Lets Talk About Real Plant Nutrition
Plants, animals, bugs, and even microbial life (all forms of life) are all built from a series organic molecules called biomolecules. They make up the majority of the mass of a cell and each cooperatively collaborate to make cells so unique and special. Biomolecules consists of four main classes; being carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and nucleotides. Each biomolecule is critical to both the structure/function of a cell and each play an independent role from one another for the collective good.
Carbohydrates have three main roles of storage, structure, and signaling. In plants for example, cellulose (a polysaccharide consisting of glucose monosaccharide repeats) is one of the main components of the plant cell wall. The Empirical formula for a carbohydrate is (CH2O)n, meaning that carbohydrates are made out of Carbon, Hydrogen, and Oxygen.
Lipids are the main structural component of cell membranes. They also serve roles for long-term energy storage and enzyme cofactors. There are many different kinds of membrane lipids and each slightly differ from one another with respect to their composition. Because of this, there are wide range of elements involved aside from Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen. Elements like Nitrogen, Sulfur, and Phosphorus are also involved.
Proteins are easily the most influential biomolecule of them all. This is because proteins perform the vast array of functions within any given macro or microorganism. For example, plants split water to harness the released electrons from the bonds previously connecting oxygen and hydrogen to make water. By doing this, electrons are able to be continuously replaced to keep Photosynthesis in action. So how is all this water split? Its split by the Oxygen-evolving complex (OEC) which a combination of multiple proteins. Proteins are constructed by amino acids and amino aicds are made up of organic compounds that contain amino and carboxyl functional group, along with an amino acid specific side chain (R group). This means the elements like Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorus, and Nitrogen are seen in great amounts. But many proteins do require many other elements like Magnesium, Nickel, Boron, and Zinc to function properly.
Nucleotides are what makeup the storage, transmission, and processing of genetic information within cells. Additional roles include energy (think ATP), enzyme cofactors, and cell signaling. The three structural elements of a nucleotide are a pentose sugar, nitrogenous base, and a phosphate. This means that carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and phosphorus are all used in the synthesis of nucleotides .
Obviously there are many other elements that weren’t listed here that are involved in the synthesis and/or function of these biomolecules.
Essentially, all of these biomolecules are the greatest fertilizer for a plant because they are the actual components that make up a plant and already contain all of the essential nutrients a plant would need. So, where in the heck would we find plant biomolecules? Its easy, go to your bacyard, forest, or wherever and pick out some growing plants out of the ground. That picked biomass contains a slew of all those biomolecules that contain all the essential nutrients. To make the fertilizer even more effective, picking plants that are of the crop being grown (i.e. using hemp to feed hemp) make a plant-specific fertilizer. By using crop-specific methods to make fertilizer, the plant can receive a supply all of the nutrients it will ever need to grow strong and healthy.
But all these nutrients are locked away and tied up in chemical bonds that are not readily available to the plant. The only way to make them available is to break the existing chemical bonds that keep them locked up. There is no better way to convert unavailable nutrients to available than utilizing microbes. Nature has utilized this method for millions of years. Plants from 100 million years ago would still be here today undecaying if microbes weren’t present.
Obviously this process takes a long tome to occur, but even after a couple years this process can be seen in action. Too things speed up, mixing native soil (filled with microbes) with picked plant material in a bucket of water (life’s natural solvent) can make fertilizer in as little as two weeks. Listen to nature. Watch nature. Farm like nature.
