The Eventual Depletion of Phosphorus

Perhaps we should consider canibalism as a solution LOL or donating corpses to phosphorus reclamation and fertilizer creation instead of burning them or burying them in coffins.

Yet another terrific reason for High Rise Agriculture

N-P-K.

Yes, and with more erosion of soil due to climate change, this becomes an important factor as well. Thanks for posting this. It is now featured on the Sustainable Agriculture Channel.

http://current.com/topics/86293911_sustainable-agriculture/

I read about this in the Scientific American magazines the other day. And who the fuck knew Morocco had the largest Phosphorous stockpile in the world?!!?! I learned something when I saw that.

Mulch, mulch and mulch your garden yard. I live in the country and have some land, tree leaves, veggie matter, paper etc all thrown into pile and left to turn back in soil. Each season I plant different veggies in different spots. The rotten wood and bark that falls from the trees is broken up and spread around the yard. If you live in the country and have cats instead of buying cat litter buy pine mulch, its broken down in small pieces and use that instead. When the box needs changing take out the solid waste and put the dirty mulch into the mulch pile. I pour some vinegar over it turn some of the old mulch on top of it and hose it down for a couple minutes. The odor vaporates with the rain and other mulch on top of it. Don't have time to mulch but have a area you want to plant but the ground needs better soil. Thrown on top of the soil wood pieces that laying around. After the summer and winter you will have a nice top soil of two to three inches built up. You can speed up your mulch to turn to dirt quicker by keeping it covered with a old sheet or whatever and water couple times a week. the sun will bake it and by the following spring you will have beautiful planting dirt. whenever adding anything to the mulch pile always throw a handful or two of dirt on top of it.

people phophorus is put into the ground with every dead thing so unless we learn to live forever there will always be phophorus

I watched a special on people cooking Meth, and one of the needed ingredients was Posphorus, So if everyone just buries one Meth head in thier yard everything will be fine. Now if Crack heads could just be good for roses.

Mycorrhizae in your soil helps what you grow have better access to P in your soil. With out mycorrhizae in the soil SOME plants simply must be fertilized to meet the P needs. Ad mycorrhizae and you need to fertilize less. Im using it in my Vege garden with great results on my cucumber, peppers and tomatoes.

Giant vege growers swear by it. Check out this you tube video about mycorrhizae and giant pumpkins:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcagSv-V1zg

Phosphorus is not only useful for manufacturing products and making things glow in the dark. Its an essential mineral for life.

Another doomsday report, I am anxious to see what is next, maybe it will be soil is falling off the earth and in 20 billion years there won't be any soil left.(LOL)

Thanks for the info

The article states we might run out of phosphorus in 90 years, assuming humans are still around, supply and demand would dictate that different technology would be available for the extraction of phosphorus out of sea sediment or where ever it can be found and extracted in cost effective ways. In 90 years a lot can happen. 50 years ago we didn't have the technology to produce the amounts of phosphorus that the world demands today, but supply and demand is the drive that made the technology available to extract phosphorus at present rates. As populations grow and standard of living rises in under developed countries the demand will obviously increase. Corporations, if left alone by governments, will produce what is needed. Phosphorus will not be depleted like oil. Since oil is a product of millions of years of animals being compressed and pooled, a process that is not renewable or reproducible in a few decades. However, with phosphorus, the methods of extraction will change, but phosphorus will remain.

from the article....
"Land ecosystems use and reuse phosphorus in local cycles an average of 46 times. The mineral then, through weathering and runoff, makes its way into the ocean, where marine organisms may recycle it some 800 times before it passes into sediments. Over tens of millions of years tectonic uplift may return it to dry land.

Harvesting breaks up the cycle because it removes phosphorus from the land. In prescientific agriculture, when human and animal waste served as fertilizers, nutrients went back into the soil at roughly the rate they had been withdrawn. But our modern society separates food production and consumption, which limits our ability to return nutrients to the land. Instead we use them once and then flush them away.

Agriculture also accelerates land erosion—because plowing and tilling disturb and expose the soil—so more phosphorus drains away with runoff. And flood control contributes to disrupting the natural phosphorus cycle. Typically river floods would redistribute phosphorus-rich sediment to lower lands where it is again available for ecosystems. Instead dams trap sediment, or levees confine it to the river until it washes out to sea."

In other words, as with most things, we take it out faster than it can be replenished.

So, what happens to the phosphorus that we take from the soil? It doesn't get turned into another atomic element, so where does it go?