time. If they don't and you just pull away
[31:03] Speaker 1: that other food, we end up with the, we
[31:06] Speaker 1: figured this out the hard way, with the
[31:09] Speaker 1: Fusarium autolyzing its hyphae and
[31:11] Speaker 1: releasing all the mycotoxins inside there
[31:13] Speaker 1: and killing the plant.
[31:14] Speaker 1: Boom. Gone. And so there's a balance where
[31:17] Speaker 1: you're, where you're dealing with this.
[31:20] Speaker 1: And I've shown it in a bunch of crops now
[31:23] Speaker 1: this year that people have started kind of
[31:26] Speaker 1: looking at what I'm doing.
[31:28] Speaker 1: I've shown it like without a doubt in
[31:31] Speaker 1: giant pumpkins with a few different people
[31:33] Speaker 1: and a whole bunch of different plants that
[31:36] Speaker 1: nothing else died after we went in.
[31:39] Speaker 1: And they lost one, they got crazy high
[31:42] Speaker 1: counts. We got the data and whatnot and
[31:45] Speaker 1: just stopped it. Boom.
[31:46] Speaker 1: And we're assuming that we reverted it
[31:49] Speaker 1: back to an endophytic state after what we
[31:51] Speaker 1: did.
[31:53] Speaker 1: And we're in the process of getting the
[31:55] Speaker 1: lab work to show that now.
[31:58] Speaker 1: So, pretty soon, we'll be able to show
[32:00] Speaker 1: that in those fields.
[32:02] Speaker 1: Now, so pretty soon, they'll show that in
[32:05] Speaker 1: those fields, and same thing with the
[32:07] Speaker 1: cannabis. We're getting ready to do all
[32:10] Speaker 1: our follow up and show that the fusarium
[32:13] Speaker 1: is still there, and these plants are in
[32:15] Speaker 1: perfect health. Yeah, you know.
[32:17] Speaker 1: So, when we talk about fusarium, the name
[32:20] Speaker 1: fusarium is used generically and broadly
[32:22] Speaker 1: to describe I'm not sure the exact number,
[32:25] Speaker 1: but I think it's safe to assume hundreds
[32:28] Speaker 1: of different subspecies and strains.
[32:30] Speaker 1: I think strains would be the problem
[32:33] Speaker 1: different subspecies and strains.
[32:35] Speaker 1: I think strains would be probably the
[32:37] Speaker 1: appropriate adjective here.
[32:38] Speaker 1: But how, when we think about Fusarium as
[32:41] Speaker 1: an endophyte, I still remember Don Huber
[32:44] Speaker 1: describing how you could have two fields
[32:47] Speaker 1: or two soils that a crop on one soil would
[32:51] Speaker 1: be showing symptoms of Fusarium expression
[32:53] Speaker 1: and another soil no expression and the
[32:55] Speaker 1: population of Fusarium in the soil was
[32:58] Speaker 1: identical. So, when we talk about physeria
[33:01] Speaker 1: So, when we talk about Fusarium and you're
[33:04] Speaker 1: describing these different mechanisms and
[33:06] Speaker 1: means, do those apply equally across all
[33:08] Speaker 1: strains and across all the various types
[33:11] Speaker 1: of crops that we're describing and talking
[33:14] Speaker 1: about?
[33:15] Speaker 1: The basics in this metabolic accessibility
[33:18] Speaker 1: driving these increased expressions, that
[33:20] Speaker 1: seems to be the same across all these.
[33:23] Speaker 1: Okay. And it had. The same across all
[33:27] Speaker 1: these. Okay. And you have to address it
[33:30] Speaker 1: in order to get rid of the pathogenic
[33:34] Speaker 1: nature of it. Those have to be addressed.
[33:37] Speaker 1: Can you mitigate some losses without
[33:40] Speaker 1: addressing those? Absolutely.
[33:41] Speaker 1: But here's where we see they start
[33:44] Speaker 1: differing when you get into the different
[33:47] Speaker 1: strains that are specific to different
[33:50] Speaker 1: hosts, then their entry mechanisms, which
[33:53] Speaker 1: are part of your pathogenic and virulence
[33:56] Speaker 1: based on what we're talking about, those
[33:59] Speaker 1: differ, your entry mechanisms and what it
[34:02] Speaker 1: may do to that exact plant.
[34:05] Speaker 1: But if you look in soybeans, it's the
[34:08] Speaker 1: same thing we see in the sudden death
[34:12] Speaker 1: in cannabis. It's the same end symptom and
[34:15] Speaker 1: the same thing causing it.
[34:17] Speaker 1: They're sudden, they get hooked on this
[34:20] Speaker 1: specific form of nitrogen.
[34:22] Speaker 1: At R6, we lose that because the plant
[34:26] Speaker 1: is digging in, it's not letting it go.
[34:29] Speaker 1: And that plant, the fungus starts
[34:32] Speaker 1: autolyzing and it's just mycotoxin dump.
[34:35] Speaker 1: Plant dead. And so we see.
[34:37] Speaker 1: The same thing. And so when you see
[34:41] Speaker 1: that expression, you kind of know where
[34:44] Speaker 1: that's at, even though it's a vergiliform.
[34:47] Speaker 1: It's nothing like the same as oxysporum,
[34:50] Speaker 1: you know. But those tendencies go across
[34:53] Speaker 1: those metabolic. Those are pretty much the
[34:56] Speaker 1: same across all those strains and species.
[34:59] Speaker 1: They need these certain things to survive.
[35:02] Speaker 1: If they don't have them, they'll either
[35:05] Speaker 1: make them, and when they're making them,
[35:08] Speaker 1: that same machinery to make them makes
[35:11] Speaker 1: mycotoxins and other Things.
[35:13] Speaker 1: So if they don't need these things, they
[35:16] Speaker 1: shut that machinery off because it's
[35:19] Speaker 1: expensive energetically to express, and
[35:21] Speaker 1: then mycotoxins don't get expressed.
[35:23] Speaker 1: Yeah. So let's start perhaps at the
[35:26] Speaker 1: beginning, if there is a beginning.
[35:29] Speaker 1: When you have Fusarium interacting with a
[35:32] Speaker 1: plant as an endophyte, in a symbiotic
[35:35] Speaker 1: relationship without expressing as a
[35:37] Speaker 1: pathogen, without producing molds and
[35:39] Speaker 1: Mycotoxins and all these various
[35:42] Speaker 1: expressions of disease, what does that
[35:44] Speaker 1: relationship look like?
[35:45] Speaker 1: What are the parameters, the environmental
[35:48] Speaker 1: conditions, the plant terrain, what is
[35:51] Speaker 1: required for that fusarium to be in that
[35:54] Speaker 1: state and to remain in that state?
[35:58] Speaker 1: Okay, that's a very, very good question.
[36:01] Speaker 1: Okay, so let's say we have fusarium
[36:05] Speaker 1: in soil, right, and it's not excessively
[36:08] Speaker 1: expensive. Soil, right?
[36:09] Speaker 1: And it's not excessively expressing
[36:12] Speaker 1: anything pathogenically.
[36:13] Speaker 1: Let's assume that, okay?
[36:15] Speaker 1: This plant establishes roots and begins to
[36:18] Speaker 1: release sugars and secondary metabolites.
[36:20] Speaker 1: And those will chemo signal or attract
[36:24] Speaker 1: the fusarium and other fungus in the
[36:27] Speaker 1: soil. And if we have a balanced
[36:30] Speaker 1: soil system, there will be lots of
[36:34] Speaker 1: different funguses and different things
[36:36] Speaker 1: and bacteria and intrafungus.
[36:38] Speaker 1: Bacteria and intrafungal bacteria and
[36:40] Speaker 1: extrafungal bacteria.
[36:41] Speaker 1: Those always need to be considered in
[36:45] Speaker 1: this relationship too.
[36:46] Speaker 1: And they're very important in this
[36:49] Speaker 1: fusarium relationship because they alone
[36:51] Speaker 1: can be a trigger. And I'll let you
[36:55] Speaker 1: remind me of that later so we don't
[36:58] Speaker 1: forget. But in an endophytic fusarium, you
[37:01] Speaker 1: have only a few effector proteins
[37:04] Speaker 1: expressed. These effector proteins are
[37:06] Speaker 1: basically how they categorize when they
[37:09] Speaker 1: look at. The expression in a fusarium
[37:12] Speaker 1: whether it's pathogenic or whether it's
[37:15] Speaker 1: endophytic. If it's endophytic, there's
[37:17] Speaker 1: usually only six or less of these
[37:20] Speaker 1: expressed to any degree, and they're not
[37:23] Speaker 1: massively expressed.
[37:24] Speaker 1: They're conservatively, moderately
[37:25] Speaker 1: expressed. And those lower ones allow
[37:28] Speaker 1: entry into the cortex of the root, and
[37:32] Speaker 1: it stops before it goes to vascular
[37:35] Speaker 1: tissue. It does not have the enzymes
[37:38] Speaker 1: because those are in those other effects
[37:41] Speaker 1: proteins that are not expressed.
[37:43] Speaker 1: It doesn't have the enzymes to enter
[37:46] Speaker 1: beyond that. And there becomes a very
[37:50] Speaker 1: valuable nutrient exchange, just like
[37:52] Speaker 1: there is with mycorrhizae.
[37:54] Speaker 1: And in some instances, especially in
[37:56] Speaker 1: oxidized soils, you can consider this more
[37:59] Speaker 1: valuable in ways because fusarium is one
[38:02] Speaker 1: microbe that will consistently reduce
[38:04] Speaker 1: iron. 3 to the plant available iron 2.
[38:08] Speaker 1: It will do it for its own survival.
[38:11] Speaker 1: It uses it as an electron acceptor.
[38:14] Speaker 1: When it accepts that electron, it's
[38:16] Speaker 1: reduced and plant available, and the
[38:19] Speaker 1: fusarium doesn't need it anymore because
[38:21] Speaker 1: that's what it needed it for.
[38:24] Speaker 1: So it goes to the plant, the plant takes
[38:28] Speaker 1: it, right? But furthermore, when this
[38:30] Speaker 1: infection takes place and doesn't go
[38:33] Speaker 1: beyond that vascular tissue and cause a
[38:36] Speaker 1: problem, in the plant, it initially Tissue
[38:39] Speaker 1: and cause a problem in the plant, it
[38:42] Speaker 1: initiates the ISR and the SAR within the
[38:46] Speaker 1: plant, just like when we encounter germs
[38:48] Speaker 1: that don't make us sick or that do make
[38:52] Speaker 1: us sick and we heal from, right?
[38:55] Speaker 1: But that would be more the pathogen
[38:59] Speaker 1: side. And I'll get into that.
[39:02] Speaker 1: But it enables the plant to have
[39:06] Speaker 1: more innate resistance for the next time
[39:10] Speaker 1: something comes along.
[39:11] Speaker 1: Furthermore, and there's a lot of studies
[39:15] Speaker 1: to show this, when fusariums are so
[39:19] Speaker 1: A lot of studies to show this,
[39:23] Speaker 1: when Fusarium is associated at these
[39:26] Speaker 1: roots, endophytically, beyond the nutrient
[39:29] Speaker 1: exchange, beyond the reduction power that
[39:32] Speaker 1: it gives that soil, that redox
[39:35] Speaker 1: capacitance, if you will, beyond that it's
[39:39] Speaker 1: going to protect its host excessively
[39:42] Speaker 1: against pathogens root-borne pathogens.
[39:44] Speaker 1: Fusarium is one of them.
[39:47] Speaker 1: Root borne pathogens, fusarium is one of
[39:51] Speaker 1: the better resistance conferring
[39:53] Speaker 1: endophytes across fungus and bacteria that
[39:56] Speaker 1: a plant can get against root borne
[40:00] Speaker 1: pathogens, particularly lithium and
[40:02] Speaker 1: phytophthora. It completely inhibits those
[40:05] Speaker 1: when it's endophytically associated.
[40:07] Speaker 1: And then it is the best, it
[40:11] Speaker 1: might be close to the best or
[40:14] Speaker 1: maybe the best there, but it is
[40:18] Speaker 1: the best at conferring resistance against
[40:21] Speaker 1: pathogenic fusarium even against prior
[40:24] Speaker 1: pathogenic entry and intrusion.
[40:26] Speaker 1: So, I found studies that actually show
[40:29] Speaker 1: that pathogenic fusarium can be in the
[40:32] Speaker 1: xylem and into the plant tissue.
[40:34] Speaker 1: Endophytic fusarium will come up,
[40:36] Speaker 1: associate to the root, sense because of
[40:39] Speaker 1: what's going on inside the plant that that
[40:42] Speaker 1: pathogen's there, chemosignal that
[40:44] Speaker 1: pathogen. Plant that pathogen's there,
[40:46] Speaker 1: chemo signal that pathogen to turn off its
[40:49] Speaker 1: expression, its pathogenic expression.
[40:50] Speaker 1: It will downregulate that.
[40:52] Speaker 1: It will remain in the xylem with zero
[40:55] Speaker 1: plant effects. Wow.
[40:56] Speaker 1: That endophyte came in.
[40:58] Speaker 1: And that's what I found that because
[41:01] Speaker 1: that's kind of what we're seeing.
[41:03] Speaker 1: I'm like, how are we having such good
[41:06] Speaker 1: resistance after the fact?
[41:08] Speaker 1: Because you literally, after you've
[41:10] Speaker 1: corrected these systems, you can bring
[41:13] Speaker 1: something so hot and infected and put it
[41:16] Speaker 1: right in there. And it's healed in two
[41:19] Speaker 1: weeks. And you're like, not only did it
[41:23] Speaker 1: not spread, but it's gone.
[41:25] Speaker 1: And so I start looking does this turn
[41:28] Speaker 1: endophytic once we've conquered this?
[41:30] Speaker 1: And yes, it does. And I think that's
[41:34] Speaker 1: a big part of what we're seeing is
[41:37] Speaker 1: that endophytic side, because the
[41:39] Speaker 1: protection and resistance it confers is
[41:42] Speaker 1: existential. Wow. The notes of the things
[41:45] Speaker 1: that I want to follow up on, that
[41:48] Speaker 1: was quite. An impressive, impressive.
[41:50] Speaker 1: I didn't get into pests.
[41:52] Speaker 1: You didn't get into pests that, no.
[41:55] Speaker 1: Let me cover that real quick and then
[41:58] Speaker 1: we'll touch more if you want later.
[42:00] Speaker 1: So, some of my outdoor clients this year,
[42:03] Speaker 1: and we've noticed better resistance
[42:05] Speaker 1: inside, we're kind of more attributing
[42:07] Speaker 1: that to locking our minerals in right and
[42:10] Speaker 1: our nitrogen in right, as your discussions
[42:12] Speaker 1: have taught us. But in this outdoor where
[42:15] Speaker 1: the soil wasn't addressed this guy has
[42:18] Speaker 1: been dealing with this for five years.
[42:20] Speaker 1: He had no money to address any soil
[42:23] Speaker 1: things, any soil minerals, or anything.
[42:25] Speaker 1: It's just go in and band aid everything we
[42:29] Speaker 1: can and see what we can get.
[42:31] Speaker 1: So maybe he has money to operate next
[42:35] Speaker 1: year. And his every single time we spoke,
[42:38] Speaker 1: he said, To this day, I haven't seen
[42:42] Speaker 1: one bug on one leaf, not one bite
[42:45] Speaker 1: mark. And he said, I always have some
[42:48] Speaker 1: pests come in, be it aphids grasshoppers,
[42:51] Speaker 1: spider mites, and cucumber beetles, right?
[42:54] Speaker 1: He said nothing, no marks, no nothing.
[42:57] Speaker 1: And he said beyond that, zero powdery
[43:00] Speaker 1: mildew, zero botrytis.
[43:01] Speaker 1: And this outdoor heavy fog, Northern Cali
[43:04] Speaker 1: Mountain growing breeds that stuff, you
[43:07] Speaker 1: know. And so that blew his mind.
[43:10] Speaker 1: And so I start looking into it.
[43:13] Speaker 1: And that endophyte actually will produce
[43:16] Speaker 1: aromatic compounds that entirely deter the
[43:18] Speaker 1: pest. And then they'll also produce
[43:21] Speaker 1: aromatic compounds, send them up to the
[43:24] Speaker 1: plant that attract the natural predator to
[43:27] Speaker 1: the pest of that plant.
[43:29] Speaker 1: And there's a bunch of studies showing
[43:32] Speaker 1: that. And so I was like, okay, maybe
[43:36] Speaker 1: this is kind of what we're seeing.
[43:39] Speaker 1: In addition to plant health, you know,
[43:42] Speaker 1: obviously, lends to that.
[43:44] Speaker 1: Well, the simple fact that the study that
[43:48] Speaker 1: you mentioned at the beginning by name
[43:51] Speaker 1: that showed 400 some plant species were
[43:54] Speaker 1: associated with Fusarium, plants have the
[43:57] Speaker 1: intelligence to conserve their energy.
[43:59] Speaker 1: They don't form associations that don't
[44:02] Speaker 1: benefit them. And so the fact that they
[44:06] Speaker 1: are finding it to their benefit to the
[44:10] Speaker 1: point where they're willing to expend
[44:13] Speaker 1: substantial amounts of sugar energy and
[44:16] Speaker 1: carbon energy to sustain this symbiotic
[44:18] Speaker 1: relationship with Vazirium, tells us that
[44:21] Speaker 1: it must be quite valuable to them, as
[44:25] Speaker 1: you've just described for us, all these
[44:28] Speaker 1: different dimensions.
[44:29] Speaker 1: So actually, before we go in and dig
[44:33] Speaker 1: a bit deeper into each of these, what
[44:37] Speaker 1: is-- what is the environment that is
[44:40] Speaker 1: Required? Earlier in our conversation, you
[44:43] Speaker 1: spoke about alternate food sources that
[44:46] Speaker 1: Fusarium can have and how that changes its
[44:50] Speaker 1: expression. So I think the obvious
[44:53] Speaker 1: question at this point is, what is
[44:56] Speaker 1: the food source that is required or
[44:59] Speaker 1: what's the environment that is required to
[45:03] Speaker 1: keep Fusarium in its endophytic stage and
[45:06] Speaker 1: to avoid activating the genetic expression
[45:09] Speaker 1: that turns it into a pathogen?
[45:12] Speaker 1: So on that level, nitrate is this
[45:15] Speaker 1: Biggest, with everybody I've dealt with,
[45:18] Speaker 1: it seems to be the biggest cause
[45:21] Speaker 1: of the upregulated expression.
[45:23] Speaker 1: That gene that it's upregulating is called
[45:27] Speaker 1: 450 NOR, which is nitrogen oxidoreductase.
[45:30] Speaker 1: It's also called CYP55.
[45:31] Speaker 1: We have cytochrome P450 enzymes, plants,
[45:34] Speaker 1: fungus, animals, all have cytochrome P-450
[45:37] Speaker 1: enzymes. P450 enzymes.
[45:39] Speaker 1: There are enzymes that -- >> some
[45:42] Speaker 1: other day, some other time, some other
[45:45] Speaker 1: place. We may have a conversation about
[45:49] Speaker 1: glyphosate's impact on cytochrome P450,
[45:51] Speaker 1: but we don't need to get into
[45:54] Speaker 1: that right now. >> So, we will
[45:58] Speaker 1: upregulate and downregulate these as
[46:00] Speaker 1: needed. These different gene sets and
[46:03] Speaker 1: enzyme systems are expensive energetically
[46:05] Speaker 1: to express so they tend to conserve
[46:09] Speaker 1: them if not needed.
[46:11] Speaker 1: And serve them if not needed.
[46:13] Speaker 1: And so nitrate is the predominant one that
[46:17] Speaker 1: I'm seeing, right?
[46:18] Speaker 1: Because I'm dealing with these crops that
[46:21] Speaker 1: are hit, or so far anyway, that are
[46:25] Speaker 1: fed a lot of that, you know, both
[46:28] Speaker 1: giant fruit side and the cannabis side,
[46:32] Speaker 1: that's their predominant nitrogen source
[46:34] Speaker 1: in most cases. And when we get above
[46:37] Speaker 1: a certain part per million, we will cause
[46:41] Speaker 1: expression Of that gene because it's
[46:43] Speaker 1: there, not because the preferred one's not
[46:47] Speaker 1: there. So we can have the preferred one
[46:50] Speaker 1: there cross this threshold of 120 parts
[46:53] Speaker 1: per million and make this thing start
[46:56] Speaker 1: expressing more on that gene.
[46:59] Speaker 1: And then in turn, it grows quickly and
[47:02] Speaker 1: excessively and reproduces quickly and
[47:04] Speaker 1: excessively under those circumstances.
[47:06] Speaker 1: As well. So just to clarify, when you
[47:10] Speaker 1: say a nitrate levels of 120 parts per
[47:13] Speaker 1: million, what location are you measuring
[47:16] Speaker 1: and what type of measurements?
[47:18] Speaker 1: You're referring to measurements in the
[47:21] Speaker 1: leaf, in the soil?
[47:22] Speaker 1: We're talking about media or soil tissue
[47:26] Speaker 1: and that's roughly 120 pounds per acre of
[47:29] Speaker 1: nitrate, right? The others are different.
[47:32] Speaker 1: This is what Sets off that gene.
[47:35] Speaker 1: Earlier, you used the metric of parts per
[47:38] Speaker 1: million, and just now you phrased it to
[47:42] Speaker 1: reframe it to parts, or excuse me, to
[47:46] Speaker 1: pounds per acre, which are not
[47:48] Speaker 1: necessarily. It's almost equatable on the
[47:50] Speaker 1: soil test I'm looking at.
[47:52] Speaker 1: Is there a better reference than straight
[47:54] Speaker 1: across, 1.2? Well, in outdoor soil, I
[47:56] Speaker 1: don't know about in indoor media
[47:58] Speaker 1: environments, but in outdoor soil, we use
[48:01] Speaker 1: a roughly 2 to 1 factor.
[48:03] Speaker 1: Oh, okay. Okay. We use a roughly 2 to 1
[48:06] Speaker 1: factor. We consider a part per million to
[48:09] Speaker 1: be the equivalent of about 2 pounds per
[48:11] Speaker 1: acre. And that's based on the math of
[48:14] Speaker 1: 6-inch depth acre being roughly 2 million
[48:16] Speaker 1: pounds. I'm sorry, the ones I was reading
[48:19] Speaker 1: were not the same depth.
[48:20] Speaker 1: So I was looking at it and automatically
[48:23] Speaker 1: equating that. So let's go with 120 ppm
[48:26] Speaker 1: because that's what I'm solving.
[48:29] Speaker 1: And so we're seeing that if in the
[48:32] Speaker 1: media that is above this level that's
[48:36] Speaker 1: accessible to the fungus, it begins
[48:38] Speaker 1: upregulating this gene, even if it has
[48:42] Speaker 1: sufficient sugars to eat.
[48:43] Speaker 1: That maybe it's important to get into that
[48:47] Speaker 1: ladder so people understand where nitrogen
[48:50] Speaker 1: is on it. Yes, let's do that.
[48:53] Speaker 1: I was, I want to, I've been wanting
[48:57] Speaker 1: to get into the sugar conversation.
[49:00] Speaker 1: So sugars are at the top of this
[49:03] Speaker 1: ladder, and when they're present in
[49:06] Speaker 1: sufficient Quantities, and this means
[49:08] Speaker 1: through stressors, right?
[49:10] Speaker 1: When there are sufficient quantities, it
[49:12] Speaker 1: will tend not to turn to lower things
[49:16] Speaker 1: on the ladder, so long as these things
[49:20] Speaker 1: above it are sufficient, right?
[49:22] Speaker 1: And this goes sugars, then alcohols, then
[49:25] Speaker 1: aldehydes, which are your sugar breakdown
[49:28] Speaker 1: products, okay? And then it goes to
[49:31] Speaker 1: nitrate. And then it goes sideways because
[49:35] Speaker 1: it turns to use whatever it can if
[49:38] Speaker 1: that's depleted, and a lot of times that
[49:42] Speaker 1: gets into iron and the other things where
[49:46] Speaker 1: things really go sideways and you get full
[49:49] Speaker 1: swaths die off when it goes below that.
[49:53] Speaker 1: So, just to clarify, so that everyone can
[49:56] Speaker 1: track along with us, what you're
[49:59] Speaker 1: describing is that if I'm understanding it
[50:01] Speaker 1: correctly, physician.
[50:02] Speaker 1: You're describing is that if I'm
[50:05] Speaker 1: understanding it correctly, Fusarium will
[50:07] Speaker 1: preferentially first feed on sugars.
[50:09] Speaker 1: It wants to use sugars as its energy
[50:12] Speaker 1: source. And then, if sugars are not
[50:15] Speaker 1: available, it will start consuming
[50:17] Speaker 1: alcohols and then aldehydes and then
[50:19] Speaker 1: nitrates and then the oxidized states of
[50:22] Speaker 1: iron and manganese, etc.
[50:23] Speaker 1: Right. That's in this form we're talking
[50:26] Speaker 1: about. Now, when it goes to a saprophytic
[50:29] Speaker 1: form, which is not what we're talking
[50:32] Speaker 1: about at all, that's more of a Soil
[50:35] Speaker 1: dwelling, non plant associating type form.
[50:38] Speaker 1: It will mostly go towards lignin and
[50:41] Speaker 1: things like that. So let's create some
[50:43] Speaker 1: discussion. Yeah. Let's actually define
[50:45] Speaker 1: these terms so that people can follow with
[50:49] Speaker 1: us in the conversation.
[50:50] Speaker 1: So we essentially have endophytes, we have
[50:53] Speaker 1: saprophytes, and then we also have the
[50:56] Speaker 1: necrotrophic as well, which is another
[50:58] Speaker 1: distinction. Can you describe for us when,
[51:01] Speaker 1: as you think about Fusarium in these
[51:04] Speaker 1: different contexts, how do you think about
[51:06] Speaker 1: them differently? What does that mean to
[51:09] Speaker 1: you? Endophytes versus saprophytes, for
[51:11] Speaker 1: example. So, the saprophyte is basically
[51:14] Speaker 1: defining what it's doing as a soil
[51:16] Speaker 1: organism. When they're expressing the
[51:18] Speaker 1: genes that act as a saprophyte and break
[51:22] Speaker 1: down this lignus material and other things
[51:25] Speaker 1: like that, they're not expressing anything
[51:27] Speaker 1: that the plant's interested in and it's
[51:30] Speaker 1: not going to call it to it and associate
[51:34] Speaker 1: it. Could those things happen over time?
[51:37] Speaker 1: Yes, right? Same as it can get pathogenic
[51:40] Speaker 1: over time if the right triggers continue.
[51:43] Speaker 1: It can go between these three states, but
[51:46] Speaker 1: then your endophytic is purely plant
[51:49] Speaker 1: beneficial, your saprophytic is
[51:50] Speaker 1: predominantly a compost or breaking your
[51:53] Speaker 1: things down in your soil and reducing
[51:56] Speaker 1: things in your soil.
[51:57] Speaker 1: That saprophyte is also going to reduce
[52:00] Speaker 1: iron. It's going to reduce manganese.
[52:03] Speaker 1: If your copper levels are excessive and
[52:06] Speaker 1: things are going sideways, it'll reduce
[52:09] Speaker 1: that copper and mineralize it up because
[52:12] Speaker 1: it doesn't really affect it that
[52:15] Speaker 1: negatively. Hint, copper fungicides don't
[52:17] Speaker 1: tend to work very well against it, it's
[52:21] Speaker 1: kind of impervious to it.
[52:23] Speaker 1: Um, it can live in a high copper
[52:26] Speaker 1: environment, no problem.
[52:28] Speaker 1: It just starts reducing it.
[52:30] Speaker 1: Now, the necrophyte, same thing, it's
[52:33] Speaker 1: taking out decaying dead material and it
[52:36] Speaker 1: switched its genes to that.
[52:38] Speaker 1: These things don't affect or attack live
[52:41] Speaker 1: plants, even the same as pathogens do.
[52:45] Speaker 1: Those are different genes.
[52:47] Speaker 1: Yep. All right. So we started going down
[52:50] Speaker 1: the levels or the ladder of desired food
[52:53] Speaker 1: sources. What happens in a plant that
[52:56] Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily have surplus levels of
[52:59] Speaker 1: nitrates, but all of a sudden its sugar
[53:02] Speaker 1: levels are no longer adequate.
[53:04] Speaker 1: It's not photosynthesizing well, BRICS
[53:05] Speaker 1: levels start dropping.
[53:07] Speaker 1: What happens to the endophytes within the
[53:09] Speaker 1: facarium that is endophytically within
[53:11] Speaker 1: that plant? So once it runs out of the
[53:15] Speaker 1: sugars, aldehydes, and alcohols and
[53:17] Speaker 1: aldehydes, it will go and search for
[53:19] Speaker 1: nitrate. It will probably find it and it
[53:23] Speaker 1: will begin expressing that framework.
[53:25] Speaker 1: So, regardless that you didn't have high
[53:27] Speaker 1: nitrate levels, It's going to go to it
[53:30] Speaker 1: because you. Have high nitrate levels,
[53:33] Speaker 1: it's going to go to it because your bricks
[53:36] Speaker 1: or your sugar food to it ran out.
[53:39] Speaker 1: But there's another side to this too.
[53:42] Speaker 1: And I don't want to get too in the
[53:46] Speaker 1: weeds here, but to remember it later is
[53:49] Speaker 1: the secondary metabolite side of that.
[53:51] Speaker 1: Because when your bricks fall, those
[53:53] Speaker 1: secondary metabolites fall as well.
[53:55] Speaker 1: And included in those are things that
[53:58] Speaker 1: prevent pathogenic expression, which are
[54:00] Speaker 1: polyphenols and other things that are
[54:02] Speaker 1: coming out of those roots.
[54:04] Speaker 1: That every single plant makes.
[54:06] Speaker 1: When it's healthy, but when that brick
[54:09] Speaker 1: starts to fall, the levels of those start
[54:12] Speaker 1: to fall and below a certain level, they
[54:16] Speaker 1: don't have a silencing effect on these
[54:19] Speaker 1: genes, on the literal transcription of
[54:21] Speaker 1: them. And so then they'll start being
[54:24] Speaker 1: transcribed. Okay, so there's a two part
[54:27] Speaker 1: of that, but what we're talking about
[54:30] Speaker 1: right now is the metabolic part, the food
[54:33] Speaker 1: part. And when that, let's say we have a
[54:37] Speaker 1: three day saturation event, by day Three,
[54:40] Speaker 1: even if we started at nine bricks, we're
[54:44] Speaker 1: probably under six by day three.
[54:46] Speaker 1: And that is kind of where we see that
[54:50] Speaker 1: cutoff. If you've watched John Kemp's
[54:52] Speaker 1: plant health pyramid, we're under that,
[54:55] Speaker 1: they become very susceptible.
[54:57] Speaker 1: And part of that is our sugars.
[55:00] Speaker 1: They're too low of a level to continue to
[55:03] Speaker 1: sustain all the hyphae that was there.
[55:06] Speaker 1: Not to say that endophyte can't live, but
[55:10] Speaker 1: if it's got some hyphae and it probably
[55:13] Speaker 1: does because it was, you know, enjoying
[55:16] Speaker 1: life, it begins autolyzing that hyphae.
[55:18] Speaker 1: And inside that is mycotoxins, right?
[55:21] Speaker 1: They weren't farming anything until it
[55:23] Speaker 1: started autolyzing them because it ran out
[55:26] Speaker 1: of food. So then we start seeing
[55:29] Speaker 1: symptomology, whether that be necrotic
[55:31] Speaker 1: lesions, leaf, stem, whatever.
[55:33] Speaker 1: Wilt's usually something else, but I'll
[55:36] Speaker 1: get into that. It can be that.
[55:39] Speaker 1: But it's usually something else and
[55:41] Speaker 1: there's a way to kind of tell it
[55:45] Speaker 1: apart So that you can intelligently figure
[55:48] Speaker 1: out what's going on.
[55:49] Speaker 1: Is it too much food?
[55:52] Speaker 1: Not enough food the wrong food and so
[55:55] Speaker 1: You'll start to see plant Plant reactions
[55:58] Speaker 1: to that what from one degree to another
[56:01] Speaker 1: depending on you know, the degree of harm
[56:05] Speaker 1: the fungus endure >> Yep.
[56:07] Speaker 1: >> So there are different facets and
[56:10] Speaker 1: different angles to this conversation.
[56:12] Speaker 1: I don't want to lose sight, but I
[56:16] Speaker 1: want to kind of try to weave this
[56:19] Speaker 1: web together. Earlier you spoke about how
[56:22] Speaker 1: you can have bacteria that are associated
[56:25] Speaker 1: with this fungus and with the plant root
[56:28] Speaker 1: system that can trigger pathogenic
[56:31] Speaker 1: expression. And I would expect there are
[56:34] Speaker 1: also others that will shut down and
[56:37] Speaker 1: suppress pathogenic expression.
[56:38] Speaker 1: So as you are developing this
[56:40] Speaker 1: understanding and this model of how these
[56:43] Speaker 1: interact, how are you thinking about those
[56:46] Speaker 1: two? So what I find is that usually
[56:50] Speaker 1: it's a metabolic trigger.
[56:52] Speaker 1: In some instances-- and we're figuring out
[56:55] Speaker 1: how to kind of self-test for these in
[56:58] Speaker 1: a lot of cases-- we find that it's
[57:01] Speaker 1: actually not caused by anything
[57:04] Speaker 1: particularly metabolic or even necessarily
[57:06] Speaker 1: environmental But this problem still
[57:08] Speaker 1: persists.
[57:10] Speaker 1: And what we're seeing is that certain
[57:13] Speaker 1: bacteria and Ralstonia solanaceae, that's
[57:16] Speaker 1: a log one, is a prime one in
[57:19] Speaker 1: certain host plants.
[57:20] Speaker 1: It will not affect some plants, so
[57:23] Speaker 1: there'll be a vector for it.
[57:26] Speaker 1: And you won't see any symptoms.
[57:29] Speaker 1: And then these other plants, like peppers
[57:32] Speaker 1: and tomatoes and then these other plants,
[57:35] Speaker 1: you know, like peppers and tomatoes, the
[57:38] Speaker 1: second you put that in there, it activates
[57:42] Speaker 1: every bit of fusarium and causes wilt
[57:45] Speaker 1: across, you know, systemic wilt across the
[57:48] Speaker 1: field in a virulent nature because it
[57:51] Speaker 1: turns on all these expressions at a high
[57:54] Speaker 1: rate instantly within that fungus.
[57:57] Speaker 1: And it does it by entering the spore,
[58:00] Speaker 1: including the. Chlamydospora can enter it
[58:03] Speaker 1: and then induce it to have.
[58:05] Speaker 1: It can enter it and then induce it
[58:09] Speaker 1: to hatch and hyphae with all those
[58:12] Speaker 1: expressions turned on.
[58:13] Speaker 1: It will go into an otherwise endophytic
[58:17] Speaker 1: hyphae and cause that all to be turned
[58:20] Speaker 1: on through some processes within that that
[58:23] Speaker 1: I'm not fully clear on.
[58:25] Speaker 1: So I don't want to try to elaborate
[58:29] Speaker 1: too much. So, in essence, what you're
[58:32] Speaker 1: describing is you can have a plant
[58:35] Speaker 1: population, let's say a weed population.
[58:38] Speaker 1: That are vectors for Fusarium.
[58:40] Speaker 1: They're loaded with Fusarium
[58:42] Speaker 1: endophytically, but the Fusarium doesn't
[58:44] Speaker 1: express itself pathogenically because of
[58:46] Speaker 1: these other associated organisms, these
[58:48] Speaker 1: other bacteria that you mentioned, and
[58:50] Speaker 1: then you plant a domesticated crop into it
[58:53] Speaker 1: that isn't associated with those other
[58:56] Speaker 1: bacteria, and the Fusarium activates and
[58:58] Speaker 1: becomes pathogenic?
[58:59] Speaker 1: I feel like there's a key that I'm
[59:02] Speaker 1: missing. >> Yeah, yeah, there's a little
[59:05] Speaker 1: part right in the middle.
[59:07] Speaker 1: So, let's say we have these weeds and
[59:11] Speaker 1: everything, they all have Fusarium
[59:13] Speaker 1: beneficially associated to them and a lot
[59:15] Speaker 1: of them probably have the beneficial and
[59:18] Speaker 1: the high full. Probably have the
[59:21] Speaker 1: beneficial and the hyphal bacteria as
[59:23] Speaker 1: well. We can assume they do, right?
[59:26] Speaker 1: Because it's seen in almost every
[59:29] Speaker 1: circumstance. And let's say we put a crop
[59:32] Speaker 1: in here and this crop really doesn't
[59:35] Speaker 1: support that suppressive biology, or we
[59:37] Speaker 1: just didn't have that suppressive biology
[59:40] Speaker 1: where we tilled the field or did whatever
[59:43] Speaker 1: we did with salts or.
[59:46] Speaker 1: You know, whatever we did to this
[59:49] Speaker 1: field, that particular suppressive biology
[59:52] Speaker 1: isn't here, but the fusarium's all there.
[59:55] Speaker 1: And then from the environment, this
[59:58] Speaker 1: microbe, this bacteria, which is airborne
[1:00:01] Speaker 1: and can be anywhere, comes in here
[1:00:05] Speaker 1: where there's not the suppressive bacteria
[1:00:08] Speaker 1: and becomes the prime endohyphal bacteria.
[1:00:11] Speaker 1: It switches it because that suppression,
[1:00:14] Speaker 1: that suppressive one wasn't.
[1:00:16] Speaker 1: There, right? Be for whatever reason.
[1:00:19] Speaker 1: So then you'll see the switch in
[1:00:23] Speaker 1: that susceptible crop, but not in other
[1:00:26] Speaker 1: crops because they can keep that other
[1:00:30] Speaker 1: back that suppressive bacteria coming or
[1:00:33] Speaker 1: whatever else they're producing enough
[1:00:36] Speaker 1: secondary metabolites, whatever it may be
[1:00:39] Speaker 1: that's keeping things completely turned
[1:00:41] Speaker 1: off.
[1:00:44] Speaker 1: Otherwise, when you Speak about these
[1:00:47] Speaker 1: secondary metabolites, one of the things I
[1:00:50] Speaker 1: found fascinating in your description, in
[1:00:53] Speaker 1: your introduction overview of this, is how
[1:00:56] Speaker 1: Fusarium can function as an immune
[1:00:59] Speaker 1: elicitor and how it can activate the ISR
[1:01:02] Speaker 1: and the SER pathways and can essentially
[1:01:05] Speaker 1: serve as a primer, as a vaccination, if
[1:01:09] Speaker 1: you will, although it's kind of an insult
[1:01:13] Speaker 1: to the fungus. If you will, although it's
[1:01:16] Speaker 1: kind of an insult to the fungi to
[1:01:20] Speaker 1: compare it with vaccinations.
[1:01:22] Speaker 1: Right, right. (Laughing) - So, yeah.
[1:01:25] Speaker 1: What does that mechanism look like?
[1:01:27] Speaker 1: And how does, how do, how...
[1:01:30] Speaker 1: - Do we want to get into the
[1:01:34] Speaker 1: chemistry of it? Well, I want to
[1:01:37] Speaker 1: understand, how can we facilitate that and
[1:01:40] Speaker 1: how do we avoid shutting it down?
[1:01:43] Speaker 1: How do we facilitate that?
[1:01:45] Speaker 1: Shutting it down. How do we facilitate
[1:01:49] Speaker 1: activating the ISR and SAR and avoid
[1:01:52] Speaker 1: shutting it down? So, essentially, really
[1:01:54] Speaker 1: the only way to shut it down is
[1:01:58] Speaker 1: to try to grow sterile, you know, and
[1:02:02] Speaker 1: jack these salts up to the point that
[1:02:05] Speaker 1: most things aren't going to survive, but
[1:02:08] Speaker 1: we create other problems doing that.
[1:02:11] Speaker 1: But those things tend to quell any.
[1:02:14] Speaker 1: ISR or SAR that may be happening at
[1:02:18] Speaker 1: the roots or otherwise, because when these
[1:02:21] Speaker 1: Fusarium get called to the roots and the
[1:02:25] Speaker 1: plant is allowing them to colonize them in
[1:02:28] Speaker 1: exchange for nutrients, there's a
[1:02:30] Speaker 1: biochemical transfer that takes place, and
[1:02:33] Speaker 1: it actually creates nutrients when that
[1:02:36] Speaker 1: takes place. Particularly, it creates
[1:02:38] Speaker 1: nitrate. But I want to get
[1:02:42] Speaker 1: into something that comes before the
[1:02:45] Speaker 1: nitrate though, so let me explain
[1:02:48] Speaker 1: this biochemical reaction.
[1:02:50] Speaker 1: Dr. White's better at this, but
[1:02:53] Speaker 1: I'll try. The fungus comes up
[1:02:56] Speaker 1: and it releases NO, okay?
[1:02:59] Speaker 1: The plant responds by releasing
[1:03:02] Speaker 1: superoxide, which is O2, -1 so
[1:03:05] Speaker 1: two oxygen molecules with one and
[1:03:08] Speaker 1: they're both radicals They're both free
[1:03:12] Speaker 1: radicals. Under normal controlled
[1:03:14] Speaker 1: circumstances, this is a very controlled
[1:03:17] Speaker 1: reaction. The plant controls it
[1:03:20] Speaker 1: predominantly through manganese SOD,
[1:03:22] Speaker 1: superoxide dismutase, and a couple other
[1:03:25] Speaker 1: enzymes that can quell that backside
[1:03:29] Speaker 1: of the nitrogenous compound if it
[1:03:32] Speaker 1: gets out of whack.
[1:03:34] Speaker 1: So, in a normal infection, these
[1:03:37] Speaker 1: rates are low. And controlled.
[1:03:40] Speaker 1: The plant fully controls it.
[1:03:43] Speaker 1: There is no excessive runaway.
[1:03:45] Speaker 1: There's no excessive byproducts.
[1:03:48] Speaker 1: And the byproduct of that NO
[1:03:51] Speaker 1: and O2 spontaneously is a free
[1:03:54] Speaker 1: radical called peroxynitrate.
[1:03:56] Speaker 1: And right behind that, if everything's
[1:03:59] Speaker 1: working properly, it becomes nitrate and
[1:04:02] Speaker 1: becomes a food recycled back to
[1:04:06] Speaker 1: the plant. In the process of
[1:04:09] Speaker 1: this As well that membrane of
[1:04:12] Speaker 1: the microbe is disturbed and a
[1:04:16] Speaker 1: lot of nutrients inside that are
[1:04:19] Speaker 1: given to the plant before this
[1:04:22] Speaker 1: colonization really fully takes place
[1:04:25] Speaker 1: they're receiving nutrition and after it
[1:04:29] Speaker 1: takes place. They're receiving a steady
[1:04:32] Speaker 1: stream of nutrition and This continues
[1:04:35] Speaker 1: to A degree but is greatly
[1:04:39] Speaker 1: quelled after colonization, right?
[1:04:41] Speaker 1: And so the plant's not expending
[1:04:44] Speaker 1: much energy there other than feeding
[1:04:48] Speaker 1: some sugars and secondaries and receiving
[1:04:51] Speaker 1: all these things back and a
[1:04:54] Speaker 1: lot of reducing power there.
[1:04:57] Speaker 1: When it gets the pathogenic ones,
[1:05:00] Speaker 1: when they have that gene that
[1:05:04] Speaker 1: breaks down that nitrate excessively
[1:05:07] Speaker 1: expressed, they can excessively produce
[1:05:09] Speaker 1: NO.
[1:05:11] Speaker 1: They take the O2, they shoot the NO back
[1:05:14] Speaker 1: at the plant. This interaction can become
[1:05:16] Speaker 1: runaway and often does, and that's how
[1:05:19] Speaker 1: they gain entry, right?
[1:05:20] Speaker 1: But in addition to that, when we see these
[1:05:23] Speaker 1: persistent infections, especially in
[1:05:24] Speaker 1: cannabis, because why we're seeing it way
[1:05:27] Speaker 1: worse there is because we're propagating
[1:05:29] Speaker 1: these plants. And if they get propagated
[1:05:31] Speaker 1: and go into a good environment, that thing
[1:05:34] Speaker 1: just kind of stalled out there doesn't get
[1:05:36] Speaker 1: better, doesn't get worse.
[1:05:38] Speaker 1: As far as we're talking about spores, the
[1:05:40] Speaker 1: hyphae will downgrade their stuff.
[1:05:42] Speaker 1: The chlamydospores will just sit there
[1:05:44] Speaker 1: until it's adventitious for them to hatch.
[1:05:46] Speaker 1: And that's not when the plant's healthy.
[1:05:49] Speaker 1: So they stay there.
[1:05:50] Speaker 1: And then they get passed on.
[1:05:52] Speaker 1: And it's not until they find the
[1:05:54] Speaker 1: environment that is adventitious that we
[1:05:56] Speaker 1: not only see it come out in that plant
[1:05:59] Speaker 1: that we thought was healthy, but then
[1:06:02] Speaker 1: takes out a whole swath, right?
[1:06:04] Speaker 1: Because it was adventitious.
[1:06:05] Speaker 1: Poop takes out a whole swath right because
[1:06:09] Speaker 1: it was advantageous and it had all this
[1:06:12] Speaker 1: stuff expressed at this high rate This
[1:06:15] Speaker 1: nitrate nitrogen Reductase gene is the
[1:06:18] Speaker 1: problem because it fuels this persistent
[1:06:21] Speaker 1: and no attack by both Chlamydospor and
[1:06:24] Speaker 1: hyphae on the pathogenic side when it's
[1:06:27] Speaker 1: expressed too much and it shoots it in
[1:06:30] Speaker 1: there it It creates way too much
[1:06:33] Speaker 1: peroxynitrite. That cannot be dealt with
[1:06:36] Speaker 1: by the plant. It destroys DNA.
[1:06:38] Speaker 1: It nitrosifies DNA at every tyrosine.
[1:06:41] Speaker 1: It breaks every sulfide bridge with your
[1:06:44] Speaker 1: cysteines and whatnot and just unwraps
[1:06:47] Speaker 1: them, destroys them, deforms them.
[1:06:49] Speaker 1: And we can actually test for this with
[1:06:52] Speaker 1: immunoglobin assays and see the
[1:06:54] Speaker 1: proxynitrate. And you can do it at home
[1:06:58] Speaker 1: with your, if you have an active plant
[1:07:01] Speaker 1: and you get in there quickly, you can
[1:07:05] Speaker 1: see it at the site of the infection
[1:07:08] Speaker 1: with the correct stains because there's a
[1:07:11] Speaker 1: stain that'll light up pink with
[1:07:14] Speaker 1: peroxynitrite and not with the other
[1:07:17] Speaker 1: oxidative and nitrosative compounds.
[1:07:18] Speaker 1: So it limits it down.
[1:07:20] Speaker 1: You can see what's happening, especially
[1:07:23] Speaker 1: in these cannabis.
[1:07:24] Speaker 1: And when that happens, we see this plant,
[1:07:28] Speaker 1: the plant's kind of living still.
[1:07:30] Speaker 1: It doesn't get wilted or die because no
[1:07:34] Speaker 1: mycotoxins are coming out.
[1:07:36] Speaker 1: It's all an oxidative battle.
[1:07:38] Speaker 1: And we see these plants just get crazy
[1:07:41] Speaker 1: oxidative runaway and they can't recover
[1:07:44] Speaker 1: and you can't figure out what's going on
[1:07:48] Speaker 1: because it's not down to this
[1:07:50] Speaker 1: pathogenicity. It turns over to oxidative
[1:07:53] Speaker 1: runaway that's based on pathogenicity, but
[1:07:56] Speaker 1: it really doesn't boil down to anything
[1:07:59] Speaker 1: else there. Did I go?
[1:08:01] Speaker 1: That was a lot. It was fun.
[1:08:04] Speaker 1: So, I want to bring this back to
[1:08:08] Speaker 1: a practical application level with what
[1:08:10] Speaker 1: you just described.
[1:08:12] Speaker 1: What are the triggers for this
[1:08:14] Speaker 1: biochemistry cascade?
[1:08:15] Speaker 1: What are the triggers that allow for this
[1:08:19] Speaker 1: runaway oxidation, oxidative stress to
[1:08:21] Speaker 1: occur? The only place I'm seeing it is
[1:08:24] Speaker 1: in cannabis. And I believe it's being
[1:08:28] Speaker 1: carried through chlamydospores and then
[1:08:30] Speaker 1: allowed to, where it does gain a little
[1:08:33] Speaker 1: bit of ground, it's allowed to.
[1:08:36] Speaker 1: To even express more stuff, but it's
[1:08:39] Speaker 1: coming through that chlamydospore highly
[1:08:41] Speaker 1: expressed the minute it comes out.
[1:08:44] Speaker 1: And it doesn't have to hatch.
[1:08:47] Speaker 1: That chlamydospore doesn't have to hatch.
[1:08:49] Speaker 1: The chlamydospore itself will do this.
[1:08:52] Speaker 1: I'm backing up one step further, which is
[1:08:56] Speaker 1: what are the environmental conditions that
[1:08:58] Speaker 1: that trigger this that start going down
[1:09:01] Speaker 1: this runway? Is it the nitrate levels?
[1:09:04] Speaker 1: It's not environmental.
[1:09:05] Speaker 1: It's purely food. It's purely nitrate.
[1:09:08] Speaker 1: And nitrate dependence after expression.
[1:09:10] Speaker 1: So this is nitrate in the medium, in
[1:09:14] Speaker 1: the solution, above 120 parts per million?
[1:09:17] Speaker 1: Yes. And we're finding there's a little
[1:09:20] Speaker 1: fudge room there in healthy environments.
[1:09:22] Speaker 1: There's a little more fudge room.
[1:09:25] Speaker 1: But even at that, there's a little fudge
[1:09:28] Speaker 1: room, but that's kind of your...
[1:09:31] Speaker 1: I try to get at that level.
[1:09:34] Speaker 1: And something that you mentioned
[1:09:36] Speaker 1: previously is that even if your nitrate
[1:09:39] Speaker 1: are low. If you have low sugar and
[1:09:43] Speaker 1: there's not enough energy there To sustain
[1:09:46] Speaker 1: the fusarium from a sugar, there requires
[1:09:49] Speaker 1: an environmental trigger for that to
[1:09:51] Speaker 1: happen. Okay. And that is saturation or
[1:09:54] Speaker 1: anoxic environment.
[1:09:55] Speaker 1: It needs to find oxygen.
[1:09:57] Speaker 1: And if there's oxygen on sugar, right?
[1:10:00] Speaker 1: And we got an oxidative metabolism there
[1:10:03] Speaker 1: that it goes through and supports all
[1:10:06] Speaker 1: that. And then it won't go too deep.
[1:10:10] Speaker 1: But if it doesn't have sufficient sugar in
[1:10:13] Speaker 1: that anoxic or saturation Sugar in that
[1:10:16] Speaker 1: anoxic or saturated environment, that's
[1:10:18] Speaker 1: what causes it to turn to nitrate, even
[1:10:22] Speaker 1: if nitrate's not excessive.
[1:10:23] Speaker 1: So that's what we're seeing in vegetables
[1:10:26] Speaker 1: and other crops it takes three sides it
[1:10:29] Speaker 1: takes the saturation, the low sugar, and
[1:10:32] Speaker 1: it turns to nitrate or it kills a plant
[1:10:36] Speaker 1: because it dies. Okay, so now.
[1:10:38] Speaker 1: As a plant because it dies.
[1:10:41] Speaker 1: OK. So now we are approaching the point
[1:10:44] Speaker 1: where we're getting to the bottom of the
[1:10:47] Speaker 1: ladder here, where, as you described,
[1:10:49] Speaker 1: things really start going sideways.
[1:10:51] Speaker 1: So I can ask this question a couple of
[1:10:55] Speaker 1: different ways, but maybe I'll just ask it
[1:10:58] Speaker 1: in the sense of wilt versus sudden death.
[1:11:01] Speaker 1: If I'm understanding your train of thought
[1:11:04] Speaker 1: correctly, what is the difference between
[1:11:06] Speaker 1: wilt versus sudden death, what produces
[1:11:09] Speaker 1: those different outcomes for the same
[1:11:11] Speaker 1: organism? So, with wilt, we have excessive
[1:11:14] Speaker 1: food and therefore plenty of energy to
[1:11:17] Speaker 1: grow at an excessive rate.
[1:11:19] Speaker 1: And it's actually a suffocation of the
[1:11:22] Speaker 1: plant, is what it boils, except for the
[1:11:25] Speaker 1: Ralstonia, right? That's different.
[1:11:26] Speaker 1: But in this normal wilt that we see with
[1:11:30] Speaker 1: very little chlorosis, is kind of just
[1:11:33] Speaker 1: wilt, right? Now, there's the wilt with
[1:11:35] Speaker 1: the chlorosis. That's a little bit of both
[1:11:39] Speaker 1: of these sides combined.
[1:11:40] Speaker 1: So what is happening with this abundant
[1:11:43] Speaker 1: energy is you essentially have fungal
[1:11:45] Speaker 1: hyphae that are filling up the entire
[1:11:48] Speaker 1: plant basket or tissue, right?
[1:11:50] Speaker 1: Yep. And if you cut that and look at
[1:11:54] Speaker 1: it, you'll see fungi through and around
[1:11:57] Speaker 1: all the cells and it's super obvious.
[1:12:00] Speaker 1: So on the other side of that, we're seeing
[1:12:03] Speaker 1: a lack of energy and where the fungus is
[1:12:07] Speaker 1: trying to conserve energy and autolyzing
[1:12:09] Speaker 1: its hyphae to derive those materials back
[1:12:12] Speaker 1: that it can and not support that hyphae
[1:12:16] Speaker 1: with ATP, right? With energy supply to
[1:12:18] Speaker 1: keep it alive. And it's not going to be
[1:12:22] Speaker 1: able to grab up everything that was in
[1:12:25] Speaker 1: that. That stuff gets the mycotoxins and
[1:12:28] Speaker 1: other reactive oxygen species, all kinds
[1:12:31] Speaker 1: of different things get dumped into the
[1:12:34] Speaker 1: plant. And we see that in the plant as
[1:12:37] Speaker 1: the plant responds.
[1:12:39] Speaker 1: And that's it, the lack of energy.
[1:12:41] Speaker 1: It's having to conserve and it's losing
[1:12:44] Speaker 1: these things into the plant.
[1:12:46] Speaker 1: Because of that. I think that's what
[1:12:49] Speaker 1: confuses people too, because they know
[1:12:52] Speaker 1: it's both fusarium and they do two
[1:12:54] Speaker 1: different things to it and they still get
[1:12:58] Speaker 1: one outcome or the other and they think
[1:13:01] Speaker 1: the outcomes related but it's literally
[1:13:03] Speaker 1: polar opposite outcomes.
[1:13:05] Speaker 1: Same dead, you know, same problem, no
[1:13:08] Speaker 1: plant but they're polar opposite outcomes.
[1:13:10] Speaker 1: You know this in many ways, this
[1:13:13] Speaker 1: conversation is connecting so many
[1:13:16] Speaker 1: different dots. When we think about take
[1:13:19] Speaker 1: all in wheat, this is really before my
[1:13:22] Speaker 1: time or before I was really involved in
[1:13:26] Speaker 1: the space, but when having conversations,
[1:13:28] Speaker 1: take all with wheat has been around for
[1:13:32] Speaker 1: a long time. But all of a sudden,
[1:13:35] Speaker 1: Glyphosate was introduced, became more
[1:13:38] Speaker 1: widely used on these acres, started
[1:13:40] Speaker 1: influencing the microbiomes.
[1:13:42] Speaker 1: You can expect small amounts of it started
[1:13:45] Speaker 1: getting picked up by the wheat plant.
[1:13:48] Speaker 1: And all of a sudden take-all is
[1:13:51] Speaker 1: expressing, there's a change in virulence.
[1:13:55] Speaker 1: It's now much more virulent than it has
[1:13:58] Speaker 1: been in the past. And when you look at
[1:14:02] Speaker 1: sudden death syndrome on soybeans, it's
[1:14:04] Speaker 1: been around for a while, It's been around
[1:14:07] Speaker 1: for a long time. Glyphosate comes along,
[1:14:10] Speaker 1: gets used on a lot of acres very
[1:14:13] Speaker 1: generously. All of a sudden, sudden death
[1:14:16] Speaker 1: syndrome went from being a relatively
[1:14:18] Speaker 1: fringe or unusual seasonal thing,
[1:14:20] Speaker 1: dependent on environmental conditions,
[1:14:22] Speaker 1: climactic conditions, all of a sudden
[1:14:24] Speaker 1: becomes a major issue consistently year
[1:14:27] Speaker 1: after year all across the Midwest.
[1:14:29] Speaker 1: And it's because of the oxidative stress
[1:14:32] Speaker 1: and the microbiome impacts that are
[1:14:34] Speaker 1: resulting from glyphosate and the impact
[1:14:37] Speaker 1: that it is having on this organism and the
[1:14:40] Speaker 1: environment around it.
[1:14:42] Speaker 1: So and it's the environment around it.
[1:14:45] Speaker 1: So I started. I discovered something to do
[1:14:48] Speaker 1: with all that with the cannabis and
[1:14:51] Speaker 1: manganese comes into high, well, all
[1:14:53] Speaker 1: three, all three of your main oxidatives
[1:14:56] Speaker 1: the iron, the manganese, and the copper.
[1:14:59] Speaker 1: We found that you have to apply them
[1:15:03] Speaker 1: through on the leaf for the plant to
[1:15:06] Speaker 1: restore its stores of them because
[1:15:09] Speaker 1: everything coming through that xylem gets
[1:15:11] Speaker 1: oxidized by this peroxynitrite problem.
[1:15:13] Speaker 1: Before it can get made into these enzymes
[1:15:16] Speaker 1: again. And so we found that if you come
[1:15:20] Speaker 1: in when that oxidation is a problem on the
[1:15:24] Speaker 1: leaf with these, you invigorate those
[1:15:27] Speaker 1: sponsors back in the plant where they've
[1:15:29] Speaker 1: lost those enzymes and it begins to help
[1:15:33] Speaker 1: you turn that corner and get out from
[1:15:36] Speaker 1: under that damage by bypassing where
[1:15:39] Speaker 1: that's taking place between the root and
[1:15:42] Speaker 1: the leaves. Sorry, I didn't mean to take.
[1:15:45] Speaker 1: You out of time. I didn't want to forget
[1:15:49] Speaker 1: it because it's a good discovery.
[1:15:51] Speaker 1: That is important.
[1:15:53] Speaker 1: So that actually, the question that I was
[1:15:56] Speaker 1: leading to is. One of the other things
[1:15:59] Speaker 1: that you mentioned is you can have.
[1:16:02] Speaker 1: Physarium that is expressing itself
[1:16:04] Speaker 1: pathogenically within the plant, you can
[1:16:07] Speaker 1: have hyphae present, and then you can have
[1:16:10] Speaker 1: fresh Fusarium endo Present, and then you
[1:16:13] Speaker 1: can have fresh Fusarium endophytes coming,
[1:16:16] Speaker 1: associating with a plant, and shut that
[1:16:19] Speaker 1: off. Turning off the actual genetic
[1:16:21] Speaker 1: expressions. Yeah, I find that so
[1:16:23] Speaker 1: fascinating. It was actually one of the
[1:16:26] Speaker 1: thoughts that I had when I was reading the
[1:16:30] Speaker 1: book my goodness, there's an argument to
[1:16:32] Speaker 1: be made here for Fusarium inoculation,
[1:16:35] Speaker 1: which is quite heretical.
[1:16:36] Speaker 1: Right, and so if you start looking into
[1:16:40] Speaker 1: this stuff, there are some strains that
[1:16:42] Speaker 1: they work with for research, and they
[1:16:45] Speaker 1: haven't okayed them for broadacre use or
[1:16:48] Speaker 1: anything like that.
[1:16:49] Speaker 1: But there's a Fusarium oxysporum 47 that
[1:16:52] Speaker 1: they typically use for endophytic research
[1:16:54] Speaker 1: because either naturally its genes were
[1:16:57] Speaker 1: silenced or they silenced them to use
[1:16:59] Speaker 1: them. I don't understand the background.
[1:17:02] Speaker 1: I haven't dug in the background, but
[1:17:05] Speaker 1: basically, they use it as endophytic
[1:17:07] Speaker 1: research. And they did, they went in and
[1:17:10] Speaker 1: inoculated things that were under disease
[1:17:13] Speaker 1: pressure. And it just brought it right
[1:17:16] Speaker 1: down. And no more further disease symptoms
[1:17:19] Speaker 1: than the other symptoms were in leaves and
[1:17:22] Speaker 1: stuff. No new leaves had them.
[1:17:24] Speaker 1: So this conversation and your previous
[1:17:27] Speaker 1: comment about foliar applications of the
[1:17:29] Speaker 1: reduced form of metals leads me to the
[1:17:33] Speaker 1: next question, which is from a practical
[1:17:35] Speaker 1: application. And implementation
[1:17:37] Speaker 1: perspective, what are the tools that
[1:17:39] Speaker 1: growers have available?
[1:17:40] Speaker 1: What are the mechanisms to use once you
[1:17:44] Speaker 1: have a facarium infection?
[1:17:45] Speaker 1: How do you shut that off?
[1:17:48] Speaker 1: Okay, so we go back to that ladder, okay,
[1:17:51] Speaker 1: and we look at our nitrate levels on the
[1:17:55] Speaker 1: high side, okay. We also look at them on
[1:17:59] Speaker 1: the low side. The first thing I ask
[1:18:02] Speaker 1: everybody is, I need to see a soil test,
[1:18:06] Speaker 1: right? And some of these people that I
[1:18:09] Speaker 1: work with just don't have money, they've
[1:18:12] Speaker 1: been under this gun for too long.
[1:18:15] Speaker 1: And so, okay, take me down, show me a
[1:18:19] Speaker 1: video of these plants because I can tell
[1:18:22] Speaker 1: looking at this exactly what's being
[1:18:24] Speaker 1: expressed and deduce from that what we
[1:18:27] Speaker 1: have in our soil. And so, first and
[1:18:30] Speaker 1: foremost, we need to establish the top
[1:18:33] Speaker 1: rung of that ladder.
[1:18:35] Speaker 1: If the plant can't establish It, we need
[1:18:38] Speaker 1: to establish it for the plant for now.
[1:18:41] Speaker 1: Okay. There will become a time when the
[1:18:45] Speaker 1: plant can do it under normal
[1:18:47] Speaker 1: circumstances. And then we just worry
[1:18:49] Speaker 1: about that in extenuating stressors.
[1:18:51] Speaker 1: And so we reestablish that sugar.
[1:18:54] Speaker 1: Okay. Once the and unestablished high
[1:18:56] Speaker 1: nitrate, if it's there and if it's on the
[1:19:00] Speaker 1: low side under 40, there's that low side.
[1:19:03] Speaker 1: If it's under 40 ppm, we cause auto If
[1:19:07] Speaker 1: it's under 40 ppm, we cause autolysis in
[1:19:10] Speaker 1: the fungi. Period.
[1:19:11] Speaker 1: You will see oxidative problems across
[1:19:14] Speaker 1: everything that's under that level.
[1:19:16] Speaker 1: If it's expressing, you can assume it is
[1:19:19] Speaker 1: under any farming practices these days,
[1:19:21] Speaker 1: unless you've been in regenerative for
[1:19:24] Speaker 1: five plus years, right?
[1:19:25] Speaker 1: And then, yes, you're not, your soil
[1:19:28] Speaker 1: cycling probably how it should.
[1:19:30] Speaker 1: You're probably not putting nitrates down,
[1:19:33] Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera.
[1:19:34] Speaker 1: So we're not causing these spikes or
[1:19:37] Speaker 1: enduring them. And we're keeping things in
[1:19:40] Speaker 1: the field when our prime crop's not being
[1:19:43] Speaker 1: grown. Because what I see is if
[1:19:46] Speaker 1: something's not there, it's not being
[1:19:48] Speaker 1: watered. And if that soil's not watered,
[1:19:51] Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what that nitrogen form
[1:19:54] Speaker 1: was before, it's going excessively to
[1:19:56] Speaker 1: nitrate before or you know, by the time
[1:20:00] Speaker 1: you get that plant in there six months
[1:20:03] Speaker 1: later. Yep, right.
[1:20:04] Speaker 1: And so, I'm seeing a lot of that.
[1:20:07] Speaker 1: So, we have to address that nitrate.
[1:20:10] Speaker 1: Is it too low? Is it too high?
[1:20:14] Speaker 1: Let's get it in this sweet spot in the
[1:20:17] Speaker 1: middle where the plant responds better to
[1:20:20] Speaker 1: everything and where our fungus isn't,
[1:20:23] Speaker 1: it's not seeing it as a food source, but
[1:20:27] Speaker 1: at the same time, if it's already been
[1:20:30] Speaker 1: using it, we're not killing it.
[1:20:33] Speaker 1: We're allowing it to redirect towards
[1:20:35] Speaker 1: these sugars. Once it's redirected toward
[1:20:38] Speaker 1: the sugars, the plant retains control.
[1:20:40] Speaker 1: Okay, now the plants feeding it Plant
[1:20:43] Speaker 1: retains control. Now the plant's feeding
[1:20:45] Speaker 1: its sugar and secondary metabolites, and
[1:20:48] Speaker 1: it regains that communication and control,
[1:20:50] Speaker 1: and then you're no longer going to see
[1:20:54] Speaker 1: those expressions further down the road.
[1:20:56] Speaker 1: But addressing those is first and
[1:20:59] Speaker 1: foremost, providing the sugar or making
[1:21:01] Speaker 1: sure the plant can provide it through
[1:21:04] Speaker 1: photosynthesis. And then making sure your
[1:21:07] Speaker 1: nitrate is not too high or too low.
[1:21:10] Speaker 1: That is absolutely the prime driver of
[1:21:13] Speaker 1: everything that I'm seeing as far as
[1:21:16] Speaker 1: pathogenic expression and pathogenic
[1:21:18] Speaker 1: virulence spread in the hyphae form.
[1:21:20] Speaker 1: Now, let me get down to iron 3.
[1:21:23] Speaker 1: When we get to iron 3, that is the
[1:21:27] Speaker 1: biggest driver of whether a spore can
[1:21:30] Speaker 1: hatch or will hatch.
[1:21:32] Speaker 1: Without iron 3, it cannot hatch and
[1:21:35] Speaker 1: will not hatch. So if you have
[1:21:38] Speaker 1: excessive iron, You're driving.
[1:21:40] Speaker 1: The ability of those spores to hatch
[1:21:44] Speaker 1: when they want, which is not when
[1:21:47] Speaker 1: you want them to hatch.
[1:21:49] Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying?
[1:21:52] Speaker 1: So, getting that iron locked up, whether
[1:21:55] Speaker 1: that's from putting phosphorus down,
[1:21:58] Speaker 1: whether that's from bringing pH up, like
[1:22:01] Speaker 1: we have a lot of methods agronomically
[1:22:04] Speaker 1: to lock up some iron and get
[1:22:08] Speaker 1: it out of that range and get
[1:22:11] Speaker 1: it out of the oxidized form.
[1:22:14] Speaker 1: If it's not oxidized, they can't hatch.
[1:22:17] Speaker 1: The iron two plus doesn't allow them
[1:22:21] Speaker 1: to hatch. The iron 2 doesn't allow
[1:22:24] Speaker 1: them to hatch, and on that note,
[1:22:27] Speaker 1: there are inoculums that specifically go
[1:22:30] Speaker 1: in and reduce the iron so that
[1:22:34] Speaker 1: these spores can't hatch.
[1:22:36] Speaker 1: One of those is penobacillus, and they
[1:22:39] Speaker 1: use it, I believe, heavily in um,
[1:22:42] Speaker 1: in curcubits and whatnot that are highly
[1:22:46] Speaker 1: prone to this. When you you've described
[1:22:49] Speaker 1: the various approaches what have you found
[1:22:52] Speaker 1: to be earlier when you were we
[1:22:56] Speaker 1: were describing the metals you described
[1:22:59] Speaker 1: the necessity of putting on foliar
[1:23:01] Speaker 1: applications what have you found to be
[1:23:05] Speaker 1: optimal applications for for sugars and
[1:23:08] Speaker 1: for managing nitrogen if necessary So I
[1:23:11] Speaker 1: basically, if I have people in a
[1:23:14] Speaker 1: hot seat, right, we're going to look
[1:23:18] Speaker 1: at our weather forecast.
[1:23:20] Speaker 1: We're going to preemptively put down a
[1:23:22] Speaker 1: freeze dried molasses before a rainstorm.
[1:23:24] Speaker 1: We're going to preemptively put down some
[1:23:27] Speaker 1: calcium source of some sort because we
[1:23:30] Speaker 1: haven't got that far down, but calcium
[1:23:32] Speaker 1: plays a huge role on both sides of the
[1:23:35] Speaker 1: equation. So we're going to Preemptively
[1:23:38] Speaker 1: put down a calcium source, depending on
[1:23:40] Speaker 1: where your soil's at, is what you're going
[1:23:43] Speaker 1: to use. If you're already at a pH of
[1:23:47] Speaker 1: eight, don't put down lime, put down some
[1:23:49] Speaker 1: gypsum or something.
[1:23:51] Speaker 1: If you're at a pH of five or six, go
[1:23:54] Speaker 1: throw some lime down.
[1:23:56] Speaker 1: It's really going to help you when that
[1:23:59] Speaker 1: rain falls and washes some of that sugar
[1:24:02] Speaker 1: in and whatnot. And then we're going to
[1:24:05] Speaker 1: preemptively address nitrate.
[1:24:06] Speaker 1: If nitrate's low in that soil, I'm going
[1:24:09] Speaker 1: to have them spread a little bit of the
[1:24:12] Speaker 1: pearl calcium nitrate, and you'll get a
[1:24:14] Speaker 1: real slow release as you get a saturation
[1:24:17] Speaker 1: event that will last over that two, three,
[1:24:20] Speaker 1: four days. And, you know, make sure that
[1:24:23] Speaker 1: they have that they're not going to fall
[1:24:26] Speaker 1: under the 40, right?
[1:24:28] Speaker 1: We don't want to shoot it up, but we don't
[1:24:31] Speaker 1: want them falling.
[1:24:33] Speaker 1: And we just need to have that oxygen
[1:24:35] Speaker 1: metabolic substrate oxygen rich metabolic
[1:24:37] Speaker 1: substrate there for them because if they
[1:24:40] Speaker 1: lose oxygen and their ATP supply stops, we
[1:24:43] Speaker 1: see sudden death.
[1:24:44] Speaker 1: And that's unstoppable.
[1:24:46] Speaker 1: And it's not, you're not coming back
[1:24:49] Speaker 1: from that. We can come back from
[1:24:53] Speaker 1: oxidative damage. We can come back from
[1:24:56] Speaker 1: some chlorosis. We can come back from
[1:25:00] Speaker 1: stunted growth. We can't come back from
[1:25:03] Speaker 1: a wilt kill or a sudden death.
[1:25:06] Speaker 1: No. So Oh my. Where these also
[1:25:10] Speaker 1: play into effect in plant health is
[1:25:13] Speaker 1: these polyphenols that are in these
[1:25:16] Speaker 1: secondary metabolites absolutely play a
[1:25:19] Speaker 1: pivotal role right there beside sugar.
[1:25:22] Speaker 1: When one disappears or one goes too
[1:25:25] Speaker 1: low, the other one does too.
[1:25:28] Speaker 1: And one controls feed, one literally
[1:25:31] Speaker 1: controls pathogenic expression.
[1:25:32] Speaker 1: And virulence at as many levels as
[1:25:36] Speaker 1: I've found to research.
[1:25:38] Speaker 1: So let's, we've touched on this in
[1:25:41] Speaker 1: the conversation, but we haven't
[1:25:44] Speaker 1: necessarily differentiated between the
[1:25:46] Speaker 1: two, and I think it's worthwhile.
[1:25:49] Speaker 1: What is the difference between
[1:25:51] Speaker 1: pathogenicity and virulence?
[1:25:53] Speaker 1: Okay, so pathogenic expression is when
[1:25:55] Speaker 1: these genes are turned on, but they're
[1:25:59] Speaker 1: only conservatively or moderately
[1:26:01] Speaker 1: expressed okay with virulent, and what we
[1:26:04] Speaker 1: see is from very little what looked
[1:26:08] Speaker 1: like a minor nutrient deficiency all the
[1:26:11] Speaker 1: way up to excessive oxidative damage, but
[1:26:15] Speaker 1: contained to that plant or contained to
[1:26:18] Speaker 1: a branch or a side of that
[1:26:21] Speaker 1: plant, it's not spreading okay.
[1:26:24] Speaker 1: Did it mess up that plant?
[1:26:26] Speaker 1: Yeah, but you're not getting any spread to
[1:26:30] Speaker 1: anything around it, right?
[1:26:32] Speaker 1: That would be considered anywhere from the
[1:26:35] Speaker 1: bottom end to the High end of pathogenic
[1:26:38] Speaker 1: expression and pathogenics, right?
[1:26:40] Speaker 1: When we get into virulence, we're talking
[1:26:43] Speaker 1: more in decorum signaling, and they're
[1:26:46] Speaker 1: beginning to communicate and they're
[1:26:48] Speaker 1: already expressing the pathogenic.
[1:26:50] Speaker 1: But now we're going to the next level
[1:26:53] Speaker 1: because all these little warriors got
[1:26:56] Speaker 1: their radio. Okay, they're all
[1:26:58] Speaker 1: communicating, and now they're an army.
[1:27:01] Speaker 1: They're not single warriors.
[1:27:02] Speaker 1: And we see rapids.
[1:27:04] Speaker 1: And we see rapid spread and rapid plant
[1:27:08] Speaker 1: takedown when that happens.
[1:27:09] Speaker 1: And it's all about communication, is what
[1:27:13] Speaker 1: it really boils down to.
[1:27:15] Speaker 1: Yeah. So I want to follow up on
[1:27:18] Speaker 1: your conversation and your comments around
[1:27:21] Speaker 1: calcium. One of the things I found
[1:27:24] Speaker 1: fascinating, if you look at the pioneers,
[1:27:27] Speaker 1: the early agronomists that we still point
[1:27:30] Speaker 1: to in our work in Regenerative agronomy,
[1:27:33] Speaker 1: we look at the work of William Albrecht
[1:27:37] Speaker 1: and Kerry Reams and Sir Albert Howard, and
[1:27:40] Speaker 1: the list goes on and on.
[1:27:43] Speaker 1: And there's this prevailing theme of all
[1:27:46] Speaker 1: of those who really focused in depth on
[1:27:49] Speaker 1: the mineral side of mineral management of
[1:27:52] Speaker 1: agronomy. They obsessed over calcium.
[1:27:55] Speaker 1: They described calcium as this
[1:27:57] Speaker 1: foundational element without which
[1:27:58] Speaker 1: adequate levels of calcium, everything
[1:28:00] Speaker 1: else was an order of magnitude more
[1:28:03] Speaker 1: difficult to achieve.
[1:28:04] Speaker 1: And when We started, when you start
[1:28:07] Speaker 1: looking at plant physiology and what's
[1:28:10] Speaker 1: happening within plants, one of the things
[1:28:12] Speaker 1: that I've been fascinated by, I'm trying
[1:28:15] Speaker 1: to understand why calcium is so important?
[1:28:18] Speaker 1: Why does it matter?
[1:28:20] Speaker 1: Why does everyone talk about calcium so
[1:28:23] Speaker 1: much? And I found this mysterious little
[1:28:25] Speaker 1: black box inside plant physiology that we
[1:28:28] Speaker 1: call calcium signaling.
[1:28:29] Speaker 1: What is it? What does it do?
[1:28:32] Speaker 1: Oh, it does a thousand.
[1:28:34] Speaker 1: And one things. Well, more like a million.
[1:28:38] Speaker 1: It does so many different things.
[1:28:40] Speaker 1: And we just call it calcium signaling.
[1:28:43] Speaker 1: We have this obsessive study about plant
[1:28:46] Speaker 1: hormones and hormonal signaling and all of
[1:28:49] Speaker 1: these secondary metabolites.
[1:28:50] Speaker 1: Calcium signaling is superseded.
[1:28:51] Speaker 1: It controls all those.
[1:28:53] Speaker 1: It controls all of them.
[1:28:55] Speaker 1: But we don't study it to the same
[1:28:59] Speaker 1: degree because we can't.
[1:29:01] Speaker 1: We can't figure it out.
[1:29:03] Speaker 1: So, at any rate I was fascinated by
[1:29:07] Speaker 1: your comments around calcium.
[1:29:08] Speaker 1: Just why is calcium important from your
[1:29:12] Speaker 1: perspective? So, me and Kirk never could
[1:29:15] Speaker 1: cross this threshold, and I don't really
[1:29:18] Speaker 1: know where our percentages were, but like
[1:29:21] Speaker 1: we just kept having this struggle.
[1:29:24] Speaker 1: And in a hydroponic solution, calcium is
[1:29:27] Speaker 1: probably your biggest hurdle to get over.
[1:29:31] Speaker 1: We finally figured out a super soluble
[1:29:34] Speaker 1: form of calcium that has some drawbacks,
[1:29:37] Speaker 1: you know, that we're trying to address
[1:29:40] Speaker 1: elsewhere. But until we crossed that,
[1:29:43] Speaker 1: there wasn't this consistency.
[1:29:45] Speaker 1: And I knew it was something we had to
[1:29:48] Speaker 1: address, but getting there was what the
[1:29:50] Speaker 1: problem we had. Getting past that 200 part
[1:29:53] Speaker 1: per million mark, and now we're up at 260.
[1:29:56] Speaker 1: 280, no problem. We figured it out and
[1:29:59] Speaker 1: like there's no problems anymore even with
[1:30:01] Speaker 1: PM and things like that because they're
[1:30:04] Speaker 1: highly dependent on sufficient calcium
[1:30:05] Speaker 1: being where it needs to be, not sufficient
[1:30:08] Speaker 1: calcium in the root zone.
[1:30:10] Speaker 1: Like it needs to be where it needs to be
[1:30:13] Speaker 1: and part of the problem we encounter is
[1:30:16] Speaker 1: mobility of calcium.
[1:30:17] Speaker 1: If your environment is not conducive to
[1:30:20] Speaker 1: the proper flow of water at all times, you
[1:30:23] Speaker 1: end up with Calcium D of water at all
[1:30:26] Speaker 1: times, you end up with calcium deficient
[1:30:28] Speaker 1: places in the plant, even though it's
[1:30:31] Speaker 1: sufficient in the media.
[1:30:32] Speaker 1: And so environment plays a role in this,
[1:30:35] Speaker 1: and I think that's why it becomes
[1:30:37] Speaker 1: confusing for some people, because they're
[1:30:39] Speaker 1: looking at the media and they're not
[1:30:42] Speaker 1: considering the environment, and even the
[1:30:44] Speaker 1: lighting. The lighting makes a big
[1:30:46] Speaker 1: difference. When you get into LEDs, this
[1:30:48] Speaker 1: all changes how this calcium transports,
[1:30:50] Speaker 1: and you have to make up and adjust for it.
[1:30:54] Speaker 1: And until you get there, until you
[1:30:57] Speaker 1: understand that, you won't get cured.
[1:31:00] Speaker 1: There until you understand that you won't
[1:31:03] Speaker 1: get consistency in that direction.
[1:31:06] Speaker 1: You'll get some stuff going in that
[1:31:09] Speaker 1: direction but it won't all consistently
[1:31:12] Speaker 1: trend that way until you can cross
[1:31:16] Speaker 1: that barrier and the reason why boils
[1:31:19] Speaker 1: down to what you said calcium signaling.
[1:31:22] Speaker 1: Plants, animals, humans, everything that
[1:31:25] Speaker 1: is done in our body, every sense
[1:31:28] Speaker 1: that we have, every epigenetic change, if
[1:31:32] Speaker 1: you track it back all the way
[1:31:35] Speaker 1: it is calcium signaling that dictates it
[1:31:38] Speaker 1: in in everything humans plants and animals
[1:31:42] Speaker 1: whether we're talking about epigenetics.
[1:31:44] Speaker 1: We're talking about DNA repair or lack
[1:31:48] Speaker 1: thereof We're talking about nerve
[1:31:50] Speaker 1: transmission me looking at this screen is
[1:31:54] Speaker 1: calcium signaling, you know It's photonic
[1:31:56] Speaker 1: signaling too before it gets to that
[1:32:00] Speaker 1: but then it's calcium signaling as soon
[1:32:03] Speaker 1: as it's into my nerves and go
[1:32:07] Speaker 1: into my brain. And this is the
[1:32:10] Speaker 1: same with plants. And when Endophytes come
[1:32:13] Speaker 1: at a plant and induce that signaling,
[1:32:17] Speaker 1: the plant responds by taking more calcium
[1:32:20] Speaker 1: up and making more immediately available
[1:32:23] Speaker 1: storage, more protein bound calcium that
[1:32:26] Speaker 1: it can get to if it needs
[1:32:29] Speaker 1: to later. But it draws up and
[1:32:33] Speaker 1: maintains these acute stores.
[1:32:35] Speaker 1: And when we can super load.
[1:32:37] Speaker 1: That in the plant, we're just talking on
[1:32:41] Speaker 1: the plant side, its ability to respond to
[1:32:44] Speaker 1: anything after that is exponentially
[1:32:46] Speaker 1: increased because it learned through its
[1:32:48] Speaker 1: associations over and over again.
[1:32:50] Speaker 1: I need lots of this.
[1:32:52] Speaker 1: And the more of those we come in with
[1:32:56] Speaker 1: on that endophytic side, what don't kill
[1:32:59] Speaker 1: you, make you stronger, right?
[1:33:01] Speaker 1: The more of those we come in with the
[1:33:04] Speaker 1: more that plant will suck up and retain
[1:33:08] Speaker 1: this calcium in these acidic vacuoles
[1:33:10] Speaker 1: where it can use it.
[1:33:12] Speaker 1: And then that calcium signaling is more
[1:33:15] Speaker 1: visible in our epigenetics and our vigor
[1:33:18] Speaker 1: and our health of the plant as that goes
[1:33:22] Speaker 1: forward. And we have plants that are
[1:33:24] Speaker 1: impenetrable because they've said we need
[1:33:27] Speaker 1: all the calcium we can get, and they bring
[1:33:30] Speaker 1: it up and they. Put it everywhere they
[1:33:34] Speaker 1: can. And then it becomes impenetrable at
[1:33:37] Speaker 1: later dates when stressors come in, and
[1:33:39] Speaker 1: maybe that calcium is not there one day,
[1:33:43] Speaker 1: you know.
[1:33:44] Speaker 1: And so it really prepares the plant.
[1:33:47] Speaker 1: And on the fungal side, the fungus also
[1:33:50] Speaker 1: uses it for signaling.
[1:33:52] Speaker 1: And if that signaling goes, ah, because
[1:33:55] Speaker 1: there's not enough calcium, it can't make
[1:33:57] Speaker 1: ATP, and we get that same mycotoxin and
[1:34:01] Speaker 1: virulence because it's going to go try to
[1:34:04] Speaker 1: find it somewhere because it needs it.
[1:34:07] Speaker 1: Yeah. Wow. All right.
[1:34:09] Speaker 1: So I want to shift gears and ask.
[1:34:12] Speaker 1: You a very different question about this,
[1:34:15] Speaker 1: what this whole speed of this entire
[1:34:18] Speaker 1: learning process. But you opened a can of
[1:34:21] Speaker 1: worms that I can't leave untouched.
[1:34:23] Speaker 1: I've 20 some years ago, I read several
[1:34:27] Speaker 1: books on the quality of light by John Ott.
[1:34:30] Speaker 1: I forget what they're called Health and
[1:34:33] Speaker 1: Light. And folks can look them up.
[1:34:36] Speaker 1: John Ott, last name is OTT.
[1:34:39] Speaker 1: They were kind of the original research on
[1:34:42] Speaker 1: quality of light. And you just mentioned
[1:34:45] Speaker 1: something that's important that I don't
[1:34:47] Speaker 1: want to lose sight of, and that is how
[1:34:51] Speaker 1: LEDs change the plant's metabolism and
[1:34:53] Speaker 1: what you're observing.
[1:34:55] Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about that.
[1:34:58] Speaker 1: They completely change the calcium uptake
[1:35:00] Speaker 1: of the plant. There's several dynamics
[1:35:03] Speaker 1: behind this, but the photons themselves
[1:35:06] Speaker 1: are, I'm sure, part of it.
[1:35:08] Speaker 1: What ions. Are, I'm sure, part of it.
[1:35:11] Speaker 1: What I understand more on this is that
[1:35:15] Speaker 1: we lack wavelengths that are in the other
[1:35:18] Speaker 1: artificial lighting, such as high pressure
[1:35:21] Speaker 1: sodium, high pressure mercury, and things
[1:35:23] Speaker 1: like that. Those photons are in that
[1:35:26] Speaker 1: naturally, or they're not in LEDs.
[1:35:29] Speaker 1: And same with the sunlight.
[1:35:31] Speaker 1: These photons are there naturally, they're
[1:35:34] Speaker 1: not in LEDs. And that is primarily these
[1:35:37] Speaker 1: infrared, far red, infrared.
[1:35:39] Speaker 1: And then these IR sides, or I mean
[1:35:42] Speaker 1: these UV sides as well.
[1:35:44] Speaker 1: But so these photodynamics of the plant,
[1:35:47] Speaker 1: especially different wavelengths when you
[1:35:49] Speaker 1: get into LEDs, we can.
[1:35:52] Speaker 1: And Kirk has a room where I've helped
[1:35:55] Speaker 1: him work on this because he had trouble
[1:35:58] Speaker 1: every time he put the plants in there,
[1:36:02] Speaker 1: it shocked them completely.
[1:36:03] Speaker 1: And they wanted to just do this, droop
[1:36:07] Speaker 1: for five days before they started growing.
[1:36:10] Speaker 1: And so we're losing that week.
[1:36:12] Speaker 1: And, um, under heavy blue Week.
[1:36:15] Speaker 1: And under heavy blue wavelengths causes
[1:36:17] Speaker 1: stomata to open. Okay.
[1:36:19] Speaker 1: On the other side of that spectrum, these
[1:36:23] Speaker 1: IR are creating a heat response.
[1:36:25] Speaker 1: Between those two opposite ends of the
[1:36:28] Speaker 1: spectrum, we get a coordinated calcium
[1:36:31] Speaker 1: uptake along with all these other minerals
[1:36:34] Speaker 1: that tend to flow with it.
[1:36:36] Speaker 1: And so when you lack that IR and
[1:36:39] Speaker 1: then you lack this Enough of this blue
[1:36:43] Speaker 1: or any of this UV, you completely stunt
[1:36:46] Speaker 1: the plant's adapted ability or created
[1:36:49] Speaker 1: innate ability to use the sun to pull
[1:36:52] Speaker 1: the minerals up that you need.
[1:36:55] Speaker 1: And you start having to address that
[1:36:58] Speaker 1: calcium in different ways, whether it be
[1:37:01] Speaker 1: fully or supercharging your soluble.
[1:37:03] Speaker 1: And causing more of an ionic push, you
[1:37:06] Speaker 1: know, there's that's.
[1:37:07] Speaker 1: More of an ionic push.
[1:37:10] Speaker 1: That's kind of what you have to do
[1:37:13] Speaker 1: with LEDs. And it's kind of unnatural, but
[1:37:16] Speaker 1: you learn how to do it because we're
[1:37:20] Speaker 1: not able, especially in Kirk's situation,
[1:37:22] Speaker 1: he would not be able to use high
[1:37:26] Speaker 1: intensity discharge even.
[1:37:27] Speaker 1: So, for all of our listeners, this is
[1:37:30] Speaker 1: kind of outside the scope of this podcast,
[1:37:34] Speaker 1: this conversation, but you consider
[1:37:36] Speaker 1: everything that Heber just described also
[1:37:38] Speaker 1: influences our own biology.
[1:37:40] Speaker 1: We are also photoreceptors.
[1:37:42] Speaker 1: We have melanin. We also have calcium
[1:37:45] Speaker 1: signaling. And If you do your homework
[1:37:47] Speaker 1: Look at the information that's readily
[1:37:50] Speaker 1: available online, I think we will all
[1:37:53] Speaker 1: quickly discover that living under blue
[1:37:55] Speaker 1: LEDs, living under fluorescence, living
[1:37:57] Speaker 1: under LED lighting will cause us to live
[1:38:00] Speaker 1: too short and die too long.
[1:38:03] Speaker 1: So there's your cue to go check that out.
[1:38:06] Speaker 1: So I've enjoyed this conversation
[1:38:08] Speaker 1: immensely. We've gone down, oh, I have
[1:38:11] Speaker 1: lots of interesting discussions.
[1:38:13] Speaker 1: One of the things that I'm intrigued, you
[1:38:16] Speaker 1: just published a book just quite recently,
[1:38:19] Speaker 1: six months ago. What is the title again?
[1:38:22] Speaker 1: It's really long. I have to look at it
[1:38:26] Speaker 1: myself. Understanding Fusarium in Nonfield
[1:38:28] Speaker 1: High Density and Contained Media Cropping.
[1:38:30] Speaker 1: And it's so long because I didn't want
[1:38:33] Speaker 1: people to buy it that couldn't get the
[1:38:36] Speaker 1: full use out of it.
[1:38:38] Speaker 1: I wanted to kind of let people know this
[1:38:42] Speaker 1: is for high density, like tomatoes,
[1:38:44] Speaker 1: cannabis, strawberries, things like that,
[1:38:46] Speaker 1: where we're really using some different
[1:38:49] Speaker 1: medias and whatnot.
[1:38:50] Speaker 1: Because your approach in soil is quite
[1:38:53] Speaker 1: different than these because your level of
[1:38:56] Speaker 1: tunability is entirely different.
[1:38:57] Speaker 1: Yeah, the practical management pieces will
[1:39:00] Speaker 1: be different, but the same foundational
[1:39:02] Speaker 1: principles. The same foundational and
[1:39:04] Speaker 1: metabolic things all exist.
[1:39:06] Speaker 1: Yeah. And there will be a part two where
[1:39:09] Speaker 1: we're doing some work with some big ag and
[1:39:13] Speaker 1: fusarium head blight and some other
[1:39:15] Speaker 1: things. Fusari and Headblight, and some
[1:39:18] Speaker 1: other things. And there will be another
[1:39:20] Speaker 1: book release that deals with that in your
[1:39:23] Speaker 1: agriculture and soil applications while
[1:39:25] Speaker 1: still giving you all this basis that is
[1:39:29] Speaker 1: there. Yeah. So we will link to your
[1:39:32] Speaker 1: current book in the show notes.
[1:39:34] Speaker 1: Will you link that on my website instead
[1:39:37] Speaker 1: of Amazon? Because Amazon.
[1:39:38] Speaker 1: Wherever you tell me to.
[1:39:40] Speaker 1: Amazon doesn't like to pay me for what
[1:39:43] Speaker 1: they sell. So, yeah, we'll link to the
[1:39:45] Speaker 1: show. We'll link to your book in the show
[1:39:49] Speaker 1: notes. But then one of the things that I
[1:39:52] Speaker 1: find interesting. Book in the show notes,
[1:39:54] Speaker 1: but then one of the things that I find
[1:39:57] Speaker 1: intriguing is you started down this
[1:39:59] Speaker 1: journey in the most intense part of it,
[1:40:02] Speaker 1: really only quite recently in the last
[1:40:04] Speaker 1: year, year and a half.
[1:40:06] Speaker 1: Yes. So, what has your speed of learning
[1:40:09] Speaker 1: in the last year and a half been very
[1:40:12] Speaker 1: rapid?
[1:40:13] Speaker 1: Oh, okay. Had a lot of experience as well,
[1:40:16] Speaker 1: but what I know you and I had some brief
[1:40:19] Speaker 1: conversations around AI.
[1:40:20] Speaker 1: How have you found the use of AI to be
[1:40:23] Speaker 1: able to facilitate your speed of learning
[1:40:26] Speaker 1: or not? So I have completely steered clear
[1:40:28] Speaker 1: of it. And the reason why, predominantly,
[1:40:31] Speaker 1: is because I have a lot of clients that
[1:40:34] Speaker 1: when I tell them to do something, and
[1:40:36] Speaker 1: Kirk's included, he'll go run it through
[1:40:39] Speaker 1: AI and they'll tell him what a bad idea.
[1:40:42] Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. And so They'll tell him what
[1:40:45] Speaker 1: a bad idea it is. And so I'll go, okay, I
[1:40:48] Speaker 1: can't, I don't want to spend the time to
[1:40:51] Speaker 1: debate AI. So do this, call me while
[1:40:54] Speaker 1: you're sitting at your AI and let me tell
[1:40:57] Speaker 1: you the questions to ask it.
[1:40:59] Speaker 1: And then we direct it where I'm trying to
[1:41:02] Speaker 1: show him the problem is AI, I'll go, yep,
[1:41:05] Speaker 1: there it is. That's the problem.
[1:41:07] Speaker 1: And then he's like, okay, it just
[1:41:10] Speaker 1: disagreed with what it said before.
[1:41:12] Speaker 1: But yes, but that's because we pointed
[1:41:15] Speaker 1: that where I knew it needed to go and
[1:41:18] Speaker 1: because I didn't know where it Needed to
[1:41:22] Speaker 1: go until recently, I've steered clear of
[1:41:24] Speaker 1: it because everything I've gone to Google
[1:41:27] Speaker 1: is like, oh, this is not right.
[1:41:30] Speaker 1: And you have to dig and you have to
[1:41:33] Speaker 1: go. And it confuses other people and
[1:41:36] Speaker 1: confused me up front.
[1:41:38] Speaker 1: So I went more towards your podcast,
[1:41:41] Speaker 1: towards Dr. James White's stuff, towards
[1:41:43] Speaker 1: Matt Power's stuff.
[1:41:44] Speaker 1: And I gathered everything I could there.
[1:41:47] Speaker 1: And then the observation.
[1:41:48] Speaker 1: Because we were in the heat of the
[1:41:52] Speaker 1: observation with what I learned from those
[1:41:54] Speaker 1: three places, not from Google up front, is
[1:41:58] Speaker 1: what drove me to figure out and be able
[1:42:01] Speaker 1: to observe and then go dig.
[1:42:03] Speaker 1: Yep, verified, observe, dig, verified.
[1:42:05] Speaker 1: And then now, when I go back and Gemini's
[1:42:09] Speaker 1: in Google, I have put a big statement,
[1:42:12] Speaker 1: very directed, and it will bring me back
[1:42:15] Speaker 1: very good information that when I follow
[1:42:18] Speaker 1: those sources. It's proper, but that
[1:42:20] Speaker 1: wasn't. The case until very recently, so I
[1:42:24] Speaker 1: steered clear of it.
[1:42:25] Speaker 1: One of the things that I don't know if it
[1:42:29] Speaker 1: will be any more true in the era of people
[1:42:32] Speaker 1: using AI than before or not, but there's a
[1:42:36] Speaker 1: possibility that perhaps it will give us
[1:42:38] Speaker 1: collectively a deeper appreciation for the
[1:42:40] Speaker 1: skill of asking better questions.
[1:42:42] Speaker 1: 100%. Because that's what I noticed when,
[1:42:45] Speaker 1: because now the Gemini's on my phone.
[1:42:47] Speaker 1: Like I can't just go Google, it goes
[1:42:50] Speaker 1: through that. And so I'm like, okay, if
[1:42:53] Speaker 1: I'm going to use this, let's type this
[1:42:56] Speaker 1: out. And it's a sentence or two.
[1:42:58] Speaker 1: And then boom, hey, these things that I
[1:43:01] Speaker 1: know I've searched on Google before, but
[1:43:04] Speaker 1: it wouldn't give me.
[1:43:05] Speaker 1: And I found them other ways.
[1:43:07] Speaker 1: Now it's giving them to me.
[1:43:09] Speaker 1: And I'm like, okay, this could be useful
[1:43:12] Speaker 1: if you have the base understanding and can
[1:43:14] Speaker 1: direct those questions.
[1:43:15] Speaker 1: And that's kind of why I set up those
[1:43:18] Speaker 1: classes that I set up is so that people
[1:43:21] Speaker 1: can understand because I can't take on
[1:43:24] Speaker 1: every client that's coming at me either,
[1:43:26] Speaker 1: nor do I want to. But if you have this
[1:43:29] Speaker 1: space understanding, you can go use that
[1:43:31] Speaker 1: as the most excellent tool ever because
[1:43:34] Speaker 1: you know how to ask it and then follow
[1:43:37] Speaker 1: those sources and make sure they're right
[1:43:39] Speaker 1: and they're not giving you something
[1:43:41] Speaker 1: baloney. So, Kirk, you've Been able to
[1:43:43] Speaker 1: listen to Heber and I.
[1:43:45] Speaker 1: I've been proceeding along to kick over
[1:43:47] Speaker 1: the earthworm cans as rapidly as I come to
[1:43:50] Speaker 1: them. What concluding thoughts do you have
[1:43:52] Speaker 1: for us? What has, as you've been listening
[1:43:55] Speaker 1: to us, come to your mind that you
[1:43:58] Speaker 1: experience in your operation that is
[1:44:00] Speaker 1: important for other growers to be thinking
[1:44:02] Speaker 1: about that we haven't touched on?
[1:44:04] Speaker 1: Well, first off, I mean I think you do an
[1:44:08] Speaker 1: excellent job of just kind of driving out
[1:44:11] Speaker 1: the information at a level that people can
[1:44:14] Speaker 1: understand. And it's really great to have
[1:44:16] Speaker 1: you out here as kind of forefront in
[1:44:19] Speaker 1: looking at things differently.
[1:44:21] Speaker 1: And I appreciate that.
[1:44:22] Speaker 1: I think, like, the way that I want to look
[1:44:26] Speaker 1: at it is more from the terrain point of
[1:44:29] Speaker 1: view. And I guess that's like my issue,
[1:44:32] Speaker 1: kind of with like germ theory or something
[1:44:35] Speaker 1: along those lines, is it takes the
[1:44:38] Speaker 1: accountability out of the problem.
[1:44:40] Speaker 1: You know, it's saying, oh, I got this, or,
[1:44:43] Speaker 1: you know, these pests, they just came in
[1:44:46] Speaker 1: the door, they came in on somebody's shoe
[1:44:49] Speaker 1: or something like that, rather than
[1:44:51] Speaker 1: looking at it as that's a symptom of a
[1:44:55] Speaker 1: problem. We need to get to the root cause
[1:44:58] Speaker 1: of it instead of trying to just band aid
[1:45:02] Speaker 1: these issues. And, you know, I think
[1:45:05] Speaker 1: Heber's getting to the root cause of
[1:45:07] Speaker 1: things, you're getting to the root cause
[1:45:10] Speaker 1: of things, and I think that's I really
[1:45:13] Speaker 1: resonate with that line of thinking
[1:45:16] Speaker 1: because it holds me as a farmer, as an
[1:45:19] Speaker 1: individual, accountable for the decisions
[1:45:21] Speaker 1: that you know are my plants face or my
[1:45:25] Speaker 1: health faces. So, I think I just that's
[1:45:28] Speaker 1: what I appreciate is just kind of
[1:45:31] Speaker 1: approaching it from a different lens.
[1:45:33] Speaker 1: Well, there's Lots of new things to keep
[1:45:36] Speaker 1: learning and to discover aren't there.
[1:45:39] Speaker 1: It's going to be fun.
[1:45:41] Speaker 1: So I want to say thank you.
[1:45:43] Speaker 1: Thank you both for being here for the work
[1:45:47] Speaker 1: that you've done. Heber, thanks for taking
[1:45:50] Speaker 1: the time sharing what you've been learning
[1:45:52] Speaker 1: and I expect this is going to open a
[1:45:56] Speaker 1: pathway for a lot more people to go
[1:45:59] Speaker 1: digging and deeper and seeing what we can
[1:46:02] Speaker 1: all collectively discover and make new
[1:46:05] Speaker 1: progress on. So So thank you for all the
[1:46:08] Speaker 1: work that you're doing.
[1:46:10] Speaker 1: All right. Oh, Heber, you're on mute, or I
[1:46:13] Speaker 1: don't hear you. Thank you.
[1:46:15] Speaker 1: I appreciate the interview and you taking
[1:46:18] Speaker 1: the time with us to kind of get to
[1:46:21] Speaker 1: the bottom of what we're discovering and
[1:46:24] Speaker 1: able to pass on to some growers in all
[1:46:28] Speaker 1: different crops. And anytime you want to
[1:46:31] Speaker 1: go down some more rabbit holes, I'm always
[1:46:34] Speaker 1: free.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.