Let’s look at some basics of how the plants and soils function which get overlooked in main stream agriculture.
A plant consists mainly of products that come from above the soil – that is from the atmosphere or the cosmos. These products come in the form of gases and atomic particles.
Just take 2 items that comprise the major bulk of a plant: carbon and water – both originate as gases from above the ground: carbon dioxide, hydrogen and oxygen. The plant itself as a massive, complex chemical structure some experts say consist of about 80 different chemical compounds.
Presuming that we have moisture, sunlight and warmth then photosynthesis, a chemical reaction, starts. The plant is an “intelligent, complex chemical factory” specifically designed by nature to do a useful task. The plant’s complex chemical compounds create a product called an exudate, a liquid which gets released from its roots.
Exudates are a “request” or a “message”, to the surrounding group of fungi and bacteria surrounding the roots, known as the mycorrhizal sphere, to release in return the particular nutrient requirements that the plant needs ongoingly and/or at particular growth stages to perform specific functions.
With the release of the plant exudates, the fungi and bacteria of the mycorrhizal sphere get busy to make available nutrients from the surrounding humus, clay colloids and break down and chelate the minute minerals into a plant available form. The nutrients come via complex reactions and are made available for ready plant uptake.
Different plants release different exudates e.g. a dock plant releases different exudates to that of a rye grass plant. So it is understandable that different plants uptake different nutrients and they therefore consist of different nutrients.
Conventional agriculture has poor regard to this complex chain of events and pays virtually no attention to the fact that the plant consists mainly of cosmic material nor does it pay attention to the plant’s role in gathering its own nutrients through its complex relationship to soil life. In fact, conventional agriculture seems to do its best to educate and convince farmers that the products that are commonly sold are the best for the plants and the soil as they have been trialled, tested and proven to give the best results.
However most synthetic fertilisers, insecticides, fungicides, nemacides have a detrimental effect, firstly to the plant’s own chemical factory and secondly to the “bridge” of fungi and bacteria to the plant’s roots. Synthetic fertilisers in fact bypass much of the soil’s fungi and bacteria delivery system and directly enter the plant whether the plant requested it or not, often giving inferior, gutless growth that has to be further supported by manmade, commercial “remedial” products.
It is noted that there is a massive decrease in plant vitamins and minerals since the use of synthetic products and the resulting weaker plant has become more susceptible to more and more problems.
Why risk spending money on inputs that in fact are destroying the “bridge” or lifeline between the soil and the root of the plant?
