Re-Mineralization - The Missing Link in Organic Growing

Fertilizers alone are not the key to nutrition. We eat plants to get the vitamins and minerals locked in the phytochemicals where nature puts them. It should be no surprise that it’s the soil in which plants grow that provides these minerals. Plants can only use mineral ions, individual atoms, but after time all that is left are minerals too large in particle size to be absorbed by roots.

Centuries of farming – each year removing more and more of these micro sized minerals and trace elements, and decades of commercial factory farming with petrochemicals that kill the soil micro organisms, have left many of our fields stripped of the very micro-minerals that are necessary to enable plants to provide nutrition in our foods. Without minerals food may grow to look normal and attractive with fertilizers alone, but is empty of what nourishes us - and why pretty fruit in the store lacks taste. There are products on the market such as ASAP Plant Minerals that put these macro minerals back in the soil.

Organic farming is an obvious step in the right direction to reverse this trend. I would add that the missing link in organically produced food is Re-Mineralizing soil: to activate the production of nutrient content in food.

By providing macro-nutrient and micro-nutrient minerals that regulate all the functions of plant biology, food becomes infused with nutrients. The foundation of this process is the micro organisms in properly prepared organic soil. These organisms are releaser's of naturally occurring nitrogen, but more importantly the producers of fulvates; electrolyte molecules that move minerals in soil to the roots and are critical for both plant and animal life. Without fulvates minerals are not absorbed as readily and easily by roots. Without minerals and fulvates, roots cannot grow to their potential mass to gather more minerals and fertilizer.

So minerals are specifically for micro organisms and root development and vitality. The down-stream effects of re-mineralizing, are; nutrients for micro organisms; micro-organism provide nutrients for the plant; plants create nutrients in the food to ultimately provide nutrient rich foods for animal and human healthy. In many ways, re mineralization of soil is the foundation of nutrition in food.

But it’s also the cure for many problems, because there is a societal cascade effect by eating food with no nutrition. Eating food that is devoid of nutrients requires that you take supplemental vitamins and minerals. This lack of nutrition in food creates an unnecessary industry - chemical vitamin and mineral supplements, which creates a need for petrochemical producers, requiring federal agencies to regulate them – also unnecessary.

Without vitamins in food, and if you cannot afford supplements, then health fails and the medical industry is provided work and federal agencies for oversight - also unnecessary. In short, forgetting to feed the micro organisms the minerals they need at the first steps of organic growing creates the very problems in society we complain about. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!

Sustainable Living Articles @ http://www.articlegarden.com

About :
August Dunning is the head Research Director at www.asaporganics.com

The Foundation of Agriculture is Root Mass

Providing nutrient dense food for cattle and people finds its basis in the soil borne nutrients that roots can absorb to turn into these foods. Without healthy dense root mass and micro mineral laden soils to draw from, food may look good but is empty of nutrition. The two major functions of roots are 1.) absorption of water and inorganic nutrients and 2.) anchoring the plant body to the ground. The pattern of development of a root system is termed 'root architecture', and is important in providing a plant with a secure supply of nutrients and water as well as anchorage and support. Some plants have very deep root systems like prairie grasses that reach 7 feet above ground, but 15 feet below ground.

The majority of roots on most plants are found relatively close to the surface where nutrient availability and aeration are more favorable for growth. Rooting depth may be physically restricted by rock or compacted soil close below the surface, or by anaerobic soil conditions. the 'plastic' nature of root growth allows the plant to then concentrate its resources to seek out nutrients and water are they are more easily available Roots will generally grow in any direction where the correct environment of air, mineral nutrients and water exists to meet the plant's needs. But roots will not grow in dry soil. Primary roots less than 2 mm diameter have the function of water, mineral and nutrient uptake. They are often heavily branched.

Roots also function in cytokinin synthesis, which supplies some important shoot needs. Cytokinins are a class of plant growth substances (plant hormones) active in promoting cell division, and are also involved in cell growth, differentiation, and other physiological processes and are mainly created in the root. These many processes’ are reliant on macro nutrient and micro nutrient activation minerals to regulate biosysthesis of phytochemicals. For minerals to be immediately available to plant roots, particles have to be microscopic in size. Liquid minerals solutions like ASAP Plant Minerals provide these nutrients at the right size. As soil is stripped, the re introduction of these activation micro nutrient minerals is essential for continued nutritional content in plants used for agriculture. A perfect example of a loss of nutrient in grasses due to stripped-out micro minerals is the reduced milk output by dairy cattle fed hay and grass devoid of micro nutrient minerals. Eating more nutrient empty grass does not produce more milk because minerals that stimulate lactation are absent. Re-mineralizing our soils to offset the loss yearly by harvesting will solve this problem. Healthy roots, in micro mineral laden soils, produce healthy shoots.

In roots, the architecture of fine roots and coarse roots can both be described by variation in topology and distribution of biomass within and between roots. Having a balanced architecture allows fine roots to exploit soil efficiently around a plant, but the 'plastic' nature of root growth allows the plant to then concentrate its resources where nutrients and water are more easily available.

Sustainable Living Articles @ http://www.articlegarden.com

About August Dunning-13741:
August Dunning is the head Research Director at www.asaporganics.com