Pivot Bio working to bring biological N-fixation into Canadian corn, canola, and wheat fields

Date:10-05-2022

Each growing season offers an opportunity to not just grow a great crop, but also evaluate new products coming to market.

For PivotBio, bringing biological nitrogen-fixation products to Canada requires in-field testing under Canadian conditions to best position the product for growers going forward.

As Chuck Broughton, general manager for the Canadian arm of the company explains, they understand the value proposition of the products on corn in the U.S. — equivalent to off-setting about 40 pounds of N per acre — but the Canadian experience is different.

The goal is to offer the biological n-fixing product on spring wheat and canola acres, as well as corn early in the 2023 season, with a more broad roll out in 2024.

But Broughton says the company is still now doing the data crunching required to fully develop the benefits of the product for Canadian wheat and canola. Until that is complete, he’s not offering a ″pounds per acre″ off-set expectation, but growers can look for that information early next spring.

He knows that there can, at times, be pushback against new or unfamiliar products, but that the biologicals market is one that is maturing, expanding, and becoming more precise with each passing year of study and performance.

In the last 25 years, Broughton says he’s witnessed the incredible growth of the knowledge and understanding of soil/nutrient/plant interactions. We know that there are plenty of N-fixers in the soil already, he says, but the key is to have those biological components fix the N and then give it up to the plant, and that’s the tricky part.