Deep Thoughts

I’m not exactly sure what Adele is rolling in but whatever it is, she is rolling in the deep. When Sarah Palin couldn’t tell Katie Couric which magazines she reads, she was thought to be out of her depth. When Mathew McCaughey went deep into Interstellar space, he was discerning the intricacies of the space time continuum. When the kid in the Allstate commercial sees his Dad driving up after he has dented the family car, his eyes widen in the realization he is in deep s**t.

The political scene in this country has devolved into deep divisions of red and blue with passions also running deep.

When my wife has now painted the side of our garage entrance dark Audi blue for the third time, that is a matter of depth perception (or the damn garage is just not wide enough if you ask her).

So deep matters… deeply and colorfully. It has many uses and many adaptations all implying a richness or severity or in other words another dimension altogether.

Ironically though, depth seems to be largely ignored or not thought about much at all when it comes to our soil and growing our crops within their depths. Unless you are a worm or a gopher, you probably don’t think much about underground because let’s face it, there are more interesting places in the world.

Underground conjures up thoughts (some deep ones), of the underground economy or some radical political cause. If you Google underground, the top subjects return railroad, printing, weather, and cupcakes. The thought of an underground cupcake didn’t inspire me to run out to get one but in fact it is a bakery in my home State of Indiana ( Bloomington) but that’s an hour drive from here so maybe not right this moment.

Back to Growing crops though, it turns out that depth is one of the things that matter the very most and of course it is because underground is where the crops send their roots to forage for sustenance.

The subtle thing here though is that to a crop and its’ active root zone, the key as in real estate is….location, location, location. In Agriculture however, the location that matters is depth, depth, depth; not the intersection of dumb and luck. It’s the strategic timing of the right depth at the right time.

When the active root zone happens to coincide with the liquid nutrient at the time and place (depth) at which they are attempting to absorb those nutrients, magic happens.

Over thousands of fields now as we comb through the data, we are finding a strong correlation to yields of 20% and more when the crop can obtain the sustenance it seeks throughout its’ various daily growth stages.

Obviously, crops and humans too are made mostly of water and if you want growth, of course you feed the organism. That allows the uptake and that manifests in superior yield.

Think of it as the Underground Cupcake for corn, cotton, and soy. Timing and depth are everything.

Now back to more pressing deep thoughts for me…..do I paint my garage dark blue or go with a nice garage colored beige on the Audi?