Consulting with Steve Martin

Want Steve on your farm?

Steve walks your crop, works out what the plants are telling him, and builds a program around each stage of your crop. Then he sticks around for the season.

Talk to Steve about your farm Or start with the course

On farm

The plant is the scorecard.

Steve starts where the crop does. He looks hard at the plant, tests what's in its sap, and only then talks about what to put on.

Watercolour of a pair of muddy work boots standing between young potato plants in red soil, with a folded map and a hand lens beside them.

Walk the crop

Steve walks the rows with you: roots, new growth, leaf colour, and what the pests are telling you. Nothing replaces boots in the paddock.

Watercolour of a sap-testing kit on an upturned fruit crate: a hand press, fresh avocado leaves, paper sample bags, a pocket meter, secateurs and a pencil.

Test the sap

Leaf samples go off for sap analysis through the season. “Here's the trend analysis,” as Steve puts it, “but what I give them is the trend interpretation.”

Watercolour of a sheet of paper clipped to a corrugated-iron shed wall above a timber shelf with an enamel mug, secateurs and a ball of twine. A season plan is drawn on the paper.

Plan the season

A program built around each stage of your crop: what goes on, when, and why. Printed for the shed wall if you want it there.

How it works

A season with Steve.

Roughly how it runs. Every farm's different, so read this as the shape of it, not the fine print.

First

Have a yarn

Tell Steve what you grow, where, and what's keeping you up at night. It's a phone call, wherever you farm, and it usually shows whether he can help. The rest is quoted for your farm, once he knows what it needs.
On farm

Walk the crop

Steve comes out, walks the blocks with you, and takes the first round of samples.
Early

Get the baseline

The first sap results show where the plant is starting from.
Next

Build the flight plan

Your program, timed to each stage of the crop, and practical at any scale: a base blend at planting, then top-ups where each block needs them, not a shed full of drums. One page for the shed wall, and the full program with the reasoning behind it.
All season

Keep reading the plant

New sap results come back with Steve's notes on the trend, and the plan shifts with the season when it needs to.
After harvest

Look back, plan ahead

Yield, recoveries and quality: what worked and what didn't. Next season's plan starts from there.

The flight plan

One plan, three ways to use it.

Every program is built around the crop's critical stages of influence: every stage of its life, since each one shapes the crop it's going to be. Get the timing right at each, and the rest follows.

One page
For the shed wall, the farm manager and whoever's on the spray rig.
The full program
Every stage, every input and the reasoning behind it, as a PDF.
Walked through
Steve takes you through it stage by stage, so everyone on the farm knows why each input is there.

Performance flight plan

An example crop · 140 days

Establish days 0–20
Roots first. Phosphorus at planting gets them away, and calcium goes into the new cell walls from the start.
Vegetative days 20–45
Build the engine. Nitrogen only pays once the plant turns it into protein, and manganese keeps photosynthesis running efficiently.
Flowering days 45–63
The foundation goes on now: calcium, boron and silicon, in before the fruit sets and its cells divide.
Fruit set days 63–81
The plant decides how much crop it can carry, and the fruit makes most of its cells. Miss this window and most of it can't be won back. Calcium keeps going in while the fruit is small.
Fill days 81–118
Now the plant has earned its potassium. Potassium and sulfur help it fill and finish.
Harvest days 118–140
Recoveries decide the profit, not just the yield. What comes out of the paddock in spec is what counts.