Another observation that has become apparent over the past decades
is the declining quality of food products. In addition to NPK, plants
also need smaller amounts of micronutrients that are essential for their
growth and health (Table 1). However, fertilizer use has largely often only
involved N, P and K, which might have contributed to the decreased
nutritional quality of crop produce (Figure 3), due to insufficient
availability of micronutrients like zinc, copper, iron, magnesium and
the like. Consequently, a more balanced fertilization may contribute to
improving soil, plant and human health.
Balanced fertilizers containing micronutrients can
revert the declining trend in nutritional quality of food.
Fertilizers are made by chemists and industrial engineers, following
laws of physics and chemistry, to meet physical and chemical property
standards that primarily facilitate industrial production processes,
handling during transportation, minimizing transport costs of the bulky
products and mechanical application. Such chemical packaging of
nutrients is often incompatible with the crop’s temporal need for specific
nutrients, causing side effects like the acidification of soils, the demise
of soil flora and fauna population and activity, or the burning of plant
organs exposed to the active agents.
Figure 3. Nutritional quality of wheat has declined with increasing yield over the past
decades.9 Declines have also been found in fruits and vegetables.10
on an understanding of plant physiological processes related to a
demand-based uptake, metabolism, transportation and internal
efficiency of nutrients (Figure 4).
In addition, edaphic and hydrological attributes of the environment
and interactions among nutrients, and between plants and microorganisms, determine nutrient solubility and availability and will alter
the plant’s demand and supply requirements.
A renewed “biological” focus is, thus, needed in order to arrive at
novel ways of packaging and delivering nutrients to plants based
A renewed “biological” focus is needed to arrive at novel ways of packaging and delivering nutrients to
plants based on an understanding of plant physiological processes related to a demand-based
uptake, metabolism, transportation and internal efficiency nutrients.
8