Partner Spotlight: Jerel Kratt, Regenerative Crop Consulting

Describe your California Almond Orchard Project. What do you do for the soils there?

Right now, in almonds, we are doing many different things depending on the grower and their attitude. All orchards, whether conventional, organic, or attempting to be regenerative, start with 2 gallons of Soil Provide and 2 lbs of Soil Revive per acre in early February, before bloom. Then when bloom is over and petals are falling, we repeat the same application. We also make sure to not apply any nitrogen at all during this period, whether organic or synthetic, until at least 2 weeks after this 2nd application, and only using protein N or urea N at that time, and zero nitrate N. We found that any nitrate N at all sets everything backwards. This specific approach, of all approaches we’ve tried, has resulted in the most significant improvements in yield and input reduction. I think that’s because we are shifting the tree hard into a reproductive phase rather than a vegetative phase. It slows growth down a lot, almost stalls it out, and leaf out is delayed and often small. But it works incredibly well, and we can snap it back to vegetative with some urea+humic acid or protein N. If the grower is really progressive, we drilled in cover crops the previous fall and applied high quality compost either at cover planting or in early spring. I’d say right now only about 10% of the ground gets compost and cover crops, but those fields are the ones making the fastest soil health achievements, so I predict next year it will be over 50% among our acreage. [As of 2023, over 90% of the ground I work with now uses cover crops].? As of this year, we are working with about 9,000 acres of almonds on this program in California. We also have pistachios, citrus, and wine grapes on this program.?

How does the use of biologicals affect/improve the soils? (Water-holding capacity, disease pressure, etc.)

The biggest thing we have seen is a shift in the tree being reproductive instead of vegetative, which is translating into higher yields, less June drop, less overall stress, and if nutrition and soil health are good, less disease and insect pressure. Those last two really need everything to be perfect to happen; we fight very poor water quality, high salts, low organic matter soils, high heat and drought stress (sometimes only 4” of rain per year), so any improvement in stress reduction is huge.?But our orchard that has been on this the longest (its fourth year this year) has had zero insect or disease the entire year. No mites, nothing. This has never happened before, ever. It’s like an island sanctuary for beneficial insects, surrounded by chemical warfare all around him. He is organic, has a 16 species cover crop he keeps till right before harvest, and uses compost every year along with the Provide/Revive program. Things like that excite me. The Pest Control Advisor shakes his head in disbelief, he doesn’t understand how it can happen!

"Our orchard that has been on this the longest (its fourth year this year) has had zero insect or disease the entire year. No mites, nothing."

"The Pest Control Advisor shakes his head in disbelief, he doesn’t understand how it can happen!"

How has your project affected your overall water usage?

Some growers are reporting water use reductions up to 20%, but there are no comparative controls on that, it’s just comparing this year to last year kind of thing, or comparing themselves to their neighbor across the street. But growers are reporting generally better water infiltration with Provide and Revive, especially if we have cover crops and compost.. We have one orchard that was maybe the worst in the county for salt burn and poor water penetration. You’d put on 24 hours of water and then you could only push a bamboo stick down 6” before hitting hardpan. This year, we can push it down 3 feet in the same spot! One thing we did different here was use steer manure and bedding from a cattle auction yard. We had the highest worm and rollie pollie counts per square foot by 100x than any other field. It was incredible. The steer manure was applied in the early spring about the same time as the Provide and Revive.

How are you utilizing Earthfort in your projects??

Besides using Provide and Revive, we are testing the soil using the lab at Earthfort to track changes in biology. So far, we do see fungal numbers improve a lot. Some fields improve in a single year, but often 2-3 years are required to see changes. Making the fertilizer changes we recommend is critical to seeing lab values change. If growers don’t fertilize like we tell them to, they won’t see their biology improve at all. We are playing around with the new Soil Life Test and think it will be a good fit. We also take Haney Soil Health tests at the beginning of vegetative growth to check our various forms of soil nitrogen.

Overall, cost vs. production (w/o numbers): Is it worth it to transition to a biological method?

With the extremely high fertilizer prices this year, it’s definitely worth it. It may be that if you included the cost of compost, cover crops, Provide and Revive, and the reduced fertilizer bill, it’s about the same as what they would be spending if they stayed fully conventional (before the fertilizer price hikes), but with improvements in yield, stress, disease and insects, it actually is more profitable this way.