Basic HTML Version
June-JuJy,
1970
The
PLAIN TRUTH
ECOLOGV
of a
Balanced Soil
AIR
The top few inches of soi l ore the foundotion of oll life. Here live billions of
bacteria, fungi, molds, eorthworms ond soil insects. They digest ond mix
plont ond animal residues with minerals from below. These are combined
with water and air to produce the balanced living soil.
increase in pests shows that somethiog
is wroog with an increasing number of
our crops.
Laboratory tests have shown that
seeds from plants grown on water–
soluble nutrients are often incapable of
germination. Even now many farmers
canoot continuously use their own crops
for seed because of poor germination.
After a few years their seed stock "runs
out" - as farmers express it - and
they are forced to obtain fresh seed
produced on better soil. Seed that
cannot reproduce is certainly lacking
something vital!
Decl ine
in
Food Value
As crops are grown in humus–
deficient soil with the aid of increasing
quaotities of chemical fertilizers, the
crops become increasingly deficient in
proteins, vitamins and minerals. This
has been proved repeatedly by com–
parative analysis of grains, vegetables,
eggs, milk and other products produced
on humus-rich soil aod on chcmically
fertilized soil.
According to Kansas surveys by the
USDA between 1940 and 1951, while
total annual state wheat yields increased
during this period, protein content
dropped from a high of nearly 19 per–
ccnt in 1940 to a high of 14 percent by
1951 (Albrecht,
Soil Science Looks Jo
the Cou;).
By 1969 the protein conteot
of wheat had dropped to an average of
10.5% in thc U. S. Midwest.
Protein content in corn and other feed
crops have oftcn dropped even more
remarkably than wheat. This is one rea-
13
son farmers today have to feed larger
quantities of feed to livestock than they
did in times past.
While this protein drop may not
appear too serious, we don't fully under–
stand what it entails. Protein quantity is
easily measured, but protein
quality.
is
more clifficult to measure. Proteins are
as complex as life itself. They often
carry the trace minerals and the vita–
mins. But many of these building blocks
of all living substances are still a deep
sccrct in respect to their detailed molec–
ular structure. This is why there is
great danger in carelessly raising our
food - of which proteins are a most
important component - on depleted
soi l and with the aid of chemical
fertilizers.
Nitrate Polluúoo
In recent years another major prob–
lem has been developing as a direct
result of chcmicll fcrtilizrr use. That