To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] "nutrient pump role"
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 01:47:19 -0400
It is known that poplar (trembling aspen in particular I think) extracts
minerals (e.g. calcium) from the subsoil and deposits them in the
topsoil in its leaves. They are then available for other plants. One
hopes that the ecosystem functions or is managed in such a way as to
slow as much as possible the escape of the minerals in water to the sea.
I may have a reference on this and will try to find it.
My suggestion that box elder/Manitoba maple/Acer negundo may act
similarly is sheer speculation on my part.
I recall reading in a book by a lady who had been born in
pre-revolutionary Russia, that the peasants on her father's estate knew
how to restore fertility to a field by a long rotation (20 or 30 years I
believe) in trees.
Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
Jon Place wrote:
Doug, you referred to the "nutrient pump role" of poplar and box elder.
Could you speak more about this? Do these trees cycle nutrients into
the soil for other plants?