Title: The Organo-Zeolitic Bio-fertilizer: A New Approach to Plant Nutrition

Abstract:

The adoption of a biological method of plant nutrition has proved to be extremely efficient.  The method does not involve the use of chemical salts as used in traditional plant fertilizers.  These fertilizers used over some 80 years have had a deleterious effect on soil health due to the diffusion of the salts used which often leads to over-application.  The new approach to improve soil health and plant growth uses natural crushed zeolite rock and organic waste as a soil amendment. This material supplies nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium together with minor and trace elements which are essential and beneficial to plant growth. Zeolite minerals are well known to adsorb ammonium ions which are provided by the decomposition of the organic component.  When the organo-zeolitic mixture is added to the soil the ammonium ions are replaced by soil Potassium. The slow release of the ammonium ions is oxidized by Crenarcheota, a soil micro-organism that is now known to be the most prevalent ammonium oxidizing microbe in the soil environment.  This behavior provides a gradual accumulation of nitrate in an ionic condition that can be accepted by the growing plant.  In this way, there is very little access to nitrate to diffuse into the soil, and with phosphorus supplied from the organic waste and potassium, available from the soil. the three major nutritional elements (NPK) are present. As the process of nitrification, involves enzymes that produce hydrogen in the form of hydronium ions that are very reactive, releasing a range of elements from the soil which provide minor element ions, in trace quantities, required for strong plant growth. The organic component maintains an adequate supply of carbon which is lost in the long-term use of traditional chemical fertilizers. The presence of soil carbon is essential for soil health as its reduction results in loss of soil structure and water holding capacity, resulting in fragile soil that is prone to transportation by wind and rain. The dust bowls of the Midwest of the USA are a spectacular example of this effect.  Thus the adoption of the organo-zeolitic-soil system, in countries that benefit from the presence of economic deposits of zeolitic tuff, is a step forward in arable farming and the phytoremediation of contaminated land as well as the production of fuel crops on such land and the improvement of marginal farmland.

Biography:

Graduated from the University of St.Andrews, Scotland after a four-year Honours Geology degree course in 1959.  Gained a Ph.D degree from the University of Bristol graduating in geology and mineralogy in 1963. Joined Australia National University to work on isotope geochronology, 1963-65.  Continued this work during a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Leeds,1965-68.  Accepted Professorship at the Department of Geology, University of Florida, USA, and later at the Department of Environmental Studies, University of Virginia, USA.  On return to the UK  in 1995 became interested in natural zeolites which led to current work on biological plant fertilizers at the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge