By Kevin Hursh
Beware of the miracle products being promoted by quasi-scientific jargon. An increasing number of these products are being promoted and the market for them appears to be thriving.
At a spring conference I was attending, one of the sponsors was given a spot on the agenda to promote their company and products. It was a polished presentation and the speaker sounded like they actually believed in the miracle juices.
One of this company’s products was a cure for saline soils. Sequential applications over a few years would clear up that nasty salt problem, making the land productive again. Saline land has tonnes of salt per acre, so it’s hard to believe that a few litres per acre of miracle juice could make a difference.
And if the product was truly effective, wouldn’t everyone know about it and be using it? After all, saline soil is a large, widespread problem. Soil scientists say the only solution is to leach salts out of the root zone, but that requires a source of water along with underground drainage. Therefore, the long-standing recommendation for saline soils is to seed them to salt-tolerant forage crops.
I bit my lip as I listened to the presentation, but I didn’t ask any questions to rock the boat and neither did another agrologist in the crowd. However, we both came away shaking our heads. Sadly, many of the conference attendees were convinced by the sales pitch and engaged with the speaker after the presentation to find out more and probably try some of the products.
There are many similar companies employing lots of salespeople. Most of those people aren’t agrologists or certified agronomists, but they talk a good game. Their fancy terms and explanations sound convincing even though the rigour of scientific testing is usually lacking.
The only way to know if something truly works is to conduct randomized trials in multiple sites over multiple years. Ideally, those trials would be conducted by a neutral third party. The farmer testimonials typically used to sell products don’t prove much and should be taken with a grain of salt.
The regenerative agriculture movement, however you define it, has contributed to the push for products outside the established norm. Biological products do hold a lot of promise and some do work. Unfortunately, products that may have a place somewhere in the world may not be economically viable for the climate and the crops grown in Western Canada.
Even top soil scientists are hesitant to say that something won’t work unless they’ve actually tested it. They will have their suspicions, but only testing can separate the winners from the losers.
If you want to do your own on-farm testing of a product, set it up so you have a genuine analysis. Trying something on one field is unlikely to tell you much. Even splitting a field with the product on one half and no product on the other half has big limitations. Fields are seldom uniform and rainfall patterns can vary over short distances.
Alternating strips in a field can be more instructive as long as you go to the time and effort of accurate yield determinations. Unfortunately, even that rigour can give inconclusive results.
When a product or practice shows some promise, applied research institutions will often conduct research trials. However, they don’t have funding to disprove all the miracle products being promoted.
As the old adage goes, if something seems too good to be true, usually it is.
