What if you could decrease your nitrogen (N) and potassium (K) applications — anywhere from 30-70% — while increasing yields and crop health? That’s what John Kempf found from managing nutrition properly on many of the farms he works with, thanks to plant sap analysis

The owner and founder of Advanced Eco Agriculture (AEA), a crop consulting and specialty plant nutrition and biological products company, turned to plant sap analysis after growing frustrated that dry matter-based tissue test results were not correlating to what he was seeing in the field. After trying plant sap analysis, he quickly discovered that this new nutrient-testing technology out of the Netherlands provided a much more accurate picture of what was happening inside the crops and can save growers thousands of dollars in fertilizer costs.

Plant Sap Analysis 101

Plant sap analysis is similar to tissue sampling in that growers need to collect leaves from the plant. However, Kempf explains that they need to take fresh leaves from two locations: a young, fully mature leaf on the plant — same as a tissue test — and an older leaf that’s still green and photosynthesizing.

“It’s very important to take samples from two locations and measure them separately because, as we all know, nitrogen and potassium in particular, and several other elements also, are very mobile,” Kempf explains. “They move around in the plant very quickly. And when the plant begins experiencing low levels of either nitrogen or potassium, it pulls it out of the lower…