You might be interested.
My DW uses homeopathic medicine for her arthritis and early last year it was reported that her system was low in Magnesium.
At the same time I was testing the soil and found a lack of Magnesium!! As we never buy vegetables, they're all from our plot, makes you think?
They do say you are what you eat!!

The 'trace' elements are true to the word....trace, and are found in any complete fertilizer.
If you fool around with elemental changes to your soil you might find that you are adding a lot more than 'trace' to your ground and the plants you try to grow have health issues....just like the human body when you try to use homeopathic (sp) additions to your diet without knowing what they are about.

while I think a soil test is a good idea. I would not trust one to show up all the trace elements needed for good human health. That is not what the test is designed to do. I compost matter from a variety of domestic and imported sources for that reason. Where I live fruits are imports except for a few local grown apples and berries.

Curt

Marcus: plants and people are not even in the same Kingdom. It is a bit of a stretch to assume that we both need the same things to thrive. I.E. plant and human needs for CO2 and O2 are very different, metabolically speaking.

I cant help but suspect that beeman_gardener is talking about someone that is vegetarian and growing his own vegetables. Trace elements are a big problem for vegetarian, mostly.

Few of the normal soil tests cover trace nutrients, althjough there are places that will test for them for enough money. The $13.00 tests done by many state agricultural schools labs won't cover these trace nutrients. However if your soil is balanced with an active Soil Food Web more than likely what is growing in that soil will be good and healthy and will have balanced nutrients.

Hi Folks...if you apply a liquid seaweed/fish combo to your gardens...as per directions...you will be adding about all the trace elements that are needed. Oldmainer

Nutrient balance is about everything in proper proportion. Excesses can tie up essentials as easily as a deficiency can impact uptake. The different soils require different proportions.

Your soil test lab will be your best assessment. Further, plant tissue testing is another potential important test, especially for trace minerals.

Trace minerals are important to plant growth and health. A soil test that does not include zinc, manganese, iron, copper and boron is providing you critical information. A deficient test is insufficient so look for a lab offering key micro nutrient analysis.

Availability, even if all in proper proportion, will not occur if you have incorrect pH or deficient organic matter content. The concept of 'feed the soil' means ensuring diverse organic matter; also a balance of nitrogen and carbon material. Beyond compost are the green manures, livestock manures, organic mulches and plant residue.

Kelp is a great source of micro nutrients, even those not tested for. Natural mined minerals will do more for soil than liquid sources. Not all fertilizers will contain micro nutrient so you need to read the label.

Final note: Use the same lab for testing. Each lab may use different extraction methods which give different measure. The same lab for testing allows you comparison.

If you are seeing problems with plants, do not overlook the micro nutrient deficiency as possible cause.

I think that a soil rich in organic matter with a ph about 6.6 and yearly additions some nitrogen from mostly natural sources should give us a good shot at nutrient rich foods.

I was reading excerpts from a book by John Hamaker who believed that what was needed was to grind gravel to fine dust and apply it to soils and forests. He may have been onto some things, but seemed a bit of a crackpot too.

Here is a link that might be useful: John Haymaker

Is that guy for real? He is almost as redundant as that what's her name that grind egg shells to fine dust. Grinding gravel, kids should not try it at home. or anywhere.

Dan - When reading a post with as many absolutes as yours, I usually find a point or points that I might disagree with because they were offered in a context too broad to be taken as written, but I found your post excellent and exactly on target.

We cannot bake a plant grow or maintain vigor at something beyond its genetic limits by adding more of something that is not deficient or limiting. Anything soluble in the soil solution that is in excess is counterproductive, which is what makes a soil test such a valuable tool.

So often we see people reach for the FeSO4 (iron sulfate) because someone told them Fe greens up your leaves, only to create an antagonistic deficiency of Mn, whose deficiency symptoms are much the same as a those of Fe. Epsom salts (MgSO4) is another 'remedy' people are often convinced they need, when all they really end up with is a deficiency of Ca - this is often noted especially, in container culture.

It may be true that the human body may need 90+ vitamins, minerals, and trace elements to function at nominal levels, and we can certainly all agree that K is necessary to our good health, but what happens if you take in excessive amounts of it?

As in the diet of animals there is an ideal balance of protein, carbs, nutrients, etc. The same is true of the balance of plant nutrients in soils. Both the concentration AND ratio of these nutrients to each other are an important consideration if we expect to be able to coax plants to grow at or near their genetic potential. From the department of redundancy department comes the fact that adding more of anything than is necessary to make it a non-limiting factor is counter-productive.

One area where we might be uniquely justified in adding more of anything than is necessary is OM, and I'm not sure if this perspective has been offered on the forums. The reason we might be justified in supplying more nutrients than are required through the addition of OM is, we need to separate the nutritional benefits from the structural. It's possible to have a perfect balance of nutrients in the soil, but still have the soil structure as a limiting factor. In this case, it is a near certainty that by adding volumes of additional OM, we are creating excesses of some nutrients, but as long as the soil structure is a limiting factor, plants will benefit. At some point though, if we're diligent about regularly returning OM to the soil, soil structure will no longer be limiting. THEN, adding additional OM would be counterproductive.

Al

Al,

You raise an interesting point about "too" much of something in the soil. I read where about all plant and especially animal life [population] tends to be limited mostly by the food supply. As anyone nutrient in plant life that is short can limit the whole plant's health, I would think that I wouldn't want to be running on the lower limit much.

I believe that for myself that some extra vitamins and enzymes would likely be passed on through and out though extra unbalanced mineral uptake might upset the balance.

So....I would like to have some critique on the link below. Some questions...Is there easily much danger of too many minor elements?
Do we need more as Hensel said?

I am thinking of trying some small areas and potted plants with a dusting of pulverized rock.

Here is a link that might be useful: Stone To Bread

There is a much narrower range between deficiency and toxicity levels when it comes to micronutrients, as opposed to macronutrients; so yes, there is considerable danger associated with excess (toxicity) levels when it comes to micronutrients. The key is not so much how much of one nutrient or another is IN the soil; rather, the issue is how much of each nutrient is soluble/available in the soil solution. Ground rock dust is just another part of the soil structure, unless it becomes mobilized into plant-accessible form.

If you're supplying rock dust that is high in say P, Fe, and Mg, it will not cause plants to grow any better or taste any better unless those nutrients are deficient.

One can argue the point that nutrients other than the 13 listed essentials that normally come from soil affect plant growth/taste/quality/nutrient value, but I think if we need to resort to discussing the efficacy of supplying these quaternary or quinary-level nutrients to bolster the position they are necessary, we've probably gone beyond a leap. Besides - how are we to know what they are and whether they are in the soil in the first place>?

What I read of the stone to bread thing postulates so many things in the first few pages that contradict what I know about the plant sciences, that I decided it probably is going to be misleading if taken at face value.

When it comes to nutrition, the simple fact is: Plants do best when ALL nutrients are available in the soil solution at adequate to luxury ranges. This means that having available more of any one nutrient than is necessary is a negative. If you pick ANY nutrient at random and imagine an excess, we can say that the excess contributes to the level of TDS/EC of the soil solution. As TDS/EC increases, the ability of the plant to absorb water and the nutrients dissolved in water decreases. That's why too much blood meal or urea is a bad thing. Too much of 'A' can also inhibit uptake of 'B', causing an antagonistic deficiency. E.G., too much Fe can cause deficiencies of Mn, too much Ca - deficiency of Mg, too much P - deficiencies of N,Fe,Z, and other micronutrients ....

Getting back to the bread from stones thing, I would ask what soil is made of if not rock granules being turned to rock dust? You're right - you don't want to be running at the lower limit, that being borderline deficient, but neither do you want to be running at the other extreme, that being toxic or borderline toxic. As close as is reasonably doable, you want nutrition levels and ratios to be just like Goldilocks's last bowl of porridge. ;o) We need to lose that attitude that 'if a little is good, a little more must be better'. Balance in all things .....

Al

An excess of any one nutrient can cause plants to not be able to utilize other nutrients resulting in poor growth and the appearance of a nutrient deficiency even if the soil has adequate levels of any of them. Your soil needs balanced nutrient levels. This, from Ohio State Unmiversity, may be of some help.

Here is a link that might be useful: Soil Nutrients

There are two basic plant nutrient type, macro- and micro-nutrient. Macro means plant needed it a lot, and micro-...well you knew it already. That's the importance of proportion. Tailor the nutrient input accordingly is the best way to avoid any excess build-up, even though crop rotation can help utilizing leftover excess inputs.

Ah, there is a big difference between growing healthy plants and eating healthy food. I can grow some of the best Pokeweed around, leaves that have all the micro and macro nuits needed. It can also kill or terribly sicken anyone who eats it.

Mike

Of course you can, Mike. But why would you do such a thing? It sounds funny.

Crackpot it is!
these guys change the "Global Warming" to look smarter.
I was here in 1990 & was given vegetables away, so it would not go bad on the vine.
The forest,fields & gardens in South Carolina are go well.
To many white tail deer, too few hunters.
Sorry, it is cheater & easier to buy or raise beef, chicken & lamb.

wordwiz where do you get your information?? People in the south & north have & still eat poke weed(Pytolacca).Young leaves &
stems. "Feasting Free on Wild Edibles" by Bradford Angier.
Mr. Angier talk about pasture brake(Pteridium) fiddleheads &
Sassafras,Spicebush(Benzoin),Staghorn Sumac(Rhus).
The tomato,bell pepper,potato,eggplant all in the poisonous
Night Shade family. I taught Poisonous & Edible plant to member of S.C. BSA for years. Just because you can not eat it raw, does not mean you can not cook it, then eat it.