Plants have systems in place to get what they need from the sun and soil. Strengthening these systems and empowering plants to do what they are designed to do is the idea b
ehind the science of Agnition’s Procure® and Generate®.
“Mother Nature knows best. Agnition puts the plant in charge of its health and vigor by letting it decide what it needs and enhancing its ability to access those needs,” says Agnition Microbiologist Rachel Raths.
How do plants get what they need? “Plants and soil microbes are always communicating to support one another,” Rath explains. “It’s a very symbiotic relationship.”
To enhance these natural processes, Agnition’s Procure and Generate work together – one above the soil’s surface, the other below. Utilizing patented Microbial Catalyst® technology, Procure for Corn enhances corn’s ability to capture energy from the sun. Procure for Soybeans increases soybean’s ability to fix nitrogen. Using the same technology, Generate stimulates the soil’s microbial communities.
“This is why we call them a perfect pair. Together they address both plant and soil health,” Raths says.
Activating microbes & unlocking essential nutrients Easy access to nutrients is key to plant health. When Agnition released Generate in 2011, crops quickly responded to its ability to bolster soil microbial communities and stimulate microbial activity by 22 percent. Across the Corn Belt, fields treated with Generate produced healthier crops increasing yields by an average of 5-7 bushels of corn.
“Ultimately, soil health equals plant health,” Raths says. “There’s an enormous amount of nutrients in the soil, but only a small percentage is available in a form the plant can use. It takes the soil’s microbes to convert soil nutrients into a form plants can absorb and use.”
And if a soil’s microbial community is stressed by poor growing conditions – soil compaction, excess moisture, too little moisture, etc. – as many as 80 percent of microbes can remain dormant.
Applied in-furrow or through a foliar application, Generate activates microbes. It provides them necessary trace minerals to put them back to work making nutrients available to the crop.
Motivated by Generate’s success, Agnition’s research and development team asked themselves, “what’s next?” They decided to apply the same Microbial Catalyst technology to plants, launching Procure for Soybeans in 2018 and Procure for Corn in 2020.
The Microbial Catalyst technology in Procure delivers a unique,100 percent available form of nutrients directly to plants. In corn, these nutrients unlock essential enzymes to enhance photosynthesis. In soybeans, nutrients unlock enzymes essential to nodulation and nitrogen fixation.
“We discovered that just like Generate takes a biological system in the soil and makes that system more efficient, Procure can do the same for a plant,” Raths says.
Plants’ response was positive. Throughout growing season 2019, corn treated with Procure was healthier and taller with larger stalk diameter and increased root mass. Eighty-eight percent of fields treated with Procure for Corn reported yield bumps with an average gain of 4 bushels per acre. Soybeans treated with Procure showed increased root mass and nodulation. Soybean yields increased by 1.6 bushels per acre on treated acres.
To learn more about Procure and Generate and how these Agnition products help Mother Nature do her job, visit Agnition.com or contact your local Agnition dealer.
About Agnition Agnition is a brand of Ralco, a third-generation, family-owned multinational company with distribution in more than 40 countries. Ralco is a leading global supplier of livestock nutrition, animal health products and crop enhancement technologies that support large segments of the livestock, poultry, aquaculture and crop production industries.