Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com>]

You are absolutely righty Paul; soil tests in themselves don’t do any harm.  It is the implication of the test that causes the problem, because the lab will usually accompany the test results with a recommendation for what ratio of NPK to use on your soil.  And who are we, poor laymen, to act contrary to the advice of the specialists with their degrees.  If we feel so unsure about our soil in the first place that we need a lab to have an analysis done, it is very unlikely that we will have the determination to resist the pronouncement of the specialist in the end.

 

I’m not a specialist on soil tests, but as things are that may not be all that bad.  Anyway, from what I understand, it is in theory possible to analyze all nutrients, trace elements etc. in free and in organically bound form.  However, to do the big test that will show up everything that is present in organically bound form is very time consuming and therefore very expensive.  So, normally tests only show available nutrients in free form and not those organically bound.  But it is exactly the latter, i.e. the organically bound nutrients, that are important if we feed our soil by organic means.

 

There is also the point that plants preferably use nutrients and trace elements in organic form. Nutrients or trace elements in non-organic form, even if present in sufficient amounts, can’t always be taken up by plants.  Highly soluble fertilizers, on the other hand, will only partially be taken up by plants, while a substantial part will go into the groundwater or elsewhere.  So what’s the point of testing that?

 

Add to that that an organically active soil is dynamic and constantly changing; the soil probe is already history by the time it gets to the lab.  And once you get the test results, it is ancient history and doesn’t reflect the current state of biological activity in your soil at all.  With this in mind, H.P. Rusch stated that “it is impossible to feed soil by non-organic means without creating an imbalance in the soil,” because whatever fertilization recipe we follow no longer corresponds to the actual state of the soil.

 

A soil test is the highway back to NPK fertilization, and those with a firm grounding in organic cultivation have no need for it.

 

Dieter Brand

Portugal

 

--- On Thu, 7/10/08, Tradingpost <tradingpost@lobo.net> wrote:

From: Tradingpost <tradingpost@lobo.net>
Subject: [Livingontheland] soil tests
To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
Date: Thursday, July 10, 2008, 6:08 AM

Apparently soil tests were originally devised to check soluble nutrient levels
for adding additional synthetic fertilizers. They began in days of yore, when
Liebig's chemistry approach dictated that only soluble salts were available
to plant roots, before the real complexity of soil biological activity was
beginning to dawn on soil scientists. 

See
http://www.ibiblio.org/london/permaculture/permaculture-list-archives-1999-2002/msg03631.html

Also from
http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/010112krasil/010112krasil.ptIII.html
     In counterbalance to the theory of Liebig, he (Pryanishnikov) ascribed a
major importance to the biological processes of the soil and especially of
nitrogen accumulation...  the theory of Liebig is still reflected in the
studies of many specialists. In the theory of plant nutrition one observes an
obvious underestimation of the role of the organic substances of the soil, and
its importance of the nutrition of plants is often denied altogether. .. Many
plants assimilate organic substances, metabolic products of microbes which live
on and inside the roots. The best known plants are those in the tissues of which
there are bacterial microbe-symbionts, actinomycetes, and fungi... The best
known symbiosis is that of plants with mycorhiza fungi. According to the data
in the literature, there are mycorhiza fungi on the roots of almost all plants
which are to a greater or lesser degree symbionts. The symbiosis is such, that
some plant species cannot grow without the fungi. 

And
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/history/lecture31/r_31-2.html
     According to Balfour (1947), Liebig's theory of mineral plant foods
was a "rather naive theory" since it considered only mineral salts.
As noted earlier, a concept of a dynamic, living soil was beyond the scope of
Liebig or any of his contemporaries. It is, perhaps, more unfortunate that,
even today, this view is still held by many.
--------

 I'm not against all soil tests in all cases, just the overreliance on
results. The tests run by most extension offices generally will just recommend
some kind of synthetic N-P-K, as fertilizer companies don't include much of
the dozens of other elements needed for plant growth (or organic matter for
microbe populations & soil texture). Soil tests sell a lot of commercial
fertilizer. And resulting weak plant growth sells a lot of pesticides. Many
well meaning writers urge soil tests, but it's not enough and can be
misleading. 
-------------

paul tradingpost@lobo.net



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