[bullfightonmars]

This is not how plants work. The increased biomass comes from carbon in the air.

There is already more than enough nutrients in the ground or applied as fertilizer. In fact most of the nutrients from fertilizer are lost and wash away.

This will allow plants to capture more applied ferilizer. Mostly though these plants will be pulling more carbon from the atmosphere.

[idroveatrain]

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-an...

So there are at least 3 studies performed by different teams in this article that indicates you're incorrect in your assertions as applied in practice.

[tynpeddler]

That article is ... confused. Donald Davis, the main source for most of the article, suggests that a lack of selection towards nutritious crops as the cause of lower nutrition, while the article itself claims that the cause is poorer soil quality. Noticeably, neither of these points support the argument that engineered crops are any worse for the soil than past crops.

Also, the article suggests that the studies themselves are comparing current data to data generated 20-50 years earlier. Comparing two modern day experiments to each other can be quite difficult, as even small differences can have huge ramifications in the results, even if the protocols are supposedly the same (I personally saw this play a few times in grad school). For example, quality differences in the filter paper used can result in a much higher retention of mass in one experiment compared to another. Without a body of research measuring the comparability of the compared results (please link if you find it), the comparisons cited in the article are not very convincing.

Actually, if you can find the original studies cited in the article, I'd love to see them. The ideal way of measuring this would be to take a heritage strain, and grow it along side a modern strain the the same soil. That would at least help figure out if modern crops really have selected against nutrition.

[idroveatrain]

Conjecture with me for a moment, friend: if given fruit X yields 100% nutrient fruits, is then selected for volume, and in the increase of size, the proportion of nutrients declines it follows, to me, that the increased volume is creating a diluting effect. To me it seems as if any increase of proportion in volume had ought to scale right alongside the proportion of nutrient values, unless that compromises the organism. This is the framework I'll be working from.

Several factors come immediately to mind, is the plant reaching a threshold wherein micronutrients are at "unity" and so uptake is reduced and thus reaches a plateau (or saturation), and so distribution into fruit is proportionally diminished as volume increases? Is there some natural law that is prohibitive, something like the square-cube law? Or are the plants locally depleting the nutrients, and then relying on natural diffusion? Is there a "long-range dependency" that is opaque? All else failing, I would suggest that it's highly probable that the nutrient disparities that are evident in these studies could reflect that maintenance of the proportion of nutrients to that of volume might leave the plants fated to death, and so our selection process is predetermined to either volume or nutrient content. Which begs the question, at what intersection do we find the highest degree of efficacy in selecting foodstuffs?

Given a plant that could expand both volume and nutrient proportionally, what would the result be? I'd conjecture rapid depletion of locally available nutrients, up to the point where diffusion and natural deposition becomes an ineffectual mode of conveyance and demands manual upkeep else the organism would be given to death.

Perhaps I'm presumptuous, I don't mind being so, I'll have to ask you to forgive me for my ignorance. I only ask for your participation in this discussion as it seems you're privileged to have a mind much more discerning and honed in this craft than mine own.

[hadlock]

Plants are ~70-90% water, and of the dry mass, 70-95% is carbon, the structure of the plant which is extracted from the air (splitting the C from the O2).... the remaining nutrients are from the soil + dissolved in rain water, although plants do absorb a limited amount of nutrients through their leaves via dust etc.

[babatuba]

I'm sorry what!? This is how everything works. If you force something to use more ingredients/nutrients/whatever at a faster pace, you will deplete something else in the ecosystem faster than previously.

Plants or otherwise: when you force the balance to tilt one way, you have to be extremely careful not to reach a breaking point.

Just want to add that I think the technology could be really beneficial though. For instance, if you planted less high-yield potatoes in smaller area than previously, you could then afford space for alternate crops and then move potatoes to a different location and counter balance with other crops the next season. This could possibly allow for increased production while still preserving nutrients, increasing overall yield efficiency.

[HPsquared]

What matters is the ratio of soil depletion to food production. If the plants produce 50% more food, you don't need to plant as many of them. This might end up actually reducing the environmental footprint.

[idiotsecant]

In practice, this is not how it would work out - the farming entity is incentivized to produce the maximum profit - if you can make 50% more food and sell it for the same price, you will just make 50% more food. Even if you can make 50% more food and sell it for 80% of the price per unit you will still do that because it means more profit.

[bluGill]

You missed something important: demand is not elastic like that ( to some extent people will switch from beans to meat, but eventually you have enough to eat and won't buy more at any price). Thus as farming gets more productive someplace needs to stop growing food. We can allow a bit to go to waste, but eventually someone is going to realize that the price they can get for their crop isn't worth the cost for putting it in the ground and stop farming. Not sell out to a different farmer because no other farmer will invest in that land.

The above happens all the time. It doesn't happen on the most productive land, it happens on the marginal land.

[b112]

There have been loads of reports about how crops have fewer nutrients already.

And, for example, there are many trace elements which are not replenished with standard fertilizer.

Selenium is an example here, I think it is the Danish?, which have a law now, forcing it to be added to fertilizer.

Bacteria don't make elements.... although I suppose they could free them from rocks...

[smolder]

The last such report I saw pinned lower micronutrient density not on the quality of soils, but on higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations, leading to quicker growth of the plants. Plants in lower concentrations grew more slowly but had relatively more micronutrients for the same mass.

[bamboozled]

Is it good for humans to eat more fertiliser, pesticides etc ?

[bullfightonmars]

You don’t eat fertilizer in your food. It is applied to the ground before the plants fruit. It is also water soluble and quickly washes away.

Pesticides aee higly dependent on crop and really have nothing to do with this conversation.

[bamboozled]

The parent said the plants will absorb more fertilisers

[CyanBird]

This is like asking if the vitamins that you give to a chicken as a chick will poison you when you eat it as adult, I am not talking of hormones or growth agents, just literal common vitamins

You don't eat "the vitamins" you eat the chicken, you don't eat the fertilizer, you eat the plant

[8note]

If you feed mercury to the chicken as a chixk, then eat it as an adult, do you get the mercury?

[josephcsible]

Life can create, modify, and break chemical bonds, but can't create, modify, or destroy elements. Vitamins can get metabolized into other compounds but mercury stays mercury.

[robbedpeter]

This thread reads like a Monty Python sketch.

Because... fertilizer is mercury!