The composition of plant materials is very dependent on the level and nature of the soil fertility that produced them.  The nutrition present in two plants of the same species, even in two samples of the exact same variety of vegetable raised from the same packet of seed can vary enormously depending on where the plants were grown.  William Albrecht, chairman of the Soil Department at the University of Missouri during the 1930s, was, to the best of my knowledge, the first mainstream scientist to thoroughly explore the differences in the nutritional qualities of plants and to identify specific aspects of soil fertility as the reason why one plant can be much more nutritious than another and why animals can be so much healthier on one farm compared to another.  By implication, Albrecht also meant to show the reason why one nation of people can be much less healthy than another.  Because his holistic outlook ran counter to powerful vested interests of his era, Albrecht was professionally scorned and ultimately left the university community, spending the rest of his life educating the general public, especially farmers and health care professionals.

Summarized in one paragraph, Albrecht showed that within a single species or variety, plant protein levels vary 25 percent or more depending on soil fertility, while a plant’s content of vital nutrients like calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus can simultaneously move up or down as much as 300 percent, usually corresponding to similar changes in its protein level.  Albrecht also discovered how to manage soil in order to produce highly nutritious food.  Chapter Eight has a lot more praise for Dr. Albrecht.  There I explore this interesting aspect of gardening in more detail because how we make and use organic matter has a great deal to do with the resulting nutritional quality of the food we grow.

Imagine trying to make compost from deficient materials such as a heap of pure, moist sawdust.  What happens?  Very little and very, very slowly.  Trees locate most of their nutrient accumulation in their leaves to make protein for photosynthesis.  A small amount goes into making bark.  Wood itself is virtually pure cellulose, derived from air and water.  If, when we farmed trees, we removed only the wood and left the leaves and bark on the site, we would be removing next to nothing from the soil.  If the sawdust comes from a lumber mill, as opposed to a cabinet shop, it may also contain some bark and consequently small amounts of other essential nutrients.

Thoroughly moistened and heaped up, a sawdust pile would not heat up, only a few primary decomposers would take up residence.  A person could wait five years for compost to form from pure moist sawdust and still not much would happen.  Perhaps that’s why the words “compost” and “compot” as the British mean it, are connected.  In England, a compot is a slightly fermented mixture of many things like fruits.  If we mixed the sawdust with other materials having a very low C/N, then it would decompose, along with the other items.