Why is it better to have multi-minerals in a fertiliser? Don't I just need to add nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium?

Minerals are essential to life. Minerals are the components of all matter — including cells, enzymes, hormones and growth factors. They are critical for growth and reproduction, building health, and resisting pests, disease and stress.

Mineral deficiencies may manifest themselves in many ways. Some are obviously expressed in the appearance of the plant’s leaves or its flowers or fruit. Others may not be so obvious.

Sometimes plants may appear to the naked eye to be quite healthy when they are actually deficient in a trace mineral, such as selenium or manganese. The trace mineral deficiency eventually manifests as various diseases in animals which feed on those plants.

This phenomenon has been well researched over the years in many countries around the world. Research verifies that the health of both animals and people is connected to the soils in which food grows. Furthermore, the quality of cultivated soils is a direct reflection of the choice of fertilisers that are applied year after year.

In traditional agricultural systems, soils were successfully farmed for centuries because minerals were regularly delivered by glacial waters, river flood waters or weathering of rich volcanic soils. No chemicals were used in these systems and a great deal of organic material was returned annually to the soils.

Modern farming systems boomed shortly after the Second World War when application of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium chemical fertilisers was discovered to create a huge boost in production yield. These “mineral” fertilisers, as they were called in their day, were applied to soils that had been farmed by traditional methods for decades. At that time, soil testing showed that many minerals were in fact still present in the soil profile, although showing some early signs of depletion.

Decades later, many of these minerals have now been totally exhausted and not replaced after years of only applying NPK fertilisers to the soil profiles of our cultivated farmlands. Human settlement has also expanded much further into areas of poorer soil fertility, which historically were not settled because they were not attractive for food production. It is in these depleted soils that modern farmers and gardeners are trying to make their plants flourish.

Shades of Green fertilisers contain nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium too, but they also contain other essential minerals in a balanced ratio that is a feature of highly productive soils. When you use Shades of Green fertilisers regularly, your plants receive all essential minerals, including NPK, and the soil is maintained with high fertility year after year.