Greening Up

By SHARON L HAGEMANN, NMD, DO, CH

Nurturing mineral-hungry plants

There are myriad reasons why plants sometimes don’t grow right. We can experience a dry year, or a too wet year. The temperature might be too hot or cold. Or, the balance of minerals in the soil might be upset.

Mineral balance is, perhaps, the worst of all fundamental plant problems. And, it does more than make plants grow poorly. It changes the mineral levels in the plants themselves. So, if we eat products that have been grown in mineral-deficient soil, our bodies will reflect the same mineral deficiencies that the land suffers.

Goiter is a classic medical example. This enlargement of the thyroid gland is caused by a deficiency of iodine in the diet. Soil in many parts of the U.S. is deficient in iodine, and, in these areas, goiter has become prevalent. Adding iodine to salt—making it iodized—takes care of this problem, but ignores the real cause… a soil deficiency.

Zinc deficiency can also be linked to a deficiency in the soil. The most severe problems are in countries like Iran where eating crops grown on Zinc-deficient soil is exacerbated by a diet consisting of nearly all grains, which contain a substance that can make Zinc difficult to absorb. But even in the U.S., there are Zinc-poor soils. In fact, a large percentage of the population ingests Zinc tablets to insure against deficiency.

The groundwork for these mineral problems was laid when the soil was formed, initially. Soil is pulverized rock, combined with organic materials and nitrogen, put there by the activities of plants and microbes. If the rock from which the soil was formed is low in certain minerals, then the soil may very well be low in those minerals, too. Sandy soils are not as mineral-rich as fine silts, clay and loam soils.

Minerals in the soil come in two forms—available and unavailable. That means that a part of the mineral storehouse is dissolved, and another part is undissolved. Plants feed on the dissolved minerals. Over time, more of these dissolve, and plants can take up that food, as well.

Fortunately, most of the soils we use for farming and gardening have large amounts of undissolved minerals. So, the trick to good soil management is to keep returning some of the dissolved minerals we use, and doing things to speed the release of locked-up minerals. Most gardeners do both of these things when they incorporate compost, manure or green manure, often without realizing what they are actually doing! But, I think it pays not to “fly blind” when it comes to minerals in garden soil and plants. After all, a failure could mean that you have to pay for that mistake with a stunted crop and/or your own poor health.

Stay tuned to this column for some upcoming suggestions on how to build your soil’s organic content.