FAQs
Who is Biodel AG?
Biodel AG was organized in 2015 to commercialize a plant extract discovery that has broad application in agriculture. In 2020, Biodel AG received a patent for the plant extract discovery. In addition, Biodel AG grows, processes and blends other plant and microbial extracts.
Biodel AG offers a variety of plant extracts and microbial ingredients for formulation into products used by organic and regenerative growers, as well as conventional growers. Our ingredients are ideal for boosting soil health and promoting carbon sequestration. Biodel AG developed Sequester.
What’s the good and bad news about carbon sequestration?
We’re barreling towards a massive global crisis:
- 100+ years of fossil fuel combustion have released dangerous amounts of carbon into the atmosphere
- Soils haven’t been able to reabsorb the CO2 and as a result, its carbon content is at its lowest point in history
- If we don’t act swiftly, we will experience shortages, scarcity, and are destined for conflict
The stakes are high…
The good news:
- The agricultural industry is rapidly trending towards regenerative practices
- We now have the right tools to tackle the crisis
- It is understood that profits and sustainability go hand in hand
In these times of great turmoil, we feel challenged and excited. We know the stakes are high but we feel ready. We have confidence in our ability to champion this crisis and look to inspire others to share our vision of a better future. We believe that humanity can and will innovate its way out of this challenge.
If we all pitch in, we can solve this problem together.
Who is the Sequester product line for?
Sequester rapidly boosts soil function and its ability to capture carbon. Landowners big, medium and small can now join together to transform regenerative agriculture practices and reverse climate change for a sustainable future.
How does Sequester® reduce fertilizer costs?
When carbon and nutrient cycling is restored, fertility costs go down as a higher percentage of crop nutrients are available from the soil. Soil organic carbon (SOC) increases annually, creating an opportunity for the sale of carbon credits.
Why can I expect a 30% drop in fertilizer costs the first year?
Two strategy changes are suggested to reduce applied fertility:
Prioritization: Apply Sequester® Soil Amendment at planting and eliminate all other fertility and fungicide applications during the planting process. If synthetic fertility is used, apply it later in the crop cycle when nutrients are needed by the crop. Degraded soil should not be relied upon to hold nutrients.
Foliar Applications: This has to do with nutrient uptake efficiency. When nutrients are applied to the soil, a significant percentage (40%-70%) is lost to percolation, evaporation, or tied up due to the chemistry of depleted soils.
With foliar applications, the net amount of nutrients applied to the crop is dramatically lowered and nutrient uptake is optimized. In addition, with Sequester®, the soil’s microbial biomass provides much more of the total crop nutrients due to nitrogen-fixing Cyanobacteria and because the primary antagonist of microbial health and function is limited.
I hear I can expect a yield reduction in the first year. Is that true?
No! But it is important to recognize that the key to maintaining yields in the first 1-3 years of transition to regenerative practices is the frequency of foliar feeding. Foliar applications can overcome the limitation of soil health.
Growers can expect to make 4-7 foliar applications the first year, depending on crop type. Then as soil health is restored, the frequency goes down to 1-3 for each crop cycle. When soil health is fully optimized, no fertility applications may be required for many crops.
What is the difference between good soil and poor soil?
Good soil is evidenced by the functionality of the soil’s microbial biomass which drives the cycling of carbon and nutrients and the ability to hold water. In addition, microbes are essential as they also release metabolic signals that optimize plant genome expression.
Poor soils have lost functionality due to the decline of the soil microbial biomass, which results in a decline in the soil's ability to cycle carbon from the atmosphere. As carbon content declines, the soil’s ability to hold water and nutrients is lost and salts accumulate with increasing toxicity. If the Soil Organic Matter (SOM) or Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) is maintained or increases with each crop cycle, soil health is sustainable. Otherwise, soil health becomes depleted over time, as we are seeing today.
It is microbes that recycle organic matter back into plant usable forms. Microbes are essential to cycling carbon from the atmosphere back into the soil thru growing plants.
Microbes create a liquid carbon pathway. “Not only is rebuilding carbon-rich topsoil a practical and beneficial option for productively removing billions of tonnes of excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but when soils gain in carbon, they also improve in structure, water-holding capacity, and nutrient availability” (Christine Jones, Ph.D.).
How do we reverse soil degradation?
In order to reverse soil degradation, the soil must be reclaimed. Microbial Soil Reclamation is the use of micro-organisms called Cyanobacteria (nitrogen-fixing, photosynthetic, Autotrophs) that initiate the cycling of nutrients and carbon, aggregation of soil particles to stop erosion (and dust) and increase water holding capacity. It is Cyanobacteria that drive the essential microbial interactions between bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and nematodes for functional soil.
Strategy: Subordination of Synthetic Fertility relies upon natural nutrient cycling to provide the necessary crop nutrients early in the crop cycle and pushes the application of synthetic fertility to later in the crop cycle when nutrient demands are highest. In order to protect the soils natural nutrient cycling, synthetic fertility applications are restricted to late season or foliar applications only.
Terrestrial Cover Crops, planted or simply crop refuse, are used to keep the soil covered and increase the amount of carbon sequestered over a calendar year. Use of a micro-cover crop like Sequester provides similar benefits to terrestrial cover crops.
What evidence is there that soil reclamation works?
Crop yields are maintained and increased with less water and fertilizer as soil health improves.
Nutrient runoff is eliminated or significantly reduced, and soil erosion is eliminated or reduced.
Percolation of nutrients past the root zone is reduced, protecting ground water. Soil analysis confirms increased SOC/SOM levels, microbial function, and reduction in sodium levels as well. Microbial Soil Reclamation with Sequester® also provides the benefits of a cover crop for growers who are unable to grow terrestrial cover crops due to a lack of time or water resources.
Sequester® is applied by spray or drench at planting, or with irrigation. The product can also be applied at any time during the crop cycle.
The application of Sequester® in irrigation water was found to dramatically reduce Cation concentrations in the soil, especially sodium. Sodium reduces the plants adsorption of water and nutrients.
How does restoring carbon and nutrient cycling work?
Plant Photosynthesis consumes CO2 from the atmosphere, releases oxygen, and creates carbon-rich plant sugars which feed the plant and are released as exudates into the soil. These plant exudates attract microbial interactions that return needed nutrients and minerals taken up by the plant. Consumption of the plant sugars by microbes creates humic polymers and soil aggregates which are stable forms of carbon that remain in the soil for extensive periods of time , as long as other physical agronomic practices don’t disturb the newly established soil structure.
Cyanobacteria are autotrophic nitrogen fixing microbes, which means they have a unique ability among microbes to fix atmospheric nitrogen into forms beneficial to crops – and provide the energy themselves to run this process.
What are Cyanobacteria?
Cyanobacteria are nitrogen-fixing, photosynthetic autotrophs. They are the most powerful microorganisms known for soil reclamation.
Crops, cover crops and cyanobacteria channel the sun’s energy to feed and restore the soil’s microbial biomass to highly functional levels. Cyanobacteria restore carbon and nutrient cycling. When applied in the correct concentrations, carbon sequestration increases with each crop cycle, and water and nitrogen savings more than offset the application cost. Cyanobacteria are nature’s construction crew. They break down bedrock into sand, silt, and clay to make topsoil. In depleted soils, they aggregate the soil particles to hold moisture and nutrients.
NASA credits Cyanobacteria for establishing our oxygen-rich environment 3 billion years ago. Now they are looking to Cyanobacteria to establish a similar environment on Mars. Sequester® drives the reclamation process to improve soil health and restore carbon and nutrient cycling.
What is the difference between conventional and regenerative agriculture?
Conventional agriculture often inadvertently causes depleted soils, especially over the last 75 years. The inventions of cheap energy, increasing horsepower driving more tillage, and concentrated chemicals are often suggested to have driven this decline in soil health and in turn, the evident threat to the sustainability of our food supply. Productivity has increased dramatically by advanced genetics, inorganic fertilizers, and synthetic chemistry, but at a price that includes the loss of microbial diversity and the functionality those microbes provide.
That’s where regenerative agriculture comes in. The benefits are widespread and include improved water use efficiency, nutrient cycling, reduced soil loss (erosion), and drought-and-climate-induced stress resilience. Examples of regenerative agriculture practices include the use of cover crops, the introduction of beneficial microbes to the soil, and reducing soil disturbance, or tilling.
Why is most cropland degraded?
The ability of microbes to cycle carbon back into the soil has been interrupted. Soil disturbances such as concentrated fertilizers, chemicals, and aggressive tillage practices cause the loss of the soil’s microbial biomass over time. Microbes are essential to plant life and assure the sustainability of our food supply. Cropland has turned from a carbon sink into a carbon emitter.