Most videos I have watched debunk the need for rock dust. The few that had a positive effect were mineral deficient.

gardengal48, Sand in sandy soils is mostly quartz mineral which do not release much plant food. Loams have a far greater diversity than sands.

If someone were to add rock dusts to soil it should be 6 months to a year before they might be needed, provided there is adequate amounts of organic mater in that soil to allow the Soil Food Web to convert them into nutrients that plants can use. Prior to adding any "fertilizer" a good reliable soil test should be done to see if there might be a need for that.

Most soils are deficient in organic matter so adding compost would not be a bad idea, although a good reliable soil test should also be done to determine if that is necessary.

kimmq is kimmsr

Why the" rock dust"? Unless you have a good lab analysis showing that the soil has a nutrient deficiency, AND a good analysis of the "rock dust" showing that it is a good source of those missing nutrients, it's just pixie dust.

Sand is not just quartz - it is naturally occurring granular material formed by the erosion of rock.....any kind of rock. If it was ground any finer, it would be the same stuff folks are being conned into buying under the label of "rock dust".

Package it up nicely, put a fancy label on it and give it an ad man and gardeners can be conned into buying anything for their garden. My gosh, look at Super Thrive!!

Pixie dust?

A number of years ago people poo-pooed dihydrogen monoxide (sometime inappropriately IMO, AKA hydroxyl acid) but despite warnings that inhalation for extended periods was fatal, nearly everyone finally concluded that appropriate regular application resulted in improved plant health.

Doing a little research often will reveal when something is puffery/hoax or not.

Ridgerunner ... Applying that horrible chemical DHMO when there is no need for it can hinder plant growth or even kill your plants. In the absence of an indication that it is needed, it's just a waste of money.

I REPEAT: Unless you have a good lab analysis showing that the soil has a
nutrient deficiency, AND a good analysis of the "rock dust" showing that
it is a good source of those missing nutrients, it's just pixie dust.

A lot of these additives/amendments are just a waste of money. It's a wonder anyone was able to grow anything with any degree of success all those centuries before these "miracle" plant potions came on the market.

99% of them are just playing on consumer ignorance.

You should be getting most if not all of your needs from good compost.

Gardening is full of magic potions and pixie dust that one can buy and apply. It's part of the mythology that people buy into ... in this case, with dollars.

Yes, sand is mostly quartz, but it's a rare quartz that is SiO2 and nothing else. Almost all naturally occurring quartzes are seeded with the same minerals that occur in the rest of the soil. The makers of quartz underground (you know, the quartz elves) don't slam the door on other minerals when they make it in their factory. The only thing that rock dust does is make the grain size super small so the minerals can dissolve readily.

Lab tests for cobalt, chromium, and such would be prohibitive. Yet they are needed in small quantities for optimum human health...if not for plant health.

I believe that a dusting of micro minerals is okay. I AM NOT talking about calcium, phosphorus, nitrogen, potassium, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, boron, sulfur, and other macro minerals.

I take several supplements for my health rather than drugs. I believe that it is wise. I don't wait for a hospital trip to wake me up.

Have you had your 2,000 IUs of vitamin D3 today? I have.

Uh lazy... ridge is suckering you in... dihydrogen monoxide is just the chemical formula name for water (H2O, two hydrogen and one oxygen per molecule)... its perfectly safe to "water" plants with it but inhaling it will kill you by drowning. (The point I believe he is trying to make is be careful of knee-jerk responses, it can make one look foolish or worse.)

Wayne... wise logic my friend, I too eat what I grow... (also I like your spirit of adventure and not being so bogged down in dogma that you fear new experiences and discovery. I often find proving things for myself trumps obeying others who claim a confidence of knowledge without any actual experience.)

And Ryan... you can add the rock dust any time you'd like, it dissolves so slowly (in geologic timeframe) that it really doesn't matter in terms of timing the release... work it all in now and you won't need to reapply likely ever again in your lifetime. Compost I like to add at planting time but anytime is also good as it will continue to breakdown as long as microbes are active and it just gets better with time... however you want its goodness in the top few inches for as long as possible so the plants can benefit, that's why I like to add it at planting time.

With regard to micronutrients, and the difficulty in assaying soil for them, the entrepreneurs have it all figured out. You need these elements in your soil, but no one is going to be able to test to verify that you actually have them. So you sell them, and they'll fly off the shelves! Works the same way with human micronutrients. Yep, you can go into health food stores and find giant bottles of pills featuring the rarest trace elements.

In the case of soil, these necessary trace elements are certainly supplied in compost. Compost is largely the organic remains of healthy plants, which MUST have had those micronutrients in order to be healthy. In the case of people, it's a little harder to be sure, I guess, unless we were cannibals.

Dan... I don't think you're quite getting the point Wayne is making... Here's just one simple specific example to illustrate what Wayne is trying to get across:

Selenium is not a required nutrient for plant health but many plants will absorb it if its present in the soil and will incorporate selenium into its tissues... however selenium is quite vital for humans and most animals to remain healthy. If you eat what you grow then you'd want selenium to be in your plants... do you test for it in the soil? If you intend to eat the plants you grow then I would think it wise to have human essential micronutrients in your plants even though plants don't require it (meaning doesn't affect the plant health). Science establishes what's necessary for human health only until they discover the next essential thing and then add it to that ever growing list... therefore one has a choice to wait around to see what might be next on the list or one can try a proactive shotgun approach... no one knows the right answer... some of us are just more adventurous than others.

I don't come here often... and read these thread postings even less often but there is a trend that I sometimes see permeates some postings that guise as being helpful but really is nothing more than preaching dogma from on high. To those postings I will say this: Gardening is a hobby.... hobbies are suppose to be fun and enjoyable and about discovery... don't suck all the fun out of it by spouting dogma and suggesting everyone who dares oppose is either gullible or somehow filled with evil motives. Heck, Gardening is not religion.

With that I will now bow out of the thread. Ryan, I hope you got the answers you were seeking somewhere in the thread.

No, gardening is a religion to many. It's a religion that in many cases simply denies basic science. There's plenty of that around these days, and plenty of dogma preaching going on about that. Yes, people do know the right answers. That's what real research gets you. Adventurousness doesn't in itself make good research.

I know exactly what I'm talking about here, and rare earth nutrient supplements for people and plants is largely a scam. There are plenty of natural sources for selenium that don't require it to be artificially seeded. Selenium, BTW, has been identified as increasing risk for non-melanoma skin cancer.

One good preach deserves another.

dan...and any others willing to read this. I am not a certified expert of any kind. But, I have read quite a bit about health of soil, body, and soul. We are in body what we eat. I don't go out there and buy every new idea off the shelf.

I do listen to experts though. America is not in the best health. Drugs keep people limping along...not heal them.

My phi;osophy is to fortify my soil, my body, and soul with the best of things. Others have the same free will to do with their gardens, bodies and souls as they desire.

So, I added some supplemental dust that may or may not supply a need.....Whoopie.

A few observations from an env chemist. Most of you know this, but for the OP:

Most soils have trace levels of most metals. I mean if you look hard enough with lab instrumentation you can find it all. They are, after all, decomposed rock. It's fairly rare to have a specific deficiency, and plants can adapt to a variety of conditions.

Soil is a highly complex system with minerals in solid form and dissolved in solution (soil pore water). Rock dust will take considerable time to equilibrate with this system as rock is rather insoluble. :-] If it does anything for the soil, it does it very slowly. So add it when you want, if you still want to add it after reading this thread. It will not dissolve away rapidly and lose its potency like granular fertilizer.

Clay tends to be very rich in minerals because it is full of ion exchange sites that hang onto metal ions. If you have silty or clayey soil, or a balanced loam, you should be in good shape.

Finally, if you are making and using compost, and your soil is reasonably fertile (i.e. your garden grows?), there are plenty of micronutrients available to your plants. Compost made from a variety of materials has all the macro and micronutrients plants need. In my own tests, my homemade compost had higher levels of Fe, Mn, Cu, etc. etc. than a dozen commercial bagged composts in all price ranges. People say my vegetables - peppers, lettuce, greens especially - have incredible taste. I think it's the compost.

In conclusion, if you haven't gotten a soil test showing deficiencies of any specific minerals (or the soil in your area is well known to be deficient in boron or whatever), and you're adding some compost, my advice is to use up the bag of rock dust you have and spend your money on a nice new compost turning fork instead.

Many valid points have been made in regards to micronutrients, not needing more trace elements that are already at acceptable levels etc, but I'm surprised that no one has mentioned one of the main reasons for organic gardeners to add rock dusts; additional sites for bacteria and fungi to anchor to, and in turn improve many things like soil texture, porosity, nutrient cycling ability etc.... Here's a quote from another garden site:

"In a soil shattered rock (rock dust) provide a number of things: 'anchors' for many fungi strains. While it is true that endo & ecto mycorrhizal strains 'bore into the roots' like a corkscrew that is not the case with the majority of fungi in a soil. Even in the brewing of an AACT people who know what they're doing (like Microbeman) add small amounts of some kind of rock dust not to enhance the 'mineral level' in the brew but to provide an anchor for the fungi to attach to and then extend their length.

Another benefit that rock dusts provide is structure in the soil which equates to aeration paths. Paths for not only air but water to move freely in the rhizosphere."

"So, now we know that rock dusts provide several benefits, first, "mineralization", and also pathways for air and water, and most importantly, anchors for bacteria/soil life to latch onto in our soil.

After much reading and discussions with LD, the REAL BENEFIT comes from ENZYMES. Once the bacteria has latched onto and anchored to the rock dust, they produce enzymes. While there are many different types of enzymes, (different types of enzymes are created dependent on their "host") one of the most important things that happens due to these enzymes in our soil is Nutrient Cycling. Bacteria do not "eat" organic matter - they utilize these enzymes to break down the organic matter for them. They excrete enzymes thru their bodies. By having the rock dust in our soil, we have created many places for bacteria to latch onto, more enzymes are created, by more enzymes being created, more nutrient cycling happens, by more nutrient cycling happening, more organic matter is broken down into usable plant food!"

The endpoint is that in most soils, all that is there in the first place and routine additions of organic matter will continue nutrient availability. I can safely say that I have gardened for more than 40 years, both personally and professionally, have never once added any sort of rock dust and still manage to grow perfectly healthy plants and edibles. So much so that I never fertilize inground plantings, ever. Never needed to with annual applications of a compost mulch, which will provide virtually all the same attributes of a rock dust. If you think about it a moment, it is hard to imagine many soils that are not heavily mineral in composition to begin with - silt, a major component of most soils, is just rock dust.

The use of this sort of product is always a personal choice but it is seldom a necessary one.

Yeah, I don't see how rock dust is any different from soils in terms of providing surfaces for microbes, fungi, etc. Compost does the same thing - microbes love to set up shop in organic matter. As far as aeration and drainage, it all depends on the size of the particles. I don't know what mesh size rock dust products usually are, but unless you add a lot of it, and it has a particular size range compared to the existing soil, you can't depend on it to do anything significant for aeration and drainage.

It would be interesting to see some real microscopic evidence and or independent research that rock dust can be beneficial (and making a real difference) in this way. Without that, it's just another marketing ploy.

Yeah, lets just dump it in the file 13. We need a million dollar study to be tabled later.

Here is an old booklet from the late 1800s

I am not against some chemical fertilizer...this old book is kinda interesting.

There are a few youtube gardening channels that test some of these practices. I have seen tests on biochar, rock dust, compost tea and layered protection for winter growing. For growing practices almost every one is redundant if you build up your soil with good compost.

I'll take a $10K study.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/24/garden/on-a-fad-diet-of-rock-dust-how-the-garden-does-grow.html?_r=0

But hopes abound. Ya gotta believe!

The Internet abounds with books, articles, youtube vids, product reviews, forums, websites with testimonials, anecdotes, comparison studies on either sides of the issue... some purport to prove positive benefits of rock dust and others that prove its all a scam... so what's the truth? Is someone lying? Who really knows? I don't but I can venture a guess as to why there could be so many conflicting results by various sources. (Thinking out loud here)... Likely if all of what rock dust adds to a soil is already present in the soil then common sense would suggest that significant differences would not be found in soil and plant tissue samples, however if the soil should be deficient in some needed mineral then I'd expect obvious improvements should be seen. I think it a fallacy to believe that all compost is alike and will contain everything necessary to "complete" a soil and thus the logical conclusion that's implied that simply adding enough compost to a soil means there will be no deficiencies, well this might not hold true in all cases. Everyone has different soil and a different history for that soil. For those blessed with a "complete" soil you need nothing else its true but really how does one know this is the soil they have? Testing for everything is one possibility or perhaps one could shotgun it with rock dust (kelp, etc)... In this way rock dust can be thought of as taking out insurance... nothing necessarily wrong with that, we have all taken out insurance policies of one sort or another. The upside is that rock dust dissolves so slowly you only ever have to add it once... a lifetime of insurance for the price of a single payment.

There is very little proof in that article that rock dust is helping. Just a lot of hearsay about stuff growing better.

Insurance? Yes, I guess I should take out insurance against meteor impacts and volcanic eruptions. I mean, who knows?? The Internet abounds with books, articles, youtube vids, product
reviews, forums, websites with testimonials, anecdotes, comparison
studies on either sides of the issue... some purport to prove those dangers and others that prove its all a scam... so what's the truth? Is someone lying? Who really knows?

As I said, compost is made of material that was once successfully growing. As such, it seems a fallacy to believe that it doesn't have everything in it that is needed to make plants successfully grow. That is, it's a logical fallacy to believe that, unless there is some credible evidence otherwise. To my knowledge, no such credible evidence has been presented that rock dust actually does anything that is not already being done. As I said, I invite credible evidence, the credibility of which is measured by (1) it being from a source that isn't selling the stuff, and (2) that presents a specific comparative case - as in, this bed had no rock dust and did badly, and this identical bed had rock dust and it did great.

I'm willing to admit that if your soil is geologically weird, it may lack trace elements. The chances of that are really quite small. I don't see rock dust being used in general agriculture. From people who are making money off of their crops. That tells you something.

The phrase "conflicting results" doesn't pertain to one-off uses. "Hey, I used rock dust and had great results!" "Hey, I used rock dust and it didn't do anything!" A credible result is one that is designed as an experiment, where the stuff is used and not used, and compared under the same conditions. I've only heard about one-off uses. If two people do that comparison, and get different results, THAT'S what you call conflicting results. If I make my chile with beans, and you make your with beef, I don't call taste tests on those conflicting.

Evaluating the actual methods used and the variables (both controlled and uncontrolled) in a pile of studies will sort them out pretty quick. If there are studies conducted with reasonable methods that show a mix of results, that's a clear sign there are uncontrolled variables. Not that the studies are invalid, but that there is some factor not taken into account. Such as, some of the soils did have deficiencies that were remediated by the rock dust, and some did not. Or climate, weather, soil type, which plants were grown, etc. All kinds of potential variables. And yeah, forget anecdotal stories. The only way to really find out is with side by side, treated and untreated beds. You know, actual ag science.

There is another thread going where a gardener is using an organic fertilizer blend of seed meals, bone and blood meal, Epsom salts, etc. Doesn't want to spend money on a soil test to see if all that is needed. How much is all that going to cost though? How much is a bag of rock dust? The benefit of a soil test is that it may tell you other things that need attention that you weren't even thinking about. Then you can focus your attention and funds where it's most needed. If that's rock dust, it's fine with me. Just do it based on facts rather than sales pitches.

Dan... I'm not going to participate in a pi$$ing match here, its just too time consuming for someone with a job, hobbies and a family life to expend the effort... but if you do a simple search yourself, I kid you not, you will EASILY turn up dozens of sources that claim either to prove or disprove benefits to the use of rock dust (also a myriad of other soil additives and various philosophies and methods of gardening can be found as well). It would be silly for me to fill a posting with dozens upon dozens of links when they are so easily accessed with so little effort. Some in the form of anecdotes within reviews, some have photo "proof", some do videos... so many and yet I can find possible technical flaws in every single one of them that would invalidate the results, its because there's too much variability in nature, too much that's not really understood yet to claim definitive proof... anything you show me either way I can poke a hole in. Science always seems to move at the pace of two steps forward and one step back ("it's because you don't know what you don't know"... it is a saying with very deep implications that many people never do fully comprehend because it puts a focus on one's ability to imagine what they don't know and most people are convinced they know everything already). But that's why its all just so much jaw-boning to claim confidence in knowledge without experience, which is a common feature of forums. Just for fun... Example of issues with your logic above: just because something lives doesn't mean it is healthy... for instance there are many sick people, people deformed by nutrient deficiencies that manage to live and create new life with deformities due to those deficiencies that also continue to live. Simply because a plant grows doesn't mean it isn't deficient in some meaningful way (the reference here is to compost made from such deficient plants). You claim to know that the odds of a soil having a deficiency is in fact similar to that of a meteor strike occurrence... first do you even know what those odds are? for either situation? Yes, I'm being (partly) facetious here in an effort to stress a point. The point I'm trying to make is a simple one... there's not enough currently known to make strong definitive statements of whether rock dust (bio-char, humic acid, no-till, back-to-eden, etc, etc, etc) doesn't offer the gardener benefits... because I believe the truer responses lie in the specifics of the situation in which it is being applied, I therefore do not close my mind off to unorthodox styles of gardening which then leaves me open to experiment should I chose, which culminates in personal experiences affording me the opportunities to discover things for myself... I enjoy gardening can you tell?

Thank you nonomer. As the Apostle Paul said, [para[phrasing a bit perhaps] "When we think we know, we don't know as we should."

I take several supplements. Someone might say, "Oh, you are just wasting money." I will be the judge of that for myself....same for soil amendments and soil minerals from exotic concentrated sources.

I don't even understand what is being argued about here. After reading both of your statements it sounds like you guys are saying the same thing. That there are circumstances where rock dust is shown to help and circumstances where there was no change. Sounds to me like we can just move on at this point.

Wayne I don't know what the rules here are on religion but just to balance out your religious quote so you don't get in trouble, I'll throw in one from an atheist that still expresses the themed sentiment in the thread... "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."

John... the deal is more about the chastising (subtle form of shaming) of people for their choices of gardening amendments than anything in particular to just rock dust specifically... if you read all the postings carefully it should be self evident. There's no big argument really, just a lot of jaw-boning going on. I've got the day off and there's not much I can do outside so....

Monomer you should check out the youtube channel oneyardrevolution. The author has done tests on some of these methods. He had some interesting results.

"When we think we know, we don't know as we should."

So when you know as you should, do you get to think that you know?

But do whatever gives you pleasure. I think we all are healthily full of doubts about this. That's why we'd really like to see some real ag science applied here. But without that science, throwing rock dust on for the fun of it is thinking we know something that we really don't know as we should. Thank you, Apostle Paul.

Knowing that we don't know something is the best argument for NOT spending money to do something about it. I think the point that is being made here is not that application of rock dust is wrong, per se, but that it is an answer to a problem that quite probably doesn't exist. Can I sell you some meteorite insurance?

Well put. It won't hurt anything, but without some assurance it's needed, *I* wouldn't spend money on it.

I had a whole analysis of a few quotes from the NYT article but accidentally posted it in the wrong thread. Kinda water under the bridge now anyway.

Kind of one last question on this thread... Do any of the posters on this thread supplement their bodies with any vitamins, enzymes, minerals, anti-oxidants, or similar substances?

Not me. Nor anyone in my family. We eat good food. Walking down the health-supplement aisle in a store is good for a laugh, however.

Nope! I can honestly say as I approach my 7th decade that I have never taken a vitamin or supplement in my life. No routines meds either. I eat a well balanced diet, try to stay active and any anti-oxidants I may consume come from the food I eat - blueberries, carrots, spinach, salmon, broccoli, etc. And I do drink a lot of tea, very fond of red wine and have been known to indulge in dark chocolate now and again :-))

John... yeah, I've seen most of his and also his buddy from alberta (their vids have been around for a year or two now)... they like to reference each other and both like to do "A verses B" comparisons. I've also left comments on a couple of the vids usually pointing out issues with methodology. His results were a bit scattered if you watch the whole series and seemed to evolve with time. Those two guys are just a small portion of all the videos online concerning amendments. There really is something for everyone.

Wayne... my journey is far too long to go through here so I'll just be brief... I juice. Perhaps on another more appropriate forum we could discuss my experiences and philosophies on green juicing and health. Suffice it to say juicing has lowered my blood pressure to normal, I sleep extremely sound and through the night, mind is sharp and clear and I seem to have a good energy level for my age (66yrs) (I'm still capable of doing 6 hours straight of lecturing several times a week to attest to my stamina)... I mention those things specifically because they were actually issues for me 15 years ago when I first started juicing. None of those changes came instantly... improving health through nutrition is a long slow process that evolves over months, quite unlike taking pills that usually address just the symptoms of declining health without necessarily improving the core health of the individual. I've also experienced other good side effects I attribute to the juicing... ah, but I said I'd keep it short.

dan, I don't buy supplements from the 'store' as you reference. There is a far better place to get high quality cutting edge products. I will be 82 in 3 days and do not take drugs.

What was the original question? Was it what is the meaning of life and everything? or what is the square root of 3? I forget.

I do. It's a valid question. I know my diet is not as good as it could be, so I take a multi vitamin. I've also found that since I started taking Vit C every day, I hardly get colds anymore even when people around me have them. That, at least, has some basis in scientific research and definitely has an effect for me. But yeah, some if it is admittedly 'faith' and 'insurance.'

Key difference: you can't get a test for a bunch of vitamin levels in your body for $20, and even if you could, you'd have to do it more often than soil tests to really keep an eye on things. If I could do it for $20 though, I'd be all over it.

While there are a plethora of snake oils and miracle products that are absolutely useless, rock dusts are not one of them. They are not a simple amendment to just approve or disapprove of. To act as if the minerals in all soils are virtually the same is ignorant, as mineral composition varies greatly in respect to geographic location. Just because we've been gardening successfully on say an acre or two for 10-20 years without the addition of said amendments, doesn't mean that someone else couldn't benefit from them. Here's a scholarly article discussing advantages/disadvantages of different mineral applications in relation to geography, cation exchange capacity, acid neutralization capacity and many other aspects of a variety of dusts. Don't sell yourself short by simply accepting opinions as empirical truth; keep searching for yourself and be sure to fact check what you find on the internet. Farming with rocks and minerals...

– They provide a large number of macro and micronutrients
and beneficial elements (e.g. K, Ca, Mg, Cu, Zn, Mn, and possibly Si (Epstein
1999)).

Those are all supplied in normal compost, and can be tested
for effectively. Si is a major constituent of normal soil. No question that rock dust supplies these nutrients, as do many other things.

– They have favourable properties to raise the pH of soils
(liming effect).

So get lime. Lots cheaper. Maybe 10-20 cents a pound.

– They are suitable as slow-release fertilizers in nutrient
depleted acid soils.

Huh? They provide rather little nutrient at all. Especially
macronutrients. The question at hand is the need for micronutrients.

– Their application has low environmental impact.

Adding rocks to dirt. Uh, yeah.

– Many of them are locally available, some of them as quarry
wastes and mine wastes from other industrial mineral mining operations.

But not just any mine/quarry waste. Lots of mine/quarry waste is highly poisonous.

– They are inexpensive.

Rock dust in my neck of the
woods is a buck a pound, by the bag. Not cheap.

No, don't sell yourself
short by simply accepting opinions as empirical truth. Get your soil analyzed,
and respond accordingly. Don't accept that highly leached acidic soils are representative of your own soil. Again, I have NO PROBLEM using rock dust, if it solves a real problem. But not if it solves someone elses problem.

Well said, Dan!!

As has been said countless time and usually overlooked or ignored, outside of periodic applications of organic matter/compost, there is no need (and usually not a good idea) to apply ANY supplements or fertilizers unless there is a known deficiency. And the only way to know for certain that a deficiency exists in your soil is to have it tested. These minerals are needed by plants in such infinitesimal quantities that it is hard to imagine applications are routinely needed anywhere except under extremely adverse conditions.

FWIW, I cannot recall this subject being discussed as being a significant issue in any of my soil science classes. If it is such a wonderful material and of such a positive impact in the garden and to our soils, I'm pretty sure it would have been discussed in much greater depth and its actual scientific benefits clearly outlined.

I have read where doctors are given almost no nutritional training in school. Yet, I believe that so much of our health depends on good nutrition.

Course sickness pays so much better than health. I don't fully trust all the leaders and experts to be fully knowledgeable and honest when money is involved.

I was just reading about how the experts have barked up the wrong trees concerning fats, cooking oil, sugar, eggs, coconuts, statins, and more.

Perfect example of science moving "two steps forward and one step back"... often times the choices in the design of experiments, methodologies, interpretations, etc. are affected by unconscious biases coming from preconceived notions, monetary incentives, lack of a key piece of knowledge, etc... the motivations are not necessarily all selfish evil but more often stem from hubris and ignorance than anything else... and then of course mix in the human condition of cognitive dissonance and thus the path of science regularly takes that one step back (think of it as science making a correction)... why does this happen? "Its because you don't know what you don't know"... Unfortunately too many people hail science as being totally unbiased and thusly safe to trust/follow with blind faith... I rather look at science as being just another human endeavor and thus fallible, so its safer to reserve a bit of healthy skepticism when it comes to cutting edge science pronouncements. Thus that quote from an earlier posting above "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." Both of those quotes are very profound if one will truly expend some time to ponder on the deeper meanings. I've seen quite a few examples running through this thread where people don't seem to understand what those two quotes are referring to.

Oh, and Ryan... have you added the rock dust yet? Ryan? Ryan? Ryyyyaaaannn.... (spoken like in that movie... Wilson!... Willlsson!!... Wiiiillllllllssson!!!... I guess Ryan too must have just floated away....)

"I rather look at science as being just another human endeavor and thus
fallible, so its safer to reserve a bit of healthy skepticism when it
comes to cutting edge science pronouncements"

I think we all agree with this. But reserving a healthy bit of skepticism to science is quite different than taking actions that are contradictory to it. In the one case, I act because the evidence suggests that I do so. In the other case, I act because the evidence doesn't suggest that I do so. To each his own.

I'll leave this with the thought that soil additives serve two purposes. One, to make plants feel better, and the other to make gardeners feel better. I can argue with the former, but I really can't argue with the latter.

Apologies to Ryan for turning his practical question into a philosophical one.

"and the other to make gardeners feel better. "

Some claim that organic food is healthier and THEREFORE should make the gardener feel better. It isn't ALL about growing plants, but also about growing healthy bodies.....couldn't resist, dan.

I freely admit that science doesn't know everything, doesn't always know what it doesn't know (sometimes does though), and that historically there have been biases in almost every science that have taken time to undo. I also recognize that just because we have more knowledge than the scientists 20 or 50 years ago, that doesn't mean we're at the pinnacle. 20 or 50 years from now they'll be shaking their heads at us too.

But these are not reasons to ignore the science that we DO know, or to do things based on faith or 'alternative science' that's not conducted in a controlled and unbiased manner. There is an epidemic of people saying that science is ignoring or hiding obvious truths that somebody over in the corner somehow knows. Drinking water treatment, nutrition, vaccination just to name a few. While science hasn't always been perfectly unbiased, it's likely that if there is a great truth, good science will verify it, and if it can't, I'm going to remain skeptical. Quite often, such things are not only not confirmed, but soundly refuted in controlled tests.