Redox Grows

As Redox re-entered direct sales to assist the turfgrass industry, a major positive development involved getting a team with incredible knowledge and passion.

That hurdle was cleared with the hiring of Tom Breiner and Jeep Hogue, who have a combined 80 years in the industry.

While Hogue will work with customers in the Southeast, Breiner has the Northeast territory covered.  The latter said he’s excited for this opportunity, and the benefits of the TurfRx product line tie in well with keeping golf courses healthy, thus lowering some of the major concerns felt by superintendents.

“Sound agronomy is always a big challenge, and it relates to labor,” Breiner said. “Plants that are optimally grown with proper nutrition require less daytime watering, which is a real labor eater. A sound approach to dealing with agronomic issues can have lasting benefits."

Breiner has more than 50 years of experience in the golf turf industry, including 20 years at Fiddler’s Elbow Country Club, New Jersey’s largest golf facility. He played a significant role in this course becoming the state’s first Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary.

He said interest in sustainability is finally taking off in the turf industry.

“It’s becoming a more accepted concept, because it works,” Breiner said. 

Farmers are a critical link to food production, but many others are also needed to keep farms producing at their best.

Allan James of Mid Valley Ag has helped farmers for decades, and recently won Certified Crop Advisor of the Year for the Western Region.

He said while many changes have been seen with mechanization and fertilization, there are still many more advancements to come.

“Changes in the fertility are coming,” James said. “We’re going to see new products. We’re going to see different combinations of products, and the biostimulant type of products are going to be part of that, because they complement fertilizer and fertilizer complements them. We hope to be able to provide the grower with even better crops and less need for fertilizer, by using biostimulants."

James works in the Northern San Joaquin Valley, which is a remarkably productive area. San Joaquin County has more than $3 billion in crop value each year, with top crops including almonds, walnuts, cherries, and wine grapes.

Georgia is widely known as the Peach State, but blueberries have risen to become their most valuable fruit crop.

Despite being grown and harvested in a fairly short window, the crop needs year-round attention to get the best results.

With some of his crop struggling, Michael Taft at Mixon Farms in Waresboro sought out a solution. Through trials of Redox Bio-Nutrients products, he saw significant gains in brix and yield. Sugar levels in the trial fields nearly doubled compared to other blocks of the same variety. Additionally, yields increased by about a ton per acre when compared to his conventionally-grown blueberries.

As a result, Taft said he’s shifting solely to Redox products for his 900-acres of blueberries in 2024.

“As long as I’m the farm, we will always have Redox on it,” Taft said.

Blueberries are grown in many parts of the U.S. Georgia is one of the leading states, as well as Washington, Michigan, and Oregon. 

Modern Agriculture is as much about business acumen as it is about tending to fields and orchards. That’s where Damian Mason comes in. Mason hosts the wildly popular podcast, The Business of Agriculture, which provides a lively, in-depth look at fundamental farm issues that often don’t get a lot of attention.

Mason uses comedy and a self-described acerbic approach to handle issues like farm succession, soil health, ag real estate and regenerative ranching.

Mason believes the relative affluence of the American consumer provides a huge opportunity for those in Ag, if producers understand what the public wants and how to get it to them.

“We still have a commodity mindset, because we produce commodities,” he remarked. “The consumers aren’t necessarily commodity minded. They’re not thinking ‘how cheap can I get this gallon of milk for’? They’re thinking ‘how can I get milk that makes me feel good’? There’s opportunity in this industry to get more margin.”

A Purdue University graduate, Mason left his sales job with a Fortune 500 company to branch out on his own to put his creativity to better use. He’s a published author, keynote speaker and carries out a weekly podcast, among other enterprises.

Redox Bio-Nutrients will be a sponsor of Mason’s The Business of Agriculture Podcast in 2024.  

Golf can be learned quickly, but improvements continue many years after your first drive, chip, and putt.

A big part of the experience involves the quality of turf, and that’s where the highly efficient, carbon-based technology from Redox TurfRx comes into play.

“Carbon-based nutrition, in combination with a mineral fertility, is just a more efficient way than doing mineral fertility alone,” remarked Jeep Hogue, Southeast Agronomist for Redox TurfRx. “We grow healthier plants this way, and even in a more responsible manner.”

Hogue is the newest member to the Redox TurfRx team. He brings nearly 30 years’ experience in golf and sports turf, including as superintendent of three different golf courses in the Southeast: Brookhaven, Cane Brake, and Shadow Ridge.

“I’m super passionate about this,” Hogue said. “I’m really looking forward to seeing the developments in technologies being utilized, moving forward.” 

Solid planning and passion are important elements in farming, and for more than a decade, Jose Ramirez has helped guide many success stories.

Ramirez works as a Cropping Systems Agronomist at Buttonwillow Warehouse Company, an ag retailer working with Redox Bio-nutrients. He provides agronomic help to growers in the Monterey and Watsonville areas of California, as well as in Mexico.

He said biostimulants should continue to grow in importance, as they provide growers an efficient method to ensure positive healthy, productive crops.

“As farmers continue to witness that the practices from 10 years ago are no longer being effective today, they’re going to start welcoming the use of these biostimulants,” Ramirez said. “As these biostimulants get better, get more complex, and we weed away the non-efficacious ones, I believe the farmer is going to gain stronger confidence in them and is going to adapt them in their farming operation.”

Strawberries are a billion-dollar crop along California’s Central Coast and one of the crops Ramirez works with the most. He said this fruit offers a lot of positives.

“I love them and could eat them all day in every way and form,” he remarked. “Strawberries are really important. I see in places like Costco, that kids get super excited when they see the red of the berries.  …  That makes my heart smile, because we’re creating jobs and taking care of the Earth. The farmer has always been a sustainable individual, If not, we wouldn’t exist.”

Pecans are one of the most popular foods grown and consumed in the Southern U.S., but the road to success is not always easy. Growers, including Buck Paulk of Shiloh Pecan Farms, are reeling from the effects of Hurricane Idalia.

Paulk is orchestrating his crews through harvest this fall, while finishing removal of 19,000 pecan trees he lost during the late summer disaster.

This is the only job Paulk has ever had or ever wanted, and he said his trees are far more than his profession.

“It’s a real personal relationship,” he said. “When I look at a field, in my mind’s eye, it comes off as ‘I remember when I was planting that. I remember what grade I was in, or I remember that’s the year I was married, or that’s the year this child of mind was born.’ There’s always a personal tie to just about everything that I look at. It’s not just an orchard, but it’s an orchard that’s dated in my to some particular season in my life or an event in my life.”

Georgia is the nation’s leading producer of pecans, which is the only tree nut native to North America. 

Berries can provide a handsome return to growers, but they are tricky to grow.

Doing the job right requires expertise like that displayed by agronomist Tomas Aguayo, who works in California’s Central Coast. Tomas has worked in many countries with many crops, and he said there is one foundational part of getting the highest quality and best yield.

“Once of the thing I have learned is, no matter where you are or what crop you’re working for, it’s all about nutrition, always,” he said.

Aguayo’s current work primarily centers on blackberries and strawberries. Farming these crops has a tremendous number of variables, as they are sensitive to soil-borne disease, excessive water, lack of water and salinity, among other factors.

“I’m always looking to keep the crop as healthy as possible,” Aguayo said. “Producing yield and quality is the number one priority for this industry.”

He said the critical link between soil microbiology and soil nutrition is one key to improving efficiency on the farm, which would have widespread benefits.

Workdays are long and complex, but there are ample rewards with bountiful, premium quality harvests.

“That’s the biggest prize for me,” he said. “It’s amazing to see the crop response and to see happiness on the face of the ranch manager!”

Few foods are as iconic as the Idaho potato, and, considering the consistent quality and production levels, the top echelon reputation of these spuds is well-earned. Idaho is the nation’s largest potato producer. 

The combination of rich soil and optimal weather provide a great environment for growing potatoes, but the task is not always an easy one.

“Potatoes are very susceptible to certain diseases,” remarked Blake Matthews, a potato grower from Oakley, Idaho. “Early blight, late blight, and a lot of insect pressure. Some of the ways we’ve dealt with those are a lot of Redox products. For instance, Mainstay Si helps to create a barrier on the leaves that sucking and biting insects can’t get through. We’ve been able to step away from fungicides because of our use of Mainstay Si in our program, to be able to make those plants almost impervious to those types of insects.

 Matthews is a fifth-generation grower who hopes his next generation will continue the tradition. To do so, he continually strives for a healthy, productive growing environment.

 “I think the keys to harvesting a good potato are, you’ve got to maintain plant health throughout the season,” he said. “That starts with soil health. You’ve got to keep that plant happy. If you can do that throughout the season and give it what it needs according to the plant samples that we pull, then we will eventually harvest a good potato.”

Idaho growers produce about one-third of the U.S. potato crop. That’s more than 10 billion pounds of spuds every year on about 300,000 acres. 

Honeybees are among the hardest working and most vital of all of the Earth’s creatures. Beekeepers help guide these mighty insects through several vital tasks, including pollinating California’s 1.6-million-acre almond crop every spring.

But there’s much more to bees than one season of work.

Joel Smith and Ryan Razee own and operate Belliston Brothers Apiaries in Burley, Idaho, which began in the 1940s. Their bees not only help pollinate nut orchards in California’s Central Valley, but they are also used for further pollination, honey and beeswax production.

“It takes them a long time to make all this honey,” Ryan remarked during their late summer extraction process. “It’s awesome to see all of it coming in. We always wish there was more, but we take it as we get it.”

It’s estimated that honeybees provide a contribution of more than $15 billion to our economy, in keeping fruits, nuts and vegetables on our tables.

“Really, it’s a domino effect all around,” Smith said. “Bees pollinate a third or better of all of our crops - the food we eat on our plate. It really effects the world in a huge way, if we don’t have honeybees.”