John Kempf grew up Amish on an Ohio fruit and vegetable farm and spent his first decade of work spraying fungicides every five to seven days before losing most of three consecutive crops. A rented field in 2004 showed him plants on one side of a boundary with total mildew infection and plants on the other with none, which sent him to plant pathologists and eventually to the conclusion that crops have immune systems governed by mineral nutrition and the microbiome. He explains why he treats a pest as a symptom, why he thinks agriculture developed what it could patent rather than what worked, and why every recommendation his company makes has to pay back the same season rather than after five years of transition.
In 2004 John Kempf rented a neighbouring field that had never carried the pesticide load his own ground had. He planted cantaloupe across the boundary. At harvest, the old side had eighty percent powdery mildew. The new side had none. Not less. None. The plants were touching.
That observation is where his whole practice starts. Kempf grew up Amish on a fruit and vegetable farm in the cloudiest corner of Ohio, left school at fourteen, and spent a decade spraying fungicides on a five to seven day interval before losing seventy percent of three consecutive crops anyway. What he found afterward is that plants have immune systems, and that the pest showing up in a field is usually reporting a nutritional problem rather than causing one.
What's Inside
- The field boundary in 2004 that made him stop treating symptoms, and what the two sides of it had in common
- Why a seed treatment that changes plant biochemistry works differently from one that kills the insect
- His argument that agriculture incentivised what could be patented, and what that left undeveloped
- The Law of the Maximum, and why the biggest yield response sometimes comes from applying less
- Why he insists every recommendation pay back in the same growing season rather than in five years
- What a longevity study running since 1938 has to do with how he builds a team
Buy Johns Book here: https://www.qualityagriculture.com
John’s thoughts on agriculture in 2050: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeJ2IEslH4E&t=5s
Regenerative Agriculture Podcast:http://regenerativeagriculturepodcast.com
Advancing Eco Agriculture: https://www.advancingecoag.com
Connect with John:
Website: https://johnkempf.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/realJohnKempf
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-kempf-6b59a450/
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