Regenerative Agriculture Podcast

In this webinar for the Minnesota Soil Health Coalition, John Kempf discusses a paradigm shift in nitrogen management . John outlines how moving away from high-electrolyte "chemistry" fertilizers toward biological nutrition can build crop resilience and significantly reduce input costs . By understanding how different forms of nitrogen, such as ammonium and urea versus nitrate, impact plant physiology and water requirements, growers can navigate a transition to a system where soil biology provides the majority of the crop's nutritional needs . In this webinar, John discusses:  High-yielding crops historically receive about 80% of their nitrogen as ammonium and 20% as nitrate . Plants and soil biology interact with specific nitrogen forms like amino acids rather than generic N . Nitrate requires three molecules of water for conversion, increasing a plant's total water requirement . Foliar urea can be four to seven times more efficient than soil-applied nitrogen Replacing the first 25 pounds