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Re: How to Make Topsoil: Azomite part 1

David Yarrow wrote:
> 
> How to Make Topsoil
> Effects of Azomite on Tomatoes
> Jared Milarch tests trace element fertilizer in a greenhouse
> by David Yarrow, December 1997
> [part 1 of 3]
> 
> Like so many young people, Jared Milarch was in a hurry.  At age 13, Jared
> began transplanting native sugar maple seedlings out of his family's
> woodlands in northwest lower Michigan.  Thinking ahead, Jared planned to
> sell them as street trees to pay for his college education.
> 
> Watching this investment in his future creep skyward, Jared wondered how to
> speed these trees up -- grow taller faster.
> 
> "I got impatient because the trees weren't growing fast enough," Jared admitted.
> 
> About this time, Jared read "Secrets of the Soil" by Christopher Bird and
> Peter Tompkins.  One chapter described a fertilizer that stimulated plants
> to remarkably vigor.  This "miracle" plant food is a powdered pink clay from
> central Utah named Azomite, an acronym:
> 
> A-to-Z-Of-Minerals-Including-Trace-Elements.
> 
> "I didn't have a lot of money, so I kept bugging my dad to order a few
> bags," remembered Jared.  "He reluctantly gave in.  When the bags arrived, I
> sprinkled two tomato soup cans around each baby tree."    After 100 trees,
> his bags were empty, so his other 400 saplings got none.
> 
> The next spring, Jared watched his unfertilized trees grow 12 inches.  But
> the Azomite-treated trees grew fully three feet in one spring spurt!  In
> Jared's years working in his family's shade tree business, this was
> unprecedented beyond imagination!
> 
> "The results were just amazing!" enthused Jared.
> 
> But even more, treated trees grew not only taller, but better -- healthier.
> Treated trees had darker color.  "Leaf tatter was minimal," explained Jared.
> "Caliper (diameter) of their trunks was up, too."
> 
> Impressed by these results, Jared bought more to sprinkle around all his
> trees.  In the family garden, too, where the effect was similar -- bigger,
> stronger plants, with one further benefit.  "The taste of the vegetables is
> dramatically different," reported Jared.  "It's a great taste!"
> 
> His father David -- a third generation nurseryman in this remote corner of
> northwest Michigan -- took notice of Jared's fertilizer results.  In 1996,
> David decided he had seen enough financial gains on his tree farm, and read
> enough evidence, and became an Azomite distributor.
> 
> "After the Gazette article about Jared's discovery, we got more and more
> calls from all over the country about Azomite.  The closest distributor to
> Michigan was the State of Maine, so I decided to stockpile it here so local
> people don't pay double freight, and make it available to anyone inclined to
> try rockdust in their garden, orchard, or animal feed."
> 
> "Also, as Midwest horticulture and agriculture schools smarten up, I want to
> have a stockpile.  In horticulture industry, no one in all eleven colleges
> across the U.S. we work with on our trees has ever heard of remineralization
> with rocdust.  They add magnesium to commercial fertilizers, but know
> nothing about trace elements.  It's time the tree industry -- all the way
> from seedlings to Champion Trees up to wholesale shade tree industry --
> tested this in horticulture."
> 
> Soon the Milarch barn was stacked with bags of pink Utah dust.
> 
> In 1997, Jared -- now a fast track senior Honor student at Benzie Central
> High School -- dual enrolled in a Botany class in Michigan State
> University's Horticulture Extension Program at nearby Northwestern Michigan
> College in Traverse City.
> 
> For his Botany lab, Jared decided to scrutinize this Azomite miracle more
> carefully to understand how a bit of dust boosts plant growth and health.
> He proposed to professor Kirk Waterstripe a controlled experiment in the
> college greenhouse.
> 
> His prof scoffed at the idea at first.  Waterstripe, a Rutgers graduate, was
> skeptical a few ounces of powder from the Utah desert could have such
> dramatic effects on plants.  "I've done some organic gardening," Kirk
> admitted, "but haven't messed with rock powders at all.  I heard about
> greensand and a few things  But I'm always open for new ideas."
> 
> Jared insisted, so Professor Waterstripe relented and assented.
> 
> With advice from his professor and father, Jared designed an experiment to
> test the effect of Azomite as a soil supplement on tomatoes -- a popular
> garden vegetable.  Jared's very simple, but controlled experiment could
> clearly show any effects from Azomite.
> 
> Eight tomato plants ("Fantastic" variety) of uniform size were grown in
> one-gallon plastic pots, in a mix of standard potting soil with six
> tablespoons of composted cow manure.  Two tablespoons of Azomite were added
> to the soil of four tomato plants, and four had no clay mineral supplement.
> 
> Plants grew in uniform greenhouse conditions from June 17 to  Sept. 9, got
> 150 milliliters of water three times a week, and were rotated in the
> greenhouse to ensure equal exposure to warmth and light.  Height was
> measured from soil surface to uppermost branching point.  All measured 30 cm
> at the experiment beginning, with no visible differences in health.
> 
> After 67 days, the tomatoes fed Azomite were easy to distinguish from
> untreated vines.  On several measurable characteristics, Azomite yielded a
> better plant.  Everyone agreed all four plants fed clay dust looked bigger
> and healthier.
> 
> "Color was a very obvious difference," recalled Jared.  "Plants not treated
> were more yellow in color, while treated plants were a deeper green color.
> Height was different.  Plants that were treated weren't a lot taller, but
> they weren't 'leggy'."
> 
> [end of part 1 of 3]
> 
> for the complete article or more resources on soil restoration:
> 
> http://www.danwinter/yarrow/azomite.html
> 
> *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
> David Yarrow at TurtleEyeland
> P.O. Box 6034, Albany, NY 12206
> 518-458-8144
> dyarrow@igc.org
> http://www.danwinter.com/yarrow/
> http://www.danwinter.com/ChampionTrees/
> Eve, the earthworm sez: "If yer not forest, yer against us."
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