GIC Crew, out of curiosity do you have any known deficiencies? ALSO! Beeping is not an alarm it is a parrot… named Ella. I can’t take her batteries out she is very much alive.😅 Don’t take this video to seriously! I do not have all the answers, it’s moreso to start the conversation not an argument ❤
Every now and again my growing medium runs low on nitrogen (cause my basil sucks it up like crazy lol) but I just add bean sprouts and use the water that has the bacteria that grows on beans and within a day pops right back with that bright green goodness! 😊 I'll be creating an Instagram account tonight so I'll be sure to add you on there. Thanks again for another very informative video :)
You should introduce Ella to your crew. What kind of parrot is she? Our soil in the NW corner of MA is mostly clay in the populated valley areas. There are many hills so the rain as it flows through the soil leaches the water soluble nutrients from the wooded areas down into the valleys along with some of the clay sediments. Around me up in the hills we tend to have acidic soil with clay about 2 to 3 feet down. I have never had the soil properly tested. We never had any issues raising sheep goats or cattle so I think we have most needed minerals, although we did always provide mineral blocks. When I was a kid I used to think our soil needed calcium because Dad would add calcium to the lawn and it would grow faster and greener, but come to find out now that I garden I add wood ash like our neighbor always did for his garden and it takes care of the same issue so it seems it is more a pH problem.
Great video. What about plants grown hydroponically? A fair amount of our Canadian produce in winter is from that. Lettuce, strawberries and more. Would that difference be all up to the genetics then? (Assuming they're feeding everything the plant want to make the food.) Or also that the plant doesn't technically need say riboflavin to produce a lettuce?
@asteria4279 lettuce does great hydroponically, as long as you have the basic hydro nutrients for vegetative stage you'll do great :)(*and a little super bloom for sugars help in my experience)
as a farmer. I used" transorb roundup" about 20 years ago for couple years and never again since . it actually destroyed the fertility and bio bloom of my soil. that only starting to recovering now. I have one section of field where i ran out of herbicide and did not finish the field . and you can see the transition line till today. the non sprayed section is lush and darker green. the sprayed section is of paler lighter green where plants struggle to grow. unless you dump tonnes of fertilizer on it . the other non sprayed section does not need the same fertilizer requirements and grow healthier and taller (+50% to 100% taller with more stooling with out the need of added fertilizers ). so sure roundup can make life "easier" but from my experience you are just shifting cost into fertilizer inputs because it . and I personally think Round up is the scourge and bane of sustainable agriculture
I lived in a farming area and virtually every operation used herbicides routinely. Only hay was left alone, as it is perennial. That convinced me that grass fed beef is probably the healthiest food available.
Actually some vegetables grow and can be picked, frozen and be thawed at no loss of nutrition but transportation of them without freezing does destroy nutrients. So in Cities like NY City the people are growing ,ore perishable vegetables on roofs, some even installing green houses to grow in winter. In Singapore they taken this further building giant green house using aquaculture to grow all the islands food because of nutrition loss over the years has caused so many issues from importing food. Of course food grown locally or dried or frozen is better, but I disagree spraying on fertilizers are best, if soil is aquaculture then maybe that works, but soil NEEDS heal and building up soils adds those nutrients far better. Modern vegetables were created less for taste and nutrition and more for traveling in trucks and not rotting. This is starting to change but change is slow. I am a sustainable farmer, doing permaforesting, building soil and getting bountiful harvest but so far I am still building our farm and so this feeds our family along side having a half portion of crop share.
I have a small orchard in my front yard. Just 37 trees. We use no fertilizers or other chemicals and heavily mulch the ground around the trees with wood chips. The fruit tastes nothing like what’s in the produce section of the grocery store. The taste and texture are completely different.
If you add organic matter you add fertilizers. Your cultivar is different than the high production, pretty by genetics stuff that sells in the supermarket.
Similarly, I mulch my young fruit trees with leaves from my woodland. (This is a very small woodland of the riparian kind, very steep slopes, so the leaves generally end up in the stream anyway). A few months ago, I obtained 5 ducks. Now I bring the Autumn leaves from the woods to the duck pen, let them use it as bedding and foraging for the day, and then put the poopy leaves around my trees. I expect to see some yield improvements next year.
@@Debbie-henri sounds like a great idea, extra microbes to break down the leafs more efficiently and like you said extra fertilizer too 😁 happy gardening
I grow fruit trees as well, peaches and nectarines in specialized greenhouse in central Manitoba and more zone hardy fruits outside. I would say the biggest reason for the texture and taste difference is the time at which you pick. for grocery store the fruit is picked slightly under ripe for transport consideration
Started reading my mom's Organic Gardening and Farming magazine in 1960. 50 years of gardening veg and hovering on the edge of livestock agriculture here. This video is important. Thank you.
This is why I've started gardening this last year. I'm very sick, and deficient in a lot of nutrients, particularly iron. When I discovered that the good foods I do eat were as deficient as I am I decided to begin gardening. I knew I felt a lot better during the years my mother grew a lot of our veg and never really figured out why. Now I know. I'm battling my physical health now, but I'm trying hard to educate myself and change the way I'm thinking about what I eat and what I want to grow. And how to make my yard work for me to help that.
For perspective though, the 2004 paper (1950-1999 span) decrease is only : Ca (16%), P (9%) and Fe (15%). The biggest decrease is in riboflavin (38%). That last one is associated with energy metabolism, so that may be why you felt better back then. If that's the case, grab a B2 supplement and see if you feel better.
Why don't you just eat fatty red meat, eggs and fish? Go carnivore! In the red meat you have the iron your body needs called heme iron. If you eat green vegetables like spinach you will get non heme iron. This kind or iron is practically useless. Spinach contains a lot of iron but your body can't convert it to heme iron. Also, spinach comes with antinutrients, for example, oxalates. Humans are obligate hyper carnivores. If you are not eating mostly animal based foods you are doing yourself a disservice and your body and mind will suffer. GL!
One of my compost heaps is made of sticks: pine, azalea, oak, various pruned branches from shrubs and small trees, and small stumps (at the bottom). Using the loppers to get the branches down to size is good exercise. The pile becomes a haven of life for millipedes, insects, spiders, skinks, and earthworms. Earthworms love decaying wood. I find them inside rotting sticks and the bark remains intact as they gradually devour the inside. In a year or two, the bottom of the pile becomes a very rich, black soil, high in everything, but mostly phosphorous, which, as you probably know, is good for promoting flowering. I enjoy providing a home for at least hundreds of thousands of multi-legged creatures who, when I sneak a peak, seem ecstatic in their complex lofty habitat.
My raised bed is full of worms same for the inground. I have worms too but throwing the casting on the raised beds seems worthless. But for potted stuff it would be highly beneficial
I grew mushrooms and accidentally wound up having an amazing worm kingdom underneath (tons of night crawlers and they were massive), been accidentally running a permaculture farm for a year now, from the soilage to the foliage! 😅
Great video. A couple points to add: 1) I'd say that grocery store fruit (tomatoes , peaches, plums, etc.) have fewer vitamins now because they are often picked before they ripen so they don't rot before you buy them. 2) Soil tillage destroys microorganism networks. Permaculture and minimal soil disturbance can help maintain these networks. 3) Adding nitrogen fertilizer to the soil can destroy nitrogen-fixing bacteria because they are no longer needed by the plants. Plants make sugars and provide these via their roots to these bacteria which then produce nitrogen in bioavailable forms to the plants. Enough soil nitrogen means plants don't make the sugars, so no bacteria get fed. Fewer soil bacteria and fungi means less resources for the plants and therefore fewer vitamins in their tissues and fruit.
Great subject, I'm a old dog who has been gardening forever and it sure is refreshing to discover and learn new stuff! Keep up the good work, always a fan.
one of the variables that Dr. Davis points to in his Univ of TX study is the size of fruits and vegetables. We've bred faster growing and larger products and no one was paying any attention to the mineral up take of the newer fruits & veggies, which all by itself may be a major contributor. A food item that is double in size and so much faster growing might have half the mineral contend on weight basis.
Soil quality is the key. Moist agricultural soils are completely destroyed, devoid of microflora due to overuse of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides and exposure to the sun. Carbon content is low. My tomatoes were sick and had average taste that is until I added worm castings and compost (and urine). This year I've had the tastiest tomatoes I've ever eaten. So rich in flavor it was like tasing a flavor bag from an instant soup. Also you're right about the genetic modifications - plants are bred for size, ease of harvesing and resistance to chemicals. Not for nutrients density.
It’s a two way street when it comes to plant breeding for nutrients in my opinion. There are cases when it is decreased but also where they actively try to increase it. Like for example the iron plant I was speaking to or yellow rice
Without soil tests it is a bit dangerous to throw stuff in the ground willy-nilly. If you grew the same tomato variety, is the change due to micronutrients increase, or you inadvertently salted your tomatoes with curing salts, aka nitrites? It's a bit hard to do with compost, but it's very much possible. We grew tomatoes commercially, and the biggest difference was the variety - the seeds from the Netherlands were bred for productivity and a thick skin, and taste probably wasn't a consideration at all.
@@DumitruUrsu Fair point, however considering the simple fact I'm a hobby grower with just a handful of plants, my approach would be different than that of a commercial grower. I do not own a laboratory and cost of a test could be potentially higher than whatever I grow. What matters to me is that my tomatoes are much better quality than commercial growers can offer. I used seeds from commercial tomatoes too (just took them out of one and dried for planting), yet the taste is still leagues apart.
I stumbled across a pile of 6 truckloads of leaves that had been sitting for 4 years. There was 3 feet deep of earthworm castings under the top layer and I put it on EVERYTHING all over the property. The results were both immediate and long lasting and I'll never fool with anything else again. For large scale operations, make a tea and spray like any of the other "fertilizers". Last- there's a great 5 minute cartoon on the Nitrogen cycle by Jim Sol, I recommend showing it to everyone. 🐛
Yes, I was waiting for this video. There is a nutritional chemist in Germany, Udo Pollmer, who says that things like selenium came from industrial emissions and were cut down when some industrial pollution was reduced. Many new plant varieties were not bred for their nutrient content.
Slightly? Slightly Qualified? She has to take multiple breaths as she goes through the list of her credentials, and then still says slightly qualified 😅😂❤
Pfft I’m a firm believer that nobody should take the work of one person and one person ever. I also heavily believe in scientific rigour so zero of what I say and believe (or anyone) has finality.
Tazarello, she's Canadian; it's how we present ourselves, and she models that characteristic. Way to go, Ashley, we can listen objectively. So far you pass my critical listening censors. Tx, merci bien.
Heirloom is a non-issue between the years listed for the study as most heirloom designated types go back at least 50 years and of course many go back much further. But sure, original plants that humans started to grow are not the same as heirloom but we have no way of knowing about nutrient density of original plants. For all we know we have improved the value of certain plants as we have propagated them over thousands of years. You said something at the end that seems off. Farmers selectively choose plants to take seed from and they do this by the quality of the produce and the quality of the plant. This certainly happens with heirloom seed production. I don't think this has much bearing on the nutrient quality and if anything it could improve the quality since the seed growers are using their healthy plants, and healthy plants make healthy produce. A note for heirloom and I don't know if you've thought about this. There is a LOT of diversity in heirloom seeds because there are many growers around the world working with heirloom crops. You have the issue of farmers in many places selectively choosing plants to get the seed they feel is going to be the best. This introduces a lot of diversity because a specific type of plant can do well in one location, not so much somewhere else, so as growers are choosing their best plants to harvest seed from, what that really means it's the best for their environment. So the fact that heirloom plants can have many seed producers means each grower is introducing diversity into the genetics.
Plants need stress if you want them to add protection (nutrients). Let bugs be bugs. I haven't had any pesticides control for years and my plants are stronger, more vigorous, and using a brix meter, my fruits and vegetables have a higher brix score than both of my neighbors crops do. My zichinnini was an absolute breeding ground for squash bugs this year, and my zucchini still turned out amazing. My green beans and cucumbers were attacked pretty heavily by several types of pests this year, and yet they both were heavy producers and they looked amazing. The plants took a hit, but the fruits were amazing.
It is scary to think that the lack of nutrients is essentially from the moment of picking, from the plant. Add the length of time before it gets to markets, the transport and conservation methods to make it there, and expect that picking the fruit/vegetables before they are fully mature impacts it all as welll… geeezzz!
The crappy tomatoes in the store are bred to be perfect, ship well and make the cash register ring. This is why I do not buy store bought tomatoes unless the boss tells me to, lol. Love your videos, Stay Well !!!!!
I read a book written in early 1950s claimed the nutrients in veggies dropped by half in the past 50 years… the blame put squarely on big business …… mass production etc
Thanks for making a video about this! I saw a clip on Instagram of a man oversimplifying the whole thing, saying that decades ago “they” knew that the soil would be completely depleted after a few years of farming, and they didn’t change anything, so imagine how bad it is now! I was rolling my eyes immediately because I knew there was more to it than that, but it’s a real issue and he was weakening the credibility of the whole discussion. I was thinking freshness could be a factor as well. Since we have bred plants for shelf stability, and they are shipped all over the world before being eaten, many of the vitamins can be depleted without the consumer realizing their produce isn’t fresh. I wouldn’t expect that to explain the reduction of minerals, though. I also wonder if obesity rates would be different if crops weren’t optimized for calories. Maybe some of us are eating more because we have to.
It (being able to get one’s calories without putting on excess weight) definitely depends on what one is eating, the processed foods are not fresh and are skewed serving + lacking with their nutrient contents And animal based foods are proportionally less fresh and more dense/caloric. As they (as source of nutrition) are 1step further from the source energy (the sun), than plants. This is why ppl. With decades of too dense or depleted daily intake become overweight. Emotional and life style reasons being part of the equation too. ❤
I have gone down huge rabbit holes lately about sludge fertilizer. I had cancer this year and my wife and I bought 5 acres, moved, and I’m going to grow all our food. I don’t trust the food we eat anymore
I was watching a documentary on UA-cam about this, and they suggested that the varieties bred for overall flavour (rather than brix values) have more nutritional value, because we can taste those subtle differences. I wonder if commercial produce would be bred a little differently if stores were required to display the nutritional facts. Currently, shoppers can only compare bulk produce based on price, size, colour, etc so there’s no incentive to bring up the micronutrient values.
I agree with you 100%, Ashley!! I enjoy all aspects of my little veggie garden, even the composting and giving back to the soil. Wondering, though, why did Noah build an ark, when all he had to do to fix "climate change" was pay more taxes? SMH (That was a "joke," for you Gretas out there!!!)
Well covered Ashley. I am now suffering with gallstones. Turns out our gallbladders are stimulated by bitter foods. (Poison protection response.) Most of us only like sweet foods now!!!
How sure are we that the older nutrient data is accurate? James Wong has written some interesting criticisms of the presumption that nutrient density is lower in modern foods; or at least that the data used may not be reliable enough to draw strong conclusions from
The most I can go off of is peer reviewed research unfortunately. I don’t have the expertise or resources to pull from more than that. But definitely will check him out because that is an interesting thought.
@GardeningInCanada he is an ethnobotanist primarily, and with my undergrad in Botany and Msc in Biodiversity I can somewhat vouch that he is reasonable in his assessments! He uses a lot of systematic reviews and meta analyses for his books, which I've yet to read, but which often deal with nutrition and diversity (of all sorts). When I saw him raise some doubts about the jump from some of the peer reviewed findings to the "nutrient apocalypse" that I often see on social media, his points made a lot of sense from a scientific point of view. We all know too well how a good story can run away with a solid but preliminary piece of science 😆 trying to reign that in for my current PhD papers a bit myself 🫠
I can buy a peer reviewed study for a few thousand rupees... with whatever conclusion I want. "The science" is about as reliable as political polling or the TV News these days
It's my understanding that the bulk of current research suggests that crops today have significantly lower nutritional content per gram compared to those grown in the 1950s, primarily due to "nutrient dilution." Modern agricultural practices emphasize maximizing yields through selective breeding and intensive farming methods, which promote faster growth and larger plants. However, this increased biomass comes at the expense of nutrient concentration, leading to reductions in key vitamins, minerals, and proteins in produce. While soil depletion contributes to this decline, it is not the primary driver. However, in my opinion, i strongly suspect that an increasingly important factor may be the degradation of soil microbial ecosystems. If we broaden our definition of "nutrients" to include bioactive compounds such as adaptogens, terpenes, and vitamin-like co-enzymes like PQQ (Pyrroloquinoline quinone), the role of soil microbiota becomes even more critical. These compounds are often synthesized or enhanced through intricate plant-microbe interactions in healthy, biodiverse soils. Intensive farming practices-characterized by monocropping, excessive chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and soil compaction-disrupt these microbial communities, reducing the production and availability of these secondary metabolites in crops. As our understanding of the symbiotic relationships between plants and soil microbiomes expands, it is likely we will uncover a stronger link between microbial health and the synthesis of both traditional nutrients and bioactive compounds. This could highlight an even greater decline in the overall nutritional and medicinal value of modern crops when compared to those grown in biodiverse, microbially rich soils of the past. Such findings would underscore the urgent need to shift toward regenerative agricultural practices that prioritize both soil health and crop quality.
I know people say heirlooms have higher nutrient content, why doesn't that missing the point? There are hybrids intentionally bred for lower nutrient content and longer shelf life and there are hybrids that potentially have higher nutrients right? As I'm looking into my seed purchases right now I had this discussion this morning with my wife. I heard that are taste buds lineup similarly with nutrient content at least with tomatoes, so I am looking to buy hi brix flavorful hybrids
I practice KNF and JADAM and I use and cultivate forest microbes for different purposes they can do anything and absolutely increase nutrition and lower disease and pest levels. I believe that is a solution as is teaches us how to source locally all materials needed.
Saw a very interesting video on one of the other gardening channels. He placed a store-bought broccoli next to a organic broccoli in a worm compartment and then took pictures of it periodically until both were consumed. The worms ignored the store-bought broccoli until they had completely consumed the organic broccoli. Then he placed a store-bought cauliflower on the counter next to an organic cauliflower. The store bought cauliflower was completely consumed by fungus before the organic cauliflower began to be consumed by fungus. The worms and the fungus know.
it matters not whether glyphosate "decreases" or "increases" microbial germ count. It might be more telling how it affects the composition of the microbial community, which of what i understand is negative for our own good and for the nutrient cycles of the soil. Yes there may be nerve toxic pesticides too. But the fact that glyphosate is such a indiscriminate biocide, which kills plants, fungi and bacteria alike (that includes our gut biome) should not be taken lightly. and while, yes soil depletion may be linked more to the microbial thing, but the fact that they are connected might not matter about it happening. Additionally this point might include other parts to the equation such as the later mentioned top soil removal, erosion but also compaction and lacking regeneration cycles, in which the soil properties can rebound. And while yes, some countries might have good programs in addressing this topic, this does not mean that it happens everywhere equally. Perhaps even your point about the difference between soils is part of the broader topic of soil depletion? Just wanted to point these things out, and they might not necessarily mean i disagree with what you're saying. Informative video, with accessible communication style.
I use wood ash and Azomite a montmorillanite deposit to get the micronutrients that no soil test ever checks for. You could also use rock crusher fines if you think you are missing some traces. I never ever spray chemical poison of any kind on the gardens. Ever ever. And yes I agree that all the microbial life of all kinds are important for your plants, soil and critters.
Tap water here in the UK used to really stink of chlorine and was not fit for plants or fish! But the smell went after numerous complaints. Now they 'tie' the chlorine to ammonia to keep it in the water, chloramine! Do you have any thoughts Ashley please?
Great explanation of nutrient deficiency. Next year I'll lean into the heirlooms, but I'm still going to grow hybrid tomatoes. They produce all summer long and into the fall, and they sure taste like the real thing. BTW, I've saved seed from a couple of robust hybrid volunteers (Big Boy, Lemon Boy). These plants were above average in terms of stem diameter, disease resistance, and yield. Fruit size wasn't exceptional, but it wasn't that bad. Any chance that as they hark back to their ancestors, they will be less nutrient deficient than the hybrids that you're supposed to buy every year?
I use composted wood chips, leaf mold, wood ash, as well as Celtic salt in everything that's grown for food in gardens. We didn't have the issues of mineral anemias before electricity as we do today because people cooked and heated with wood and the ashes were used in the garden. Korean natural farming methods do replace the salt back into the soil.
Here you go! It is volatilization cceonondaga.org/resources/nitrogen-basics-the-nitrogen-cycle#:~:text=Volatilization%20is%20the%20loss%20of,(e.g.%20hot%20and%20windy).
Thank you for the great info dump about this topic, you occasionally hear people fear mongering about this, it's good to have a better idea for some of the how and whys.
An interesting and informative talk. Wondering why so little mention of tillage as a major detriment to soil microbial life ? No living plants and their root systems, no feeding of fungi and bacteria. A well understood concept.
Ashley. great point about plant breeding, hybridizing, selection as one cause. However, you seem to downplay soil depletion. For my native land, your southern neighbor, the amount of soil left “fallow” every year has created a situation where topsoil is our NUMBER ONE export.The Palouse of eastern Washington state, the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, California’s Central Valley, huge swaths of our Great Plains are simply gone; either washed away or blown to oblivion. The nutrients and microbial life went with the eroded soils. The loss of topsoil has been a monster player worldwide in destroying the quality and quantity of nutrient availability.
Ooh this is one I've brought up all over youtube lol. I think we can do a lot better on breeding methods and that it should overhaul the whole 'organic' movement. I'm totally still down to not consume chemicals I can't even google properly.
Acid rain? Micro-plastics? Air pollution? Water pollution? Fungicides? Herbicides? Hybridization does not necessarily create a less nutritional plant. All of our crops have been selectively bred for thousands of years.
The concept of breeding causing nutrient deficiencies is a mixed bag because the opposite is also true 🙃. I was shocked I didn’t see that mentioned anywhere! Yellow rice is my favourite story about this because it is lessening health issues in poor countries. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2682994/
CHEMICAL USE My cousins use spray...a lot...summer fallow is a thing of the past. They do, however, direct seed into fields with existing stubble, rotating crops as required. Now to harvest something like peas, they need to sprayed with a desiccant. This dries them out, making it easier to harvest. So I have to agree with Ashley that modern farming practices, in general, are not great. But...having said that...farmers are producing much more food today, giving us the ability to feed all 9 billion souls on this planet.
the idea now is that ground cover produces a more microbiotic soil and fallow is the wrong way to go. here the Oil seed Rape, "Canolla" is sprayed before harvest the "dessicant" is weed killer, roundup in particular.
@@timcoolican459 desiccant, not sure it still is but peas as oil seed rape were sprayed with Roundup to kill the plants before harvest so of course there is traces in our food.
The "increased CO2 -> increased biomass" is also why timber grown now just doesn't have the same structural integrity or beautiful grain as timber grown a couple of centuries ago. Timber is mostly just carbohydrates so it's not about nutrient deficiency, but growing too fast is still a problem.
That is not entirely, or even mostly, due to an increase in CO2. It is mostly due to what species of trees are being grown. To use Mattockman's example of Radiata in NZ , the vast majority of lowland forest in NZ (+80%) has been cleared since European's settled in the 1800s. If the slow-growing natives had been replanted then, we'd still be waiting for them to fully mature. Radiata pine was one of a host of exotics introduced to find a quick-growing replacement for the timber industry. A species that grows 5 or 10 times as fast is going to have much large growth rings and much less dense wood. I'm pretty sure this is also the case in other parts of the world. We don't want to wait centuries between harvest, so we plant trees that grow faster … or cut down yet more formerly untouched forests to get those old growth trees with that "structural integrity or beautiful grain."
I didn't know this but braken-ferns are potassium piggys, do you think using them fresh and directly into a hot compost would be a good way to get good K ? Or do you think that it'd break down too much before it'd be usable? Thanks 😊
If it’s truly higher than you composting it will lead to a compost higher in K. It doesn’t dilute during the decomposition process. The most you could argue is leaching but even then you need the right conditions to facilitate that. And by proper conditions I mean a slope where the water is moving debris down hill because potassium is not Mobile in soil.
@GardeningInCanada thanks, I realized after I wrote that that I was more concerned with the usable bio-avalibilty of it, thanks for breaking through adhd and bad vocabulary! 😅
My Dad grew our food 60 years ago only used compost, manure and sometimes lime on the soil we had everything and of course meat was all organic in those days came from local farms we also kept poultry we were all very healthy no one obese good food
I’m fighting the compost/mulch Battle now.. living in town…(albeit a small Arkansas town) I still can’t just have large decomposing piles of organic matter lying about… knowing where to source my material and what kind is an issue I’m currently dealing with! Thinking I was always doing a good thing with fertilizers, etc.. I never got the ah-ha! Moment until last summer.. I covered half my Active garden with 6 bales of rice straw from the previous Halloween stuffs.. OMG! That side of the garden obliterated the other half in EVERY category… soil moisture, soil looseness? Vs compaction, plant size and productivity, amount of water needed for irrigation, and overall plant life longevity.. From straw? What?? What?? Then I got it.. That straw is pure biomass that comes from the ground somewhere else.. going back into my soil.. is so easy for our minds to see “scrap/waste” product as only being good for X use! I was that clean dirt, no weeds, beautiful garden guy.. not anymore! My garden looks like a crazy , out of control hay pile/weed/grass dump! but the soil underneath is black gold now!! Thank You… been following for a year or so now… I’m a degree totin fool myself! I 100% agree, a piece of paper only really means you showed up, wrote a bunch of papers, and jumped through hoops for treats… no guarantee you’re actually good at what you “learned” to do… retired ARMY as well, at 53, I know a lot of educated people that’s never stepped onto a campus.. I’m also in Farm country.. soo.. I’ll leave judgment for Court and Jesus. You’re doing a great thing here, awareness with zero judgment.. That’s a damned hard thing to pull off lady! But you’re doing it? ❤
So much info packed into one video and greatly presented, thank you. A friend has been doing Shumei gardening which is a Japanese method where crops are grown in the same position each year (perhaps there is a limited number of years they do this, I'm not sure). He's had a lot of success with healthy plants year after year. I wonder how the nutrient content compares. Shumei is based on the idea that each type of vegetable grow best with particular soil micro-organisms which vary from other vegetables' favourite micro- organisms. There is a symbiotic relationship and so the vegetable is grown in the same area of ground year after year because the organisms are already in good supply and remain plentiful for that particular vegetable.
You mentioned you weren't sure where the electricity was being used - if you have central heating/AC, it's that. I started digging into energy use when I was setting our house up with solar and battery back ups. Our 4 ton AC takes 14,000 watts to start up and 4,000 watts to run. Compared to a fridge at 500 watts or LED bulbs which are around 10 watts each, I think we can splurge on some light if we just reduce our heating/cooling a few degrees! Or better yet go for single room in wall/window AC and heating units, which use a fraction of the energy of central.
1 - So can the CO2 induced dilution of nutrients in plants can be compensated by more nutrients in soil or some other methods or is it an unsolvable problem? 2 - is there some kind of list of safest pesticides/herbicides/fungicides on the market? If so are farmers focusing on using those instead of the toxic ones? Is there some kind of rational guidance? Because plenty of people bash glyphosate and I assume its relatively safe for both bacteria and humans; shouldn't/is usage of it prioritized in comparison to toxic ones?
1. It’s a mixed bag because a lot of factors plant into it. Some people had commented that CO2 increases, photosynthesis increases, respiration increases and therefore nutrient uptake. Which is a sound argument! Till you factor in other environmental factors like humidity, or the lack of bioavailable nutrients, changes in soil pH, etc. 2. Farmers use whatever works and get the most food in the bin while staying within their budget. It’s not because they are bad people they are told it is safe and if they asked they would be given the pre certification trials showing that to be the case.
glyphosate has a US patent as an anti-biotic. It is a known carcinogen. How does it not damage the soil microbiome. If you are concerned about soil health, there are no 'safe' fertilizers. Synthetic fertilizer induces fast plant growth and depletes soil fertility. Plants become targets for pests and disease requiring pesticides to combat those problems. The only solution is more fertilizer. Unfortunately this reduces the food value of vegetables (and animal feed) which reduces the nutritional value of the food we eat. It also reduces farmers profitability. This is not new. Read a book.
Can you do research on the correlation of difference in altitudes effects plants growth, since it has different atmospheric gases in term of its density and the CO2 temperature, bcoz in my observation in tropical country like Indonesia the same plants that grow in the higher altitudes region tend to grow more vigorously, taller and bigger, than those which grown in the lower altitudes
Since there's a lesser oxygen presence or more limited at the higher altitudes it may also impct the oxidation rate of macro and micro minerals on the soil, so the soil minerals at the high altitude are more readily available than in the lower altitudes that most of them are already oxidized and becom unavailable for the plants
Soil can also deplete in thickness, as with the Great Plains. So although soil depletion might be less of a current concern, the nutrient avalabilty outlook over decades becomes perhaps drastically less?
10:51 sandi from sheepishly me has an agronomist and a feed consultant for the sheep so she’s doing things right but she still has to supplement lots of selenium with her sheep that are fed from the hay silage and corn silage and the other things that the nutrition tests showed were needed to add to create the best food for the ewes and lambs from the plants that she grows on her farm in southern Ontario, is there a way to get more selenium into the soil over time in a practical way to correct the deficiency for a specific nutrient if it is deficient soil and to reduce the need for supplements in the future or to extract more selenium out of the soil and into the crops if there’s not enough selenium in them currently? Everything else seems to be okay with the soil and chemicals seem to be used only as much as they are absolutely required if there’s a problem and they are following the newer guidelines for minimum tillage and using cover crops and the compost from the sheep and chicken barns, but is there any little known fact about the soil and farming that would get the soil and the crops to the next level with the selenium or is what they are already doing about all that can be done for that issue?
Where I am, we have basically no selenium in our soil. We have to give the lambs shots when they're born. The adults pretty much have to have constant access to sheep tubs containing selenium to stay healthy
Forgive the novel, but I'm a recovering academic, and your video got my brain going planning for spring haha. The impact of increased atmospheric CO2 on plants is something I hadn't considered, but absolutely makes sense. Speaking of environmental changes... I'm lucky to be gardening in the Red River Valley down here in North Dakota, but Northern Corn Rootworm has been my White Whale, if you will. My garden is, by ignorance and necessity, about 20 meters from a field that alternates between corn and soybeans. NCR pressure was EXTREME last year....like...Old Testament level infestation and defoliation of anything in the Asteraceae family and some others. There are a lot of factors going on here but one of them is that I'm pretty sure we are starting to see NCR adapt to crop rotation, since I've had them on some level each year without ever growing corn. In any event, bacteria, fungi, nematodes, and better soil health are all in the plans for this year. .....or I could move the garden, but where's the challenge in that?
If we're actually concerned about nutrition, applying something that was used as a descaling agent for pipes and boilers seems counterintuitive regardless of its effect on soil microbes. I imagine it leaches minerals from the plumbing of the human digestive system.
Great video! Are you familiar with John Kempf from AEA? Advancing Eco Agriculture and now editor of Acres USA. Couple other things to add would be photosynthetic capacity and root exudate exchange in the rhizosphere. Another fascinating angle is redox and the oxidation of nutrients in the soil affecting plant root availability
thank you for your wise perspective on the lack of nutrition in the foods we eat in NA. My aim is to start a farm (or food forest) in US somewhere and grow my own food and observe the Joel Salatin approach. If I ever need a soil expert, are you available?
Is that a Noni in the background? I have one, too. They are said to be super healthy, but very bad tasting. Mine did not make ripe fruit yet so I can't give my own review 😅
People gardening in clay soil need to be aware that depleted clay soils will absorb and lock up nutrients up to a saturation point before plants can access them. Steve Solomon has detailed strategies people should take when dealing with heavy soils. Speaking of Solomon, in one of his books he brought up the correlation in documented US malnutrition between prairie ecologies and forest ecologies- the conclusion he arrives at is that higher rainfall leaches surface soils of nutrients, which is reflected in the relative health of subsistence farmers across regions.
Most farm soils are severely-to-totally depleted of the basic life-support mineral nutrients they contained before they began to be farmed. Those nutrients, esp P and K, are now provided by "fertilizers" containing the needed minerals that must be applied yearly to maintain soil fertility/crop yields, and the minerals in those fertilizers are being mined from deposits far away from the farms. Now, let that sink in: When the mines from which those minerals are obtained are depleted-exhausted-mined-out, what then for our farm soils? Reality is that farm soils are on artificial life support and this is probably the greatest long-term risk to humanity as a species dependent on agriculture-food production. We must start returning nutrients from our biowastes to our growing soils (just as natural ecosystems do) and this will not be an easy thing to do on the necessary scale, and with our agricultural system so "spread-out" with consumers so distant from the soils where their food is grown. It is a HUGE problem, even larger and more critical than our energy transition problem. BTW: So-called trace mineral nutrients are given almost zero attention toward making sure that they are provided in our fertilizer mixtures. These are definitely lacking in today;s produce, and there are surely some unhealthy side effects from that. Our bodies do need those nutrients though not in such large quantities as others like P and K.
The summary I see here is eat smaller yielded fruits and vegetables over bigger ones for example a cup of everglades tomato I assume is more nutritious than one tomato that measures a cup. Grow it yourself in living soil.
Hot damn; you knocked this one out of the park!! Fanfreakingtastic👏👏👏 The last point was my favorite. Who doesn’t like dinosaurs? Monsters I tell ya; that’s who. If you haven’t already seen it, there’s an interesting documentary on UA-cam titled ‘Seeds: Half the Nutrients & Double the Price? | Seeds of Profit: Food Investigation Documentary’, that touches base on how shelf life requirements (due to travel from globalization) impact nutrition and taste of tomatoes. To quote the great Dr. Ian Malcolm, “God help us, we're in the hands of engineers.”. 🦖
Grains being breed to be shorter and co2 making plants grow bigger is kinda antagonistic I think the use of chemicals is a bigger part than we can even comprehend I stopped using chemicals on our farm back in 2018 and it was two years of crash and burn I was getting glyphosate burn even at the beginning of 2021 but we are climbing back to life
You could argue the breeding is done on planet earth under earths atmosphere and therefore they are shorter still despite the environment. But there are a lot of factors with the CO2 idea that make me question its validity. Humidity, present soil nutrients, elevations, temperatures, etc.
Thank u again Ashley! I love Dinosaurs! Plesiosaur was my fave! U made a CO2 video “ This Nutrient can reverse climate change) ! It was great! And its true for indoor gardening as well. Co2 levels higher than 400 ppm will make plants grow bigger and use less light and water and nutrients.
nutrients can be in soil but if you dont have the right microbes in the soil the plants can not uptake those nutrients as well. the chemicals we been using for the last 80 - 90 years have killed off to many of the microbes the plants need.
Thank you for this information. Very interesting. I have a couple small disagreements with you, however. One is the notion of nutrient depletion. Since the microbes around the roots, are the nutrient givers of plants in a natural environment, if the microbial community is healthy, no nutrients will be needed. In return for feeding the plant with NPK, and other nutrients in the right proportions, at the optimal time for the plant, the microbial community gets fed from the root exudates of the plants. These root exudates can amount to 50% of the photosynthetic productivity of the plant. This shows how important microbes are to plants. There is a broad symbiotic relationship between a plant and the microbial community around its roots. The microrhizal network of funghi tubes connected like pipes, or root extensions bring nutrients from deeper down and far away from the plants. When you till the soil, you break that network which, plants, in their natural habitat, have to bring them the nutrients they need. Tilling also cause severe microbial imbalance because when you till the soil it adds too much oxygen to the soil. The heterotrophic bacteria bloom and consume stored carbon which is mostly in the form of humic acids. They turn the soil carbon into CO2. If you don't believe me, look at springtime satellite images of the CO2 plumes coming from the freshly plowed fields in the Midwest US. Also, ever wonder why soil becomes less black every year you till? It's because the carbon in the soil is burned off by the heterotrophic bloom. Why does plowing destroy the tilth of a soil? Because it's the humic acids that glue soil aggregate into pea sized clumps which makes the soil like a sponge and turns your soil black, get consumed. CO2 is the waste of these bacteria. The microbial community is so important for plants. I'm glad you talked about it. In my garden, I try to create the conditions microbes want: not too wet, not too dry, good mulch, etc. and my plants do great without much input at all. I have grown 200 lbs of tomatoes on a 3ft by 8ft bed. The soil is growing in my beds, and it does all the work. Thanks for your work. I learned a bunch. 😊
GIC Crew, out of curiosity do you have any known deficiencies?
ALSO! Beeping is not an alarm it is a parrot… named Ella. I can’t take her batteries out she is very much alive.😅
Don’t take this video to seriously! I do not have all the answers, it’s moreso to start the conversation not an argument ❤
Every now and again my growing medium runs low on nitrogen (cause my basil sucks it up like crazy lol) but I just add bean sprouts and use the water that has the bacteria that grows on beans and within a day pops right back with that bright green goodness! 😊 I'll be creating an Instagram account tonight so I'll be sure to add you on there. Thanks again for another very informative video :)
Can you please elaborate...im new around here and to gardening but i feel like the gic crew are my people ❤❤❤❤.@@iantalmadge3410
You should introduce Ella to your crew. What kind of parrot is she?
Our soil in the NW corner of MA is mostly clay in the populated valley areas. There are many hills so the rain as it flows through the soil leaches the water soluble nutrients from the wooded areas down into the valleys along with some of the clay sediments. Around me up in the hills we tend to have acidic soil with clay about 2 to 3 feet down. I have never had the soil properly tested. We never had any issues raising sheep goats or cattle so I think we have most needed minerals, although we did always provide mineral blocks. When I was a kid I used to think our soil needed calcium because Dad would add calcium to the lawn and it would grow faster and greener, but come to find out now that I garden I add wood ash like our neighbor always did for his garden and it takes care of the same issue so it seems it is more a pH problem.
Great video. What about plants grown hydroponically? A fair amount of our Canadian produce in winter is from that. Lettuce, strawberries and more. Would that difference be all up to the genetics then? (Assuming they're feeding everything the plant want to make the food.) Or also that the plant doesn't technically need say riboflavin to produce a lettuce?
@asteria4279 lettuce does great hydroponically, as long as you have the basic hydro nutrients for vegetative stage you'll do great :)(*and a little super bloom for sugars help in my experience)
as a farmer. I used" transorb roundup" about 20 years ago for couple years and never again since . it actually destroyed the fertility and bio bloom of my soil. that only starting to recovering now. I have one section of field where i ran out of herbicide and did not finish the field . and you can see the transition line till today. the non sprayed section is lush and darker green. the sprayed section is of paler lighter green where plants struggle to grow. unless you dump tonnes of fertilizer on it . the other non sprayed section does not need the same fertilizer requirements and grow healthier and taller (+50% to 100% taller with more stooling with out the need of added fertilizers ). so sure roundup can make life "easier" but from my experience you are just shifting cost into fertilizer inputs because it . and I personally think Round up is the scourge and bane of sustainable agriculture
I've been farming since 1980, and now clearly recognise that glyphosate damages the soil microbiome. The result is pathogenic.
I know farmers that got non Hodgkin's lymphoma and they think it came from roundup.
I lived in a farming area and virtually every operation used herbicides routinely.
Only hay was left alone, as it is perennial. That convinced me that grass fed beef is probably the healthiest food available.
Actually some vegetables grow and can be picked, frozen and be thawed at no loss of nutrition but transportation of them without freezing does destroy nutrients. So in Cities like NY City the people are growing ,ore perishable vegetables on roofs, some even installing green houses to grow in winter.
In Singapore they taken this further building giant green house using aquaculture to grow all the islands food because of nutrition loss over the years has caused so many issues from importing food.
Of course food grown locally or dried or frozen is better, but I disagree spraying on fertilizers are best, if soil is aquaculture then maybe that works, but soil NEEDS heal and building up soils adds those nutrients far better. Modern vegetables were created less for taste and nutrition and more for traveling in trucks and not rotting. This is starting to change but change is slow.
I am a sustainable farmer, doing permaforesting, building soil and getting bountiful harvest but so far I am still building our farm and so this feeds our family along side having a half portion of crop share.
I bet the Round-up treated section is also more attractive to the insects...
I have a small orchard in my front yard. Just 37 trees. We use no fertilizers or other chemicals and heavily mulch the ground around the trees with wood chips. The fruit tastes nothing like what’s in the produce section of the grocery store. The taste and texture are completely different.
@@bradmiller6507 make sure the ground gets a little aireted in the spring to prevent nitrogen lock from the wood. Sounds like a wonderful yard :)
If you add organic matter you add fertilizers. Your cultivar is different than the high production, pretty by genetics stuff that sells in the supermarket.
Similarly, I mulch my young fruit trees with leaves from my woodland. (This is a very small woodland of the riparian kind, very steep slopes, so the leaves generally end up in the stream anyway).
A few months ago, I obtained 5 ducks. Now I bring the Autumn leaves from the woods to the duck pen, let them use it as bedding and foraging for the day, and then put the poopy leaves around my trees.
I expect to see some yield improvements next year.
@@Debbie-henri sounds like a great idea, extra microbes to break down the leafs more efficiently and like you said extra fertilizer too 😁 happy gardening
I grow fruit trees as well, peaches and nectarines in specialized greenhouse in central Manitoba and more zone hardy fruits outside. I would say the biggest reason for the texture and taste difference is the time at which you pick. for grocery store the fruit is picked slightly under ripe for transport consideration
Started reading my mom's Organic Gardening and Farming magazine in 1960. 50 years of gardening veg and hovering on the edge of livestock agriculture here. This video is important. Thank you.
This is why I've started gardening this last year. I'm very sick, and deficient in a lot of nutrients, particularly iron. When I discovered that the good foods I do eat were as deficient as I am I decided to begin gardening. I knew I felt a lot better during the years my mother grew a lot of our veg and never really figured out why. Now I know.
I'm battling my physical health now, but I'm trying hard to educate myself and change the way I'm thinking about what I eat and what I want to grow. And how to make my yard work for me to help that.
Very interesting! I hope gardening helps you out. ❤️
For perspective though, the 2004 paper (1950-1999 span) decrease is only : Ca (16%), P (9%) and Fe (15%). The biggest decrease is in riboflavin (38%). That last one is associated with energy metabolism, so that may be why you felt better back then. If that's the case, grab a B2 supplement and see if you feel better.
@@czerniana same here (ok on iron but I have really bad fibromyalgia, gardening saved my life :) what all are you growing if u don't mind me asking?
How about using a cast iron/ mild steel pot for cooking! It might add all the iron needed
Why don't you just eat fatty red meat, eggs and fish? Go carnivore!
In the red meat you have the iron your body needs called heme iron. If you eat green vegetables like spinach you will get non heme iron. This kind or iron is practically useless. Spinach contains a lot of iron but your body can't convert it to heme iron. Also, spinach comes with antinutrients, for example, oxalates.
Humans are obligate hyper carnivores. If you are not eating mostly animal based foods you are doing yourself a disservice and your body and mind will suffer. GL!
One of my compost heaps is made of sticks: pine, azalea, oak, various pruned branches from shrubs and small trees, and small stumps (at the bottom). Using the loppers to get the branches down to size is good exercise. The pile becomes a haven of life for millipedes, insects, spiders, skinks, and earthworms. Earthworms love decaying wood. I find them inside rotting sticks and the bark remains intact as they gradually devour the inside. In a year or two, the bottom of the pile becomes a very rich, black soil, high in everything, but mostly phosphorous, which, as you probably know, is good for promoting flowering. I enjoy providing a home for at least hundreds of thousands of multi-legged creatures who, when I sneak a peak, seem ecstatic in their complex lofty habitat.
Not ecstatic! More like scared seeing a towering peeking monster
Microbes is why I started a couple of indoor worm bins. My raised garden beds will eventually be happy.
My raised bed is full of worms same for the inground. I have worms too but throwing the casting on the raised beds seems worthless. But for potted stuff it would be highly beneficial
I did this and my raised beds on top of cement are popping off!
I grew mushrooms and accidentally wound up having an amazing worm kingdom underneath (tons of night crawlers and they were massive), been accidentally running a permaculture farm for a year now, from the soilage to the foliage! 😅
Earthworms changed the ecology of north america almost overnight 😮.
@@1ntwndrboy198 they definitely did lol, not all too bad as far as invasive species go
Great video. A couple points to add: 1) I'd say that grocery store fruit (tomatoes , peaches, plums, etc.) have fewer vitamins now because they are often picked before they ripen so they don't rot before you buy them. 2) Soil tillage destroys microorganism networks. Permaculture and minimal soil disturbance can help maintain these networks. 3) Adding nitrogen fertilizer to the soil can destroy nitrogen-fixing bacteria because they are no longer needed by the plants. Plants make sugars and provide these via their roots to these bacteria which then produce nitrogen in bioavailable forms to the plants. Enough soil nitrogen means plants don't make the sugars, so no bacteria get fed. Fewer soil bacteria and fungi means less resources for the plants and therefore fewer vitamins in their tissues and fruit.
Great subject, I'm a old dog who has been gardening forever and it sure is refreshing to discover and learn new stuff! Keep up the good work, always a fan.
❤️❤️
Was waiting with bated breath for you to mention soil microbiology. What a breath of fresh air
Ditto
one of the variables that Dr. Davis points to in his Univ of TX study is the size of fruits and vegetables. We've bred faster growing and larger products and no one was paying any attention to the mineral up take of the newer fruits & veggies, which all by itself may be a major contributor. A food item that is double in size and so much faster growing might have half the mineral contend on weight basis.
Yea he was one of the guys I looked at when researching. It’s a wild concept
Soil quality is the key. Moist agricultural soils are completely destroyed, devoid of microflora due to overuse of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides and exposure to the sun. Carbon content is low.
My tomatoes were sick and had average taste that is until I added worm castings and compost (and urine). This year I've had the tastiest tomatoes I've ever eaten. So rich in flavor it was like tasing a flavor bag from an instant soup.
Also you're right about the genetic modifications - plants are bred for size, ease of harvesing and resistance to chemicals. Not for nutrients density.
It’s a two way street when it comes to plant breeding for nutrients in my opinion. There are cases when it is decreased but also where they actively try to increase it. Like for example the iron plant I was speaking to or yellow rice
Without soil tests it is a bit dangerous to throw stuff in the ground willy-nilly. If you grew the same tomato variety, is the change due to micronutrients increase, or you inadvertently salted your tomatoes with curing salts, aka nitrites? It's a bit hard to do with compost, but it's very much possible. We grew tomatoes commercially, and the biggest difference was the variety - the seeds from the Netherlands were bred for productivity and a thick skin, and taste probably wasn't a consideration at all.
@@DumitruUrsu Fair point, however considering the simple fact I'm a hobby grower with just a handful of plants, my approach would be different than that of a commercial grower. I do not own a laboratory and cost of a test could be potentially higher than whatever I grow.
What matters to me is that my tomatoes are much better quality than commercial growers can offer. I used seeds from commercial tomatoes too (just took them out of one and dried for planting), yet the taste is still leagues apart.
I stumbled across a pile of 6 truckloads of leaves that had been sitting for 4 years. There was 3 feet deep of earthworm castings under the top layer and I put it on EVERYTHING all over the property. The results were both immediate and long lasting and I'll never fool with anything else again.
For large scale operations, make a tea and spray like any of the other "fertilizers".
Last- there's a great 5 minute cartoon on the Nitrogen cycle by Jim Sol, I recommend showing it to everyone. 🐛
Thank you for teaching us about plant obesity!
Hahah awe love this
Yes, I was waiting for this video.
There is a nutritional chemist in Germany, Udo Pollmer, who says that things like selenium came from industrial emissions and were cut down when some industrial pollution was reduced. Many new plant varieties were not bred for their nutrient content.
❤️ you guys were the ones that give me the video ideas!
Slightly? Slightly Qualified? She has to take multiple breaths as she goes through the list of her credentials, and then still says slightly qualified 😅😂❤
Pfft I’m a firm believer that nobody should take the work of one person and one person ever. I also heavily believe in scientific rigour so zero of what I say and believe (or anyone) has finality.
Tazarello, she's Canadian; it's how we present ourselves, and she models that characteristic. Way to go, Ashley, we can listen objectively. So far you pass my critical listening censors. Tx, merci bien.
I’m an agronomist and you’re one hell of a crazy gall, which I love.
Your work and observations seem realistic to me so…..
Well done bub. 🌷
Heirloom is a non-issue between the years listed for the study as most heirloom designated types go back at least 50 years and of course many go back much further. But sure, original plants that humans started to grow are not the same as heirloom but we have no way of knowing about nutrient density of original plants. For all we know we have improved the value of certain plants as we have propagated them over thousands of years.
You said something at the end that seems off. Farmers selectively choose plants to take seed from and they do this by the quality of the produce and the quality of the plant. This certainly happens with heirloom seed production. I don't think this has much bearing on the nutrient quality and if anything it could improve the quality since the seed growers are using their healthy plants, and healthy plants make healthy produce.
A note for heirloom and I don't know if you've thought about this. There is a LOT of diversity in heirloom seeds because there are many growers around the world working with heirloom crops. You have the issue of farmers in many places selectively choosing plants to get the seed they feel is going to be the best. This introduces a lot of diversity because a specific type of plant can do well in one location, not so much somewhere else, so as growers are choosing their best plants to harvest seed from, what that really means it's the best for their environment. So the fact that heirloom plants can have many seed producers means each grower is introducing diversity into the genetics.
Plants need stress if you want them to add protection (nutrients). Let bugs be bugs. I haven't had any pesticides control for years and my plants are stronger, more vigorous, and using a brix meter, my fruits and vegetables have a higher brix score than both of my neighbors crops do. My zichinnini was an absolute breeding ground for squash bugs this year, and my zucchini still turned out amazing. My green beans and cucumbers were attacked pretty heavily by several types of pests this year, and yet they both were heavy producers and they looked amazing. The plants took a hit, but the fruits were amazing.
It is scary to think that the lack of nutrients is essentially from the moment of picking, from the plant. Add the length of time before it gets to markets, the transport and conservation methods to make it there, and expect that picking the fruit/vegetables before they are fully mature impacts it all as welll… geeezzz!
Yea great point!
The crappy tomatoes in the store are bred to be perfect, ship well and make the cash register ring. This is why I do not buy store bought tomatoes unless the boss tells me to, lol.
Love your videos, Stay Well !!!!!
They are also picked before they are fully ripe.
HAHAHA the boss love that
@@barry1fitzgerald Correct, forgot to mention that!
Stay Well !!!!
Charles Dowding always feeds his soil with compost and he gets great results ❤
Albeit he 'always' includes manure in the compost mix, as I understand.
I read a book written in early 1950s claimed the nutrients in veggies dropped by half in the past 50 years… the blame put squarely on big business …… mass production etc
The idea of more CO2 causing nutrient diluted plants sounds like an untested and unvalidated hypothesis
I love your love of soil! And I love that you talk about the micro organisms and promoting them.
In permaculture, we are trained to feed the soil. Most of the time people throw away the very items, that could keep their soil healthy.
Thanks for making a video about this! I saw a clip on Instagram of a man oversimplifying the whole thing, saying that decades ago “they” knew that the soil would be completely depleted after a few years of farming, and they didn’t change anything, so imagine how bad it is now! I was rolling my eyes immediately because I knew there was more to it than that, but it’s a real issue and he was weakening the credibility of the whole discussion.
I was thinking freshness could be a factor as well. Since we have bred plants for shelf stability, and they are shipped all over the world before being eaten, many of the vitamins can be depleted without the consumer realizing their produce isn’t fresh. I wouldn’t expect that to explain the reduction of minerals, though.
I also wonder if obesity rates would be different if crops weren’t optimized for calories. Maybe some of us are eating more because we have to.
A bit more nuance than that lol
It (being able to get one’s calories without putting on excess weight)
definitely depends on what one is eating, the processed foods are not fresh and are skewed serving + lacking with their nutrient contents
And animal based foods are proportionally less fresh and more dense/caloric. As they (as source of nutrition) are 1step further from the source energy (the sun), than plants.
This is why ppl. With decades of too dense or depleted daily intake become overweight. Emotional and life style reasons being part of the equation too. ❤
I have gone down huge rabbit holes lately about sludge fertilizer. I had cancer this year and my wife and I bought 5 acres, moved, and I’m going to grow all our food. I don’t trust the food we eat anymore
Oh man I just watched a bunch of your videos to catch up. Great info! I’m always recommending your channel. Thank you Ashley..
I don't think I've ever seen a heirloom that wasn't selectively bred.. at least any one that's commercially sold.
Yea 🥹 shh don’t say that out loud ppl will go bonkers
I was watching a documentary on UA-cam about this, and they suggested that the varieties bred for overall flavour (rather than brix values) have more nutritional value, because we can taste those subtle differences.
I wonder if commercial produce would be bred a little differently if stores were required to display the nutritional facts. Currently, shoppers can only compare bulk produce based on price, size, colour, etc so there’s no incentive to bring up the micronutrient values.
I agree with you 100%, Ashley!! I enjoy all aspects of my little veggie garden, even the composting and giving back to the soil.
Wondering, though, why did Noah build an ark, when all he had to do to fix "climate change" was pay more taxes? SMH
(That was a "joke," for you Gretas out there!!!)
Impressive to here a non biased review of your knowledge with an explanation of how you got there.
Well covered Ashley. I am now suffering with gallstones. Turns out our gallbladders are stimulated by bitter foods. (Poison protection response.) Most of us only like sweet foods now!!!
Steam your kale and add lemons juice to raw greens.
Ouch! That is not nice
Great video, sending it to my plant peeps.
Awe thank you I appreciate that ❤️
I really appreciate the format and quality of verifiable information in your videos. Always learn something new. You would make a good teacher.
Every year I add a few bags of free Starbucks used grounds on my raised-bed gardens here in Calgary. The microbes love it; you can even see them.
Also worth noticing is the rate of autoimmune disease in the 1960s was 4% of the population now it is over 35%.
Vaccines account for alot of that, 72 doses just to start school now, completely unhinged criminal insanity.
Vaccines.
@CecilSavage-iq9zq Yes! I agree, but it does go deeper than that.
Not a word about animals. Bizarre. Climate change ... of course you want to mention it. Worse than bizarre.
How sure are we that the older nutrient data is accurate? James Wong has written some interesting criticisms of the presumption that nutrient density is lower in modern foods; or at least that the data used may not be reliable enough to draw strong conclusions from
The most I can go off of is peer reviewed research unfortunately. I don’t have the expertise or resources to pull from more than that. But definitely will check him out because that is an interesting thought.
@GardeningInCanada he is an ethnobotanist primarily, and with my undergrad in Botany and Msc in Biodiversity I can somewhat vouch that he is reasonable in his assessments! He uses a lot of systematic reviews and meta analyses for his books, which I've yet to read, but which often deal with nutrition and diversity (of all sorts). When I saw him raise some doubts about the jump from some of the peer reviewed findings to the "nutrient apocalypse" that I often see on social media, his points made a lot of sense from a scientific point of view. We all know too well how a good story can run away with a solid but preliminary piece of science 😆 trying to reign that in for my current PhD papers a bit myself 🫠
I can buy a peer reviewed study for a few thousand rupees... with whatever conclusion I want. "The science" is about as reliable as political polling or the TV News these days
It's my understanding that the bulk of current research suggests that crops today have significantly lower nutritional content per gram compared to those grown in the 1950s, primarily due to "nutrient dilution." Modern agricultural practices emphasize maximizing yields through selective breeding and intensive farming methods, which promote faster growth and larger plants. However, this increased biomass comes at the expense of nutrient concentration, leading to reductions in key vitamins, minerals, and proteins in produce.
While soil depletion contributes to this decline, it is not the primary driver. However, in my opinion, i strongly suspect that an increasingly important factor may be the degradation of soil microbial ecosystems. If we broaden our definition of "nutrients" to include bioactive compounds such as adaptogens, terpenes, and vitamin-like co-enzymes like PQQ (Pyrroloquinoline quinone), the role of soil microbiota becomes even more critical. These compounds are often synthesized or enhanced through intricate plant-microbe interactions in healthy, biodiverse soils.
Intensive farming practices-characterized by monocropping, excessive chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and soil compaction-disrupt these microbial communities, reducing the production and availability of these secondary metabolites in crops. As our understanding of the symbiotic relationships between plants and soil microbiomes expands, it is likely we will uncover a stronger link between microbial health and the synthesis of both traditional nutrients and bioactive compounds. This could highlight an even greater decline in the overall nutritional and medicinal value of modern crops when compared to those grown in biodiverse, microbially rich soils of the past. Such findings would underscore the urgent need to shift toward regenerative agricultural practices that prioritize both soil health and crop quality.
I love that you did this video!
❤️🧑🌾 you guys are my inspiration!
I know people say heirlooms have higher nutrient content, why doesn't that missing the point?
There are hybrids intentionally bred for lower nutrient content and longer shelf life and there are hybrids that potentially have higher nutrients right? As I'm looking into my seed purchases right now I had this discussion this morning with my wife. I heard that are taste buds lineup similarly with nutrient content at least with tomatoes, so I am looking to buy hi brix flavorful hybrids
I practice KNF and JADAM and I use and cultivate forest microbes for different purposes they can do anything and absolutely increase nutrition and lower disease and pest levels. I believe that is a solution as is teaches us how to source locally all materials needed.
Saw a very interesting video on one of the other gardening channels.
He placed a store-bought broccoli next to a organic broccoli in a worm compartment and then took pictures of it periodically until both were consumed.
The worms ignored the store-bought broccoli until they had completely consumed the organic broccoli.
Then he placed a store-bought cauliflower on the counter next to an organic cauliflower.
The store bought cauliflower was completely consumed by fungus before the organic cauliflower began to be consumed by fungus.
The worms and the fungus know.
it matters not whether glyphosate "decreases" or "increases" microbial germ count. It might be more telling how it affects the composition of the microbial community, which of what i understand is negative for our own good and for the nutrient cycles of the soil. Yes there may be nerve toxic pesticides too. But the fact that glyphosate is such a indiscriminate biocide, which kills plants, fungi and bacteria alike (that includes our gut biome) should not be taken lightly.
and while, yes soil depletion may be linked more to the microbial thing, but the fact that they are connected might not matter about it happening. Additionally this point might include other parts to the equation such as the later mentioned top soil removal, erosion but also compaction and lacking regeneration cycles, in which the soil properties can rebound. And while yes, some countries might have good programs in addressing this topic, this does not mean that it happens everywhere equally. Perhaps even your point about the difference between soils is part of the broader topic of soil depletion?
Just wanted to point these things out, and they might not necessarily mean i disagree with what you're saying.
Informative video, with accessible communication style.
Fascinating. Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it
Anyone have a suggestion for seed companies that emphasize 'best tasting' veggies.
I want to know the answer to this one!
@@GardeningInCanada This could be the title of your next video "best tasting veggies"
Number 3 ❤ and broken cycles. I ate a fresh green onion while listening intently ❤
I use wood ash and Azomite a montmorillanite deposit to get the micronutrients that no soil test ever checks for. You could also use rock crusher fines if you think you are missing some traces.
I never ever spray chemical poison of any kind on the gardens. Ever ever.
And yes I agree that all the microbial life of all kinds are important for your plants, soil and critters.
Tap water here in the UK used to really stink of chlorine and was not fit for plants or fish! But the smell went after numerous complaints. Now they 'tie' the chlorine to ammonia to keep it in the water, chloramine! Do you have any thoughts Ashley please?
Great explanation of nutrient deficiency. Next year I'll lean into the heirlooms, but I'm still going to grow hybrid tomatoes. They produce all summer long and into the fall, and they sure taste like the real thing. BTW, I've saved seed from a couple of robust hybrid volunteers (Big Boy, Lemon Boy). These plants were above average in terms of stem diameter, disease resistance, and yield. Fruit size wasn't exceptional, but it wasn't that bad. Any chance that as they hark back to their ancestors, they will be less nutrient deficient than the hybrids that you're supposed to buy every year?
I use composted wood chips, leaf mold, wood ash, as well as Celtic salt in everything that's grown for food in gardens.
We didn't have the issues of mineral anemias before electricity as we do today because people cooked and heated with wood and the ashes were used in the garden.
Korean natural farming methods do replace the salt back into the soil.
4:18 what is valavalisation? can you spell it so we can look it up
Here you go! It is volatilization cceonondaga.org/resources/nitrogen-basics-the-nitrogen-cycle#:~:text=Volatilization%20is%20the%20loss%20of,(e.g.%20hot%20and%20windy).
Great information!!!
Thank you for the great info dump about this topic, you occasionally hear people fear mongering about this, it's good to have a better idea for some of the how and whys.
An interesting and informative talk. Wondering why so little mention of tillage as a major detriment to soil microbial life ? No living plants and their root systems, no feeding of fungi and bacteria. A well understood concept.
Ashley. great point about plant breeding, hybridizing, selection as one cause. However, you seem to downplay soil depletion. For my native land, your southern neighbor, the amount of soil left “fallow” every year has created a situation where topsoil is our NUMBER ONE export.The Palouse of eastern Washington state, the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, California’s Central Valley, huge swaths of our Great Plains are simply gone; either washed away or blown to oblivion. The nutrients and microbial life went with the eroded soils. The loss of topsoil has been a monster player worldwide in destroying the quality and quantity of nutrient availability.
You need to fallow correctly that’s definitely a bit part. If it’s bare ground that terrible
Ooh this is one I've brought up all over youtube lol. I think we can do a lot better on breeding methods and that it should overhaul the whole 'organic' movement. I'm totally still down to not consume chemicals I can't even google properly.
Acid rain? Micro-plastics? Air pollution? Water pollution? Fungicides? Herbicides? Hybridization does not necessarily create a less nutritional plant. All of our crops have been selectively bred for thousands of years.
The concept of breeding causing nutrient deficiencies is a mixed bag because the opposite is also true 🙃. I was shocked I didn’t see that mentioned anywhere!
Yellow rice is my favourite story about this because it is lessening health issues in poor countries. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2682994/
How do hydroponic produce stack up on the nutrient scale?
What is the effect of electro culture on microbes and nutrients?
CHEMICAL USE
My cousins use spray...a lot...summer fallow is a thing of the past. They do, however, direct seed into fields with existing stubble, rotating crops as required. Now to harvest something like peas, they need to sprayed with a desiccant. This dries them out, making it easier to harvest. So I have to agree with Ashley that modern farming practices, in general, are not great. But...having said that...farmers are producing much more food today, giving us the ability to feed all 9 billion souls on this planet.
the idea now is that ground cover produces a more microbiotic soil and fallow is the wrong way to go. here the Oil seed Rape, "Canolla" is sprayed before harvest the "dessicant" is weed killer, roundup in particular.
9 billion poisoned. So what is the point of that? Maybe redraw how we produce food.
@@timcoolican459 desiccant, not sure it still is but peas as oil seed rape were sprayed with Roundup to kill the plants before harvest so of course there is traces in our food.
The "increased CO2 -> increased biomass" is also why timber grown now just doesn't have the same structural integrity or beautiful grain as timber grown a couple of centuries ago. Timber is mostly just carbohydrates so it's not about nutrient deficiency, but growing too fast is still a problem.
Yep, look at radiata pine in NZ, felled < 21 years
That is not entirely, or even mostly, due to an increase in CO2. It is mostly due to what species of trees are being grown. To use Mattockman's example of Radiata in NZ , the vast majority of lowland forest in NZ (+80%) has been cleared since European's settled in the 1800s. If the slow-growing natives had been replanted then, we'd still be waiting for them to fully mature. Radiata pine was one of a host of exotics introduced to find a quick-growing replacement for the timber industry. A species that grows 5 or 10 times as fast is going to have much large growth rings and much less dense wood. I'm pretty sure this is also the case in other parts of the world. We don't want to wait centuries between harvest, so we plant trees that grow faster … or cut down yet more formerly untouched forests to get those old growth trees with that "structural integrity or beautiful grain."
Thank you for your video!!! ❤🫶🏾
I didn't know this but braken-ferns are potassium piggys, do you think using them fresh and directly into a hot compost would be a good way to get good K ? Or do you think that it'd break down too much before it'd be usable? Thanks 😊
If it’s truly higher than you composting it will lead to a compost higher in K. It doesn’t dilute during the decomposition process. The most you could argue is leaching but even then you need the right conditions to facilitate that. And by proper conditions I mean a slope where the water is moving debris down hill because potassium is not Mobile in soil.
@GardeningInCanada thanks, I realized after I wrote that that I was more concerned with the usable bio-avalibilty of it, thanks for breaking through adhd and bad vocabulary! 😅
My Dad grew our food 60 years ago only used compost, manure and sometimes lime on the soil we had everything and of course meat was all organic in those days came from local farms we also kept poultry we were all very healthy no one obese good food
I’m fighting the compost/mulch Battle now.. living in town…(albeit a small Arkansas town) I still can’t just have large decomposing piles of organic matter lying about… knowing where to source my material and what kind is an issue I’m currently dealing with! Thinking I was always doing a good thing with fertilizers, etc.. I never got the ah-ha! Moment until last summer.. I covered half my Active garden with 6 bales of rice straw from the previous Halloween stuffs.. OMG! That side of the garden obliterated the other half in EVERY category… soil moisture, soil looseness? Vs compaction, plant size and productivity, amount of water needed for irrigation, and overall plant life longevity.. From straw? What?? What?? Then I got it.. That straw is pure biomass that comes from the ground somewhere else.. going back into my soil.. is so easy for our minds to see “scrap/waste” product as only being good for X use! I was that clean dirt, no weeds, beautiful garden guy.. not anymore! My garden looks like a crazy , out of control hay pile/weed/grass dump! but the soil underneath is black gold now!! Thank You… been following for a year or so now… I’m a degree totin fool myself! I 100% agree, a piece of paper only really means you showed up, wrote a bunch of papers, and jumped through hoops for treats… no guarantee you’re actually good at what you “learned” to do… retired ARMY as well, at 53, I know a lot of educated people that’s never stepped onto a campus.. I’m also in Farm country.. soo.. I’ll leave judgment for Court and Jesus. You’re doing a great thing here, awareness with zero judgment.. That’s a damned hard thing to pull off lady! But you’re doing it? ❤
So much info packed into one video and greatly presented, thank you. A friend has been doing Shumei gardening which is a Japanese method where crops are grown in the same position each year (perhaps there is a limited number of years they do this, I'm not sure). He's had a lot of success with healthy plants year after year. I wonder how the nutrient content compares. Shumei is based on the idea that each type of vegetable grow best with particular soil micro-organisms which vary from other vegetables' favourite micro- organisms. There is a symbiotic relationship and so the vegetable is grown in the same area of ground year after year because the organisms are already in good supply and remain plentiful for that particular vegetable.
I’ll do a video on that method!
That sounds a lot like permaculture, I bet there is some overlap!
One of the things that mainstream isn't paying attention to is all the solar activity which effects germination just like it effects everything else.
You mentioned you weren't sure where the electricity was being used - if you have central heating/AC, it's that. I started digging into energy use when I was setting our house up with solar and battery back ups. Our 4 ton AC takes 14,000 watts to start up and 4,000 watts to run. Compared to a fridge at 500 watts or LED bulbs which are around 10 watts each, I think we can splurge on some light if we just reduce our heating/cooling a few degrees! Or better yet go for single room in wall/window AC and heating units, which use a fraction of the energy of central.
1 - So can the CO2 induced dilution of nutrients in plants can be compensated by more nutrients in soil or some other methods or is it an unsolvable problem?
2 - is there some kind of list of safest pesticides/herbicides/fungicides on the market? If so are farmers focusing on using those instead of the toxic ones? Is there some kind of rational guidance? Because plenty of people bash glyphosate and I assume its relatively safe for both bacteria and humans; shouldn't/is usage of it prioritized in comparison to toxic ones?
1. It’s a mixed bag because a lot of factors plant into it. Some people had commented that CO2 increases, photosynthesis increases, respiration increases and therefore nutrient uptake. Which is a sound argument! Till you factor in other environmental factors like humidity, or the lack of bioavailable nutrients, changes in soil pH, etc.
2. Farmers use whatever works and get the most food in the bin while staying within their budget. It’s not because they are bad people they are told it is safe and if they asked they would be given the pre certification trials showing that to be the case.
glyphosate has a US patent as an anti-biotic. It is a known carcinogen. How does it not damage the soil microbiome. If you are concerned about soil health, there are no 'safe' fertilizers. Synthetic fertilizer induces fast plant growth and depletes soil fertility. Plants become targets for pests and disease requiring pesticides to combat those problems. The only solution is more fertilizer. Unfortunately this reduces the food value of vegetables (and animal feed) which reduces the nutritional value of the food we eat. It also reduces farmers profitability. This is not new. Read a book.
Can you do research on the correlation of difference in altitudes effects plants growth, since it has different atmospheric gases in term of its density and the CO2 temperature, bcoz in my observation in tropical country like Indonesia the same plants that grow in the higher altitudes region tend to grow more vigorously, taller and bigger, than those which grown in the lower altitudes
Since it does have effects on human, it should also have effects on plants
Since there's a lesser oxygen presence or more limited at the higher altitudes it may also impct the oxidation rate of macro and micro minerals on the soil, so the soil minerals at the high altitude are more readily available than in the lower altitudes that most of them are already oxidized and becom unavailable for the plants
I could do a video just on environmental factors overall. Like humidity’s, elevations, atmosphere etc.
Soil can also deplete in thickness, as with the Great Plains. So although soil depletion might be less of a current concern, the nutrient avalabilty outlook over decades becomes perhaps drastically less?
Okay, I was too fast to judge, good video! Thank you. You do use citations?
18:08 didn't see the video pop up
Thank you for this video ;)
My pleasure! 😇
Is there a way to measure the mineral density of things that lived in the dinosaur age compared to the same species now?
Thank You!
Wow. I learned a lot.
10:51 sandi from sheepishly me has an agronomist and a feed consultant for the sheep so she’s doing things right but she still has to supplement lots of selenium with her sheep that are fed from the hay silage and corn silage and the other things that the nutrition tests showed were needed to add to create the best food for the ewes and lambs from the plants that she grows on her farm in southern Ontario, is there a way to get more selenium into the soil over time in a practical way to correct the deficiency for a specific nutrient if it is deficient soil and to reduce the need for supplements in the future or to extract more selenium out of the soil and into the crops if there’s not enough selenium in them currently? Everything else seems to be okay with the soil and chemicals seem to be used only as much as they are absolutely required if there’s a problem and they are following the newer guidelines for minimum tillage and using cover crops and the compost from the sheep and chicken barns, but is there any little known fact about the soil and farming that would get the soil and the crops to the next level with the selenium or is what they are already doing about all that can be done for that issue?
Places that get lots of rain tend to have soil that is low in selenium.
Where I am, we have basically no selenium in our soil. We have to give the lambs shots when they're born. The adults pretty much have to have constant access to sheep tubs containing selenium to stay healthy
Forgive the novel, but I'm a recovering academic, and your video got my brain going planning for spring haha. The impact of increased atmospheric CO2 on plants is something I hadn't considered, but absolutely makes sense. Speaking of environmental changes... I'm lucky to be gardening in the Red River Valley down here in North Dakota, but Northern Corn Rootworm has been my White Whale, if you will. My garden is, by ignorance and necessity, about 20 meters from a field that alternates between corn and soybeans. NCR pressure was EXTREME last year....like...Old Testament level infestation and defoliation of anything in the Asteraceae family and some others. There are a lot of factors going on here but one of them is that I'm pretty sure we are starting to see NCR adapt to crop rotation, since I've had them on some level each year without ever growing corn. In any event, bacteria, fungi, nematodes, and better soil health are all in the plans for this year. .....or I could move the garden, but where's the challenge in that?
OMG you have to show that massive ink art piece!
If we're actually concerned about nutrition, applying something that was used as a descaling agent for pipes and boilers seems counterintuitive regardless of its effect on soil microbes. I imagine it leaches minerals from the plumbing of the human digestive system.
Great video! Are you familiar with John Kempf from AEA? Advancing Eco Agriculture and now editor of Acres USA. Couple other things to add would be photosynthetic capacity and root exudate exchange in the rhizosphere. Another fascinating angle is redox and the oxidation of nutrients in the soil affecting plant root availability
thank you for your wise perspective on the lack of nutrition in the foods we eat in NA. My aim is to start a farm (or food forest) in US somewhere and grow my own food and observe the Joel Salatin approach. If I ever need a soil expert, are you available?
This goes a long way in also explaining why homegrown tastes much better than store bought.
Absolutely a difference! Totally agree
Thanks for sure information
Is that a Noni in the background? I have one, too. They are said to be super healthy, but very bad tasting. Mine did not make ripe fruit yet so I can't give my own review 😅
People gardening in clay soil need to be aware that depleted clay soils will absorb and lock up nutrients up to a saturation point before plants can access them. Steve Solomon has detailed strategies people should take when dealing with heavy soils.
Speaking of Solomon, in one of his books he brought up the correlation in documented US malnutrition between prairie ecologies and forest ecologies- the conclusion he arrives at is that higher rainfall leaches surface soils of nutrients, which is reflected in the relative health of subsistence farmers across regions.
Thank you great video
Most farm soils are severely-to-totally depleted of the basic life-support mineral nutrients they contained before they began to be farmed. Those nutrients, esp P and K, are now provided by "fertilizers" containing the needed minerals that must be applied yearly to maintain soil fertility/crop yields, and the minerals in those fertilizers are being mined from deposits far away from the farms. Now, let that sink in: When the mines from which those minerals are obtained are depleted-exhausted-mined-out, what then for our farm soils? Reality is that farm soils are on artificial life support and this is probably the greatest long-term risk to humanity as a species dependent on agriculture-food production. We must start returning nutrients from our biowastes to our growing soils (just as natural ecosystems do) and this will not be an easy thing to do on the necessary scale, and with our agricultural system so "spread-out" with consumers so distant from the soils where their food is grown. It is a HUGE problem, even larger and more critical than our energy transition problem.
BTW: So-called trace mineral nutrients are given almost zero attention toward making sure that they are provided in our fertilizer mixtures. These are definitely lacking in today;s produce, and there are surely some unhealthy side effects from that. Our bodies do need those nutrients though not in such large quantities as others like P and K.
The plant is not diluted in micronutrients as long as the root system is proper growth size rate with plant.
The summary I see here is eat smaller yielded fruits and vegetables over bigger ones for example a cup of everglades tomato I assume is more nutritious than one tomato that measures a cup. Grow it yourself in living soil.
My greatgrandmother grew up in central kansas in the early 1900s. She died at 97 with every single one of her teeth.
Hot damn; you knocked this one out of the park!! Fanfreakingtastic👏👏👏
The last point was my favorite. Who doesn’t like dinosaurs? Monsters I tell ya; that’s who. If you haven’t already seen it, there’s an interesting documentary on UA-cam titled ‘Seeds: Half the Nutrients & Double the Price? | Seeds of Profit: Food Investigation Documentary’, that touches base on how shelf life requirements (due to travel from globalization) impact nutrition and taste of tomatoes. To quote the great Dr. Ian Malcolm, “God help us, we're in the hands of engineers.”. 🦖
Grains being breed to be shorter and co2 making plants grow bigger is kinda antagonistic
I think the use of chemicals is a bigger part than we can even comprehend I stopped using chemicals on our farm back in 2018 and it was two years of crash and burn I was getting glyphosate burn even at the beginning of 2021 but we are climbing back to life
You could argue the breeding is done on planet earth under earths atmosphere and therefore they are shorter still despite the environment.
But there are a lot of factors with the CO2 idea that make me question its validity. Humidity, present soil nutrients, elevations, temperatures, etc.
so true tks
Thank u again Ashley! I love Dinosaurs! Plesiosaur was my fave! U made a CO2 video “ This Nutrient can reverse climate change) ! It was great! And its true for indoor gardening as well. Co2 levels higher than 400 ppm will make plants grow bigger and use less light and water and nutrients.
You are so welcome! It’s true though lol we just need a buttload of plants. I know 100k plus nerds who would be down to help out 😂
nutrients can be in soil but if you dont have the right microbes in the soil the plants can not uptake those nutrients as well. the chemicals we been using for the last 80 - 90 years have killed off to many of the microbes the plants need.
Thank you for this information. Very interesting. I have a couple small disagreements with you, however.
One is the notion of nutrient depletion. Since the microbes around the roots, are the nutrient givers of plants in a natural environment, if the microbial community is healthy, no nutrients will be needed. In return for feeding the plant with NPK, and other nutrients in the right proportions, at the optimal time for the plant, the microbial community gets fed from the root exudates of the plants. These root exudates can amount to 50% of the photosynthetic productivity of the plant. This shows how important microbes are to plants.
There is a broad symbiotic relationship between a plant and the microbial community around its roots. The microrhizal network of funghi tubes connected like pipes, or root extensions bring nutrients from deeper down and far away from the plants.
When you till the soil, you break that network which, plants, in their natural habitat, have to bring them the nutrients they need.
Tilling also cause severe microbial imbalance because when you till the soil it adds too much oxygen to the soil. The heterotrophic bacteria bloom and consume stored carbon which is mostly in the form of humic acids. They turn the soil carbon into CO2. If you don't believe me, look at springtime satellite images of the CO2 plumes coming from the freshly plowed fields in the Midwest US.
Also, ever wonder why soil becomes less black every year you till? It's because the carbon in the soil is burned off by the heterotrophic bloom.
Why does plowing destroy the tilth of a soil? Because it's the humic acids that glue soil aggregate into pea sized clumps which makes the soil like a sponge and turns your soil black, get consumed. CO2 is the waste of these bacteria.
The microbial community is so important for plants. I'm glad you talked about it.
In my garden, I try to create the conditions microbes want: not too wet, not too dry, good mulch, etc. and my plants do great without much input at all.
I have grown 200 lbs of tomatoes on a 3ft by 8ft bed. The soil is growing in my beds, and it does all the work.
Thanks for your work. I learned a bunch. 😊