Biostimulants vs. Traditional Inputs: What Growers Need to Know

·37 min·2 clips

In some crops, Marcio says biostimulants are transforming crop management and helping farmers work less.

1. Yara's Crop Nutrition podcast episode focuses on biostimulants and how growers compare them with traditional crop inputs. 2. Scott hosts the discussion, and Marcio Wally joins as Yara's biological senior manager in Canada after experience in Brazil, Latin America, Pakistan, and the United States. 3. The episode asks what biostimulants are for, how they differ from fertilizers and pesticides, and why growers are still skeptical. 4. Marcio says biostimulants are complementary to nutritional inputs, not replacements for nutrients or agrochemicals. 5. He explains that they can improve nutrient availability, nutrient uptake, and the plant's ability to resist drought, cold, and heat stress. 6. Marcio uses the term Yara Amplix, saying it comes from 'amplify' and is meant to help crops reach their full potential. 7. He argues that plant growth is regulated by hormones, including during the shift from vegetative to reproductive stages. 8. Marcio gives a soybean drought example from southern Brazil in 2004 or 2005, when plants germinated, grew, and then faced no rain. 9. He describes a study where soybean flower counts, pod counts, and grain counts were used to calculate a theoretical yield of 18,000 kilos per hectare. 10. He says real crops abort flowers and pods when water and nutrients are limited, and biostimulants can help some reproductive structures survive until conditions improve. 11. Marcio connects the discussion to Scott's reference to Dr. Steve Petrie and the goal of getting closer to the genetic potential of the plant. 12. He says biostimulants can be grouped into non-microbial and microbial products, with examples such as seaweed extracts, humic substances, amino acids, beneficial bacteria, fungi, and mycorrhizae. 13. Marcio prefers segmenting products by what they do, such as nutrient use efficiency, early vegetative growth, root development, or reducing flower abortion. 14. He says farmers in broadacre crops need to look at expected moisture, rain distribution, and likely stress events before choosing a product. 15. For cash crops like cherries in Chile, he says the economics can justify specialized inputs because fruit quality, color, sweetness, and shelf life affect sales at events like Chinese New Year. 16. Marcio says biostimulants can make broadacre crops more resilient and help dilute input costs when prices are weak. 17. He describes a conversation with a Canadian retailer who said nine of ten farmers are asking about biostimulants. 18. Marcio says the episode has a practical, interview-style rhythm with Scott pressing for definitions, examples, and buying advice. 19. Growers, agronomists, and advisors interested in crop resilience and input efficiency would likely get the most from this episode. 20. Listeners looking for a product-by-product technical comparison without broad agronomic context may skip it.

As heard by us

A practical guide to judging biostimulants by the crop problems they solve.

Biostimulants are treated as a fast-growing category that still draws a fair share of enthusiasm and doubt. The piece keeps the focus on a simple test: judge these products by what they do for the crop, not by what they are made of.

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Why you'd press play

Need a clearer way to judge biostimulants when spending is rising and the category is still debated?

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