We continue to explore more practices and products that can boost yields. We have evaluated products in the “Biological” class and may have come across a couple that gave us a response that looked appealing.
DakotaBio has a product called BOSS B4. We tested it as a seed treatment on beans and the results looked very promising. The BOSS B4 has bacteria strains that grow into and colonize the plant roots which grows with the roots.
Their function is to solubilize phosphorus from the soil which can be helpful especially in soils that tightly bind with phosphorus. It also chelates iron and zinc ions in the soil thus making it more available for plant uptake. This is quite interesting especially in soils where we see issues with iron availability. We also continue to see the importance of zinc in the plant on higher yielding fields. Making zinc more available enhances the potential for yield gains. We did test it in corn, but the trial was lost due to the droughty conditions.
DakotaBio also has a product called BOSS PheNom, we think it is worthy of evaluating on corn or beans. BOSS PheNom has 2 patented endophytic bacteria growing with the plant. One bacteria aids the plant in utilizing nitrogen from the air (which is >70% nitrogen) through the leaf stomata as it is alive on the plant leaf tissue through the season. The other bacteria is with plant roots in solubilizing phosphorus and uses phosphorus more efficiently inside the plant. We tested this product in-furrow in a few soybean trials and showed positive ROI. We also had a trial testing this product mixed with the post-herbicide pass and that showed well too. We tested BOSS PheNom in corn fairly extensively in the trials I noted above that we discarded due to droughty conditions so I don’t have data to show there.
The specific data and details can be discussed with your CFE Agronomist. Reach out to see how these and other key learnings may fit on your farm.
