By Steve Culman
In 2015, the Soil Fertility Lab at Ohio State started offering a third party evaluation of proprietary soil amendments and foliar applications aimed at improving the mineral nutrition and productivity of crops. This new service intends to provide timely and unbiased information on these products for farmers. In 2015, we tested submitted products from the following companies:
- AgZyme® by Ag Concepts
- AO Crop by Agrarian Organics
- Enersol ® and Enersol LDG® by AMCOL® Bio-Ag
- Liquid Carbon by Monty’s Plant Food
Methods: Corn and soybean trials were planted at three sites on Ohio State University Research Farms: 1) Clark County at the Western Agricultural Research Station in S. Charleston, 2) Wayne County at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center in Wooster, 3) Wood County at the Northwest Agricultural Research Station in Custar.
Data collected include: 1) Complete soil sample analysis prior to planting, 2) Emergence counts at V5 for corn and soybean, 3) Whole plant sampling at V5 for total biomass and complete nutrient analysis, 4) Leaf sampling at R1 for corn and soybean for complete nutrient analysis, 5) Final stand counts at maturity for corn, and 6) Harvest grain yield with complete grain nutrient analysis.
Results: Across all three sites, no consistent trends were found with any of the tested products. No products significantly affected a measured property at more than 1 site. For both corn and soybean, no product treatment yielded significantly greater grain than the control. This was the first year of field data, so interpretations should be made with caution, especially considering the weather encountered in the 2015 field season.