How To Combat Soil Depletion Naturally

The following article on soil depletion is an excerpt from Spiritual Nutrition: Six Foundations for Spiritual Life and the Awakening of Kundalini by Rabbi Gabriel Cousens M.D.

Mineral Depletion in Plant Food

There are specific mineral requirements for cell nutrition. The number one mineral is oxygen. It connects the symbiosis between the plant and animal world. It is obvious that calcium is needed for bone production and function of the parathyroid glands; iodine is needed for the function of thyroid; iron is needed for hemoglobin production, etc.

The overall generalization is that all disease stems from the weakening of the organism and subsequent parasitic (virus, bacteria, fungus, bowel parasites, etc.) infections. Adequate mineralization protects us against this disease process by strengthening the biological terrain. One of the problems we began to face early in the 1920s is plant disease arising from soil depletion. For example, a gray spec on oats in caused by deficient manganese. Rosette disease affects fruit trees and is due to zinc deficiency.

The point being, that our plants need the proper nutrition, and when they don’t get it, they are prone to disease just like humans. For healthy plant life, corn requires about 48 minerals and wheat and oats utilize about 36 minerals. Soybeans, apples, pears, and peaches, take out over 30 elements from the soil. Most vegetables, including peas, potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, and lettuce require more than 25 elements from the soil. Repeatedly used ground that is not regenerated gets depleted.

The foods that grow in it get depleted as a result, and therefore the humans and animals that are eating those foods also get depleted. In essence, we can say that the soil in the United States, and in probably most of the world, is overworked and underfed. The result is diseased plants and sick animals. This is the result of the failure to replace the elements taken out during the growing cycles. This can be called the law of soil exhaustion.

This imbalance is amplified by creating a glut of food with our high technology, pulling more energy and minerals from the soil than it can offer. The cycle gets worse with the soil becoming further depleted of trace elements and the animals lacking vital essentials for their health. Rain, which was once our friend, and in many ways still is, becomes a problem because the rain further carries out the elements from the soil to the sea.

The increased soil exhaustion creates exhausted and diseased plants, exhausted and diseased animals, and exhausted and diseased human beings. Roughly it’s been estimated, according to Sea Energy Agriculture, that Australia loses about six tons of topsoil per square mile, Europe loses one-hundred twenty tons per square mile, and on a worldwide basis, we lose four billion tons of dissolved material that is carried off to the sea from the rivers each year. The soluble elements are washed off first by the rainwater. This is why sodium chloride is so scarce on the land and abundant in the sea.

The Seawater Solution

What is the solution to growing healthy plants again, and therefore well-nourished human beings? Seawater is the most ancient water solution on earth, and perhaps the most ideal physiologically to re-mineralize the soils.

One of the most exciting research studies that has been done on minerals was done by Dr. Maynard Murray as described in his book Sea Energy Agriculture. Dr. Murray was a medical doctor who truly wanted to get to the essence of what health was about. Murray’s thesis, which he stated in 1976 in Acres USA was, “Life is electrical…There can be no life without a transfer of electrical energy.” Dr. Murray’s thesis was that the center of life’s gravity was the oceans, a repository of minerals from the land, dissolved and carried to Nature’s settling basin via streams, both above and below ground.

His research showed that we needed the right key to unlock the nutrient rich accumulations of trace minerals. Each cell is a little battery that puts out a current. Without this electrical current, the cells could not really work and eventually will die. Murray points out that life started in the sea. Human blood is about 25% seawater, and practically 85% of the life on earth comes from and lives in the sea. Murray’s work was to use the minerals in the sea, which added up to 90 trace elements. He used a diluted saltwater mixture in agriculture orchards, pastures, and gardens. In his book, Sea Energy Agriculture, he points out, “It is possible to build up the immunity to staph, viral, and fungal infections in plants.