In this episode, we explore the concept of regenerative agriculture and its implications on modern farming. With Dr. Dykstra’s expertise, we learn about the relationship between plant health and pest attraction, using innovative methods such as refractometry. Tune in for a deeper understanding of how healthy agriculture can thrive without the overuse of pesticides.
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SPEAKER 05 :
Greetings to the brightest audience in the country. This is Real Science Radio. I’m Fred Williams.
SPEAKER 04 :
And I’m Doug McBurney, Bible student, science geek, amateur comedian. Fred, it is great to be back with you talking about real science on Friday.
SPEAKER 05 :
This week, we’re going to talk about the magnificent design of both plants and insects and how their designs benefit people.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, people, nature, the world, the environment. You know, Fred, me being a science geek and a Bible student with a particular interest in God’s creative design, I’m really looking forward to hearing what our special guest has to teach us and our audience. Dr. Thomas Dykstra, Thomas M. Dykstra, is a PhD entomologist, an agriculture consultant. He’s the lab director at Dykstra Labs in Gainesville, Florida. Dr. Dykstra received his master’s in entomology from the University of Florida, where he investigated neurophysiology of pheromone production in moths. He then received a PhD in insect bioelectromagnetics under Dr. Philip S. Callahan there at Florida. After college, he founded Dykstra Laboratories, which more broadly investigates bioelectromagnetics ranging from bacteria all the way to humans. Predominantly, he studies insect olfaction from the standpoint of bioelectromagnetics and has developed a new theory based on the fusion of biophysics and neurophysiology, which I’m hoping to understand more about, seeing as I don’t understand the majority of the syllables that I just pronounced here on the air. Dr. Thomas M. Dykstra, welcome to Real Science Radio.
SPEAKER 01 :
It is good to be with you and your audience, Doug and Fred, or maybe it should be Fred and Doug. Really don’t know who gets top billing on this, so I’ll just say both to make sure that I keep both of you happy.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I heard bioelectromagnetics several times there, and obviously that’s going to pique my interest in electromagnetism. So, Dr. Dykstra, how do electromagnetic fields affect insects? How does that play in? You’re apparently an expert in this.
SPEAKER 01 :
Apparently so. Based upon the introduction that he said right now, I was very impressed with it, thinking, wow, do I know all this stuff? This is so cool. I should talk to myself more often. Yeah, bioelectromagnetics is looked at in two different ways. One is exogenous fields, that is how electromagnetic fields affect insects from, let’s say, the environment. And then we also have endogenous fields, and that is how electromagnetic fields are affecting within the insect itself. In other words, communication between different parts of the organism, the insect. It may have to deal with certain parts of the organs, for example, that may have the ability to communicate with one another. And so these exogenous and endogenous fields are all generally encompassed within the field of bioelectromagnetics. And your first pronunciation was excellent, Doug. Second one needs to work on that. But we’ll work on the whole bioelectromagnetics pronunciation. And by the end of this presentation, you are going to be an expert. I can see this.
SPEAKER 04 :
And so does this, these electromagnetic fields, when you say exogenous, do you mean fields within the bug’s body between organs, fields between the bugs? Help me understand.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, exogenous would usually mean outside the insect. So people, when they think, usually when they’re talking to me, the first thing they think of is, you know, 5G, cell phone towers, and this is the direction that they want to go. Is it affecting the insects? Is it not offending the insects? Whereas the endogenous fields are the fields that actually work inside the insect. And how do fields… get detected inside the insect? Is there communication going on between them? This is more of my focus because I do look at insect olfaction where I’m interested in how these fields are picked up by the insects. So I discuss things like biological antenna, how biology is run, by these antennae based upon these both exogenous and endogenous fields and how they are able to do the things that they do. And so that’s kind of in a nutshell as I ramble on.
SPEAKER 04 :
No, that’s exactly it. So this is why we need to have you on. See, I had exogenous and endogenous. I had those backwards. Come on, Doug. I’m so glad I’m here to correct you. I did want to ask you though, since you bring it up, is 5G killing the honeybees? What’s going on with that? Should we be worried about that?
SPEAKER 01 :
I’m sure that it has an effect. All insects have the ability in order to detect some of these fields. So that’s not really the issue. What we have with the killing is colony collapse disorder. Colony collapse disorder certainly could be related to the fields. The research that I have read in my opinion, has not been conclusive, but I generally do feel that the insects have been weakened to the point where they are no longer able to find their way back to the colony. I do believe that there is a, I don’t know if I can say this word right now, but I do believe that there is an incestuous problem with the bees because all of the queens are being made in certain locations. We’re not getting the genetic variability that we should be finding in the bees and because of this, I believe that they’re more weakened and therefore more vulnerable to this because we know that the wild bees are not subject to colony collapse disorder.
SPEAKER 05 :
So insects just like humans are affected by a genetic load.
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh yes. Oh yeah. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Genetics is genetics is genetics. Yep.
SPEAKER 04 :
And so, but the honeybee problem, it’s a real problem.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes, it’s a real problem, but only among those colonies that have usually queens that they get from a supply house. Because it is at this point right now where a lot of beekeepers have actually gone into a forest and they’ll actually set up trappings, trap colonies, where they will attract a colony bee. so that they can possibly get a wild colony and get some of those genes into their colony because it is generally well known in the industry that the wild bees are doing much better than the if you want to call them farm raised bees or what have you and so because of this going out into a forest and trying to catch especially during the swarming season trying to catch wild colonies is usually going to put you in much better shape as far as the long term is concerned.
SPEAKER 04 :
Wow. Well, I’m glad to hear that the wild bees are doing okay. That’s encouraging. And so as I was researching your field and you, I began researching agricultural consultation because… I was not aware that there was such a thing. And I realize now how, just talking with you about the bees for three minutes, it’s like, wow, this is huge, impactful, important work that’s going on. But as I was researching you, I came across the term regenerative agriculture, and it was related to you on some website, and then I looked it up, I had to sift through a bunch of left-wing propaganda and climate hysteria, but eventually, after I included your name in the search, then I found out a little bit more about what regenerative agriculture is, and can you tell us about it, and is it good, is it bad, is it something we should be interested in?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, there’s no way to tell you whether it’s good or bad. Let me tell you that right now, because we have no accepted definition of regenerative agriculture. So I’m already on the record. I’ve got a video online talking about regenerative agriculture with Glenn Rabenberg, and this has already been a little bit hashed out. And so to either repeat what has been said or to kind of maybe educate the audience for those who haven’t seen it. Regenerative agriculture is the new term. We’ve had organic agriculture. We’ve had sustainable agriculture. There are many types of agriculture that are out there. Regenerative seems to be an amalgamation of a number of different things, but it does include NPK, salt-based fertilizers, which I’m not a fan of. It does include pesticides. You’re certainly allowed to use those. I’m not a fan of those either. And it does have a climate component to it, which I’m also not a fan of because right now the emphasis is on climate change and carbon sequestration. And so because of this right now, I’m upset that people are trying to co-opt this because I think that farmers should be focused on their crops. They should be focused on their soil. And if they take their eye off the ball, they’re not focused on that, which is most important. Because when you talk about carbon sequestration, it has its importance in agriculture. But if it’s the primary thing that you’re concerned about, then that means you’re not paying attention to your corn or your soybeans or any other crop that you may be raising. So I do have issues with it. I distance myself from regenerative agriculture when I can. But I also understand that not everyone has the same definition because there is no accepted definition. And that’s why there’s a little bit of confusion out there, Doug.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, I got you. So when you do agricultural consultation, you focus on the agriculture.
SPEAKER 01 :
I do. I’m talking to farm. Most of the people that I talk to are farmers. I enjoy talking to farmers. They’re the ones who are doing the work. I don’t have to use a medium. to go through. I don’t have to talk through another professor. I don’t have to go through a county extension agent. I don’t have to go through anybody else. I can talk to them directly. I often go to conferences. We talk about farming issues. I talk to the farmers directly. And then we have breakout sessions that occur in the hallways. We have breakout sessions that occur in the bathrooms. Wherever they’re asking questions, they want to be able to get their questions answered so that when they go back to their farm, they can utilize some of the new information that I may or may not be able to teach them. So that’s a lot of the agricultural consulting that I do. I do it online. I do it through Zoom. I do it over the phone. I do it face to face. And that is a major part of the type of consulting that I do at Dijkstra Laboratories.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, and just so for all of the people who live in apartments and in the cities and for Gen Z in general, farms are where food comes from. It’s actually not from the store. It’s actually from a farm.
SPEAKER 01 :
Wait, I need to write this down. Could you repeat that again? Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
So, Dr. Dykstra, you’re coming on with the bees and, you know, needing the wild type. It just reminds me, you know, it’s artificial selection. Just like with dog breeds, it tends to remove information from the population. I’d never thought of bees that way, too, that they have the same problem that they have to deal with, and that’s why you… It’s good to get wild type bees into your environment.
SPEAKER 01 :
And that’s why I’m on the show today. It’s to enlighten both of you in issues such as this.
SPEAKER 05 :
Amen. You definitely are. So one of our producers, so they turned us on to you after hearing you talk about the fact that, you know, bugs, when they’re eating your plants, that could be an indication that the plants are unhealthy. They tend to go after unhealthy plants.
SPEAKER 01 :
They do. They do. The unhealthy plants are gone after quite readily. Healthy plants are not. And so once you realize, this has been known for long before I came into the picture, probably 50, 60 years, this has been known. And it’s been talked about a lot. When I came into the picture, it was only about 25 years ago, only about 25 years ago. I started to take a look at this issue and I wanted to be able to put numbers to it and get some more specifics. And that’s why, that’s a part of the reason why I speak at conferences where they’re asking questions about healthy crops and insects attacking them. And we all know that there are plenty of tropical places, whether it be the tropical rainforest, whether it be on islands of Kauai, which I’ve been to and I’ve talked about before, where plants are not being eaten. And it was always a little bit of a mystery as to why are these plants not being eaten? And once you trace it back to the fact that some plants are healthy and they’re not eaten, and other plants are not healthy and they are eaten, it then becomes more obvious to me and others that insects are garbage collectors. They were designed in order to be garbage collectors. So because of this, this is their job. They do it well. I don’t look at them as competing with us so much as I do as doing us a service.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, so that’s like a mind-boggling statement because I’ve always assumed that the bugs are the enemy. And in fact, that reminds me of when my children were very small, we were in the grocery store and we got into the organic vegetable section. And my young daughter asked me, what does organic mean? And I said, that means it’s got bugs on it. And so it’s always been kind of a joke. But now you’re telling me that if that fruit or vegetable or whatever it is in that organic section, even if it never encountered pesticides, if it grew healthy, there are no bugs on it. There were no bugs on it.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, you could have a conventionally raised vegetable that doesn’t have bugs on it. And you can have an organically raised vegetable that that doesn’t have bugs on it. As long as it has enough health associated with it, what we call in the industry as bricks, this allows us then in order to say, all right, this has got a bricks level of this, this has a bricks level of that. That’s why the insects are attacking this and that’s why they’re not attacking that.
SPEAKER 05 :
I wanted to ask, could soda crackers, could they be not good if they’ve got bugs all over them? Is that an indication? And the reason I ask is one time my sister was eating a soda cracker and I could see it across the room. I’m like, your cracker’s moving. I mean, it looked like it was moving and she looked at it and it was loaded with insects and she had already eaten half the cracker. There’s no real indication those soda crackers are going bad. I think that cracker’s bad.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah. Well, soda crackers are a type of processed food. So when you’re dealing with processed food, it has a chance of being, it’s more vulnerable to insects. There’s no doubt about it. However, If you take a look at God’s food, fruits made by God, vegetables made by God, nuts made by God, when you’re talking about all of this, this now falls into the realm of, did God make a mistake? And if he did not, how can this be looked at? And so because we have altered soda crackers they become more vulnerable because what we’ve done to it as far as the vegetables the fruits and the nuts that are out there that is something that was not meant to be as vulnerable but we all know that some trees are relatively weak and in those particular cases God has made insects in order to bring them in and take out the tree take out the plant, take out the bush, take out the flower, whatever needs to be taken out. That’s their job and they do it well. And this way it allows us in order to eat more healthy food and leaves the insects to eat the less healthy food.
SPEAKER 04 :
Wow. Okay. It’s a pretty brilliant design.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes. I know. Imagine that. It’s almost as if God knew what he was doing.
SPEAKER 04 :
Like he had a plan.
SPEAKER 01 :
Like there was some plan there.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes. Intelligence. All of that. Wow.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. So I did a Google search on this BRICS, B-R-I-X, and it stands for Balling Relative Intensity Index. Balling Relative Intensity Index.
SPEAKER 01 :
Now, can you say that 10 times fast, Fred, or no?
SPEAKER 05 :
Balling Relative Intensity Index. No, I can’t. You know, I would have thought, you know, thinking about this, you know, you think back to November. I wonder if that was the measure taken backstage at maybe CNBC and MSNBC and CNN, bawling. It may.
SPEAKER 01 :
I mean, I was always told that it was named after Dr. Bricks. And so because of that, that’s what I use. If there’s some alternative definition out there, I need to become a little bit more aware of this because someone’s going to catch me. I’ll be giving a presentation. I’ll say it’s based upon Dr. Bricks. Someone will raise their hand in the audience. Fred will be in the audience. Doug will be in the audience. You’ll start questioning me. I’ll get all embarrassed. Everyone’s going to lose interest in me.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, no, Dr. Dr. Fred is just quoting what Google told us.
SPEAKER 01 :
And Google is truth. Yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay. So anyway, as best I can tell, there seems to be some intersection between Dr. Bricks and Dr. Balling. Bricks with gravity, Balling with measuring sugar. And this is something we’ll have to get to the bottom of, by the way. We’re going to get our crack research staff working on that. Because we do know that there was a balling relativity index backstage at CNN on November 6th. And, in fact, I think it lasted like a week. But this is B-A-L-L-I-N-G, not B-A-W-L-I-N-G.
SPEAKER 01 :
I got the joke right from the get-go. Oh, okay. Oh, wow.
SPEAKER 04 :
So, yeah, if you have to explain the joke.
SPEAKER 01 :
No, you should be a comedian. I mean, I’m just saying.
SPEAKER 04 :
An amateur one at that. Well, so when Fred first said bricks and when I first heard bricks, I naturally thought of bricks, you know, like, you know, Winston Churchill building his house and stuff. And I thought about bricks. But this is a measure of what you explain it to me. Help me understand.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, well the Brix is usually measured with a refractometer, and the refractometer is a device that simply measures the bending of light. So as light passes through a solution, and this is usually a plant solution that we squeeze out of a plant, once light bends out of it, the degree to which it bends is put on a Brix scale. And so that scale can run anywhere between about 1 to 20 for leaf bricks. For nectar, it can easily run 20, 30, or 40 bricks. And by the time you get up to honey and molasses, you could be running about 70 bricks. So there’s a lot of different substances out there that have a high bricks or a low bricks. But when we’re measuring plants, I usually tell people to take a look at the leaf bricks because that’s where the sugar is made and the refractometer is mostly, although not completely, but mostly testing sugar it’s mostly using that so because of that you often find bricks and sugar being used synonymously so when I’m giving a presentation I will often use them synonymously if someone decides to challenge me after that I would certainly acknowledge that it does deal with total dissolved solids but the total dissolved solids are usually low enough that you don’t need to worry about the rest of it because sugar is dominating the reading. And so when you get a reading of two bricks, four bricks, 10 bricks, 12 bricks or more, you understand, most people should understand that it’s predominantly measuring sugar and the rest of it is just there. be measured in addition to it but it doesn’t change the bricks reading it doesn’t send it up from two bricks up to 18 bricks just because you have secondary plant metabolites and some other substance in there so that’s how it’s done in a nutshell so because we use a refractometer to measure it which is based upon the bending of light that’s where the term refraction comes from Because that’s the device, that’s what we use, we understand that there are limitations to it, but it works very, very well for farmers, and this gives them an idea of how healthy their plant is, and it gives them a chance to test their plant immediately. It can be done in as little as one minute. So you can go out to your field, test a plant or a series of plants, get a Brix reading back, and you don’t have to send it away and spend a fair amount of money. in order to get the information back. Now, there’s a lot of other ways in order to measure plants, but this is the fastest and it’s the most complete way in order to determine the health of the plant.
SPEAKER 04 :
And so, okay, a couple of questions.
SPEAKER 01 :
All right, one at a time, please. I got to go slow.
SPEAKER 04 :
If I have, okay, I have my garden at home. And I don’t want to use pesticides because, you know, don’t want to spray. So can I get a refractometer or do I have, does it cost a million dollars or is there something I can get for at home?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, yeah. The refractometer used to be a million dollars. Now, Amazon’s got it down to about 20. So you’re going to be able to buy one much more affordably than the million-dollar model. Now, the million-dollar model, lots of bells and whistles, LED lights, makes breakfast for you in the morning. Very impressive piece of machinery. But the regular Bricks refractometer is running about 20 bucks. You can get a digital one if you are okay with using batteries, Doug, and I just don’t know whether or not You’re comfortable with technology?
SPEAKER 04 :
There’s a diagram now that helps me.
SPEAKER 01 :
There is. I’m putting it upside down, right side up. I get it. So if you use a few AAA batteries, the digital one would be starting probably about $120. They can easily run $300, $400. Still below the $1 million model that you and I love so much.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, so if somebody has a home garden, they would want to maybe buy one of these?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, you could do that.
SPEAKER 05 :
Walk us through the practicality of that.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, well, what you would do is you would remove one leaf, two leaves, three leaves, five leaves, ten leaves. I mean, I’m usually doing 30 at a time because I’m trying to do a statistical analysis, but you remove several leaves. Oftentimes, the homeowner will put them in a garlic press, and then you’re just going to squeeze, just as you would squeeze anything in a garlic press. you’re going to get hopefully two to three drops of the leaves and it pops out the bottom and usually you have the refractometer directly underneath it and the drops then fall on top of the refractometer then you close the manual refractometer not the digital one and then you kind of point towards light it can be indoor light it can be close to the sun you don’t want to look directly at the sun and this gives you enough light so that you can see what the reading is is telling you so something comes in at about four or five bricks that tells you okay this plant is a little low on the health scale but that gives you an idea of where you are so you would normally squeeze it with a garlic press Take a look in the refractometer. The garlic press is going to cost you, I don’t know, what do they cost? 15 bucks in a store, give or take. There are more complex models out there. There are vice grips which have been used too. I happen to use a plant sap press when I travel. That thing is running, you know, three, four, five hundred dollars. And this allows me to do a lot of leaves at the same time when I’m going to a farmer’s field and I need to be able to get dozens of readings in short order because my hands are not as big as farmers. And so I get a little tired when I’m squeezing the garlic press over and over and over again. So I use a plant sap press in order to get it done. But a homeowner wouldn’t need to get nearly as involved as what I do in my business.
SPEAKER 05 :
So then once you do that, I mean, what’s the next step for, say, the farmer or the homeowner? What can they do?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, no, let’s stick with the homeowner because I’m going to get to the farmer.
SPEAKER 01 :
I see. So because Doug is a homeowner and he’s not really caring about the farmers that much, we’ve got to cater to Doug right now, Fred. So I’m just going to bring the conversation down to his level so that he can follow along. All right, if the homeowner is doing this and you’ve got a garlic press and you get a measurement, What can you do? Well, it depends upon if it’s a high bricks or a low bricks plant. So if it’s a high bricks plant, there’s really not anything you need to do. So if it’s coming in and you’re getting a leaf bricks reading of 14, 15, 16, 17 bricks, there’s really nothing that you need to do at that point. You’re not going to have insects attacking it. You’re not going to have fungus infections attacking the plant, and you’re going to be in good shape. But on the other hand, not for Doug, because he raises great plants in his home garden, but other people like his neighbors who are not raising healthy plants, and they’re coming in at two, three, four bricks, their plants are going to be more likely attacked by insects. And therefore, you’re going to be able to tell, one, by the presence of the insects that you’ve got a problem. You can then verify it. with the Brix refractometer and then I’ve got a chart which is online which talks about which insects are attracted to what Brix levels because they’ve got four different feeding guilds that I’ve broken the insects into saying that you know the aphids are going to be found on the lower Brix plants you’ll find grasshoppers on slightly higher Brix plants and I discussed that in a relative depth during my presentations. So if you’ve got access to the chart which I think everyone does because if you’ve got the internet My YouTube videos are out there. I think I’ve got over 41 out there. And so this chart is out there on several of the videos and it’s also on several other websites. People have co-opted it and taken it as their own, which is good because that’s just getting the information out. So it’s that chart that I usually use when I’m talking during presentations and it helps the homeowner. So it gives them an idea so that they know that there’s a difference between a two bricks plant and a 14 bricks plant. As a matter of fact, there’s a world of difference between those two plants.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. Right. And so and we’ll link to all your stuff and link to your YouTube channel. And so what do I do if I have let’s say I got my four rows of rutabagas and over here there are 14 bricks, but over here there are two bricks. Do I want to do I want to destroy the sick plants? What do I do about it?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, the insects will do a pretty good job of destroying those two-bricks plants. So you might not have to move in and take them out with the pesticide of your choice. You could just do nothing and they’ll probably be taken out. But if they’re right next to some other plants that are high enough, you will find that the insects will be attacking the two-bricks plants. And they’ll be avoiding the 14.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, that was my question. That really gets to the utility. So I don’t have to worry about them eating my healthy plants.
SPEAKER 01 :
No, your neighbor needs to worry about them eating their plants. I think we established that. All right. This is a Christian show, okay? We need to be concerned about our neighbor, Doug. Yes, indeed.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, that blows my mind because… I just always assumed that the bugs were there and they wanted to eat the healthiest plants because I didn’t know anything about it. But this opens up a whole new reality, which that’s what I love about Real Science Radio and bringing folks on like you, Dr. Dykstra. It’s mind-boggling and expanding. Wow, love it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, is there any kind of thinking outside of the box like, okay, you want to protect your plants, so you plant plants. Or somehow you get some unhealthy plants mixed in with your healthy plants to draw all the insects to… Well, that’s what I wanted to get to.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s how I wanted to get to the farmers. Because I do care about my neighbors. And some of my neighbors are farmers.
SPEAKER 01 :
You’re trying to save yourself right now. I see where you’re going.
SPEAKER 04 :
No, but I did want to because I’m sure that you offering agricultural consulting advice to me is probably not going to put food on your table. But to big farmers, can you help them with your knowledge to avoid pesticides and better manage their crops? And how does that happen?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes, I can. Oh, I’m sorry, there was a follow-up. How to do that.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s what we love about the radio.
SPEAKER 01 :
I was like, man, this is awesome. I got a short question, one-word answer. That’s the perfect radio answer. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
Please be sure to tune in next week for the conclusion of our interview with Dr. Tom Dykstra and his fascinating research on insects, pesticides, impacts on our health, and much more.
SPEAKER 02 :
Intelligent Design and DNA Scholars can’t explain it all away. Get ready to be awed by the handiwork of God.
SPEAKER 1 :
Tune into Real Science Radio. Turn up the Real Science Radio. Keeping it real.
