John Kempf’s Plant Health Pyramid is a great aggregation of many years of understanding from a whole range of farmers, agronomist and researchers, and gives a great demonstration of the effect of different plant nutrients on plant health. In this article, I’ll be going over the idea of John Kempf’s Plant Health Pyramid in one place and providing a number of additional resources for those that are interested in exploring this further.
First I would like to give John Kempf the acknowledgement of developing the concept and infographic. For more about John Kempf, visit his website Here.
Below is John Kempf’s infographic of the health health pyramid:
Before discussing John Kempf’s idea, lets talk about the REAL reason why pest and disease attack plants. Ultimately, they do this as the plant is a source of food for the pest or disease, more specifically they are after the free nitrogen and reducing sugars (aka simple sugars) in the plant sap.
Unlike mammals, pests and disease have simple digestive systems that doesn’t allow them to break down complex compounds like proteins or cellulose (or at least making it very difficult for them to digest these compounds) therefore pests and diseases are attracted to plants that have an abundance of free nitrogen and simple sugars in their sap.
This idea was first developed by Francis Chaboussou in his book “Healthy Crop”. You can download the book for free HERE. Chaboussou outlines his theory of trophobiosis which suggests that all pest and disease is a nutritional in nature, and that when plants have the right minerals, they become more resilient to pest and disease. A key component to Chaboussou’s theory is improving protein synthesis as this removes free nitrogen and reducing sugars from the sap and stores them as complete proteins unavailable for pest and disease consumption, this will be discussed later.
In support of this, Datnoff, Elmer and Huber published Mineral Nutrition and plant Diseases. This book is an literature review outlining the relationship between many different minerals and plant diseases and the mechanisms associated with each immune function. Although all minerals are have roles in plant defense systems, Zinc, Copper, Manganese and Iron play an important part in many enzymes and proteins that boost plant immunity.
Finally another book that is important to this is Philip Callahan’s Tuning Into Nature which outlines plant-insect communications through infra-red radiation. Effectively, insects use their antennae to detect the infrared radiation released from plant and insect compounds, these signals can be used by insects to locate plants as a food source (a non-pest example is how bees are attracted to flowers however they see Ultraviolet light). This is important as the free nitrogen and reducing sugars give off infrared light attracting insect pests.
As mentioned above, John Kempf’s plant health pyramid aggregates a lot of this knowledge together and presents it in one image. The plant health pyramid has four levels, each of which describes a specific plant function, a plant will fall within one of these levels depending on it’s nutrition, and depending on it’s nutrition will affect the extent of it’s immunity to pest and disease. Some plants don’t even make it to the first stage due to mineral deficiencies.
Stage 1 – Complete Photosynthesis
This is the first stage a plant can reach in John Kempf’s plant health pyramid, and once achieved plants are able to increase their photosynthetic ability by an estimated 150-600%. This allows for a significant increase in production of carbohydrates and allows for more complex carbohydrates to be produced. This changes the carbohydrate profile in the plant sap by increasing the proportion of complex carbohydrates and reducing the level of reducing sugars. This makes the plant less favourable for a range of pest and disease and the plant starts to develop resistance to soil-borne fungal pathogens such as verticillium, fusarium, rhizoctonia, pythium, phytophthora and others.
If you would like a recap on the process of photosynthesis, check out our YouTube video HERE.
Ensuring high levels of photosynthesis is important as all energy for the plant comes from this process. This is also why all other stages of the plant health pyramid rests onto of complete photosynthesis.
In order for a plant to achieve complete photosynthesis, the plant need sufficient levels of the following nutrients:
Nitrogen (N): N is required for in the formation of the chlorophyll molecule, as seen below. 4 N are used in the center of the chlorophyll and is required for capturing sunlight. It is essential that chlorophyll is in abundance in the plant in order to photosynthesis at high rates, this is the driver of all plant growth as the plant produces its own food. Therefore it is critical that chlorophyll is produced in high concentrations.
Magnesium (Mg): As seen below, Mg is also used in chlorophyll as an enzyme co-factor, it enables the chlorophyll molecule to capture light. Without sufficient levels of Mg, the plant cannot efficiently capture sunlight and therefore limits photosynthesis.
Iron (Fe): Fe is used in the production of chlorophyll, and it is required for the maintenance of the chloroplast structure and function. In addition to this Fe is used in the production of carotenoids. Carotenoids are essential pigments in photosynthesis. They absorb in the blue-green light and transfer the absorbed energy to the chlorophylls. This allows the plant to capture the blue-green wavelength range of light and therefore extend photosynthesis.
Manganese (Mn): Mn is used in the splitting of the water molecule during photosynthesis, this is called water hydrolysis. This step in photosynthesis is very important and a deficiency of Mn can increase water use in a plant.
Phosphorous (P): P is not used during photosynthesis but is required for the building of the ATP molecule. This molecule is like a battery that is charged during photosynthesis and can be used to power molecular processes. Sufficient levels of P are required to process the amount of energy that is produced during photosynthesis.
There are other factors that effect photosynthesis such as shading, carbon dioxide levels, water availability and photosynthetic availability however many of those factors are difficult to change, if you are interested check out our YouTube video HERE. However managing the nutrition of our plants can be relatively easily to manage.
Stage 2 – Complete Protein Synthesis
This is the second stage a plant can reach in John Kempf’s plant health pyramid, and requires the rapid conversion of free soluble nitrogen in the plant sap into complete proteins. As discussed above, pests and disease feed on free nitrogen sources in the plant, therefore if we rapidly convert this into complete proteins then we remove the food source.
Plants absorb N from the soil as inorganic forms of either Nitrate (NO3-) or Ammonium (NH4+), or plants can absorb N in the organic form of Urea, Amino Acids or Amino Sugars. All of these forms need to get converted into amino acids before being synthesised into proteins.
Once plants are able to convert 100% of it’s soluble N into proteins every 24 hours the plant will become more resilient to insects with simple digestive systems, especially larval and sucking insects such as tomato horn worms, cabbage loopers, corn ear-worms, aphids, leafhoppers, white flies and thrips.
The following are nutrients that allow for the rapid conversion of free soluble N into complete proteins:
Magnesium (Mg): Mg is required in the ribosome enzyme. The ribosome is the builder of polypeptide (a protein that hasn’t folded yet) and does so by adding amino acids into a long chain. Mg is need in the structure and function of the ribosome, therefore making it key to protein synthesis.
Sulfur (S): S is required in the amino acids methionine and cysteine. Methionine is particularly special as it starts ALL polypeptide chains and therefore no proteins can be formed without methionine, hence without S, no proteins can be produced. Proteins need the correct amino acids to fold correctly and it’s through this folding that gives them their function, therefore it is essential that plants have enough S to produce methionine and cysteine for complete protein synthesis. If S is deficient, than the system will be limited to amount of S available, this will lead to a build up of N causing for an ideal food source for pests and disease.
Molybdenum (Mo): Mo is a mineral used the least by the plant but is still very important. Mo is used by the nitrate reductase enzyme to convert Nitrate (NO3-) to Nitrite (NO2-). This is needed so that the plant can then use the nitrite to produce ammonium which is then used to make amino acids (See chart below). If a lot of nitrate fertiliser is used but Mo is deficient, then the plant can actually be N deficient as nitrate can’t be converted to nitrite.
Nickel (Ni): This isn’t on the list but I’ve added it as it’s just as important as Mo. Ni is used by the enzyme urease which is used to convert Urea into NH4+ which is then used for to produce amino acids (as seen above). Although unlikely, if Ni is deficient and Urea is applied then N deficiencies can occur despite having large amounts of Urea available.
Boron (B): Boron is not used in protein synthesis itself but is required for translocation. Without B, N, sugars and other minerals do not move throughout the plant leading to the buildup of sugars in the leaves and N in the roots. This can create areas rich of food for pests.
Pesticides STOP protein synthesis and cause Photolysis: A large topic in Chaboussou’s book is that the application of pesticides and herbicides can stop protein synthesis and in many causes cause for proteins to denature back into free amino acids through the process of photolysis. This can cause for the build up of N and sugars in the plant causing (wait for it…) MORE pest and disease problems!
Now if a pesticide is needed because otherwise you’ll lose your crop then it’s necessary that it is applied, but if we can get our nutrition to a point where we don’t need to apply pesticides then that would further help support plant health.
Photorespiration: Photorespiration is the process where the enzyme RuBisCO grabs oxygen instead of carbon dioxide during the Calvin Cycle. The result of this mishap is the Glycine (an amino acid) is broken up into carbon dioxide and ammonia (NH3), which then needs to be detoxed by the plant. This process wastes energy and Glycine and can cause the build up of free N. Photorespiration occurs under drought conditions as stomata close and Oxygen levels build up in the plant, and as temperatures increase. When temperatures increase, the RuBisCO finds it difficult to distingue between CO2 and O2 causing for more photorespiration. Once C3 plants exceed leaf temperature of 25 degrees Celsius and C4 plants exceed 30 degree Celsius photorespiration becomes dominate.
Leaf surface temperature can be reduced in the next stage of the plant health pyramid by developing a thicker waxy cuticle, but can also be achieved with more ground cover and thicker canopies. and
Passive Verses Active Plant Immune Systems
Now that we have achieved the second stage of John kempf’s Plant Health Pyramid, our plants have developed a strong passive immune system. This is where the plant is no long a suitable food source for simple pests and disease. In the next two stages, plants will develop active immune systems, Systemic Acquired Resistance (SAR) and Induced Systemic Resistance (ISR). These act actively against plant pest and diseases.
SAR is a type of pathogen-induced broad-spectrum resistance in plants. During SAR, primary infection-induced rapid generation and transportation of mobile signal(s) to ‘prepare’ the rest of the plant for subsequent infections.
ISR a resistance mechanism in plants that is activated by infection. Its mode of action does not depend on direct killing or inhibition of the invading pathogen, but rather on increasing physical or chemical barrier of the host plant.
Stage 3 – Increased Lipid Production
This this stage of John Kempf’s plant health pyramid, plants have excessive energy levels that allow them to increase lipid production. Lipids are simply fats and oils used for a range of plant functions. During this stage plants developed increased resistance to airborne fungal and bacterial pathogens such as downy mildew, powdery mildew, late blight, fire blight, rust, bacterial speck and bacterial spot. The plant develops resistance to this due to a thicker waxy cuticle which prevents pathogen enzymes from working, hence preventing the entry of pathogens into the leave.
This plant health stage requires that the plant receive the majority of their nutrition from microbial metabolites specifically N. Nutrients as microbial metabolites are highly energy efficient allowing the plant to save and store surplus energy in the form of lipids.
Nitrogen is specially important as the conversion of Nitrate and Ammonia into amino acids requires large amount of energy (especially Nitrate). For example, in an when barley plants were fertilised with nitrate, 23% of the root’s energy was required for absorption, reduction and assimilation while barley plants fertilised with Ammonium used 14% of the root’s energy. However, supply the plant with Amino acids or amino sugars is more energy efficient for the plant as there is no conversion step. Urea is the next best option for supplying plants with N if amino acids can’t be supplied.
Nitrogen sources in order of least preferred to most preferred is:
Nitrate < Ammonium < Urea < Amino Acids and Sugars
In order for plants to be supplied with nutrition from microbes the soil needs a strong soil biota allowing for rapid cycling of nutrients and the participation in the rhizophagy cycle. Soil microbes are able to decompose organic matter and as a result stores nutrients in the microbe’s body or release these nutrients into the soil. Predictor microbes can also pray on microbes and release excess nutrients. However there is another way that microbes can act as a source of nutrition for plants and that is through the rhizophagy cycle as suggested by Dr James White. This is microbes alternate between a root intracellular endophytic phase and a free-living soil phase. Microbes acquire soil nutrients in the free-living soil phase; nutrients are extracted through exposure to host-produced reactive oxygen in the intracellular endophytic phase.
In order to develop a soil biota this powerful and robust, microbes need to be cultivated using excellent practices such as multispecies cover crops at the seconded stage of the plant health pyramid. This allows for large amounts of root exudates to be produced by the cover crop and the diversity triggers quorum sensing hence further increasing soil biota activity. Inoculants and bio-stimulants can assist in starting and boosting microbial communities however nothing can replace good regenerative practices like no-till, ground cover, diversity, minimising chemcial use and integrating livestock.
To achieve this level of plant health, we would suggest inoculating a highly diverse cover crop with a board range of microbes (such as those found in vermiculture extracts), and applying board plant nutrients (such as kelp), as well as the nutrients required in photosynthesis. This will allow for maximum photosynthesis allowing for maximum root exudates to a diverse community of microbes. However, it may take multiple growing seasons to achieve this level of soil microbial activity.
Stage 4 – Increased Plant Secondary Metabolites
Plant Secondary metabolites are the ultimate compound produced by plants. They include a range of compound groups and tend to cover groups that provide the medicinal qualities. At this stage of John Kempf’s Plant Health Pyramid is where plant produce becomes real food for human consumption and contains high amounts of minerals, vitamins and goodness!
It is also at this stage that plants immune pathways (SAR and ISR) are triggered by either the plant’s microbiome or other immune triggers. This allows the plant to become resistant to the beetle family including Japanese beetle, corn rootworm beetle, squash bug, Colorado potato beetles, cucumber beetles, and marmorated stink bugs. This stage also increases resistance to nematodes such as root rot nematodes, and viruses.
One piece of the puzzle
Although the research above is ground breaking and will lead to a better agricultural future, it is just one piece of the puzzle, such that it makes one component of a farm’s integrated pest management system. In combination with good rotation, farm hygiene, biological control methods, trace minerals to trigger plant immunity (such as Fe, Cu, Zn and Mn) and crop genetics, plant pest and diseases are better managed to below the economic threshold.
Regenerate with Agresol
As you can tell, we love our crop nutrition and know that it’s more than just NPK. So if you’re an Australian farmer and what to integrate what we discussed here to better your farm without pesticides, get in contact with us for a FREE 30min consultation to see where we were could help your farm.
We would also like to reference AEA, the company that John kempf founded for developing the infographic above and aggregated these ideas.
