This is my understanding from a number of papers from rebels in the agricultural science industry. Probably the most well known is William A. Albrecht PhD, Chairman of the Department of Soils at the University of Missouri. He lived from 1888 – 1974 and spent most of his life studying the relationship of soil fertility to human health.
In one of his papers he stated that Calcium is the most important mineral for plant health. Which in turn benefits humans who consume healthy plants.
He did thousands of studies growing all manner of grasses, beans, vegetables and fruit in all types of soils and the only variable he changed was the amount of Calcium. What he discovered was that when the soil reached a saturation point with Calcium, all of the test produce grew better and gave a higher yield. In many cases this saturation level was up to 8 tons per acre or about 17.5 tonnes per hectare. It didn’t matter whether the soil was alkaline or acidic, by increasing the amounts of lime in the soil the growing results improved.
More Lime Please
20kg Bag of AgLime showing the analysis
I usually have a small bag of lime in the shed and always throw some on before planting and every time I dig the garden over. But reading about Albrecht again and also one of his comtemporaries, V A Tiedjens, I got that stirred up I went and bought a couple of bags of lime to increase the calcium in the soil.
As you can see from the analysis there is quite a good amount of Calcium. Because it comes from limestone it doesn’t get used quickly and builds up in the soil. The conventional use for liming is to raise the pH of the soil. On the east coast of Australia we have soils described as acid sulphate and lime is used to bring the soil to a more neutral pH as close to seven as is possible.
Little did our farmers know that the pH balancing was not the greatest benefit they were getting from liming the soil. The increase in calcium and its availability to the crops they were growing was the biggest benefit.
The short description I have given here regarding Albrecht’s work does no justice the years of research he undertook and the derision he received for his views and tested opinions. The biggest scoffers at his results and writings were fellow scientists whose research was paid for by the agricultural chemical companies. They were closely followed by the agronomists working for the chemical supply companies. They were heartily unimpressed by another upstart stating that NPK wasn’t the be all and end all of plant nutrition. If farmers started to believe Albrecht where would their fertilizer sales be?
Soybeans and Lime – See the previous post regarding the protein increase in Soybeans from liming before planting.
Potatoes
Lime around potatoes planted 1 month ago exactly
These were planted a month ago and I have just started to add compost to hill them up. The white stuff around them is lime. I am curious to see how much better these potatoes do than the ones grown in the cardboard cylinders in a previous post.
Difficult To Decipher
Here’s a link to one of Albrecht’s papers. http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/010143albpap/ph.balanced{cd07be7979728a86b172d4c3c193ee8254293b2598ced4c874c66a7b3dbba444}20nutrition/ph.bal.nut.htm I guess a lot of people have found them pretty hard going. He definitely didn’t write them to receive a Pullitzer. If you take your time you will see all the evidence he collates for his assertion that Calcium is the chief plant nutrition.
It takes a while for the alternative points of view to mainstream thinking to take hold. On many occassions these rebel thinkers like Albrecht and Tiedjens must have sustained their beliefs by studying other radical thinkers like inventors and scientists who had an idea that everyone derided. Maybe they looked to Copernicus and Galileo for inspiration. Whatever moved them to hold true to their beliefs is now starting to benefit the rest of humanity. Slowly Slowly.