Everything you've tried is snake oil

The primary image for this article comes from this website, and in addition to borrowing the image, I want to quote the author's opening paragraph:




The Snake Oil Salesman. Despite how dated the term is – most hypotheses on the subject estimate it first being coined in the 19th century – the phrase still conjures up a standard vision of a man in the old west, well dressed, and selling the miracle elixir that will cure whatever ails you. The phrase is still used today to describe unscrupulous practices, usually in the context of sales.



Now I'm going to let you in on a dirty little secret: 
EVERY product you've ever tried is snake oil.

No, seriously.  It is.  

Ok, wait... I should probably explain.  Every product you've ever tried could be snake oil.  Look at the definition: "The miracle elixir that will cure whatever ails you."  In short, what I mean is that all too often there's a massive disconnect between a company's R&D department's claims and the claims made by their sales force. 

See, the thing is that I don't believe that any company out there is trying to make a product that doesn't work at all. Come on guys, seriously... think about that.  If a product literally never works that company won't be in business very long.  

Therefore, my assumption is that a product crosses the line into the "snake oil" category when you have some overzealous sales rep who tries to tell you that whatever his or her product is, it will solve every problem that you have.  

Let me be frank: That's crap.  Period.  And I sincerely hope that none of you fall prey to that. 

Such a claim shows a lack of understanding of the Liebig's Law of the Minimum (aka, "The Principle of the Limiting Factor).  


Understanding the Law of the Minimum should change the way that you understand everything about your farming operation.  Here's what you need to understand: there is no product on the market that can actually increase your yield.  The only thing that a product can do is to prevent yield loss.  How do we know that?  Look at the success of growers like David Hula, Randy Dowdy, Jerry Cox, and Kip Cullers. These guys are producing 300, 400 and even 500+ bushel corn and 160+ bushel beans.  The genetic potential is in the bag to accomplish what these guys have accomplished.  So why don't we all do that, then?  Because fundamentally we don't reduce our yield loss as well as these guys reduce theirs.

Think about it this way: Why does university research say that if you're going to get a yield response to starter fertilizer that it will likely be in cold, wet soils?  Because in those conditions your nutrients are less likely to be readily recoverable by the plant.  (Notice that I said "recoverable," not "available"... the difference is probably worthy of an article I should write later).  In short, in those soil conditions you're suffering yield loss due to the plant's inability to take up those nutrients, so applying starter in those conditions addresses that limiting factor, and voila! Yield bump!

Still not convinced?  Let's say you had a VERY effective pre-emerge herbicide.  Your control was so good that there are literally no weeds that emerge.  If you have ZERO weed pressure then, and you go post- spray your crop, does it help anything?  Of course not.  Do you get a yield bump? Absolutely not.  Weeds are not your limiting factor and therefore addressing something that isn't costing you yield doesn't gain you anything.  

Oh, and by the way, here are two videos that you should watch.  This one gives a very comprehensive and thorough explanation of Liebig's work.  This one shows a fundamentally flawed understanding of the principle.  Please know that I'm not knocking the company that did the second video.  But the problem is that they have a single stave representing all micronutrients.  In reality, those nutrients should all have their own individual stave.  My best guess is that they're probably selling a micronutrient pack of some kind.  

Oh, and I'll just go ahead and go on the record as saying that a micronutrient pack, in my humble opinion, often runs the risk of crossing over into snake oil because they're simply trying to do too much.  The R&D may be good, but when you have a bunch of stuff in the jug in a micromix I think that increases the probability of the overzealous sales rep making the ugly transition into this guy:




But here's the flipside (not to be confused with Flipsyde, which is a truly awful rap group... but I digress): If you have tried a product, for one year, and in one location and it didn't work for you you owe it to yourself to try it again and to do good science. If you don't, I suppose that's fine... it's possibly your loss.  I will say this though -- and yes, I know it's offensive, but it's the truth -- if you tried a product for one year, and in one location and it didn't work for you and you go and tell everyone it's snake oil, you are an idiot.

Guys, you cannot draw a trend line from a single data point

For what it's worth, we should also be careful with the opposite end of the spectrum: Just because you saw a great response to a product once doesn't it mean that you should blanket all of your acres with it.  You should test it again so that you can understand when, where, why, and how a given product works so that you can replicate the results.  That also means that you'll learn when it won't work and you'll learn when not to use a product as well.  

Don't misunderstand me here: I'm not saying you're an idiot for trying something and it not working.  That's actually good science.  You should be trying new things each and every year.  What I'm saying is that if you go badmouth a product, any product, because you tried it once and didn't see results, you owe it to that product, and more importantly you owe it to yourself, to try again to see if you get better results next time.  And if you're not willing to do that, maybe do yourself and everyone else a favor and just don't try anything because then at least you won't be out telling everyone that "Product X is snake oil" (translation: "it didn't work on my farm and therefore I think it doesn't work at all, even though I refused to do good science").  

Oh, and in case I haven't stepped on absolutely everyone's toes yet, here's some food for thought: If yield is our ultimate measure of whether or not something is snake oil, then please be aware that broadcasting your P can be snake oil.  For real.  This 1995 Iowa State study, conducted by Mallarino showed a statistically significant yield response to broadcast P in ONLY ONE THIRD of their trials.  And let's not forget this famous and controversial study by Khan, Mulvaney, and Ellsworth from the University of IL in 2013 in which they conducted a meta-analysis of 2,100 published studies and found that KCL gave a significant yield bump only 24% of the time...

Hm... why isn't everyone jumping up and down screaming about how broadcast fertilizer is snake oil?

While I'm on the topic, this might wreck your world:  This research from Deen, Lauzon, & Bruulsema, 2007, suggests that
About 30 lb/A of surplus P2O5 was required to increase soil test P by one ppm, and about 8 lb/A of surplus K2O to do the same for soil test K. (p. 21).
And this 2000 bulletin from Snyder say that the general rule of thumb is:
6 to 14 lb of P2O5 above crop removal are required to raise the soil test P level one lb/A. It takes about 4 to 8 lb of K2O above crop removal to raise soil test K one lb/A. (p.3).
So yes, I understand that these numbers don't match up perfectly, but what they do agree on is that it takes a lot more than simply 1 lb applied to give you a 1 lb increase in your soil test levels.  And yet, universities and agronomists routinely recommend fertilizing based upon removal rates. So apparently when we broadcast fertilizer the soil magically knows that it's pound for pound up to removal rates, but the point at which we cross over that removal threshold, we magically need to start applying more than a lb to get a lb to show up in the soil test?

So there you go. As per always, I hope that I've pushed you outside your comfort zone just a bit.  Like I always say in my agronomy meetings, if you agree with everything I've said then I've done you a disservice and wasted your time and mine because you'll walk away feeling good about yourself but having learned nothing.

If you need help designing research protocols for your own farm, or if you have any agronomy questions at all please feel free to give me a call: 641-919-5574.

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