Teaming with Nutrients by: Jeff Lowenfels - discussion

[VerdantGreen]

...yeah you guys...stop poking fun at the hydro-trolls...but rather take their hand and lead them into the sunshine of your love....of microbes and minerals.

like a bridge over troubled water?

VG

 

[DARC MIND]

 

[boobs]

A Roadmap To The Book

A Roadmap To The Book

The book arrived!
here is a summary of the chapters and a chance to take a surveying gaze from up on the hill before we plunge into this canyon together.

Describing the process of how plants take in and use nutrients necessarily involves chemistry and biology. Don't worry. Each chapter builds on the previous one, so by the time you get to the punch line, you will have the science under your belt and get it. Let's take some of the mystery out right now with a short summary.

In chapter 1, I discuss the various parts of a typical plant cell, because this is where the action takes place. The outer cell wall and the plasma membrane up against it act as barriers and regulators of what can enter and leave a cell. Special membrane proteins assist water and nutrients entering the cell, while keeping unwanted materials out. The cytoplasm holds structures and organelles that perform special jobs related to taking up and using fertilizers. They provide power to the cell and serve as sites for photosynthesis. The nucleus is the command center where the DNA is housed. Cells have transportation and communication infrastructure, protein construction areas, and even tunnels that connect every single cell in a plant.

Chapter 2 conveys the necessary basic chemistry needed to understand the journey of nutrients. You don't have to remember anything from school. I discuss atoms, electrons, and chemical bonds. (Finally, we have a reason to know about covalent, , ionic, and hydrogen bonds, which affect the qualities and availability of the various nutrients.) This chemistry results in the four types of molecules that are necessary for life: carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids. I also describe ATP (adenosine triphosphate), the energy currency in all cells, and enzymes that speed up the millions of chemical reactions that occur within plant cells.

In chapter 3, I discuss the botany that affects nutrient uptake and utilization. Four kinds of plant tissues and their organization into special organs (leaves, stems and roots) have roles in the uptake of nutrients. Some play surprising and unexpected roles, including aiding in the formation of symbiotic relationships and other biological partnerships important to nutrient uptake.

The seventeen elements essential for the lives of plants are covered in chapter 4, including the macronutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and sulfur) needed by plants in the greatest quantities and the micronutrients (boron, chlorine, copper, iron, manganese, zinc, molybdenum, and nickel), which are needed in only trace amounts. The other three essential nutrients, carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, are also covered, as are the different degrees of mobility of the various nutrients and its implications.

Water plays the starring role in this story. In chapter 5, the chemistry and botany described in the previous chapters are used to help explain how water moves through the soil to get to and then into the roots of a plant. Once water is inside a plant, there are different ways it can get to the xylem, where it is carried up to the stems and leaves along with the nutrients dissolved in it. Water is later moved throughout the plant in the phloem, along with the sugars, proteins, enzymes, and hormones produced in plant cells. I describe the interplay between the two tissues in the vascular system when it comes to plants taking up and distributing nutrients.

Chapter 6 covers the movement of nutrients into and then inside a plant, starting with their movement in the soil around plant roots. Once inside the plant, nutrients must be transported across cell membranes so they can be used to make all the compounds the plant needs for growth and maintenance.
In chapter 7, I explain the role of the essential nutrients in the makeup of the four molecules of life. Carbohydrates are produced via photosynthesis. Proteins are constructed from various combinations of the twenty amino acids. Lipids are made up of fatty acids and glycerol. Finally, nucleic acids are the molecules of DNA and RNA that carry the genetic code.

In chapter 8, the book gets down to actual gardening and applying some of the knowledge gained in the previous chapters to make our art more of a science. I discuss whether you even need to fertilize, and, if you do, what steps you should take. The use of fertilizers should be based on sound knowledge which can only be obtained by having your soil tested.

In chapter 9, I discuss the other factors that influence nutrient uptake and the use of nutrients: temperature, soil microbes, moisture, soil compaction, and the chemical reactions that occur within plants and in soil. Many gardening practices come into focus when the science behind them becomes clearer.

Finally, in chapter 10 I offer recommendations of what to feed plants based upon knowledge of how plants take up nutrients and how they use them. I provide fertilizer recipes designed for annuals, vegetables and lawns and describe the best ways to apply fertilizers, including the timing of application, and other characteristics of commonly obtainable natural fertilizers.

yes... I actually typed all that from reading out of the book, wasn't a copy paste from somewhere online incase you were wondering...

 

[SoooHaggard]

So happy I found this, I downloaded the sample 15 seconds after CC posted it (Can you believe SD hasn't even looked at it? lol POKE!). I made a thread about it across the pond but it was covered up very quickly.

Mine will be here Monday so I'm down for a book club, but only if Oprah approves.

 

[OrganicOzarks]

Should be an interesting read. I had to add another book to get the free shipping so I got something on permaculture. Hopefully it is not a big ad for Alaska humus.

 

[CT Guy]

Haven't read it yet, but supposedly a copy is on the way from Timber. I'm thoroughly enjoying Steve Solomon's book though "The Intelligent Gardener"

http://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-G...&qid=1370424763&sr=8-1&keywords=steve+solomon

I think it's the future of organic gardening....

 

[StayBlazinDawg]

Feels like a new movie coming out makes me want to re read the first book, probably should anyway I think I was drinking heavy back then. I always get a kick out of peoples marijuana myths funny stuff.

 

[YosemiteSam]

Haven't read it yet, but supposedly a copy is on the way from Timber. I'm thoroughly enjoying Steve Solomon's book though "The Intelligent Gardener"

http://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-G...&qid=1370424763&sr=8-1&keywords=steve+solomon

I think it's the future of organic gardening....

A mineral balance convert perhaps? I have trouble with his K recommendation being tied to tcec the way he does it...seems kinda low for mj to me. I prefer the Nutri Tech approach...Mg = K as it optimizes uptake of both and as a bonus, improves P uptake also.

But yea...I like his work, stole his worksheet as a matter of fact.

http://bionutrient.org/audio/2013_s...ve-Solomans-Book-The-Intelligent-Gardener.pdf

Fuckin consultants make it seem like voodoo...turns out it is pretty simple math.

 

[CT Guy]

Or if you don't want to do the math:
http://growabundant.com/products-page/

I do think that there's a balance. I think mineral people undervalue the importance of healthy soil biology, and soil food web people undervalue the importance of minerals.

 

[xmobotx]

CT; {i wonder} from that link {on the $95 deal?} ~do you see the soil test? will you know what the mineral mix is?

 

[Microbeman]

Or if you don't want to do the math:
http://growabundant.com/products-page/

I do think that there's a balance. I think mineral people undervalue the importance of healthy soil biology, and soil food web people undervalue the importance of minerals.

And neither actually realize how nutrients are uptaken. Mineral people seem to think there is a straw attached or some sort of magic trading going on, while soil foodweb folks get tunnel vision and don't see that nature always has a second way.

 

[OrganicBuds]

Just received my copy today, STOKED!

 

[boobs]

let me know when you get a couple chapters down Buds, and anyone else reading along too if you want.

I read chapter 1 and to me it was about trying to form a visualization of the cell in three dimensions in your mind and how the cells of the plant are connected. to do this the book scales up the size of the cell to a football stadium and then shows what the corresponding sizes of the scaled up organelles would be. it then discusses the different ways that water travels through the pathways of the plant and it's cells.



it was a good sized chapter and went into the specifics of the functioning of the parts of the cell. I would say more of the details but this chapter was about setting the stage for the future chapters and I think I will find myself referencing it often as the book progresses.

I'll continue to say what the basic parts that stuck in my mind after each chapter are.

 

[YosemiteSam]

And neither actually realize how nutrients are uptaken. Mineral people seem to think there is a straw attached or some sort of magic trading going on, while soil foodweb folks get tunnel vision and don't see that nature always has a second way.

Bullshit. Nutrients can be taken up a couple of ways. The best way is for the microbes to act as the plants digestive system. But...the real winner on top of that is to feed foliar to drive the fat content of the plant beyond two percent (a high energy plant that has maximum insect and disease resistance)...when you do that the plant is able to feed the soil to the point true humus can be formed without adding anything else. It can actually work both ways when you get it right.

When you accomplish that you don't gotta be feeding microbe teas or adding compost. You have built a self sustaining system.

Or at least that is the way this mineral balance guy sees it.

Taking up soluble nutrients as ions is the least effective way. You then depend on water flow...which may or may not follow the plants development.

 

[StayBlazinDawg]

Taking up soluble nutrients as a last resort, that was in a study about roots taking nitrogen from rocks some how. I have alot to learn can't wait!

 

[OrganicBuds]

YoSam - Do you have a source for your foliar claims? I would love to read up on how to accomplish what you are talking about. That is actually my goal this season, is to feed the majority of my plants with foliar. If it's in the book Teaming With Nutrients, then I will soon find it. Thanks man.

Boobs - will do my man. Hope I can retain as much as you seem to.

 

[FatherEarth]

Teaming with nutrients thru the first chapter so far, loving it.
Hands on Agronomy as well.

Gonna be a good bunch of runs this year

Im with you on the foliar turbo Yosemite.
Tell me more about the 2% plant fat goal...

 

[OrganicOzarks]

I have just received my copy, and flipped through it very quickly. Seems to be pretty awesome.

 

[boobs]

chemistry, bleh

chemistry, bleh

here we are again, in this post I will try to summarize Chapter 2 in the most basic way I can. Something to contemplate before reading this chapter is the idea that we can never really answer the question of how things truly are (like matter) ...not with words anyways...but we can make models that explain behaviors under certain conditions. However, we shouldn't forget that our models are models, and they do not represent how it really is at all. the nature of reality is contradictory.



when you begin to read this chapter go into it wondering how it all relates to how things move in the plant, and in water. All of the chemistry stuff can be looked at as an explanation of switches used in the plant to selectively move things around.

alright, so here we go...

the atom...

so, the way I see it, there are two forces who's interplay explains most of this chemistry jazz... on one hand you have the force of the protons (the positively charged particles) bunched together in the center of the atom...they attract electrons (negatively charged particles.) the protons attract a proportionate amount of electrons, that is to say, if there are 6 protons they will attract 6 electrons.

Simple, right? well it get's slightly more complicated... you'd think that the forces would cancel out and everything would be stable, however, the way that the electrons orbit the protons creates some problems. the electrons don't just slowly revolve around the protons in the way that the moon does the earth... it's more of a high speed buzzing cloud. A cloud that's shape and stability is determined by how many electrons are present. There are certain levels of amounts of electrons that lead to stable orbital patterns. These orbital patterns are referred to as 'shells', and each shell has so many slots for electrons to be in, if the shell is full, it is stable. An atom usually is either trying to fill a shell by gaining one or two electrons, or revert to a lower shell by giving off some extra electrons in order to stabilize it's cloud of electrons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_electron_configuration_table

for more on this subject wiki electron shell, electron configuration, valence electrons and the octet rule.

okay, so I think we're starting to lose sight of how this relates to the flow of nutrients in the plant... my original proposal was that the switch mechanisms used in the plant to selectively control where things go can be explained by these two forces at play. The first was the attraction of a proportionate amount of electrons by the protons of the atom and the second was the problem created by unstable electrons in orbit. The plant takes advantage of this by incorporating certain elements into carbon structures, carbon structures are very complicated and take on big shapes. The structures can change shape by the action of the alternating electron orbital states of the wishy-washy elements.

you see, certain elements are like someone who wants two things, and when it has one, it wants the other, but to have the other thing it has to give up what it has. this predicament is the fuel that the plant manipulates into getting chemical interactions to do things for it.

I was going to try to talk about salts and hydrogen bonding too, these things are discussed in the chapter, but I'm starting to feel like I didn't articulate any of the ideas I originally set out to, so at this point I will take a break and let the smoke settle...

believe it or not I've taken more than one class in organic and biochemistry, this chapter was a nice review of some things for me but I think there's something to be gained by anyone reading it regardless of previous education.

 

[VortexPower420]

I have also just recived my copy and I am on the second Chapter and moving right along. I love it. I think it is a great entry level book on how life in plants works. I look forward to the rest.

Timbuktu