Soil Life, Plant Health, and Chemical Fertilizers
In his "Course for Farmers" of 1924, initially entitled "Fertilization biologique" (Biological Fertilization), Rudolf Steiner, Austrian scientist, philosopher, and visionary, was among the first to speak about the harmful effects of synthetic fertilizers, particularly nitrogen fertilizers derived from the Haber-Bosch process, on the life and organizing forces of the soil and, consequently, on the health and immunity of plants, animals, and humans who depend on them for food. This viewpoint, long little shared, is now gaining more and more adherents.
As the originator of biodynamic agriculture, the earliest of agroecological impulses and so-called organic farming methods, Steiner advocated the use of organic manures, mainly from the farm, and proposed a series of informing substances of a new conception (biodynamic preparations) which, used in very small doses, act on the metabolic and structuring processes of the soil and plants.
Accompanied by good practices, these substances help regenerate degraded soils in a very short time and with very few means. Now a topical subject thanks to recent discoveries regarding the role of the gut microbiota for human health, immunity, and well-being, Steiner was also among the first to speak about the close links between soil health and the health of plants, animals, and humans, as well as the key role of nutrition, agriculture, and the quality of its products for our health, both physical and mental. Through the quality of the food it produces and its economic, environmental, and social importance, agriculture therefore has a key role to play at all levels of Nature and society.
Knowing your soils well to feed your crops well!
Usual soil analyses are based on incomplete concepts and provide only an incomplete picture of the soil. Lacking information on soil life, they are generally unable to detect imbalances, deficiencies or excesses caused by the excess of one or more elements.
For years this farmer lost a small fortune because he ignored that his soil was deficient in sulfur, and that his yields were penalized by the lack of this key element!!! After only one year, the biodynamic soil is darker, better structured, and richer in humus, including at depth.
It therefore resists erosion better and retains water and nutrients more effectively. Except for the spraying of biodynamic preparations horn manure (500P at 100g/ha in 35 l of water) and horn silica (501 at 4g/ha in 35 l of water), the management of the two adjacent plots was identical. Photo Pierre Masson Biological witness 1 year of Biodynamics Viticultural soil - Bouches du Rhône - 2 April 2015 at 70 cm silt clay-sandy (LAS) at 70 cm Core analysis results of blockages caused by excess of one or more elements.
They also often lack information on elements essential for the proper functioning of soil and plants. The forgotten orphans are most often calcium, especially at the soil surface, sulfur, boron, and some trace elements. When fertilization strategies are based on rough criteria of restitution and pH correction by liming, it is not uncommon for recommended inputs to end up accentuating certain excesses and blockages without remedying deficiencies. An excess of calcium, for example, can block not only the assimilation of a series of other elements but also that of calcium itself.
In soils with little life, humus, and nutritional reserves, poor structure, and low buffering capacity (CEC low), the risk of causing imbalances is particularly pronounced, including from the viewpoint of pH and redox potential (see also Appendix 13).
The consequences of these errors can be significant, both biologically and agronomically as well as economically and nutritionally:
- the plant is affected by its unbalanced development with an hypertrophied phyllosphere and an atrophied rhizosphere. This leads to lower resistance of crops against attacks and the need to protect them with pesticide cocktails.
- the soil by its lack of life, fertility, structure, porosity, and gas exchanges.
- the farmer by additional costs, yield losses, and possible downgrading of his harvest.
- the consumer by lower quality food with its negative effect on the immune system and health!
Added to these grievances are the negative effects on the environment and climate. Dr. William Albrecht (1888-1974), a world-renowned American agronomist, developed an analytical approach based on cation exchange saturation ratios. Complemented by criteria related to synergistic or antagonistic interactions between different elements, this approach is often used with good results to initiate the rehabilitation process of unbalanced lands. But, to be successful, this work must be accompanied by sensory tests (spade test, etc.) as well as measures to increase the soil's microbial population and the quantity and quality of humus.
An essential element of this approach is the presence throughout the year of a multi-species green cover which, thanks to its reducing power (e-) and the production from photosynthesis of carbohydrates, organic acids, lipids, and other metabolites, can feed a vast underground population. To know your soil well, you must also know your plants well, which, engaged in a symbiotic relationship with it, are excellent analytical "instruments"! Any soil analysis should therefore be accompanied by an analysis of the plants growing there. This begins with a visual observation of their habit and any signs of diseases and/or attacks by pests. These approaches are accompanied by observations regarding floristic composition (presence of weeds), sap analyses (field-end tests by refractometer, pH meter, and various ion testers) and ideally a sap analysis by a specialized laboratory. Other quality tests include smell and taste, which indicate the presence of secondary substances such as aromatic molecules and essential oils.
Putting the living at the center changes agricultural practices and fertilization rules!
Usual soil analyses do not provide a complete picture of the fertilizing elements present in a soil. They only take into account minerals easily mobilizable by the extraction solutions used in the context of classical analytical methods, and not all the minerals present in the parent rock, silts, sand, clay, and carbon complexes that only microorganisms can mobilize. Obeying the laws of the living world, biology and especially microorganisms can therefore free us from purely physical and chemical constraints that dominate in a system poor in humus, bacteria, and fungi, where the availability of different elements is closely linked to pH and their presence in a soluble or at least easily mobilizable form (see also Ingham, The Soil Food Web (PowerPoint presentation in English)).
Models based on classical soil analyses and restitution of elements exported by harvests therefore have only limited value given that the effective stock of nutrients is much greater than the values indicated by usual analyses. At the same time, they struggle to detect blockages related to excesses of certain elements. As for nitrogen, generally the limiting factor, especially in organic farming, bacteria and humic complexes present in a living soil, rich in active organic matter, can provide for free all that the crops need (see the example of corn on page 18). It is therefore high time we realized that it is the living, and not synthetic fertilizers and molecules, which is the essential basis of agricultural production and sustainable, viable, and profitable agriculture!
La technique est complémentaire des techniques suivantes
La version initiale de cet article a été rédigée par Ulrich Schreier.
