The Environmental Effects of Fertlizer on Groundwater

Without fertilizer, we would all be in a lot of trouble.

It is only our knowledge of plant nutrients, and our ability to find substances that provide those nutrients to them, that allows us to use agriculture in the way that we do, in the same fields every year. Without this basic tool, we would have to create an entirely new field every few years for every thing that is grown.

The basic problem comes from harvest. In that process, we remove bits that would once have fallen to the ground and composted, thus replenishing the soil. Since we remove a good portion of the plant during harvest, we are essentially taking those nutrients away. Over time, there isn't enough left in the soil to grow crops with.

That's where fertilizer comes in.

The application of fertilizer replenishes these nutrients, allowing crops to be repeatedly grown on the same plot of land, year after year.

It isn't exactly 'new' technology. Madehow.com informs that manure from animals was spread on crops far, far back into the Agricultural Revolution, as the earliest farmers learned from experience that the first year's yields on a plot of land were always much better than those from subsequent years. The ancient Egyptians began to add ashes from their fires to it as well. The understanding of plant nutrients and fertilizer production really took off in the late 18th through the 19th century.

What has happened is that, over the years, we have evolved our fertilizer to the point of amazing concentrations of plant nutrients – one gram of modern chemical fertilizer has the available plant nutrients of something like 100 pounds of manure! Crop yields have improved dramatically, allowing us to feed the multitudes we have become as a species.

The problem, ironically, begins to occur because these chemical fertilizers do have so many nutrients in them.