PSSSST …. Wanna buy some snake oil?

Over the years I have seen some memorable scams run against farmers. Often there is a germ of science buried in a blizzard of bullshit but sometimes you just have to shake your head.

For instance, this summer I was doing some crop inspections in southern Saskatchewan . In the course of a visit with what I thought were two very high end farmers, the father pointed across the road and started telling me about the neighbour’s new seeding system. I vaguely remember hearing about this “technology” but didn’t pay much attention to it at the time because it was so clearly crap. In a nutshell what it claims to do is capture the exhaust gasses from the tractor and inject them into the ground. Once in the ground the gasses presumably have miraculous properties to enhance nutrient availability.

As I was listening to the description of what the neighbour had done (and how many tens of thousands of dollars he had spent) I was trying hard to contain myself for fear I was talking to a true believer. Fairly quickly though I realized that the guy I was talking to was equally astonished that anyone could be gullible enough to fall for such a ridiculous sales pitch.

But ridiculous sales pitches combined with optimism and often a little desperation let the snake oil salesmen continue to succeed. “Black gold” (rock phosphate) is another one that comes around when times are tough. The claim is that you are buying “natural” phosphate. What they fail to mention is that on the calcareous soils of western Canada you would be at least as far ahead if you spread road gravel on your fields. In fairness to the Black Gold salesmen it is likely that they are too stupid to understand the chemistry involved. Several years ago now one of my distant cousins informed me in all seriousness that adding bleach to your wild oat spray would dramatically improve its performance. At those moments I’m torn between shouting “How could you be so freaking stupid as to believe that crap?” or trying to explain why what they are telling me is simply impossible.

It’s hard to understand why this stuff continues to make the rounds but in fairness, some of the so-called agronomy dispensed by ag retailers isn’t a lot better. Selling a farmer a concoction of (overpriced) micronutrients when he isn’t maximizing his returns from the macronutrients should be a criminal offense. Similarly, selling potash south of the Yellowhead highway is unlikely to improve anybody’s bottom line except of course the salesman’s. There may be some science behind the products that claim to release phosphate in the soil but there certainly isn’t any economics in them, yet they continue to be sold.

Life teaches us that we need to rely on experts. None of us would contemplate doing open heart surgery on ourselves and most of us trust mechanics to divine the intricacies of electronic engines. When it comes to crop nutrition however it is difficult to separate the morons from the master mechanics. Every farmer needs to have a basic understanding of soil chemistry and plant physiology in order to wade through the marketing bullshit.