Hello Richard
Nitrogen-fixing trees. Nitrogen, is that part of soil nutrients?
Yes, the main one. Allegedly. There's a better case for calcium
though. Soil nutrients aren't quite the same as plant nutrients,
though they should be - "feed the soil, not the plant". The gospel of
chemical farming, the "NPK mentality", is that all you have to do is
replace the chemicals the previous crop removed from the soil, and
all it takes is the the six "macronutrients", nitrogen, phosphorus,
potassium, calcium, magnesium, sulphur. Originally just the first
three were considered important, N, P, and K. There's also a small
but growing concern about the 40-odd "micronutrients". Actually the
"law of the little bit" makes the really important nutrient the one
that isn't there, whether macro or micro. No need to worry about them
if your humus management is good. Nature's humus management is always
good, of course. Nitrogen provides itself, via the steady breakdown
of soil organic matter, and direct from the inexhaustible supplies in
the atmosphere, via the action of free-living nitrogen-fixing soil
bacteria such as Azotobacter and the bacteria colonising the root
nodules of nitrogen-fixing trees and other legumes.
Best wishes
Keith
<http://agroforestry.net/overstory/overstory4.html>http://agroforestr
y.net/overstory/overstory4.html
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>Trees are renewable and the lumber industry now
replants more trees than it takes.<
The only problem with repanting trees, period, that i'm shocked no
one has mentioned (unless i missed it), is that the earth in a
particular area can only support 4-5 generations of trees before
the soil is completely exhausted. Trees take more nutrients out of
the soil to grow than just about anything else, and after several
generations they will NOT grow any longer. So yeah, replanting
after clear cutting is nice and all, but after a few times at the
the soil stops growing... anyhting...
<snip>
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