At first glance, the story seems simple: barley, wheat, and one product applied several times throughout the season. But when you talk to Florian Farkaš, it quickly becomes clear that what happens in the field cannot be viewed through the lens of a single product.

Florian works in regenerative agriculture and also provides agricultural advisory services. His approach to production is therefore somewhat different. He looks at the crop, the soil, and plant protection as parts of one interconnected system.

It was precisely within this system that the idea emerged to see how Kontur AntiStress would perform on his barley and wheat fields.

“Since this is my production based on a regenerative system, the idea was to see whether we could replace some of the conventional chemistry, primarily in barley,” Florian explains.

So, the question was not simply what the product would do as a biostimulant. It was also important to see how the crop would perform from a plant protection perspective.

Three treatments were carried out on the barley during the season. Each time, the product was applied at a rate of 0.5 L/ha, generally at intervals of around ten to fourteen days.

This timing was not accidental. Several different treatments were being carried out on the fields during that period, including herbicides and foliar urea applications, so the use of AntiStress fitted into the existing production schedule.

“If there wasn’t a herbicide application, then we applied urea or some similar combination,” Florian says, explaining what the season looked like in practice.

And this brings us to what was, in fact, the most important thing to monitor.

What was happening with the diseases?

According to Florian, the previous season was quite favourable for disease development. And that was precisely what made it possible to see how this approach would perform under real field conditions.

“From a plant protection perspective, the product did the job,” he says.

AntiStress was also applied to wheat, and here too, when it came to the first leaf-protection treatment, no fungicide was used.

However, Florian immediately adds an important point when putting any field result into context.

These are not fields managed in the same way as a conventional field where the same plant protection programme is followed every year.

The wheat has already been grown under a regenerative production system for nine seasons. The way the crop is established also plays a role: the row spacing is 23.3 centimetres.

“This makes the conditions somewhat less favourable for the development of these diseases, especially in barley,” Florian explains.

That is why his result should not be read as a simple equation: one product replacing one fungicide.

Quite the opposite.

What makes this experience interesting is precisely the way he looks at the field as a whole: a production system that has been developed over many years, the way the crop is grown, the conditions in which disease develops, the application of other products and, ultimately, what can be observed on the plants throughout the season.

In the field, these things are difficult to separate from one another.

And perhaps that is the most interesting part of this experience.

Because when we ask a farmer what they gained from using a product, the answer is not always just a number. Sometimes, it is what they saw on the plant. Sometimes, it is a treatment they did not have to carry out. And sometimes, the most important question is the one Florian asked at the very beginning: how much can an existing production system be changed while keeping the crop protected and stable?

As always, the answer is found directly in the field.