Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Chemistry => Topic started by: Toby Tennent on 06/04/2011 04:30:02
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Toby Tennent asked the Naked Scientists:
Hi Chris,
I have heard that seawater in small quantities can be used as a fertiliser - vide some guy called Maynard Murray and his book "Sea Energy Agriculture". If this were true then we wouldn't have to use crude hungry synthetics.
Soil orthodoxy would say no, never, especially with regard to clay soils.
What can your folk come up with?
Salaams, Toby
What do you think?
FURTHER TO THE ABOVE
The emphasis is on small quantities of seawater, as this provides a complete suite of elements for the plant to assimilate. The idea being that it provides all the micronutrients that have been leached from the soil over the aeons. We are not talking about the N and C that need to be added through nature's natural cycles. Also I understand that this addition might be especially bad for clay soils.
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Don't know about seawater, but people have been using seaweed as a fertilizer for a very long time.
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Most seawater has a lot of salt in solution. By putting this on the ground, one would effectively be salting the earth and killing the plants that were growing there.