Important research aids us in gardening, soil, plant health and human health

Humans have been sowing seeds and growing things since about 9000 B.C., but we still don’t know everything. Researchers now have found that when a destructive insect damages a leaf, for instance, the plant reacts by sending new substances to the leaves. Texas A&M University researchers report that those stress reactions include an increase in antioxidants, adding to food health for human consumption.

What if something else damaged leaves? Other researchers worked on strawberries, intentionally wounding the leaves a few days prior to harvest, and did find genetic changes in sugar movement and phenolic compounds (potential antioxidants) in the fruit.

Obviously, we don’t have to wait for insect damage to increase plants’ nutritive qualities. Antioxidants include vitamins and minerals, and other substances necessary to human health. Experts had long thought that might happen, since they’ve known for a long time that insect damage triggered a secondary metabolism in response to the damage, but until now they hadn’t manually wounded leaves or looked into cellular changes elicited by damage.

Researchers in other areas of food production, such as farms, lately have been working with cereal grains in an effort to reduce their fertilizer demands. They know, as well as experienced gardeners know, that legumes (peas, beans, lentils, alfalfa and clover, for instance) can transfer nitrogen from the atmosphere to their roots to aid their own growth. These researchers, some based at Washington State University, want cereal crops to have that legume capability of converting atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia fertilizer instead of using so much man-made synthetic fertilizer, which is costly, expensive to apply and uses so much energy to produce.

People from several scientific disciplines are working together to isolate the genes that plants use to message bacteria that they need more nitrogen, like legumes do. Soils in some parts of the world are so nitrogen-poor that cereal grains can’t be grown, and the cost of usable nitrogen is prohibitive. In addition, those synthetic fertilizers fail to feed the microherd in the soil that is responsible for the good health and productivity of soil.

Some posts on Facebook garden venues are quite alarming, such as the claim one young woman made that she had “fertilized” her garden with Epsom salt. Plants need nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium as their main needs, plus calcium, sulfur, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and magnesium, secondarily; and trace elements of iron, boron, manganese, chlorine, zinc, copper, manganese, boron, molybdenum and nickel. If proportions of any of these are out of balance, a gardener has a major disaster on his/her hands. The only one of these nutrients Epsom salt contains is magnesium.

Many of us in our area use dissolved Epsom salt as a supplement to other fertilizers because our soil is naturally deficient in magnesium, but it’s far from being a complete fertilizer, and most of us use very little amounts.

Most commercial fertilizers contain nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K), in that order, and designate the proportions by numbers such as 6-6-5. Home gardeners are cautioned against high nitrogen use for plants such as tomatoes because use of N-rich fertilizer is more than attractive to destructive insects, and it will result in a lush plant with few fruits (if any). The phosphorus is important for fruiting, the potassium mainly for root development. If your plant is thriving, but blossoms are sparse, consider using Morbloom, an organic fertilizer with no nitrogen, but phosphorus and potassium are high (0-10-10).

To improve or maintain the health of your soil, use organic fertilizer, amendments and pesticides when necessary. If you see one destructive insect, pluck it off and smash it. If you see hundreds or dozens, consider a control that won’t jeopardize your or your family’s health, or the health of your soil. When in doubt, watch for the OMRI icon near the bottom of a container.

Please avoid the use of any product containing chlorpyrifos. It’s a nerve gas developed by the Nazis, and it has been linked to lung cancer and Parkinson’s disease. It’s been banned for indoor use for several years, and was on the brink of being banned for outdoor use until politics interfered, and it’s again being used and is for sale.