Healthy Soils Mean Healthy Humans

Photo credit Marc Suderman

THE INTENSE PUBLIC CONCERN focused on the dangers from poisonous – even carcinogenic – chemicals sprayed on the landscape, makes appropriate the home-spun remark by George Washington Carver who said, “When the manger is empty, the horses bite each other.”

For us to see the analogy between his last five words and the chemical warfare on pests and diseases, calls for no unusual stretch of the imagination, which pictures man as the top stratum in the biotic pyramid “biting” all the other strata beneath – but supporting him.

It may, however, be going beyond the elastic limit of your imagination to see another analogy between Carver’s first five words,  and the declining or exploited fertility of the living soil now failing to serve, via nutrition, as the foundation stratum for all others, viz. microbes, plants, animals and man.

That this changing lower stratum should cause the “biting” of each other by the upper ones may not be so self-evident.

But that pyramidal construction of the many life forms, from the soil upward, represents the evolutionary succession which arrived at man as the apex; all via their individual healthy survival.

 

The latter was possible only by fitness of each in the climatic soil setting growing suitable nourishment. Only by that combination could all of them have been available to feed man on his very late arrival.

Accordingly, the healthy human survival calls for consideration of that struggle also from the soil upwards, through nutrition for self-protection against so-called ‘diseases’.

That call seems more logical than one for more powerful drugs, of which each is catalogued against a specific ailment for its cure, through man’s ministrations from his uppermost stratum downwards.

In support of the importance of the soil as nutrition for healthy self-protection and prevention of diseases and pests, observations and research studies at the Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station in the U.S.A. deserve citation here in connection with plants, the only producers of food through their collection and storage of the sun’s energy.

Those bits of knowledge are particularly appropriate as ecological approaches in the broader scope of the interrelations and interdependencies of man and other forms of life. We need, especially, to see the interdependence between ourselves and the more lowly ones, including the living soil and its microbes by which, in the ultimate analysis, we must be fed.

As far back as the 1920’s, there came suggestions from Missouri’s agricultural research that plant diseases may be caused by deficiencies of some of the inorganic elements required from the soil as nourishment.

Those suggestions turned up in connection with the early application of the technique in which purified acid, colloidal clay, with calcium adsorbed in it, was used as increasing amounts in quartz sand to study the growths and their bacterial nodulation of soybean plants.

This method served as the tool to control, in refined detail, the plant’s diet of fertility elements offered, and to measure the resulting chemical contents of healthy plants proving themselves users of atmospheric nitrogen and producers of satisfactory yields of forage.

This discovery of a case of plant “disease” caused by deficient nutrition was an accident when the plants were suddenly – and some very severely – attacked by a fungus. The symptoms suggested a “damping-off” disease.

That accident, in the plans of the research programme, brought to mind a scientist’s statement, namely: “Many discoveries are accidents for the minds prepared to recognize them.”

Consequently, those irregularities prompted more careful examinations, which revealed that the differences in percentages of healthy and diseased plants were a clear-cut case of the numbers invaded by the fungus as a reciprocal of: (a) the increasing amounts of exchangeable calcium offered as nutrition; (b) the better plant growth shown by more height and heavier weights; (c) the greater uptake of calcium; (d) the more and larger nodules on the roots; and (e) more nitrogen fixed from the atmosphere through synthesis of more protein and thereby the autoimmunity through physiological defences, often viewed as antibodies and other such mechanisms.

Since each of those several factors could suggest by its increase that it was the cause of the highly correlated decrease in the numbers of sick plants, there is much danger of erroneously concluding that such causal connection holds true.

But correlations are perfect when both phenomena have a common cause, as was true here. The larger plants, the less of disease, and the more self-protection resulted because of the several increased effects via nutrition which was improved through the increases of calcium available in the soil.

Other research on the variable composition of plants, grown by similar techniques of feeding them, showed that by narrowing the ratio of calcium to potassium, offered by the clay of the soil, one could grow large yields of legume-plant bulk carrying increased carbohydrates but reduced concentrations of amino acids or proteins, and reduced nitrogen fixation from the atmosphere.

By using a wider ratio of calcium to potassium going to the plant roots from the clay, the plant’s yield as bulk was decreased, but the amino acid contents in protein and the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen were both increased.

Accordingly, in some of our crop production which disregards balanced soil fertility, we can see plants being literally “fattened” under their protein-deficiency, but their larger carbohydrate output, with a “sickening” effect on the plants – much in the same manner as humans develop obesity – and our fattening of livestock, brings on increased susceptibility to diseases.

In the self-protection by plants, the significant factors suggest themselves as causes according as they favour nutrition, including more complete protein synthesis.

That nature projects self-protection (against insects) into the next generation, according as the soil grows it, was also demonstrated by some research studies by the Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station.

One readily accepts the theory that any seed, as a dormancy or with life processes at a very low rate, must preserve those processes in their health between their very high rates of the crop making the seed and of the succeeding generation started by the planting of it.

If such were not true the species extinction would result.

For demonstration of the theory as fact, ears of hybrid maize, grown on soil given nitrogen fertilizer only and on soil given both nitrogen and phosphorus, were wrapped and bound as pairs within cellophane sheets with the ends of the ears exposed to permit entrance of insects, common to stored grain.

The grain grown from soil given nitrogen only was taken by the lesser grain borer first. The inside of almost every grain per ear was bored out to leave the shell and the waste meal resulting.

In contrast, there were but a few borer holes in the grain grown on soil given both nitrogen and phosphorus. That damage was only at points of close contact of the two different grains.

The damage had occurred during about two and a half years of storage. During the early part of that time, the absence of insects prompted neglect of observation, hence the date of the first attack is unknown.

After two and a half years, some open-pollinated corn, grown on soil fertilized with barnyard manure, was added to the pairs, with their active insect fauna, and the storage period extended for about six months.

During that period there were some few additional insect attacks on the second hybrid but the open-pollinated grain, grown by the soil treatment of barnyard manure only, had but one hole suggesting borer damage.

Such observations of nature in action on stored grains, raise the question whether we exhibit much wisdom in our designing of chemical poisons to fight the disease and pests, when by evolution nature grew the species of our diseased and insect-ridden crops which were not so attacked and destroyed.

That fact was shown by their healthy presence when we came along so late for domestication of them. Plants had their self-protection grown in them. They passed that attribute to their seeds in storage and even, apparently, on to the next generation to continue the ingrown capacity its predecessors demonstrated.

That farm animals (and wildlife) grow better health or more autoimmunity on better soils has been a continuing farmer demonstration, more particularly by a herd of 200 beef cattle, by the Poirot Farms of Golden City, Missouri.

During the past forty years their exhausted soil of the eastern edge of the prairie has been under restoration by a farmer and conservationist, who has been honoured as a master in each of those categories.

As a naturalist, he is a keen observer who has followed nature’s laws in building up the fertility of much of the soil of 1,800 acres by using the choices of wildlife and of his livestock as guides for proper additions of calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, copper, cobalt and even iodine, some of the latter three coming to the soil via their presence in the salt.

“Science does not yet know all the biological values Mother Nature produces in the soil,” says Mr. E.M. Poirot, senior partner. “Animals just below man in the pyramid of life strata, are a part of the natural balances. Their choices and responses are, therefore, valuable guides.

“Observations of them are our best helps until the chemical laboratory can point out the ‘why’ of the effects of the soil restoration on animal health.

“Before I applied any phosphate, now nearly forty years ago,” he says, “my cattle were so hungry they chewed bones whenever they found one, and in the absence of them they would chew oakwood brought in from elsewhere…At any place where phosphate had been applied, cows would crop the plants, literally, down into the soil.

“Where lime and phosphate had been applied on part of the field, the cattle would mark the place to the line by avoiding the grass growing four inches from the drill-line of the applied treatment.

“The animals seemed to want more of the elements applied. When those were offered, either in the soil or in the feed boxes in the pasture, diseases all but disappeared, their weights and general conditions improved, and they began to bear normal calf crops.

“My cattle are now living in good health, without need of any veterinary services for infectious diseases during the last eighteen years.

“They are reproducing normally and giving a calf-crop to nearly 100 percent, without winter shelter and without grains, silage, legume hay or other feeds, save a special protein mixture during the winter at one pound per head daily, along with the Bluestem hay left in the field at the spot where each bale was dropped while baling.

“Through restoring the soil, over 200 head are now enjoying margins of food, self-protection and reproduction on the same land area, which less than four decades ago could not supply an adequate ration for eight head of their ancestors.”

From the preceding examples of natural self-preservation and careful observations of the autoimmunities of the lower forms of life below man, we cannot escape the deduction that each living unit, from the simple cell to the most complex organism, survives, to a large degree, according as it develops its own self-protection.

Better health of plants and animals are readily demonstrated as results from the more fertile soils.

Each body establishes many immunities which are not yet catalogued. Nor have we comprehended and explained many well enough to make them successfully manageable as uniformity throughout the crowd.

No epidemic is 100 percent disastrous. There are always those who survive on their own. Nor is health in any group 100 percent perfect.

But there is much to be gained in the latter by the individual’s own effort of learning about his own nutrition, with buoyant health as a studied objective by concern with the natural qualities and nutritional values grown into, and preserved within, the foods we eat.

-          Excerpt from “Soil Fertility & Human and Animal Health – The Albrecht Papers Vol. 8

Confusion will prevail until the soil is considered...

Because we turned away from much of the art of agriculture in the absence of a complete science of it, we have a serious confusion. That is all the more serious now and at the moment we discover that we have rapidly mounting numbers of people and are soon running out of ample food for them. We are confused about the natural performances or about the biology in agriculture. We have permitted ourselves to be led astray and are asking the science of agriculture now to bring us back to where we can understand the basic principles rather than merely mimic any practice. We dare not be mere followers of traditions. We must face the problems and solve them. All of that calls for rather clear diagnoses. Let us try and comprehend the fact then that soil fertility properly coupled with plant nutrition is a form of creation, a form of outdoor biology, and not a matter merely of scientific technology. In that combination wisely used there may be some solution for our food problem.

Now what are some of these confusions about the basic facts of soil fertility and plant nutrition? First of all, we seem to have lost sight of the fact that the creative business of agriculture has always started in the soil. That great truth was told us about six or more thousand years ago, but we didn’t take that remark very seriously. We are beginning to appreciate it now. We shall face it more seriously when we have the least of creative capacity left in the soil and when we need to know most about it.

In terms of wise fertilizer use, the most shocking confusion prevails when we talk about soluble fertilizers, considering water as the agency for solution, and then we make laws requiring that fertilizers must be water-soluble and thereby so-called “available”. In fact and in nature, these soluble fertilizers are never taken out of the soil because the plant takes them into itself along with water it takes from the soil. The use of the major amount of water by the plant is that of keeping the respiring leaf tissues moist for the exchange of the gases, namely carbon dioxide and oxygen. That escape of water from the leaf is what we call “transpiration”, and it is in that service where most of the absorbed water goes from the soil into the atmosphere. That use of soil water is controlled by the meteorological situation inviting water to evaporate from the leaves of the plants against the forces holding the water in the soil. The plant is an innocent connection between those two opposing forces acting on the water. Does the moisture in your breath move nutrient form your bloodstream into the tissues, or from your stomach into your bloodstream? But yet we take to the concept that the transpiration by the plant has something to do with the movement of nutrient from the clay of the soil into the roots. The transpiration stream of water from the soil, through the plant and into the atmosphere is independent of the nutrient stream from the soil into the roots. That may not be true for nutrients moving within the plant’s conducting tissue. The water uptake by the roots is the result of atmospheric conditions favoring evaporation from the leaves with a set of dynamics which are more than a match against the forces holding the water on the surfaces within the soil.

Nutrient intake by crops is a function of three colloids, or possibly four, in contact. First of all, there are the nutrients on the clay colloid, or on the organic colloid of the soil. The soil colloid is in contact with the root membrane which is another colloid. That root membrane is in contact with the contents of a cell on the inside, namely the protoplasm, or the cytoplasm. Then, in turn, that cell is in contact with another cell. In that you have the combination of the three or four colloids in contact. The movement of the nutrient ions from the clay into the root membrane and into the cells follows the chemical laws controlling their traverse there because of the differences in activities, adsorption capacities, interfering ions and other factors along that line.

That movement of nutrients into the root is independent of the transpiration of water. We have demonstrated transpiration going forward regularly, or water moving from the soil through the plant to the atmosphere when the nutrient ions were moving in the reverse direction, namely, going from the plant back to the soil. We have demonstrated the ions going into the plants regularly when there was no transpiration. You can demonstrate this when you put a bell jar with atmosphere saturated with CO₂ and with water over that plant. In that case, you can stop the transpiration but you don’t stop the ionic nutrient movement into the plant. Some recent work at the California Technological Institute has shown that the desert plants put water back into the soil while they are growing, therefore the water can be going back into the soil while the nutrients are going in the opposite direction. We must get rid of this water-soluble fertilizer bugaboo in considering soil fertility and plant nutrition, because transpiration runs independently of our control and we need to concentrate our efforts on keeping the stream of fertility flowing more regularly into the plants.

Let us not cover either our ignorance or our responsibility toward maintaining the soil fertility by trying to blame the water situation in the soil and the rainfall. The idea that the drought is responsible for the failure of plant nutrition persists. But what is commonly called drought isn’t trouble in terms of water only. It is apt to be due to the fact that the upper layer of the soil, where the fertility is, dries and the roots must go down through a tight clay layer which has almost no fertility. Then, because of the crop failure in the absence of plant nutrition in that soil layer of stored water, we try to blame the drought or the bad weather. Drought may be merely that soil situation in which we have no soil fertility deep enough to feed the plants when they are compelled to have their roots go deeper to get stored water. We have emphasized the water so much that the situation suggests itself as a relic of the old “saloon” days, when men thought they had to stay in a saloon and drink, but forgot to take some groceries home for the family. Plants will scarcely emphasize drink to that much neglect of food. Our confused thinking about drink for plants emphasized the water facts as an alibi for our ignorance of plant nutrition and the soil fertility factor where the emphasis properly belongs. During the drought we don’t use the water to the best of our ability. We neglect to remind ourselves that the plant is about 95% air, water and sunshine, and only about 5% fertility. We are too indifferent to that fact to consider carefully how we can use that 5% as the requirement to produce the other 95% of plant growth, a performance which offers chances as a gamble better than one would scarcely anticipate.

We blame the water. We blame the weather. The water of transpiration from the plants is like the water going over the millwheel, only a part of that coming down the millstream. The amount of grist that one grinds in the mill is determined not so much by the amount of water going over the millwheel, the amount of which is fixed or limited, as by the diligence with which wheat is kept going into the millstones for 24 hours a day at full capacity. We haven’t been keeping the soil fertility well and properly supplied to the crop plant and are therefore in error when for disturbed yields we blame the drought.

- Excerpt from Albrecht's Foundation Concepts - Vol. 1 - pgs.53-55; 1953

Soil Fertility in its Broader Implications



"Food is fabricated soil fertility." - Albrecht

 Soil Fertility in its Broader Implications

- These excerpts were written by Dr. William A. Albrecht in 1945.

Food is fabricated soil fertility. It is food that must win the war and write the peace. Consequently, the question as to who will win the war and how indelibly the peace will be written will be answered by the reserves of soil fertility and the efficiency with which they can be mobilized for both the present and the post-conflict eras.

What is soil fertility? In simplest words, it is some dozen chemical elements in mineral and rock combinations in the earth’s crust that are being slowly broken out of these and hustled off to the sea. Enjoying a temporary rest stop en route, they are a part of the soil and serve their essential roles in nourishing all the different life forms. They are the soil’s contribution – from a large mass of nonessentials – to the germinating of seeds that empower the growing plants to use sunshine energy in the synthesis of atmospheric elements and rainfall into the many crops for our support. The atmospheric and rainfall elements are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, so common everywhere.

-         Except from Albrecht’s Hidden Lessons: The Albrecht Papers Vol. 3 – p.6

Soil fertility determines whether plants are foods of only fuel and fattening values, or of body service in growth and reproduction. Because the soil comes in for only a small percentage of our bodies, we are not generally aware of the fact that this 5% can predetermine the fabrication of the other 95% into something more than mere fuel.

Realization is now dawning that a global war is premised on a global struggle for soil fertility as food. Historic events in connection with the war have been too readily interpreted in terms of armies and politics and not premised on mobilized soil fertility. Gafsa, merely a city in North Africa, was rejuvenation for phosphorus starved German soils. Nauru, a little island speck in the Pacific, is a similar nutrition savior to the Japanese. Hitler’s move eastward was a hope looking to the Russian fertility reserves. The hoverings of his battleship, Graf Spee, around Montevideo, and its persistence in Argentina were designs on that last of the world’s rich store of less exploited soil fertility to be had in the form of corn, wheat, and beef much more than they were maneuverings for political or naval advantage.

Some of these historic martial events serve to remind us that “an empty stomach know no laws” and that man is in no unreal sense an animal that becomes a social and political being only after he has consumed some of the products of the soil.

-          Except from Albrecht’s Foundation Concepts: The Albrecht Papers Vol. 1 – p.105;

 

Chill Hours - The Importance of Rest and Nutrition

           

            Chill hours are important to tree and vine crops during dormancy. This is the timeframe when the plant rejuvenates. This time is critical. Trees and vines, just like you and me, have to take a “vacation” from the busyness of the growing and producing stages. These hours are the time or opportunity for the plant to rest up for the next crop. It’s a vacation period for trees and vines to get rested. In California’s San Joaquin valley, this usually occurs when kids get excited because its foggy day schedule weather and shortened school days. It’s wet and cold and there is not a lot of sunshine. But this is perfect weather for permanent crops like pistachio, almond, peach or grapevines.

            Without adequate rest or “chill”, the plant works from an “energy deficit” position. This is a problem. It is the monetary equivalent of drawing money from your savings account because the interest earned isn’t enough to live on. You can’t do this for very long without dire consequences and the same is true with your crops.

            When you get enough rest, you wake up ready to go better. The same goes for trees. When they get enough rest, they wake up ready to grow better. When trees do not get enough rest, they will have delayed canopy development. This is an important detail because without leaves the plant cannot feed itself effectively. The more efficiently a tree can start growing leaves and a healthy canopy the sooner it can begin taking in sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide so that through photosynthesis glucose production kicks into gear and provides food for the plant and developing crop to feed on.

            On a year with short chill hours, the problem becomes an issue of how to make the most of a bad situation. For instance, in January you find that you have 400 hours or less of chill accrued to date. Historically by this time, we have between 700-800 hours. This is a harbinger and we need to pay attention because it’s telling us to be prepared for “what” the outcome of this can potentially be. This is important because some crops use an awakening agent to help crops rouse themselves, in order to harvest earlier. The problem with this is, when you apply a product to awaken a plant that has not gotten enough chill hours you induce an extreme stress condition or worse actually damage the plant’s fruit buds. That can have a long-term adverse effect. Think of how trees grow fruit buds. It usually develops on 2^nd year wood. So, if you hurt your tree badly, it could take two to three years to recover, assuming there are no other major stressors that occur to limit recovery. Growers should consider the tradeoffs carefully before proceeding with a “dormancy-breaker” spray for their trees especially those that have not gotten the proper amount of chill hours. We cannot merely wish good seasonal weather on our crops. If our crops don’t get enough chill, the plants themselves will be underdeveloped and this ultimately affects profitability.

Keeping energy in mind as you go through dormancy is important. Dormant plant energy comes from carbohydrate reserves. This becomes a high demand on heavy crop load years. As fall passes, the plant behaves much like a bear before going into hibernation. It eats and stores up food to carry it through winter until awakening in the spring. The difference with a plant is that, while it does its best to make and store up food reserves with both photosynthesis and the fall root-flush, it often falls short due to outside influences such as drought, large crop load stress, heightened insect pressure, imbalanced nutrition, etc. The bottom line: If you go to bed hungry, you will awaken very hungry and nutrient deficient.

As a grower, you decide what nutrition your crops receive. Therefore, if you want to ensure your crops are well fed for dormancy, feed them well BEFORE dormancy with next bloom in mind, as the goal. Remember good intentions don’t equal good actions. More to the point don’t apply materials because your neighbor is or it was a “good deal”. You should be testing your soil and tissues in the fall or before harvest, in order to determine what “got in” and what “ran short”. These are an annual progress report of your field’s health. If your adviser doesn’t offer these services, look around for one that does. After all, it’s your asset and investment. This information will help guide you to make more accurate decisions on what should be applied and at what rates. If you aren’t sure what should be applied, ask your crop adviser for counsel. If they aren’t experienced with your crop or soil type, get a second opinion. But, don’t fall prey to “analysis-paralysis” or information overload. If you trust your adviser (and you need to), because of their experience, success or approach, go forth with confidence.

Photo by Marc Suderman from Traver, CA