Podcast Extra: Ask Me Anything with John Kempf - June 4, 2026

In this Podcast Extra, Join John as he answers a wide range of grower-submitted questions covering challenges in agriculture. The discussion focuses on managing high summer leaf temperatures, optimizing organic nitrogen budgets, and navigating severe base saturation imbalances. John emphasizes the critical connection between precise crop nutrition, active soil biology, and the natural suppression of destructive diseases and pests.

Other topics discussed include:

• Distinguishing between air temperature and leaf temperature, highlighting how a healthy wax lipid layer lowers a plant's canopy temperature by 8 to 10 degrees.
  
  
• Managing the photorespiration process in C3 and C4 plants to prevent protein degradation and the buildup of high ammonium levels.
  
  
• Utilizing trace amounts of nickel (3 to 10 grams per acre) as an essential enzyme cofactor to rapidly lower ammonium in plant sap.
  
  
• Applying Rejuvenate as a foliar tool to provide stressed crops with carbohydrates, enzymes, and high-energy compounds.
  
  
• Addressing low magnesium and potassium in soils with extreme calcium base saturation using targeted applications.
  
  
• Citing historical 1960s data on fire blight indicating the disease cannot establish when sap sucrose levels remain above a 22–26% threshold.
• Restructuring high-chloride potato programs by pairing Rebound micronutrients with Holo-K, SeaShield, and SeaStim.
  
• Remediating the typical "burnt leaf tips" on garlic by satisfying the crop's unusually high molybdenum requirement.
  
  
• Evaluating the limitations of indigenous microorganisms (IMOs) and acknowledging that 90% of living soil microbes require active plant roots to propagate.
  
  
• Deploying PhotoMag to optimize plant sap ratios, delivering magnesium, sulfur, molybdenum, and boron to efficiently convert excess ammonium into complete proteins .
  
• Advocating for a national food policy focused on nutritional quality and farmer economic viability over cheap, abundant food.
  
  
• Utilizing MacroPack and MicroPack within target foliar combinations to halt disease progression.
  
• Understanding why high-salt content fertilizers solubilize trace minerals and leach them down the soil profile over a 20- to 40-year period.

Additional Resources:
To learn more about managing nutrition during Critical Points of Influence, please watch this webinar.

To learn more about how optimizing foliar applications, please watch this webinar.

To learn more about AEA's Integrity Grown program, please listen to this podcast episode.

To hear John and Michael McNeill's conversations, please listen to this podcast episode.

About John Kempf
A top expert in biological and regenerative farming, John founded AEA in 2006 to help fellow farmers by providing the education, tools, and strategies that will have a global effect on the food supply and those who grow it. Through intense study and the knowledge gleaned from many industry leaders, John is building a comprehensive systems-based approach to plant nutrition – a system solidly based on the sciences of plant physiology, mineral nutrition, and soil microbiology.

Support For This Show & Helping You Grow
Since 2006, AEA has been on a mission to help growers become more resilient, efficient, and profitable with regenerative agriculture. AEA works directly with growers to apply its unique line of liquid mineral crop nutrition products and biological inoculants. Informed by cutting-edge plant and soil data-gathering techniques, AEA's science-based programs empower farm operations to meet the crop quality markers that matter the most.

AEA has created real and lasting change on millions of acres with its products and data-driven services by working hand-in-hand with growers to produce healthier soil, stronger crops, and higher profits. Beyond working on the ground with growers, AEA leads in regenerative agriculture media and education, producing and distributing the popular and highly-regarded Regenerative Agriculture Podcast, inspiring webinars, and other educational content that serve as go-to resources for growers worldwide.

Visit https://advancingecoag.com to learn more.