soil remineralization: process and discussion

Once the rocks have been partially broken down by physical action and chemical reactions the stage is set for the final performers: soil microbiology. Microbiology functions as the soil’s stomach. They digest rock powders and make the nutrients released from the rock powders available to plants. Plants and microbes function synergistically. Plants produce sugars through the process of photosynthesis and have a mineral requirement that must be met from soil reserves. Soil biology, on the other hand, has access to plenty of minerals (if the soil has been remineralized) but need an energy source to liberate rock-bound nutrients. This beautiful synergy of creation reveals the handiwork of its creator. Plant roots excrete carbohydrates that feed soil biology which return the favor by making bound-up nutrients available to the plant.

Without fresh incorporation of rock powders the soil becomes progressively demineralized. This leads to a decline in the plants’ sugar production, which results in a declining microbial population. When microbial life is reduced the soil will eventually lose its structure. This happens because the soil will be giving up more carbons than it stores and as a consequence soil energy is reduced. The end result is reduced yield and quality. When rock powders are added to soil according to the need of the soil the whole process of soil degradation is reversed.

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Is rock phosphate a good idea for what I want to use it for? The local Ace Hardware has bags of it cheap (and other goodies). I want something to compliment the dry-bar bat guano as a source of P.

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The guano contains alot of grit, gravel, bones, etc. and I'm never sure how much guano is actually going into the tea.

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jaykush said:

i honestly cant say for sure jack, but too much of anything can be bad.

i haven't seen problems with using it, even at 30% or more of the soil mix when testing. i did see some weird funky growth at 50%azomite 50% compost. though it was a bit soggy and not the best draining so that could have helped cause it. i wouldn't suggest anyone to try that much anyways.

i also use rock powders collected from the local mountain streams, some areas collect the super fine dust in piles so its easy to collect. it works great along with the Azomite because it adds diversity.

either way rock powders are good stuff!

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jaykush said:

rock phosphate is slow to release, youll get better results if your re using your soil. but thats not to say it wont do anything specially if your soil is alive and fertile.

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melvin2 said:

Is rock phosphate a good idea for what I want to use it for? The local Ace Hardware has bags of it cheap (and other goodies). I want something to compliment the dry-bar bat guano as a source of P. The guano contains alot of grit, gravel, bones, etc. and I'm never sure how much guano is actually going into the tea.

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I layer my compost pile with either azomite or some glacial rock dust. There are also some mining operations around here, might have to check to see if there is anything that is ground fine, hopefully some sort of useful industrial waste.

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I've been trying out mixing some in to the compost teas as well, not sure if it does anything or not but I haven't been noticing any big improvement anyway.

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enlivened rock powders
bread from stones ( very old book I'm sure most have read)

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Clackamas Coot said:

Are you talking about aerated compost teas or regular compost teas (not aerated but probably stirred and allowed to brew for a certain amount of time).

Some aerated compost tea recipes call for the use of soft rock phosphate or glacial rock dust and other shattered rock products.

HTH

CC

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Y. Rado, "The Wonders of Powdered Gravel", REMINERALIZE THE EARTH, 1994.
Reproduced with permission.

THE FACTS:

Nearly all soils on earth are thousands of years old. They
are generally quite "sick" and depleted. Finely ground stones
and gravels, applied to such soils, can literally restore them
by supplying a broad range of minerals......minerals which
have been slowly lost through the ages, by erosion, leaching,
and farming.

A soil which has an abundance of minerals really "comes
to life." Billions of microbes flourish, by feasting on the
mineral elements, and they, in turn, supply the plants, worms,
and so forth, with the basic compounds needed for health.


The earth's soils haven't always been in such poor shape, as they are now. Five thousand years ago, the situation was quite different. Back then, the soils had an abundance of minerals. The result was an incredible richness of LIFE, everywhere.

The trees in the forests of Europe grew so huge -- oak tree trunks were often a hundred feet tall, to the first branch! Imagine an entire an entire forest of such trees, or having much of the earth covered with them. Well, that's exactly how it was. But now, after thousands of years of leaching, erosion, farming, overgrazing, ....plus the more recent assaults with chemicals, the soils are a mere shadow of what they once were.

The symptoms of mineral depletion are everywhere, and getting worse each year. The forests are actually dying in many areas. Crops are diseased, insipid, insect infested, and nutritionally "bankrupt." Soils are compacted, nearly lifeless, and easily eroded away. Plants and trees are stunted, sickly, sensitive to frosts and droughts.

People and animals are in similar shape. You really ARE what you EAT! Everything from susceptibility to AIDS or cancer, to "learning difficulties" can usually be attributed, largely, to the condition of the SOIL.

How It Works:

Powdered rocks and gravels are Nature's "fertilizer." Glaciers and volcanoes are the primary methods She uses to produce the powder. But those methods are very slow, and the job of re-mineralizing needs to be done right away. We need to use efficient machines to grind gravel into powder, so that the soil life can get to the minerals that are trapped in the rocks

When powdered gravel is applied to the soil, a marvelous thing happens. The microbes in the soil (and in the guts of earthworms) "digest" the powder, and extract whatever useful elements they find. The higher plants then extract the mineral rich juices from those microbes, and pass them down the line to the animals.

Given an abundance of minerals (like zinc, copper, calcium, etc.), and water, the soil microbes, earthworms, plants, and animals THRIVE because the minerals are critical to every function of living things. The worms bore miles of tunnels, which aerate the soil. The microbes work extra hard to glue the soil particles into spongy "crumbs." The plants develop huge root systems, which resist drought. Insects are repelled by the healthy juices of the plants. Foods become more flavorful and satisfying. Both yields and quality increase. The plants become more heat and frost resistant. Diseases become rare events. And so on. The minerals are truly the FOUNDATION of all life on earth!

Plants need a balanced "diet" just like people do. Too much of a good thing can be very harmful. That's a problem with compost, manures, and chemical fertilizers; they release to much of some nutrients (like Nitrogen and Phosphorous) and not enough of others (such as the many trace minerals). And to make matters worse, they are very soluble in water, which means that the plants are FORCED to absorb them, throwing the plants out of balance. Powdered rock, on the other hand, is practically insoluble, and so it cannot cause an imbalance, nor can it pollute the ground water or streams. It could make a World of difference.

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A BRIEF PERSPECTIVE
On Soil Remineralization and the Climate

"A BRIEF PERSPECTIVE On Soil Remineralization and the Climate", REMINERALIZE THE EARTH, Spring, 1993.
This information is condensed from the writings of John Hamaker, Don Weaver, Larry Ephron and Joanna Campe.
Reproduced with permission.

Soil Remineralization:

The soils of the entire world have become severely demineralized by erosion over thousands of years. Plants require a continuous intake of minerals, just as we do, and for very similar reasons -- calcium to build structural support, iron to carry oxygen, and so on. Plants growing on mineral-depleted soil do not get enough nourishment and so become smaller, less-abundant and less hardy, more vulnerable to the insects, worms and fungi they are prey to.

Remineralization causes a phenomenal growth of the microorganisms in the soil. It increases the nutrient intake of plants. It counters the effects of soil acidity, prevents soil erosion (just for that reason it would be worth applying rock dust), increases the storage capacity of the soil, contributes to the building of precious humus complexes, has anti-fungal properties, and when you spray it on plants it repels insects as well. The plants and trees become highly resistant to insects, disease, frosts, and drought. Remineralization also enhances and speeds up the process of composting, so if you're composting for your garden, consider putting on some rock dust. It can be even more effective than just directly applying it to the land.

For Forests:

The results of long term experiments released in 1986 showed that in a forest where pine seedlings were remineralized, after 24 years the wood volume was four (4) times higher than in the untreated area.

For Agriculture:

The best source of soil minerals is simple crushed gravel dust. In 1976 John Hamaker spread gravel crusher screenings on part of his ten acres in Michigan. The following year, in an area of sparse rainfall and dry summers, and with no irrigation, his corn produced 65 bushels per acre, compared to yields of under 25 from other local farms.

Moreover, when independent analyses were done, Hamaker's corn was found to contain 28% more protein, 47% more calcium, 57% more phosphorous, 60% more magnesium and 90% more potassium than the same type of corn grown with chemical fertilizers nearby.

Twenty years ago the USDA published studies which showed that cement kiln dust (a less-satisfactory source of minerals) also produced better crops, but they couldn't understand "what element" in the dust was responsible and dropped the matter.

Don Weaver grew 18-foot pole beans on remineralized soil (Jack and the Beanstalk?) and got two to four times the normal organically grown yield. Alan LePage of Vermont grew a crop of carrots averaging 1-1/2 feet long. And there was no insect damage to any of these crops. Hamaker estimates that on fully remineralized soil, American agriculture could grow four times as much food as it is capable of now -- or the same amount of food at about one-fourth the cost -- and with no pesticides or chemical fertilizers.

The Nutritional Aspect:

When we eat food grown on depleted soil we too, like the plants, lose our natural resistance to disease. All the degenerative diseases have been on the rise in America in recent decades. Dietary fat, cholesterol, salt and overly-refined foods seem to be major factors, but a serious deficiency of minerals in our food may be another. Mineral depletion of soils has been found to be directly correlated with death rates. And deficiencies of only one of a number of trace minerals -- copper, iron, selenium, etc. -- have been found in laboratory studies to be associated with an increased risk of cancer. You may want to grow more complete, nourishing food for yourself and your family.

A Global Perspective On Climate:

The problem of soil demineralization also has a global perspective. It is known that the Earth's soil becomes demineralized during each interglacial period, the relatively short 10,000-year warm period between each 90,000-year major Ice Age. Consequent decline and death of the world's forests and other vegetation which occurs cause great quantities of carbon dioxide to be given off. The level of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere has been rising exponentially for the past century. Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases trap excess heat from the sun, potentially affecting the world's climate.

It is also well-known that when the glaciers advance and then recede during each recurrent Ice Age, they grind down rocks in their path, and that their mineral-rich dust is blown far and wide over the surface of Earth, remineralizing its soil and causing plant life to thrive again.

John Hamaker has supplied one missing piece of the cosmic puzzle to provide an explanation, long sought, of the awesome 100,000-year cycle of major Ice Ages. Hamaker points out that the greenhouse effect occurs primarily in the tropics, which get the most sun, rather than in the polar regions which get very little. When this happens, the temperature differential between the tropics and the poles increases, resulting in fierce wind systems, hurricanes, tornadoes and storms.

The moisture picked up by these increasing storm systems also is transported to the higher latitudes, where it gets deposited as snow and ice, eventually bringing on glaciation and the next Ice Age. This has been happening in recent years, with record snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere and a shortening of the growing season, by weeks in some places, a pattern which is also accelerating year by year. Hamaker estimates that within a few decades the growing season may have decreased so much that millions of people will starve, in the rich nations as well as the poorer.

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