Redox Grows

Orange juice from Florida is as ubiquitous as peaches from Georgia and almonds from California. However, it has been a bumpy ride of late. Urbanization, uncooperative weather, and an insect-spread disease in the groves have dropped estimated production at its lowest level since the Great Depression.

The McLean family has persevered through this major industry challenge, through their innovative growing approach and finding a niche in the marketplace.

Benny McLean in Lake County is joined by numerous generations of family members who help their business in a variety of ways. His son, Matt, launched and runs Uncle Matt’s organic juice company, which is sold nationwide through Whole Foods. Launched in 1999, Uncle Matt’s is the oldest and largest organic orange juice brand in the nation. Meanwhile on the farm, son Ben leads their work to find the most successful farming approaches; made difficult through citrus greening disease.

Through the highs and lows, family and faith are foundational for the McLeans. Despite their busy schedule, they consistently devote time to enrich others, including bringing many smiles during grove tours with the disabled. 

“I’m living the dream,” Benny said. “I’ve got all my grandkids growing up here, working with us, and I’m working with Ben, Matt and my daughter, Martha Sue. … It has been a tremendous blessing to my wife and I.”

Golf has been enjoyed for generations around the world, and turf is a vital part of the playing experience.

Thousands gathered in Orlando, Florida this month, for the annual Golf Course Superintendents Association of America Conference. The GCSAA has been around for nearly a century, and their conference and trade show brought together industry experts from throughout the US and around the world.

In addition to a showcase of new products and technology, increasing industry sustainability was a common theme.

“It’s more important than ever and it’s only going to get more important,” remarked Tom Coyne, best-selling author who gave a talk in the booth of Aquatrols, which partners with Redox to market turf products. “In the golf industry, we have to do more with less, and water is at the very top of that list.”

“It’s absolutely number one,” said Michael Fance, Technical Support and European Account Manager with Aquatrols. “Legislation is really, really harsh in my trading area, so the eyes of the world are on nitrates in water, etcetera.”  He said their products provide a major boost to this effort, aligning nitrogen reduction with improved turf health.

Another key issue with turf is helping fight off abiotic stress.  How to fight it depends on several factors, but there are effective solutions available.

“It really does depend on what stress we’re trying to address,” said Graham O’Connor, European Business Manager at Aquatrols. “What we’ve found is that, when we can home in on whatever it is, then we have a product that’s a “go to” to deal with an issue. Then people say ‘well, let’s look at more. Let’s look at something else. We want to see what else is on this line, because it has ticked that box.’”

Whatever the challenge, Redox and Aquatrols gain great satisfaction in providing valuable tools to healthy golf course turf.

Ken Maltby, Senior Superintendent of Florida’s Grand Cypress Resort, has been a satisfied Redox customer for nearly a decade.

“Once you get on a steady program, then you can adjust your rates, you actually start using less product almost, once you address those soil issues” he said. “That’s another great value of having the Redox products is the adjustability or compatibility with all of the products they have.”

With much of the West gripped by an epic drought, you might wonder if any amount of additional water is too much for California, the nation’s leading agricultural producer. When 32 trillion gallons of water fell during three weeks of a soggy winter, it’s a good question to consider.

The massive influx of rain and snowfall is largely a positive for California, including farmers, who benefit from replenished underground aquifers, a major influx of water in storage and reduced soil salinity.

Challenges from that much water all at once include thousands of acres of flooded strawberry fields, and the potential that overly wet conditions may negatively impact upcoming almond pollination. Bees do not like to gather pollen if it’s too cold or wet.

“In certain regions, there’s going to inevitably be flooding, due to the substantial snowpack,” remarked Justin Rose, Redox Bio-Nutrients Agronomist working with growers in the San Joaquin Valley. “For some of these early guys who’ll be getting in for bloom time, for sprays in almonds and some fruit trees, saturated soils will prevent them from entering, so they’ll either have to go by air, or they won’t spray any bloom sprays at all.”

Rose said Supreme is one of the products that provides big benefits during this time in the season. It’s a full nutrient package with a fermentation process that helps retain and size nuts.

Along the coast, Redox Bio-Nutrients Agronomist Kort Holzwart is working to help strawberry growers get the most from their fields, especially with key sales periods like Mother’s Day around the corner.

“Early on, it’s most important to have the field drained,” he said. “As we move forward into the season, I would recommend products to help stimulate plant and root growth. H-85 is going to be a phenomenal product, to stimulate microbial activity. Also, RootRx is a winning root stimulant option for some of these growers.”

Agriculture is not only fundamental but is also one of the most resilient industries. Every year without fail, growers must clear a myriad of hurdles, ranging from preparing fields, planting, harvesting, shipping, and navigating through market swings.

A consistently important factor for successful farming is agricultural research, and a new project should greatly help this area.

With its $500,000 contribution, Redox Bio-Nutrients is among those providing substantial support to the University of Idaho’s Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (CAFE).

“Agriculture is at a transformative state of change right now,” said Darin Moon, CEO of Redox Bio-Nutrients. “We have to move forward through sound science that allows us to positively adapt and change. We couldn’t pass up this opportunity to contribute in a significant way, because it’s a part of who we are.”

When completed, Idaho CAFE will be the nation’s largest research dairy and will have many other components to foster scientific research, agricultural sustainability and consumer education. Plans call to begin milking cows in 2024.

Idaho CAFE not only will help growers and consumers, it is also a testament to the strength and unity of the agricultural industry.

“Collectively, we can move mountains” said Michael Parrella, Dean of the University of Idaho’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. “From the Idaho Legislature to Redox and others in agriculture, it truly is a remarkable partnership that will pay widespread dividends.”

Link: https://www.uidaho.edu/research/entities/cafe

Orange County, California, is best known as home to Disneyland. It’s California’s third most populated county, with more than 3 million residents. Thanks to ingenuity and adaptability, it’s also a big farming region.

Orange County farmers grow about $90 million worth of crops each year- primarily nursery crops, trees, berries, and vegetables. Strawberries and green beans are the specialties for Orange County Land Management Services, where Vice President Mark Lopez has worked since 1999.

Lopez said adaptability is key to farming in such an urban area, meaning they grow crops in several non-traditional areas.

“Land in Irvine is about $4 million an acre,” Lopez remarked. “The military base that used to be there in Irvine, El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, when they shut it down in 1991 or ’92, it was vacant for a few years. We got called out there and they started letting us farm. We farm right between the runways … several little islands of 10-15 acres of green beans and strawberries. We do still currently farm at Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station … farming on a gigantic magazine of about 1,000 acres.”

One of the ways this farm has succeeded is careful use of inputs, including help from Redox Bio-Nutrients. Lopez said they had big success using Supreme in their green beans, with results easily seen. They are also planning on trialing Mainstay Si in their strawberries.

Berries are a large crop at Lopez’s farm and in many areas of the California Coast. A wet winter has hurt some yields, but optimism remains for a good crop and excellent demand during the all-important marketing period around Valentine’s Day. 

The pace of the world continues to quicken, and patience is sometimes tossed aside. However, agricultural research remains an area where a lot of time is needed to get the best results.

Whether on our research farm in Burley, Idaho, or through third parties, the process of quantifying benefits from Redox Bio-Nutrients products can take several years. Dozens of trials are underway or planned at farms across the U.S., with commodities ranging from melons in the Arizona Desert to sugar cane in Florida.

The hard work has a payoff, as research has identified hundreds of successful results from Redox products that ultimately help farmers do their job.

Redox Bio-Nutrients Head of Science, Gifford Gillette, was raised on a farm and has a passion for making a tangible difference to assist farmers and, ultimately, consumers. He said agricultural research is exciting – and vital.

“Down the road and now, we’re providing access to technology that isn’t 50 years old,” he remarked. “What that means is we can provide greater efficiency in what is delivered, and that’s always going to be better for the grower. Buying less, transporting less, delivering less to the field. We do the work to make sure they continue to bring in the yield that they’re used to, if not better.”

California’s Central Valley is one of America’s top farming regions, providing more than half of the fruits, nuts, and vegetables grown in the United States. 

The Filter family is among those who have spent generations growing crops and helping keep abundant, affordable food for consumers. They grow 900-acres of walnuts, cling peaches, and prunes in the Sacramento Valley near Yuba City. They also have an onsite commercial walnut huller and dryer, processing about 10 million pounds a year. 

 Steven Filter’s great grandfather Godfrey immigrated from Germany to Northern California in the late 1800s. He plays a major role in ensuring their orchards are healthy and productive. 

 Filter said soil health is a vital part of the success of any farm.

 “Everything starts with the soil,” he remarked. “Our trees are all dependent on it. Harvest is dependent on the quality of the soil. It’s very similar to a human. If you’re a healthy human, you eat great and exercise, you’re going to be a little bit more resistant when it comes to getting sick. It’s the same with our trees. If we can start with a healthy soil in the spring and give that tree everything we need through just the soil being healthy and alive and having a good microbiome – giving it the nutrients it needs. That tree will be healthier, and when insects, fungus, or any kind of disease comes in, that tree is already stronger.”

 California farmers grow more than two-thirds of the world’s walnuts and prunes, as well as nearly all of the nation’s cling peaches for processing.

Anyone with any time spent in farming knows it’s a job filled with challenges as well as rewards. With soaring input costs, supply chain snags and uncooperative weather in many regions, the past year provided more of the former than the later.

“Some of the big items that impacted us this last year especially was we were late due to weather,” remarked Andrew Eddie, a hay grower in Moses Lake, Washington. “We were about a month behind a normal season. Also, crop input prices were very high.”

Many of the factors present in 2022 could be back in 2023, including a squeeze on global fertilizer, due to unrest in several areas of the world.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty,” Redox Bio-Nutrients President Colton Moon said. “The Russian-Ukrainian War has a major impact on fertilizer prices. Russia and Belarus are among the largest potash exporters in the world. China is also a major player, as one of the largest phosphate exporters in the world. When they aren’t exporting, it increases the demand on other exporters to fulfill supply in the marketplace, and that will shoot up prices. Other factors include the price of liquified natural gas and crude oil.”

With real concern for the availability and price of agricultural inputs, growers will pay especially close attention to their purchases. As they search for the best return on investment and more assured supply, bio-nutrients may even look more attractive.

Redox Bio-Nutrients founder, owner and CEO Darin Moon said an advancement to more efficient crop inputs could gain ground.

“We have advanced in tractor technology, irrigation equipment technology and pesticide spray application technology, but some growers are still using the same basic fertilizer technology that was present in the 1970s and 80s,” Moon remarked. “The way that we look at soil regeneration, how plants grow, how nutrients move in the soil and are actually utilized by the plants and how much actual nutrients need to be applied to the soil – that’s how growers will adapt and change.” 

To farm successfully, a lot of things need to go right. One of the most basic ingredients to success is soil. 

 Ensuring healthy soil is one of the four foundational elements of the grower tools developed at Redox Bio-Nutrients.  It’s also a top priority of Cody Hatzenbuhler, agronomist and owner of Pan Ag, who works with growers in North Dakota and surrounding areas to find solutions to help them get the most from their crops.

 “Soil health is a passion of mine and trying to keep that biology going with a lot of non-commercial fertilizers,” he said. “There’s always something new for the growers I work with. I like to find new products that we can change the methods of applying fertilizer more efficiently. … including with new companies like Redox. We can apply less fertilizer in more efficient ways that the plant can use and uptake.”

 Cody’s family arrived in North Dakota from Germany in 1902, making him the fifth generation to farm. 

 He spent more than a decade at the US Department of Agriculture working in natural resource management, teaching farmers about the soil and how to protect it from wind and water erosion, trying to protect it for future generations.
 
 Hatzenbuhler said growers understand the value of protecting soil for future generations of farmers.

Farmers frequently battle less than perfect weather, but 2022 provided extra challenges in many regions. 

 Whether it was too hot, dry, cold or wet, many crops were stressed in the past year. As a result, abiotic stress defense has become an even bigger topic of discussion in agriculture.

 The good news is, success is possible through thoughtful planning that strengths your soil, promotes healthy roots, efficient nutrient uptake and better defends plants against stress. 

 Darin Moon, founder, owner and CEO of Redox Bio-Nutrients has been passionately working to help farmers succeed for decades. He said understanding and implementing a strategy centered on regenerative agriculture is key to success during climate volatility. 

 “Yes, it is very possible,”he said. “Even with the daunting task of environmental conditions and water quality, lack of water, and all of these changes that agriculture is going through right now. That simply means that we have to understand the system better. That simply means that no longer can we just put out a whole bunch of fertilizer, a whole bunch of product, and then just hope for the result in the end. We have to be more laser focused in what we do and how we do it. We have to be understand the types of soil we’re farming. The type of water of water we’re using. The type of crop we’re planting in that soil, and view that system as a whole and not as individual parts.”