I probably have the same book, and I understand that the prevailing opinion is that in general, organically grown tastes better, but there is a difference between 99% organic and 100% organic, but not one you'd necessarily taste. He may use organic fertilizers, but I bet he uses a synthetic rooting hormone or a non-organically certified rooting hormone for cloning, because pretty much everyone does. The fact that you're asking about using salt to grow shows that you might want to do a bit more research before deciding that synthetic fertilizers are the downfall of mankind. I'm not using SALT (NaCl - table salt), to grow, but synthetic fertilizers are made up of dissolved SALTS like ammonium nitrate, etc. A salt is the product of a chemical reaction (like the acid-base reaction). "Organic" fertilizers are typically made up of organic acids. In your story about your grandfather's miracle grow garden vs. your organic garden, the fact that you had better yield, taste, and bigger plants shows that you're not making an apples-to-apples comparison. Miracle grow is not a very GOOD fertilizer. In general, it's designed like a multivitamin - as a catchall. It doesn't have very specific plants in mind, it's designed as a base nutrient for any plant, so it doesn't really perform optimally in plants with special requirements, or where your main concern is not just keeping them alive, but thriving. Also, to your point about buildup in fields, most commercial AGRICULTURAL fertilizers are cheaply mass produced because the higher the cost of the fertilizer given to the plants, the less profit a farmer makes.
Yea your right it organic grows do have other impurities but wouldn't it be signifigantly less than if you used dirty sink water fertilized with phosphate fertilizer with lead arsenic and uranium. Than say if you boiled your water made compost and used plants like jimson weed to get rid of heavy metals in your soil Jimson Weed actually pulled TNT out of soil
Ok so i did some research about the salts you are talking about basically it says that chemical fertilizers use nitrates (salts) to grow plants but I was reading that when your body intakes these nitrates they convert into nitrites then they react with amines in your body and turn into carcinogenic compounds causing cancer (so this is direct proof that chemical fertilizer causes bad health problems cancer) Here are my sources tell me if I am on the right track or am wrong Reference for Haber process - Search.com Reference for Nitrate - Search.com Reference for Nitrite - Search.com And I was reading that growing organically can help reduce the nitrites in your plants and therefore won't give you cancer here is the source Nutritional Considerations - Organic Trade Association
It's possible that SOME fertilizers use nitrates, not all of them do. Nitrites are present in a lot of foods, lots of cured meats have a ton. I think the issue that you are having in understanding the complexity here is that you're assigning a direct causal relationship between fertilizer and cancer. For example, you're saying nitrate fertilizer = cancer because nitrates used in chemical fertilizers IF they are left in the plants, then they CAN turn into nitrites and then through a very complex set of reactions can produce cancer. One of the problems with that statement in parenthesis at the end of that paragraph is the way you summarize it. First, you say "direct proof." Well, not quite, it doesn't say that if you use nitrates for fertilizer, you will get cancer. It says that if you use nitrates, and they are absorbed into the plant, and stored there, and actually make it to the part of the plant that you USE (the fruit, or the flower usually), THEN, you MAY get cancer. It's not like as soon as a nitrite enters your system it causes cancer - urea, which is another commonly used commercial fertilizer is present in.... human urine. In fact, it's the main nitrogen-containing component of human urine, and is present in the blood as a waste product. Humans process nitrites on a regular basis, and it's by adding large sources of artificial nitrites (or higher than normal sources of nitrates, which are broken down into nitrites), which are a waste product, to the bloodstream that it's possible to DAMAGE cells due to higher than normal concentrations of waste products (preventing/repairing damage under stress is why people take antioxidants) that can lead to cells repairing themselves or dying and being replaced, which, under normal conditions happens constantly with no noticeable effects, but which under stressful conditions can lead to mutations. Mutations are usually handled by the immune system, which cuts off foreign cells and kills them, then evacuates them. If too many mutated cells form, which are not removed by the immune system, cancer happens. So, in order to directly PROVE the link of nitrates to cancer via transmission in vegetables due to their use in fertilizer, you have a lot of variables that need to be ruled out first. I would understand if you were telling people not to EAT nitrates, since, well, the bottle tells me that. They are poison in high concentrations even to plants, which is why only about 1000 parts out of 1 million are fertilizers in what we give a plant that we are feeding. That's 1/10 of a percent. Very very low concentration, and that's not even all nitrogen, only a percentage of that percentage is. Lastly, look at the source you cited. "Organic Trade Association" - think about it, would they have something to gain by everyone being afraid to eat chemically fertilized food? I think they might... I understand that it's possible that nitrates used in fertilizers if not properly removed from the fruits could lead to higher incidences of cancer, but you have to go a lot further to PROVE that using chemical fertilizer on food that I eat causes cancer definitively.
The problem with synthetic fertilizers is that the excess of nutrients leach into the water causing contamination and endangering the fish and amphibians. A large percentage of our rivers and lakes are polluted because of agricultural runoff. Another problem with synthetic fertilizers is that they only feed the plants, not the soil. This causes a gradual decrease in organic matter in the soil. Once the organic matter is used up, the soil will become compacted. A lack of organic matter also leads to a reduction in soil organisms, making it more susceptible to insect or disease infestations. Many commercial fertilizers also contain toxic metals, including arsenic, mercury, lead, dioxin, chromium and cadmium. The overuse of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers causes environmental problems like air and water pollution and health problems like respiratory ailments, heart disease and cancer. Most crops grown in industrialized countries receive more nitrogen than they can use. This has a dramatic effect on the global nitrogen cycle. Nitrogen is a vital element essential to living ecosystems. It is the primary nutrient for all green plants. When excessive nitrates leach into the water however, it can greatly affect our ecosystem. High concentrations of plant nutrients causes large algal blooms to grow. These algal blooms consume a lot of oxygen and block the sunlight, causing other organisms to die. Regions of water with low concentrations of oxygen are called 'hypoxia regions', often referred to as 'dead zones'. Examples of hypoxia regions can be found in the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi River and the Black Sea. Heavy applications of nitrate fertilizers also allow nitrates to accumulate in vegetables, causing health risks to the consumers. Nitrates in drinking water have been associated with an increased risk of bladder cancer. Organic - Fertilizers Synthetic fertilizers can seriously deplete the nutritional content of foods. Direct contact or exposure to synthetic chemical fertilizers can kill babies or cause health problems in many people. Remember this the next time you pick up a bag at Walmart. Also, if you have any type of urinary or kidney or liver or allergy or health difficulties, you should especially avoid any type of exposure. The adverse effects of synthetic chemical fertilizers are often underplayed and ignored despite their damage being far reaching. Synthetic fertilizers can cause a vast array of symptoms, some immediate, some signs showing up later, some effects on people and animals are direct, and some effects are indirect. Synthetic fertilizers include many brand names: Scotts, Miracle Grow (owned by Scotts), Shultz, Pennington, TruGreen, etc. You will notice in the above example that 15-5-10 add up to a total of 30% of the weight of the bag. What is in the other 70% of the bag? It is not disclosed. It does not have to be revealed. It can be just about anything...including, and often, industrial waste. Some things this mysterious 70% could contain are clay, sand, sawdust, perlite, rice hulls, calcium carbonate (to dampen the detonation properties of the Nitrogen's ammonium nitrate), corn cob grit, vermiculite, limestone, sludge, slag, industrial waste. Most people would be skeptical to believe that toxic residues from industry would be used to fill up the majority of a bag of fertilizer. Believe it. It is actually widespread. You can search the fertilizer codes of some states and see (e.g. Kentucky and it's procedures on slag). An independent research group tested fertilizers from only 12 states for 22 toxic heavy metals...and found that these fertilizers contained high levels of these toxic substances. Of the 29 fertilizers tested some were major and popular brands. Lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, barium, chromium, nickel, beryllium, dioxin, etc. can be pretty potent stuff. You can have kids and pets playing on the stuff, people breathing the dust, these toxins getting into the water runoff, agricultural accumulation in soils, plants and vegetables uptake many of these, etc. The metals found in these fertilizers are known or suspected carcinogens, reproductive and developmental, liver, and blood toxicants. In about a five year period, 270,000,000 (270 million) pounds of toxic waste was sent to fertilizer companies and farms according to reports from 44 different states. Regulations are extremely strict if industry wishes to dispose of toxic waste in lined landfills. However, regulations are relatively lax if they transfer the waste or resale it. In other words, the simplest method of getting rid of toxic waste is just to resale it. So, unwittingly we become the consumers who purchase toxic waste to dump on our yards and parks and food crops and feed crops. Also, conventional agriculture is a big culprit in taking all kinds of industrial waste, sludge, and/or sewage sludge and dumping it onto fields as fertilization. http://www.turfprousa.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=81&Itemid=111 And by researching more I found out that ammonium nitrate is used as a synthetic fertilizer that is absolutely horrible... Ammonium nitrate is an explosive and the definition of something toxic is anything that is flamable. So you are applying directly to your plants TOXIC EXPLOSIVES.. And about the urea I found out they use urea and urea formaldahyde formaldahyde is not good at all very toxic. Sodium nitrite has been shown to cause cancer as a result of its reactions in the stomach The other day I was looking at peperoni in my fridge and right there on the ingredients list was this cancer causing agent. You guys made me do some intense research and at one point I was actually seeing it your way maybe synthetic fertilizer isn't all that bad but when I looked into it really deep I found my orignal point of view was completely correct.. There would have been no use for synthetic fertilizer if there was no money in the world bc the only reason synthetic fertilizer (steroids) is made is so somebody can make money and like they say money is the root of all evil P.S. Nitrogen (when forcibly fed to plants) is known for promoting rapid excessive green growth (much like steroids in a human).
I also read that synthetic fertilizers kill alot of beneficial microorganisms in your soil which affects your plants health negatively so if these synthetic fertilizers are killing little bugs then they definately have a negative effect on our health
Oh yea and the reason why you don't have cancer right now is because (well I'm assuming) you smoke alot of pot. Well pot actually helps fight cancer and can kill tumors so yea even though your plants and body are full of carcinogenic elements the Thc actually does a hell of a job keeping you cancer free for this long. And if you exercise alot that will help, because no matter where you go in this industrialized society no matter what you will end up with cancer one day or some other disease caused by industrialization and mass production. My advice to you start growing 100% organic buds smoke them all the time go swimming alot to exercise and drink some herbal teas that have anti cancer properties like this one white clover... heres the link Medicinal Plants-White Clover
Yeah, it is obvious you cut n paste, without doing any research into nutrient companies and the guidelines involved. Do some reading. It is quite obvious you hacve no clue as to the meaning of what you are posting. less
Almost all of what you pasted is talking about commercial agricultural fertilizers. Adding nitrogen to plants is nothing like steroids in a human. It's actually more like nitrogen in humans. Steroids cause an increase in protein usage/synthesis, etc. Nitrogen is a major component of proteins, so nope, not quite getting the idea there. I can see you really want this to be the right answer, high-quality synthetic fertilizers used properly can be minimally harmful. They are obviously not quite as environmentally friendly as organic fertilizers, but a lot of the stuff that you are "citing" seems like commercial marketing literature. As far as ammonium nitrate being used in explosives, you are correct. Does that mean that the minimal concentrations are toxic, poisonous and will end all life on earth? No. Nitroglycerin is an explosive too, and guess what? It's used as heart medication. I'm not going to argue that commercially produced, cheaply fertilized fruits and vegetables are 100% buildup free. I'm sure they contain lots of stuff that we wouldn't really want to ingest, but that doesn't mean that synthetic fertilizers are to blame, that means that controls on outside contaminants in commercial agricultural fertilizers are not strenuous enough.
I add beneficials to my soil, synthetic fertilizers applied improperly may kill some, but how can you say that killing bacteria = killing people? If I take an antibiotic it kills the bacteria in my system, but it doesn't kill me, right?
Yeah, this is a touchy subject. I have smoked bud that smelled and tasted terrible that was totally organic and I have smoked bud that was grown with high-quality chemical ferts and they tasted great. I personally use General Hydroponics Flora line of nutes with good results. I refuse to pay three times as much for a product that id no better. I have used both and I prefer GOOD chemical ferts.
Most are not even chemical, so do not let this guy fool you into believing this. He is reading info on commercial famring industrial fertilizers and trying to appl ythem to nutrients we buy at the hydro store. Most of the nutrients we buy at he hydro stores are fine, and are made to produce herbs, spices, vegies, inside a greenhouse or indoor garden setting. All you have to do is read the ingredients. GH Flora line is good, I have used it. less
"Nitrate In inorganic chemistry, a nitrate is a salt of nitric acid with an ion composed of one nitrogen and three oxygen atoms (NO3−). In organic chemistry the esters of nitric acid and various alcohols are called nitrates. Nitrate from food, especially vegetables, is converted in the human digestive tract to nitrite which reacts with amines to form carcinogenic nitrosamines." Above is from one of your citations. Notice that The carcinogenic qualities are expressed when the nitrate is ingested as food. This chemical once burned will not retain the same properties it once held in its un-combusted original state. I didn't notice anything in this wikipedia citation that said once nitrates were smoked they converted to cancer causing chemicals inside the body. Im not sure whether or not you considered the fact that the turf pro article was coming from a company that sells fertilizer that is "organic" Before you pasted from it. But that sounds like a somewhat biased source of information about organics. They also fail to cite any of their informations, Which makes it worth nothing to somebody trying to REALLY research the facts involved here. Another thing you probably have not considered is there is a shit-ton of Naturally Occuring enviromental exposures that cause cancer and health problems. The sun being one example. The rest ill allow you to search and paste. Fertilizer Product Database There is a link to the heavy metal analysis of the fertilzer i use, i use it in conjunction with Flora bloom which also did not contain any of the heavy metals you mentioned in your cut and pasting. Fertilizer Product Database <~~~~ This one is for comparison, its some commercial grade fertilizer i randomly chose. State Internet Sites for Trace Metal Analysis of Fertilizer Products Registered in Those States <~~~~ Good tool for you to use with your future research. Once i took a look, i noticed there were plenty of fertilizers with arsenic, and other dangerous metals. However most of the products i know and use were pretty much in the clear. My last addition to this will be that i gaurantee there are people growing with synthesized fetilizers whose bud tastes incredible compared to anything organic you have ever had. Its not just about USING THE RIGHT fertilizer, its also about USING YOUR FERTS RIGHT. right meaning in a fashion that is suited for your needs/wants.
+rep, finally. It is about what and how much. I do not follow the bottle directions for amounts, I give what I know the plant needs. usually less than half of what is suggested. my plants stay green and healthy and I have great tasting smoke, some say the best they ever tasted. Organic is cool, and you canhave great tasting bud, but it is the same as using any nute, it is about how and how much and when. good stuff. less
This has got to be one the the stupidest and ill informed post I have ever seen on this entire forum. Glad to see that MOST of the replys call it out for what it is. It's ill-informed, baseless, ideallogical thinking like this that perpetuates things like prohibition......and thats all i have to say about that.
Well if you look at the post two above you the kid said he did a search about several fertilizers and alot of them had arsenic lead mercury and other cancer causing agents.. I mean why would you risk buying a product that may or may not have cancer causing agents in it. When you can just make your own organic fertilizer for free. I mean you can go on craigs list and people give away free horse manure all the time, you can make your own compost bin, and you can burn fires and use the ashes which have a lot of potash in them so the ashes are really good for the bud, I used basically everything I just mentioned and my plants are taller than me and still got a couple months to go....
no it was talking about killing bugs and worms much bigger than bacteria..... i didn't say it would kill people just isnt good for the health just like pesticides Kill bugs and are bad for people health
i was looking into stuff about rock wool because I know that rockwool is probably one of the worst things you can grow a plant in because it is made with all these chemicals and the plant just takes up those chemicals. So anyways I was on this site about insulation used for homes and back in the 70's they were using urea formaldahyde to insulate homes and it caused so many health problems that the urea formaldahyde was banned.... Yes the same stuff that is in the chemical fertilizer was banned before. Do not confuse modern spray foams with the controversial urea formaldehyde foam insulation (UFFI) that caused such a furor in the 70's. To make a long story short, along with the increased use of fiberglass, cellulose and mineral wool, UFFI foam was injected into the walls of thousands of homes, promising greater R-values for the dollar. However, an unanticipated side effect emerged... formaldehyde vapors released from the curing foam began to make people sick. This sickness, now called chemical sensitivity, made these homes essentially poisonous for their owners causing both short term and long term health damage. It was determined that the sometimes staggering levels of formaldehyde released were primarily related to poor mixing and installation techniques. This fact combined with the fact that different people have different tolerances to chemicals by nature led to some confusion... everyone using UFFI did not become ill. Insulation for Homes - Types, Installation, Vapor Barriers and more from the Natural Handyman Home Repair and Do It Yourself website - Part 1
If you read the labels of good quality bone/blood meal products you will find that many say "Does not contain cow by-products" there are many great choices for fertilizers out there. If its such a big deal, spend the extra money and buy something more suited to your growing style.