Indonesian farmer Muhammad Yacob harvests his record rice crop after the Tsunami

How to Improve Topsoil
Trace Elements, Topsoil and Health
secret solution for wellness and survival
© by David Yarrow 1995

AUGUST 6, 1992, WHILE VISITING A FRIEND NAMED "SPARK" in southwest Wisconsin, my left hand brushed a powerline. Over 6000 volts flowed down my arm, through my body and out my legs into a sheet metal roof. Badly burned and knocked unconscious, I fell fifteen feet onto my upper back, fracturing ribs and vertebrae, and crushing T-5 in my spine. I landed in the front yard of two paramedics—first of many angels who have pulled me back from certain death. Flown by helicopter to Univ. of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison, surgeons cleaned my burns and grafted skin on my scorched arm.

Five days later I emerged to consciousness with respirator, catheter and IV. For five weeks morphine filled my sleepless mind with visions, then surgeons cut my chest open to splice my shattered spine together. Then began six months in a Rehab Unit; a month passed before I was allowed to even sit up.

I remember while I was in the Burn Unit of Intensive Care, I sweat profusely every night. Later, in Rehab, I began to pass a lot of urine at night. Slowly this nightly flow increased until my kidneys became a fountain. Most nights I woke three, four, even five times, often passing 1000 or more cc's in one night.

Meanwhile, I became intolerant of any food with strong electrolytes, both alkaline salts or acids. Salty food caused my fascia to contract and tighten, especially in my legs and feet, often with sharp pain and burning. Sour (acid) foods triggered similar reactions, but more burning sensations in my upper body and right arm.

In January 1994, acupuncturist Doug Klapper heard my tale, took my twelve pulses and gave a simple diagnosis. He said, in part, my kidneys were short circuited and depleted. Whether from electric shock or medication, my kidneys were unable to regulate fluid in my blood and body. Kidneys are electric organs; they regulate electrolytes in blood. Electrolytes are atoms which gain or lose one or more electrons—the common currency of chemistry and life. With electric charge, atoms are ions, which allow chemical reactions. Cations lose electrons to be positive (H+, Na+, K+, Mg++, Ca++, Fe+++); anions gain electrons to be negative (OH-, Cl-, CO3=, SO4=, NO3=).

A primary chemical reaction is acid (+ ion) plus alkaline (- ion) yields salt and water. For example, hydrochloric acid (H+Cl-) and sodium hydroxide (Na+OH-) produce sodium chloride (Na+Cl-)—common salt and water (H2O). In this way kidneys regulate blood electrolytes, and excrete water and salts via bladder.

One odd sign of my renal depletion is my pubic hair is straight, without the slightest kink or curl. In Oriental medicine, kidneys govern sex organs and store ancestral chi. Kidneys also rule the bones—the mineral reservior in our body. The flood of water out my bladder night after night was draining minerals from my body.

Then, in February 1995, Joanna Campe, publisher and editor of Remineralize the Earth, sent me a gallon of Trace-Lyte™, a trace mineral electrolytes courtesy of Dr. Jerry Olarsch of Naturopathic Research in North Port, Florida.

EIGHT YEARS AGO, JERRY OLARSCH was struck by lightning. He survived, but suffered disabling aftereffects. For months Jerry sought help from a succession of specialists, all the way to the Mayo Clinic. He found no diagnosis for his condition, no treatment or relief, and remained medically untreatable.

Then his son, a Naturopathic physician in New Hampshire, reminded him of a formula for a special solution of trace minerals used with cancer patients in the '30s. Trace-Lyte*, product of a 30-year soil and mineral research, is produced by a time-consuming incubation where minerals literally "grow" together in water.

In Electrolytes: The Spark of Life Gillian Martlew, ND writes: "It takes a week to make a batch. Combined in a specific way over a precise period, an implosion occurs, creating an energy so strong minerals change form—to crystaloids—uniquely able to filter through soft tissues directly into cells. Their potenial is extraordinary—the beginning of mineral action in the body. They're electric -- they're alive."

Dan Winter says in Trace Minerals in Sustainable Agriculture: "Minerals are the seed of symmetry in water. In solution, minerals shape water's molecular geometry. Symmetry in biological water allows electrons to braid longer waves into coherent patterns. This makes a sustainable memory -- and a stable life form. Stable order is necessary to support electrolytic charge—positive and negative ions. This is essentially the role of mineral in cell water—to achieve the subtle, highly pressurized electrical array that is life."

Jerry made a batch and began taking teaspoons a day. In three months he knew this was his road to recovery. In six months he was well enough to resume work, so he began to make and sell Trace-Lyte™. With minimal publicity, he had orders for gallons a week from doctors or patients whose doctor prescribes Trace-Lyte*.

Essential Trace Elements
boron cobalt copper fluorine iodine iron nickel selenium silicon sulfur tin zinc chromium vanadium manganese molybdenum germanium

I BEGAN TAKING TraceLyte* in springwater -- quarter cup in a quart. In three days, my nightly urine flow diminished. In a week I slept all night without waking to pee for the first time in two years.

My urine flow remained diminished for three weeks until I stopped taking Trace-Lyte* for two days. Nightly urine increased for two nights until I resumed TraceLyte*. Another positive sign was rapid healing of scrapes to my feet and lower legs.

My kidneys have begun to recharge. Like a deeply discharged battery, this will take some time -- many months. Full recovery may require three or four years. As my kidneys strengthen, they can complete the healing of my still damaged rib bones.

GEORGE BROECKX HAS CARED FOR ME much of my 30 month struggle to survive and recover. One of his many talents is a green thumb. Avid organic gardener, his experiences with a small farm and "ecologically friendly" landscaping taught him the value of trace minerals to soils and plants.

One organic practice is foliar feeding -- spraying liquified seaweed on leaves. Trace minerals and growth hormones absorb directly into plant cells. Foliar feeding is proven so effective chemical growers now regularly use it, too. Research shows it stimulates nutrient uptake by roots -- so nutrients must be in soil.

To be sure all 20 essential minerals are in his soils, George blends Planters II, a trace mineral fertillizer, in his lawn and garden fertilizing mixes. He finds it especially effective to nurse seedings and seedlings. But its best effect is to enhance microbial activity.

A dedicated recycler, George composts garbage from two restaurants at his farm and Capital District Community Gardens. No one pays for his labor; he does it for personal satisfaction to reduce waste and create new topsoil. "A grower's first job is to make topsoil," says George, "to instill dirt with fertility and life. Sadly, modern farming rapidly destroyed one of our most critical resources.'

George's topsoil recipe mixes garbage with manure, leaves—and rock dust. Feeding mineral powder to compost is the fastest way to transform stones to living protoplasm. Micro-organisms (and earthworms) eat raw minerals to form nutrients easily edible by roots, and create special substances needed by plants and animals. Compost is a metropolis of microbes digesting minerals and cellulose—an industrial park of factories recycling wastes into plant food.

[graphic deleted] Eve, the earthworm sez: "The #1 product of sustainable agriculture must be new topsoil. New housing for us earthworms."

Planters dramatically boosts growth vigor, producing compact, sturdy plants with darker color, better disease and pest resistance, stronger frost hardiness. Most of all, it stimulates flowering and seeds—plant reproduction. But to gardeners, the ultimate benefit is foods have richer, deeper, better flavor. Not only taste improves; nutrients increase, too. Not only all the minerals, but proteins and sugars.increase. In carrots, 11% more sugar is common. A bushel of grain weighs more due to higher mineral levels. George is so impressed with Planters 2, he distributes it in the Capital region.

Planters is a trace element fertilizer that is a "high test" rock dust mined from a unique fossilized mineral spring deposit near Salida, Colorado by U.S. Soils Company. It has 35 elements—everything from nitrogen to zinc—with high concentrations of the 20 trace elements plants need. Most are in soluble form easily digested by soil microbes and roots. With 50 years experience, U.S. Soils has case histories and field data from farms in almost every state.

Other rock dusts can supply trace elements to microbes and plants. Success is had with basalt, traprock, granite, lava, Azomite, Radorock, and other rock products. Few are as soluble or concentrated as Planters. In Survival of Civilization John Hamaker, father of modern remineralization, urged using glacial gravel dust.

ROBERT ABLE IS SALES MANAGER of Gernatt Gravel Co., NY's largest sand and gravel producer. Gernatt dredges seven glacial deposits near Buffalo to crush and grade into sizes of gravel and sand. Bob Able is also the NY Director of the National Aggregate Assoc. (NAA)—the sand & gravel industry trade group—was concerned the industry should address the ecological issues pressing our future.

Processing gravel by screening creates up to 15% dust-size (less than #200 mesh) by-product. A typical 500,000 ton/year facility makes as much as 75,000 tons of these fines. In 1991, the industry generated 124 million tons of by-product, with very few uses—a waste to be disposed of—usually landfilled at the quarry as tailings, and counted as a loss against production costs.

In 1991, Dan Winter bought a dump truck load of this waste from Bob for Crystal Hill Farm. Dan's talk about remineralization with glacial gravel dust as a response to the greenhouse effect roused Bob's interest to meet with me. In June 1992, before my brush with death, I assembled a 30-page proposal for Bob to present to NAA.

We suggested NAA fund research to use mineral fines by-product from screenings in agriculture, forestry and large scale composting. We urged NAA to:

1. research practical, economic uses of fines,
2. support widespread application of tested, proven tailings on farms and forests, and
3. promote this publicly and in government.

Use of mineral fines can:

1. lower industry production costs and increase revenues.
2. improve soil quality, including tilth, trace elements and living population, to develop sustainable, ecological agriculture;
3. reduce use of soluble chemicals harmful to soil, water, microbes, beneficial insects, plants, animals, humans, and environment;
4. prove resistance to insects, disease, fungus, and stress, thus reduce need for herbicides, pesticides and toxic chemicals;
5. improve food and feed flavor and density of nutrients essential to human and animal health;
6. regenerate damaged forests to preserve air and water quality and capture greenhouse gases.

In July 1992, Bob presented our proposal to the Research Committee at NAA's annual meeting in Washington, DC. Response was positive and enthusiastic. Ample volunteers formed an implementation committee. Donald Weaver, publisher of Hamaker's Survival of Civilization, was invited to speak on remineralization at the next NAA convention.

The next month, I was electrocuted and shatered my spine in Wisconsin. Every month as I lay on my back in a Wisconsin hospital, Bob called to report on the proposal's progress. NAA chose Texas A&M as their research center and began discussing how to research using fines. The proposal sparked wide interest and led to discussions at the USDA, U.S. Bureau of Mines, HUD, and other stone industries.

CONTACTS

Joanna Campe Remineralize the Earth 152 South St., Northampton, MA 01060 413-586-4429, fax: 413-586-6064; email: ReminEarth@aol.com www.Remineralize-the-Earth.com Dr. Gerald Olarsch Naturopathic Research P.O. Box 7594, North Port, FL 34287 813-426-5772; orders: 800-326-5772 email: Npath1@aol.com www.naturespathinc.com Dan Winter San Graal School of Sacred Geometry 137 Biodome Dr., Waynesville, NC 28786 704-296-2200; fax: 704- email: dan@danwinter.com www.danwinter.com Donald Weaver, Hamaker-Weaver Publishers 138 Valdeflores Dr., Burlingame, CA 94010 347-9693 Richard Meininger, National Aggregates Assoc. 900 Spring St., Silver Spring, MD 20910 301-587-1400, fax: 301-585-4219 Dr. Robert Bruck, Plant Pathology Ag and Life Sciences College No. Carolina St. Univ.; Box 7616, Raleigh, NC 27695-7616 U.S. Soils P.O. Box 1037, Salida, CO 81201 719-539-3535 www.planters2.com

MAY 24th, 1994 THE USDA AGRICULTURE RESEARCH CENTER (ARS) in Beltsville, Maryland held a first-ever conference on Soil Remineralization and Sustainable Agriculture. A dozens scientists, activists and industry representatives presented papers.

• Greg Watson, Northeast Director of Nature Conservancy and former Massachusetts Agriculture Commissioner and New Alchemy Institute Director described remineralization concepts and history.
• Joanna Campe's global view ranged from European research in agriculture and regenerating forests dead from acid rain to Men of the Trees using granite dust to plant trees in arid western Australia.
• Dr. Robert Bruck, N.C. State Univ. plant pathologist and North Carolina Director of Environment, described success using Planters 2 to replant dead boreal forests atop the highest Appalachian peaks.
• Dan Winter videotaped the talks for Crystal Hill Multimedia.

Since May 24, events are slowly moving this remineralization effort forward. In 1994, USDA ARS began to field test several rock powders at its Beltsville Research Center. NAA's Research Committee continues discussing research goals and protocols with Texas A&M. And Bob Able, not waiting for NAA's research plan, has local farmers cooperating to test fines from Gernatt mines. Early results are promising, and we can expect to see the completed research results and report in 1996.

MY CURRENT APARTMENT IS ON A SMALL HILLTOP below a gravel quarry across the Hudson River from the Empire State Capitol. Every weekday beginning 6:30am, dump trucks chug up over this hill and past my door, rattling my walls as they haul sand and gravel to construction sites. Every day, I wonder when they'll carry fines to spread on farmland to grow our food.

And will we be wise enough to remineralize forests to keep our planet cool and green?

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The Earth Renewal and Restoration Alliance — www.championtrees.org — updated 12/31/2005