|Issue 15.04 - March 2007
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A combination of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen (the building blocks of all life), urea is a potent fertilizer. Originally isolated from urine in 1773, it was the first organic compound to be synthesized in the lab from inorganic materials. Today, urea is a major industrial chemical (it adds flavor to cigarettes — yum).
This is urea mixed with phosphorus, which plants need for both fruit and flower growth and photosynthesis (phosphorus is the P in ATP, the chief energy-transfer unit of living cells). A side benefit: Urea phosphate is also an antifungal agent.
You might know this as the stuff that makes a lethal injection lethal. Smaller amounts are used as a water softener and a salt substitute for people who need to avoid sodium. For plants, the compound is a safe, excellent source of potassium, which helps make leaves green and stalks tall.
Applied straight, boric acid kills roaches, ants, and, unfortunately, plants. But in minute quantities, elemental boron assists with cell division and is necessary to cross-link the pectin polymers in cell walls, acting as a brace to keep them structurally sound. It's also used as an antiseptic and to slow fission in nuclear reactors.
Used in many products as a flame retardant, this easily dissolved inorganic compound provides backyard horticulturists another cheap source of both phosphorus and nitrogen — a necessary component of proteins, chlorophyll, and other plant essentials.
Iron EDTA and manganese EDTA
How does an organism absorb an inorganic mineral, anyway? When it comes to iron and magnesium, the metals have to be combined with ethylene diamine tetra-acetic acid. The new molecules — called chelates — are transported throughout the plant and play an important role in chlorophyll creation.
— Patrick Di Justo