Turn Your Crop Stubble Headaches into Next Year’s Profits with Biodigesters
Crop residue. A farmer’s worst enemy? Or best friend? Post-harvest stubble is chock full of soil and nutrient-building carbon. But degradation demands time farmers don’t have between plantings. Biodigesters accelerate residue decay, turning harvest ‘trash into treasure,’ and problems into profit.
3 Ways Biodigesters Turn Crop Residue ‘Trash’ Into Post-Harvest ‘Treasure’
Biodigesters, biologicals formulated specifically for their ability to break down plant residue, give growers a better answer to crop residue management, helping to solve the headaches that come with post-harvest crop stubble while accelerating nutrient release and improved soil and crop health.
Between cover crops, double-cropping and higher yields, growers are struggling to manage literal tons of post-harvest crop stubble, said Connor Sible, Ph.D., a postdoctoral research associate studying biostimulants and biologicals at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s (UIUC) Crop Physiology Lab. A 180-bushel per acre yield averages 3.9 tons of corn stover per acre. Every additional bushel of corn adds another 43.7 pounds of stover.
“Residue is on the rise,” Sible said. “There’s the push for no till, more residue. Strip till, more residue. Cover cropping, more residue. Double cropping, more residue. And then every bushel you get increased in yield also comes with more residue, even in your conventional systems.”
Increased residue comes with increased management headaches, including wear and tear on equipment, thick residue layers and chunks that cool soil, impede germination and disrupt seed placement and an environment encouraging pests and diseases to overwinter.
The solution isn’t more time spent managing residue or removing it, but to accelerate the residue breakdown process, said Alex Cochran, DPH Biologicals Chief Science Officer. Biodigesters formulated with live microbials known for their ability to break-down plant material, like DPH Biologicals Terra Trove™ Residuce®, speed up the time it takes for tough crop stubble, like corn stover, to decay, improving field plantability and releasing a treasure trove of nutrients. Residuce increases the rate of crop residue breakdown an average of 10 to 20 percent.
The Residuce platform includes Residue WS, a dry product designed for the organic acre, and Residue Complete, a liquid formulation built with an industry leading microbial delivery platform. Both have a long shelf-life, are compatible with most other inputs and easily mixed for liquid application. Residuce WS is OMRI listed.
“Crop stubble comes with so many benefits but the sheer amount of it has stymied grower’s ability to use it to their advantage,” Cochran said. “A biodigester like Residuce is an affordable and easy addition to a grower’s residue management practices, helping overcome the challenges of residue while increasing nutrients, improving crop health and delivering a direct ROI.”
1. Offsetting Fertility Costs
Crop residue is an abundant source of nutrients, once it’s decayed.
The stover remaining after a 200-bushel per acre corn yield is worth a potential 135 lbs of nitrogen (N), 56 lbs of phosphorus (P) and 41 lbs of potassium (P), according to a Michigan State NPK Stover Calculator. By accelerating residue decay, growers can take advantage of the free nutrients locked up in crop stubble, releasing those nutrients when the next season’s crops need them and helping offset input costs, Cochran said.
A 2023 DPH Biologicals field trial of Residuce in Tolono, Illinois resulted in nearly 20% increased residue degradation less than five months after a late November application. By mid-April planting time, that accelerated decay had paid-off with an increased 19.7 lbs of N, 9.85 units of P and 41.37 units of K. All told, the increased nutrient release was worth $45.87 an acre in market input prices, returning a three-to-one ROI.
2. Reducing Yield Penalties in Continuous Corn Production
Biodigesters can also help decrease the continuous corn yield penalty (CCYP), especially when combined with other residue management practices, according to a recent study conducted by the UIUC Sible said. CCYP is a well-known result of back-to-back corn production, resulting in significant yield penalties over rotational crop practices.
While there are multiple factors contributing to CCYP, residue accumulation is a key contributor, reducing N mineralization, lowering seedling germination and emergence rates and promoting the negative effects of autotoxicity from decomposing corn stover in contact with new seedling roots.
The UIUC study found that the combination of mechanically reducing the size of corn stover at harvest, applying a fall fertilizer and the use of a microbial product (biodigester) generated a 52% reduction in the CCYP.
3. Decreasing Disease, Improving Season-Long Crop Performance
Thick residue layers serve as an overwintering haven for disease and pests. By encouraging faster stubble decay with a biodigester, growers can offset the future risk of a disease and pest outbreak while supporting season-long crop performance.
2022 DPH Biological’s testing across four Illinois locations in different management practices averaged a 22% reduction in corn stalk lodging caused by pathogens that overwinter in field debris and infect corn seeds at planting, leading to weak plants with compromised root systems susceptible to lodging. On average, yields increased by 25-bushels.
DPH Biologicals trials in Walnut, Illinois of Residuce in a continuous corn rotation showed season-long increased plant vigor and vegetation, including increased leaf chlorophyll and leaf nitrogen as well as less runts, skips and more uniform crop growth.
The Residuce Technology Platform
For more information on using biodigesters to improve your residue management practices, including when and how to use them, download DPH Biologicals’ free white paper “Rethinking Crop Residue with Biodigesters” or watch the DPH Biologicals-sponsored CropLife webinar on the topic of residue management hosted jointly with the UIUC Crop Physiology Lab.
For additional information on DPH Biologicals’ trifecta of biological solutions, including biofertility, biocontrol and biodigester technologies, visit our website at www.dphbio.com or call 1-800-648-7626.