Comment

The new improved hybrid varieties of vegetable and fruit available today are very exotic, attractive and colourful.

Exhibitions and agro-trade fairs are held worldwide to exhibit these varieties, which are a visual treat as well as a delight to the taste buds.

Vegetation and gardening are assuming even greater importance in these days of global warming. Plantations are natural air cleaners and remove a formidable amount of toxins from the air that six billion human beings on this planet release. At the same these, just planting a seed is not going to ensure that a plant grows and bears fruit. Plants need food to grow and survive. Surprisingly, plants eat almost everything that carnivorous human beings do.

For all hardcore vegetarians, it will be a little astonishing to imagine that good and rich soil on which vegetables and fruits are grown contain plenty of decomposed vegetable and animal matter. Plants grow by consuming not only rotting plants and leaves, but also the rotting bodies of creatures, great and small, that live and die in the soil.

Ancient Sanskrit texts have reference to plants being fed ghee, milk and the meat of pigs, jackals and rhinoceroses, alongside other animal flesh. The powder of goat and sheep dung, powder of pulses and water are kept together for several nights. This application leads to the growth of flowers and fruits of all trees.

Among other things, plants need three vital elements: nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Fertilisers and manure are chemical compounds that add one or more essential plant nutrients to the soil. This is often expressed as N:P:K.

Nitrogen is available from organic-based compound fertilisers made from fish, blood and bone. A blend of dried blood and finely ground animal bone is a major source of the nitrogen required by plants. High use of nitrogen fertilisers is now being controlled in many parts of the world since the nitrogen in them is absorbed into the ground and results in high levels of nitrates in the underground water table. This nitrate-rich water then finds it way into lakes and oceans, killing fish and other sea creatures.

Being vegetarian is recommended worldwide. It is considered hep and healthy to be vegetarian. We may sometimes forget that vegetables and fruits are meat-eaters. The good news is that organic manure may restrict some of the damage; the bad news is that ‘organic’ is very limited: most fruits and vegetables that we eat are grown from plant and animal waste.