This post was created to bring information about soil and natural sources of nutrients.
Our mission is to help the world to be more sustainable, for this reason we want to inspire people in Thailand and all over Southeast Asia to help us on improving the soil of our countries and the whole planet.
Check the picture about the lettuce we grow using our soil, do you want this same quality in our crops?
Our products are a perfect blend and mix of minerals and micro-organisms. We are specialist on making blend, and analysis to compensate and provide all the nutrients to cover the needs of plants in different stages. If you want to learn how to make organic compost, organic soil, and other techniques, take a close look on this link.
We can tell you that it's a possibility, but to make the perfect soil blend it is necessary a lot of work and knowledge. After reading this you can try to find natural sources for your farm and project, and you can also keep in touch with us. If you want to have more result and a faster increase in our fields, contact us. We have Takumi Organic Fertlizer and Takumi Soil for a really fast result. Sometimes to find and make a logistic of our soil can be more expensive than buying. As we have a factory, we can bring the price down. Anyway, this text is about primary nutrients for plants. Here are some natural sources where you can find it, and also the fact that Maruchu Bussan has been working with soil for 4 years. You can choose the long road, or the easy one, we are here to help you on both, because soil matters for us as much as our families.
Soils are often analyzed as deficient in both PHOSPHATES and POTASH in intensively leached areas. Phosphates are supplied either by bird manures or from older deposits found in sedimentary rock. Potash occurs in the mineral kainite, formed in areas of evaporated waters. Desert salts usually contain 20-25% potash. Phosphatic rock is restricted in distribution and contains 8-15% phosphorus in various combinations with oxygen or water (hydrated). There are vast reserves of potash in common minerals like orthoclase (a principal constituent of granite). NITROGEN can be supplied by water or land plants inoculated with rhizobia, or fixed by algae and water plants such as Scirpus or Azolla.
We can create the conditions for fixing nitrogen by growing these nitrogen-fixing plants, inoculated with the appropriate rhizobia. Much higher levels of nitrogen than were previously thought to be available are set by land plants, in a series of zones extending from the roots. Even after nitrogenous plants are cut, the root zone will continue to release nitrogen for up to 6 years, so that pioneer legumes or nitrogenous trees serve as a cover crop for trees, and release nitrogen during their lifetimes and for some years after.
The phosphates mined from marine guano, however, may contain concentrated levels of cadmium and uranium, either or both of which (and other heavy metals) can be taken up by the oceanic fish and shellfish used by marine bird colonies. Continual heavy use of such resources is likely to become polluting to soils. Our only ethical strategy is to use just enough of these resources and to conserve them locally.
SOURCES OF MINERALS IN SOILS
The Sea
It makes sense to assume that as soils are leached, and so made mineral-poor, these minerals later become more concentrated in the sea, in marine organisms, or inland saltpans. Seaweeds, seagrasses, and fish residues have always been part of agricultural fertilizers, and have maintained their place even in modern times. As seawater evaporates. First, calcite and are used for soil conditioning, pH adjustment, or to restore soil crumb structure.
There specific plants (often aquatic) that concentrate salt, which can be gathered or leached from their ashes. Lastly, potash, magnesium salts, and a host of minor elements remain; the evaporites (those already deposited) being the most soluble and therefore, earliest deposited. The liquid that remains after the conventional salt content deposition is a rich source of minor minerals and trace elements. It is, in fact, sold as "bitterns" (bitter, oily fluids) for dilution and incorporation in crop soils, or in low concentrations (diluted 100–500:1) used directly as foliar sprays in strengths varying from 1-20 1/ha. Very corrosive, bitterns (which include bromine and many of the early elements of the periodic table, plus some rare minerals), are safely held and distributed only via non-corrosive vessels and pipes (today, polyethylene pipes and drums). Bitterns are cheap and easily transported to leached areas, but their effects must be established by local trials. As these evaporites are so easily dissolved, they are also those most likely to be carried to sea in rains. Rocks and rock dusts Granites contain felspars yielding potash or sodium salts. Limestone and dolomite yield calcium and magnesium, and mineral deposits or their ores give traces of the basic minor elements. Of these, calcium (in all but highly calcareous areas) is most needed, dolomite (except where magnesium is already in high ratio) is next; phosphates and felspars follow, along with trace elements in small quantities (as low as 5-7 kg/100 ha for zinc, copper, cobalt, and molybdenum).
Field trials have established that cheap ores, finely ground, are as effective as more refined sulfates o oxides (Leeper 1982). Sometimes such minerals a given to animals as salt licks, in molasses, in water. Or as injections or "bullets" of slow-release elements (cobalt) in a pellet which lodges in the rumen. Some mineral elements also reach plants via urine, but foliar sprays are more rapid-acting and effective. Fine rock dust of a specific rock suited to local needs is often cheaply available from quarries or gravel pits. Basalt dust is helpful, for example, on leached tropical soils. Rock phosphate contains 8-15% phosphorus, but is very slow to release nutrient, and maybe entirely absorbed on to leached clays and clay-loams. Super-acid phosphate added to compost, or plants used in compost, may be necessary under such conditions. Rock dust as an unselective category can do as much harm as good on soils, adding excessive or poisonous nutrients in some cases, or excessive micronutrients.
Now, let us know if you want our team to help you. We can help you to regenerate our soil by creating a better and more effective blend. Or we can help you to try our soil and see the benefits of working in harmony with nature.
Soon, we will post about TaneDakara, our Seedling Soil with germination rate about 80%.