Soil FERTILITY question (& thoughts)! Thanks for reading!

[ShesSoPecky]

So... I had a really interesting thought when watering the garden recently. I'd been wondering about it awhile but kept forgetting to post it here. So here goes...

When you go start your garden, you generally put down compost or fertilizer, or steer compost, or whatever... and you also already have some of those nutrients already in the soil. Also here's some chemical formulas for dirt... stuff.

Silicia Dioxide is sand. SIO2.

Clay (which we have a lot of) is broken down as part sand, part Al2O3, part Fe2O3, part FeO, part CaO, part MgO, part K2O, part Na2O, etc.... you might have other things also. But most of us get some clay soil and then there's other things. I listed that list for clay because that's what the internet says is in a lot of clay stuff. (That was the list for Bentonite Clay, there's other types of clay also.)

You don't need to know every chemical formula out there for everything. But, here's where I wanted to go with this... when you look at that list there are many 'dust' atoms in there that make up everything. (Adam was created from 'dust' (AKA atoms... adams became Adam).) Well my joke aside, there's stuff there. And we have a lot of dirt in our yards all over the place. You don't run out of dirt. And if you kept digging in your yard you'd never finish trying to go as deep as...whatever...

So my question is, I wonder if the plants and trees can only pick up certain sizes of the minerals around them? You wouldn't find dirt in the vegetable plant for example if you cut it open. So is it reasonable to think they can only pick up small elements of a particular size? And what would be the size they could pick up compared to what they can't? (This is why I listed the chemical formula for clay, sand.) If there's still stuff there, if there's dirt there, there must be matter. So perhaps they can only get the finite amounts of a certain range? What do you think about this?

And part of the reasoning for this is... when we think of fertilizing the garden we usually think... well it seems like its got enough. Or if it doesn't have enough we think, I need more fertilizer. But maybe there's still stuff there but that its not in the size range the plants can pick up in water? (And maybe it has to be broken up in light enough material for water to pick it up? And if that's the case, could you actually create fertilizer by breaking rocks and dirt into dust around them?

If there's no end to dirt, in the yard or garden... there has to be something in that dirt... maybe its just not the right size?


...


Side note; when you research regenerative agriculture, they say that regenerative agriculture and 'Carbon farming' are actually the same thing. That basically when buffalo roamed the plains, the carbin in the soil was 12%+ (more or less), and that that made it so they could grow ANYTHING. But when the carbon level went down then you lost fertility and ability to produce. (But they made shortcuts with trying to use chemical fertilizers instead. Which IS NOT the SAME!) Right now a lot of soils are less than 2% carbon, and its MUCH harder to grow in them with this as the case.

Part of why this is such an interesting side note is CARBON holds other atoms together! It holds everything alive together. and its a basic building block of life. So you WANT carbon because it pulls other things in there with it!

Nao57,
There is an entire academic department devoted to pedology. The soil respires in contact with air, and organisms like molds interact in a 'dance' called mutualism. Bacteria interact with dirt, multiple species of decomposers, too. The process of plants in the lithosphere existing and transitioning to the biosphere IS fascinating.

 

[Amer]

So my question is, I wonder if the plants and trees can only pick up certain sizes of the minerals around them? You wouldn't find dirt in the vegetable plant for example if you cut it open. So is it reasonable to think they can only pick up small elements of a particular size? And what would be the size they could pick up compared to what they can't? (This is why I listed the chemical formula for clay, sand.) If there's still stuff there, if there's dirt there, there must be matter. So perhaps they can only get the finite amounts of a certain range? What do you think about this?

Plants don't absorb soil, per say, most of their mass is made from carbon dioxide and water that they convert into sugars through photosynthesis. But they absorb minerals from the soil using their very tiny root hairs, which yes, as other people say, microorganisms help make these nutrients available.
There are some micronutrients but Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium are the main ones, the macronutrients. These are what commercial fertilizers use, and yes, they are effective. A well fertilized corn field definitely looks different from one that isn't.
Adding organic matter, (compost) to the soil will enrich it with nitrogen.
But here's the thing, not all compost is equal. You say the soils were a high percentage of carbon and I think you mean a high percentage of organic matter.
There is a balance when it comes to organic matter that is called the carbon nitrogen ratio. It's not all about adding compost, it's about balanced compost. You want a carbon nitrogen ratio of about 24:1. This is just right for microbes to release microbes to plants.
Adding a bunch of wood chips to the soil won't work because they have 400 carbon atoms to every nitrogen.
It's ideal to mix chicken manure into the compost because they have a 7:1 ratio. This is low, but considering chicken manure usually comes with some sort of bedding, it balances perfectly.

 

[ShesSoPecky]

The properties of water help the root-to-soil molecular communication. We eat, every day, all the while forgetting of that plant to dirt conversation.

 

[ShesSoPecky]

Nao57,
There is an entire academic department devoted to pedology. The soil respires in contact with air, and organisms like molds interact in a 'dance' called mutualism. Bacteria interact with dirt, multiple species of decomposers, too. The process of plants in the lithosphere existing and transitioning to the biosphere IS

Nao57,
There is an entire academic department devoted to pedology. The soil respires in contact with air, and organisms like molds interact in a 'dance' called mutualism. Bacteria interact with dirt, multiple species of decomposers, too. The process of plants in the lithosphere existing and transitioning to the biosphere IS fascinating.

I think I get you. Some roots/rhizomes are nutrient sluts. They accomodate any size atoms. Others are choosy. It's one explanation of rarity. In this example though, the choosy-rooted plants wouldn't survive. Surely a lab has already created micro-plastic eating phages.

 

[ShesSoPecky]

Nao 57 " if there's dirt there, there must be matter. "

If there is *water,* at the root hairs, there is potential matter available. We can't forget the lithosphere-hydrosphere interaction.
That's the goal of carbon sequestration proponents, right? Slowing greenhouse effect by storing carbon? I could be wrong.