Wally Richards – plant health factors
Gardeners endeavour to have their garden plants looking as healthy as possible, especially their preferred plants such as roses.
To understand what is needed to have very healthy looking plants, one can compare plant health to human health.
For a healthy body we require a certain amount of water, sun, a balance of food, rich in vitamins, minerals and enzymes, along with a life as free as possible from external stress aspects.
What plants need:
- Adequate moisture for their daily needs, but not too much to cause root rot problems.
- Adequate sunlight (dependant on the type of plant)
- A humus rich growing medium, full of soil life and worms.
- Availability of all the minerals and elements that each type of plant species requires.
- Free of stress caused by external factors (pH, insect pests etc)
Given the above aspects a plant will grow and be very healthy.
As gardeners we provide many of these aspects for plants ensuring that they have adequate moisture yet free draining during wet times, positioning the plants for either sun or shade depending on type, building up a rich humus by using compost and other natural products while avoiding the use of water soluble fertilisers that kill soil life and chemical sprays that weaken the plant’s immune system. Providing where possible, natural foods that give the basic needs of the NPK’s along with magnesium, calcium, sulphur etc. It would appear that, dependant on the type of plant, somewhere between 20 to 114 odd different elements are required for plants to have full health.
A few years ago I wrote about the plant trials that a Dr Maynard Murry did using Ocean Solids.
In brief, Maynard found that the blue waters of the ocean contained all the minerals and elements known to man, in perfect balance, along with a big percentage of sodium chloride (salt). If these minerals were carefully harvested from the ocean and used on the land, plants would overcome disease problems that they had, and be immune to diseases.
His research included treating the soil in the root zone, with Ocean Solids, on various types of plants while have untreated controls growing nearby. Then disease spores would be sprayed over the trail and control plants. In each case the controls succumbed to the particular disease while the Ocean Solid treated plants showed no signs.
It would appear that common garden plants, vegetables, roses etc are likely to need somewhere between 20 to 80 odd elements for full health. Take one of these away e.g. Selenium, and like our own bodies, a health problem can arise over time.
Fertilisers commonly supply only the major elements for plants which may as few as 4 or 5 elements or in better formulations a dozen or so – still far short of all the minor trace elements that many plants might need.
We know that wheat grass will take up the 114 elements if available, which makes wheat grass juice so valuable to our health.
What about our roses? I don’t know how many elements they would like to have in their diet, but if we supplied everything, then the rose (or whatever other plant) can choose for themselves. We know already that MBL (Magic Botanic Liquid) has a lot of minerals and numerous people who use the product on their roses, reported that their roses are far better than they had ever been.
If we apply ‘Ocean Solids’ to our gardens and containers, then we can be fairly confident that likely 114 odd minerals will be available to our plants. When we apply Ocean Solids to our home grown vegetables and fruiting plants, then many of these minerals will also be available in our food chain. Growing our own wheat grass for juicing with Ocean Solids, all the elements and minerals will be in the juice which are quickly absorbed into our blood stream to enhance our cells. This can assist in overcoming any health problems and boost our immune system reducing the possibility of future health effecting conditions.
Plants do not require a lot of Ocean Solids, in fact, one application of 35 grams per square metre is applied the first year followed by half that amount for years 2 to 5. Then no further application for 5 years. It can also be used at the rate of one tablespoon, dissolved in 4.5 Litres of water sprayed over foliage to run off. The purpose of the spray is as a natural insecticide, fungicide and foliar feed. Use only bi-monthly and late in day when sun is off the plants. Too much of the Ocean Solids can be detrimental.
I see the possibilities of overcoming some of the harder to control diseases such as curly leaf, brown rot and black spot from these applications of Ocean Solids. Plants that have been weakened by chemical sprays and water soluble fertilisers will not come right overnight, it may take a season or two but likely improvements will be noticed during recovery. Given the opportunity, nature will heal itself, often faster than we imagined.
Ocean Solids is not a complete plant food as it contains no nitrogen. You need a good animal manure based compost to supply this. Used sparingly, some of the ‘fast’ slow release fertilisers can be beneficial for boosting plant growth when applied at the right times. Potassium Sulphate and magnesium sulphate are two water soluble fertilisers that can be very beneficial at the right times in the right amounts.
Superphosphate is one to be avoided because of its acidic nature and to obtain the extra phosphate the plants need, use the natural BioPhos. Ocean Solids will give your gardens and plants availability of about 114 odd elements for overall health. This then will greatly reduce the possibility of diseases unless the plants come under stress for other reasons such as too little or too much water, wrong pH, bad insect attack, chemical fertilisers or sprays, herbicides, UV, weather, age, etc.
Even many of the aspects above will have less damaging consequences when your plants are fortified with all the elements needed for strong metabolisms.
Ocean Solids have been carefully harvested from selected, mineral rich sea water and solar dried naturally to retain the elements. It has not gone through further processing as we find with table salt, of which refining have removed many of the elements to make it purer sodium chloride. Many gardeners know the value of some sea-weed related products which contain many minerals also, but only the minerals that particular sea weed required. In fact they obtained their chosen minerals from Ocean Solids in its original form.
Ocean Solids are available through some garden centres and if not, ask for them to obtain the product for you. A great step towards perfect plants.
