good maximum yeild article on plant and soil nutrition
Back to Basics ?? Plant and Soil Nutrition
Des Warnock
Introduction
In a world where ??miracle cures? that claim to help us grow healthy crops seem to appear daily, how do we know what is actually best for them, and for ourselves for that matter, given we??re the ones consuming them? Maybe with the invention of computers and fast access to information, those of us that really want the best for our crops?? health, as well as our own, can wise up and learn what we need to know, but we can??t persuade others to do the same unless they really want to do it.
I can say that I have never met a grower who doesn??t want to increase the quality or value of his or her crop and reduce or minimize reliance on chemical pesticides. Growers and gardeners know there is something ??scary? about chemicals, but ask themselves, ??What??s the alternative?? Many simply do what they always have done and don??t think about the long-term overall health of their plants or soil. When it comes to commercial crops, much money has been made by generations of growers using the same methods year after year. To risk even a portion of a crop by trying different methods is something many ??don??t get around to.? Then comes a ??trigger? ?? the tipping point that makes the grower look twice at the way he or she does things.
The trigger comes in many forms. It may be economically driven ??growers need more volume or margin ?? or politically driven ?? they are given direction by governments striving to be seen applying ??best practices.? It may even be driven by health reasons for some growers ?? they must change their methods because of medical advice ?? or emotional reasons ?? they have had a very bad experience and do not want others to go through the same thing. Whatever the reason, help is always at hand for those that really want to change.
When it comes to plant nutrition, we have all heard the advice: keep your plants healthy and they will resist pest attack. But how can we do this? How do we know what is required and what determines ??healthy plants?? It??s easy for the organic purists to say get rid of the chemicals and use natural products, and nature will look after itself. Unfortunately, as any commercial grower will tell you, this approach has flaws in many applications, and sometimes the organic growers are doing themselves a disservice by not identifying natural deficiencies that can result in substandard produce. Many people are concerned, and rightly so, about exposure to the massive number of synthetic chemicals in our modern society. According to Infopest (2004, Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries), more than 7200 registered biocides (pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides) are used in Australian agriculture alone.
So how do we decide what??s best for our own unique situation?
First, it??s important to understand that we each have a unique situation and the only person to work out what is best for you is?you. Because we are dealing with natural, living things it makes sense to ensure we always include inputs that support life ?? the nutritional requirements for living cells has remained constant for millions of years. When it comes to high production or commercial competitiveness, understand that we cannot rely solely on the natural process and, more often than not, a hybrid approach is necessary to balance yields, quality, costs, risks, and profit, resulting in sustainability.
Fortunately, information is at hand and many people dedicate their life??s work to finding this balance for sustainable, profitable, environmentally friendly growing practices. One such person was William Albrecht. Albrecht was born on a farm in central Illinois. His four academic degrees, including his PhD, were earned at the University of Illinois. As chairman of the department of soils at the University of Missouri, College of Agriculture, Albrecht pioneered the study of soil fertility and its effect on plant and animal health. He retired from the university in 1959, but before his death in 1974 at age 85, he left his collection of published papers, now published as four volumes. He has left us evidence in his papers of this link between the nutritional value of the crop and soil fertility, crop health, and animal health.
We select nutritious food based on how it looks, whereas, given the chance to choose, cows select their food based on soil fertility and nutrient content rather than on how it looks. In effect, healthy soil leads to healthy plants and minimal pest and disease pressures, and in turn healthy animals and humans.
When it comes to soil and plant nutrition it is important to understand that the elements in a soil or non-soil culture play a vital role in the health of a plant, even if some elements are required in only minute quantities. A balance of these elements is far more desirable than an abundance of them or an imbalance of a few. Chemical inputs nearly always create imbalances over the long term, and the grower should clearly understand the action of each input prior to using it.
Unfortunately, we live in a time when we have been indoctrinated to use excessive chemical inputs that weaken plants, only to have to spray pesticides and fungicides to prevent pest attack, even though pests by nature get rid of weakened plants. This leads to a vicious cycle whereby we spray as a preventative out of fear of loss instead of dealing with the cause of the problem.
Balance is the Key
The most graphic illustration of the interaction of essential elements is called a Mulders Chart (Figure 1). This chart demonstrates the effect that some elements have on the availability of others to the plant. Some elements work in synergy ?? they stimulate the uptake of others and increase their availability. Some elements are antagonistic ?? they interfere with the uptake or availability of others. In addition, excessive applications of some elements can result in binding with others, causing lockups and making the latter unavailable; for example, excess liming (calcium) affects the availability of magnesium, zinc, iron, potassium, and manganese.
It??s important to understand the influence of balanced nutrition. Two plants can be grown at the same time yet yield different results. One might be grown in sand and one in a good garden loam. Both are planted at the same time. The end result might be one is small because it had a limited supply of nutrients and other large because it had a good supply, both plants, though will be healthy and normal because they had a balanced supply of nutrients. Health and normality can be present without optimal development having taken place. It??s all a matter of what you put into the plant and how you do it.
In short, you can use all the N-P-K you want, you will see the plant ??grow? but this has little to do with plant health. To me, it is absurd to even consider reproducing nature??s food for healthy plants solely in a lab, when the world??s leading botanists tell us how little we know about how plants actually grow. This is why, even with all of our fertilizer programs, we always include natural inputs with any chemical inputs: humates, fish and seaweed, and carbon, and those that support soil fertility, microbial activity and plant health and that buffer chemical inputs. Consider chemical inputs as tools that you can learn to use to enhance your situation and profitability, providing you understand the correct way to use them.
Other practices like soil testing, plant tissue testing, crop rotation, microbe counts, and continual education all contribute to building a long-term sustainable program, and I encourage growers to consider these on an ongoing basis. People, like home gardeners, who may not do soil or tissue testing, cannot possibly know, or be expected to know, what specific elements are required and in what ratios. They are exposed to a huge range of products in pretty packets, so they continue to, collectively, spend billions of dollars on products they do not completely understand.
Conclusion
So, balance is the key. Prior to applying chemical fertilizers or biocides, ask yourself, ??Will nature approve?? Does it make sense to continually use any single product year after year, or continually spray toxic chemicals because of constant bug or disease infestations? Given that fungal spores latch onto the surface of weak plants, would it not make sense to strengthen the plant instead of continually spraying fungicides?
If your situation does not include or warrant proper test procedures, find out about what you are using and question whether it contributes or detracts from soil and plant health long term. At the end of the day, whatever we put on our soil ends up in our mouths. And given that in Australia (and I suspect in North America, too) degenerative diseases like hearth disease, cancer, and obesity have dramatically increased over the last 100 years, shouldn??t we look at what we were eating 100 years ago as an indicator or guide to better health? Are we using chemicals as a tool or are they dictating our habits? From my experience, when plants with good nutrition are challenged, they generally recover.
Maybe we should go back to basics.
About the Author
Des Warnock is CEO of Plant of Health Fertilisers (Batphone Australia P/L), manufacturers of ecofriendly fertilizer blends based in Brisbane, Australia. Des holds a certificate in sustainable agriculture and regularly conducts seminars to assist growers to develop their own sustainable fertilizing practices throughout markets in Australia, Japan, Korea, and India. For more information visit Batphone (Australia) Pty Ltd ... On-Line !.
and the mulders chart came with the article
its a good chart that tells of relationships between nutrients
good maximum yeild article on plant and soil nutrition
