Rural Heritage October/November 2025

Soil Health HPD 2025 Seminar

Most plants would benefit from gypsum application which increases the efficiency of the immune system. John likes Logan Labs in Lakeview, Ohio. It performs basic soil tests but also checks selenium, nickel, cobalt, molybdenum and boron. When you have adequate levels of iodine in the soil, you won’t have pinkeye in your herd. This negatively charged mineral is universally deficient. What holds the iodine in the soil is the fungal population. Iodine topically shuts down bacterial expression. That’s why it’s used for minor skin infections. Bacterium live inside the vascular system. Making sure that your plants have an adequate level of iodine will benefit animals’ reproduction and fertility. Spray 3 to 5 pounds of potassium iodide as a foliar spray or spray it on the soil. If iodine is at two to three parts per million in the soil, you need 2 pounds per acre to increase that by one part per million. John said that as farmers we can do a lot to keep folks well. Because we produce food that others eat, we are our brother’s keeper.

by Mary Ann Sherman J ohn Kempf said that magnesium, selenium, boron and iodine are deficient in many soils around the world. Here in the Unites States, we tend to buy minerals rather than finding them in the soil because, for the most part, they are not there in the soil. He told of an Australian rancher who developed esophageal cancer. He read every paper he could find about this disease and found more than 400 papers that described selenium as a cancer treatment. In other words, if you have adequate selenium, you won’t get cancer. In 1969, Indian researchers published a paper saying that high enough selenium levels in the soil keep viruses from expressing themselves. Australia’s soil is very low in selenium. So, the rancher drenched himself with selenium and 60 days later was cancer free! With seed potatoes, you have to test the parent and the offspring. Both must be virus free. With sufficient selenium in the soil, potatoes can be virus free. In March to April of 2020, a paper was published that said we understand generous levels of heavy metals shut down viral expression. Overlaying a map of China with a map of adequate selenium soils showed only a 10% COVID rate for areas with selenium rich soils. Some 75 to 90% of the world’s soils are deficient in selenium. More than 25 to 30 inches of rain can leach out selenium from the soil. When you have optimal levels of selenium in the soil, you get a 30% increase of meat and milk production per acre. Selenium builds up in the bloodstream in livestock. When we apply selenium to the soil, we can see the results in plants within two to three months. It takes six to nine months to see results in milk, hair and liver. Fescue produces endophytes to protect itself. A 1948 study showed that adequate selenium made plants immune to endophytes. Most soil levels are at 10 to 20% of adequate selenium. Add sodium selenite. That’s the cheapest way to add selenium to your soil. But don’t put it on tall forage that will be harvested soon, or you might cause selenium toxicity. Cows will choose forages that are getting mature, like overripe, first cutting hay, instead of going to pasture. These forages deliver iodine, boron and selenium.

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October/November 2025

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