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lightning causes nitrogen fixation

 
pollinator
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Location: North Central Michigan
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http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/N/NitrogenCycle.html
That lightening causes nitrogen fixation in the air? That nitrogen mixes with the rain and feedds the plants? That is why everything is so green after a thunderstorm rather than a rainstorm without lightening...interesting.

However, some reports say that this isn't really true, that any help from the nitrogen from the ligthening would blow so far away that it wouldn't affect your plants..I guess we can believe whichever report we choose..but I do know that plants are definately greener after a lightening storm
 
gardener
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hi Brenda,

i have always been told that lightning fixes nitrogen gas N2 into nitrate NO3 which is water soluble, dissolves in the rain, falls to the ground and becomes available to plants
the storm over your house may not provide nitrogen for you but for someone downwind of you.
it may depend on how much wind is associated with the storm
a storm over the lake Michigan or Superior may be providing the green you see.
everyone is downstream and downwind
 
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Paul and Skeeter talk about it here:

.

 
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Location: Fairbanks, Alaska
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Late spring snowfalls have long been euphemized as "poor man's fertilizer" for this reason.
 
pollinator
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My grandmother ( and I believe everything she said ) used to say that if you grow cucumbers on a metal fence they will get nitrogen from the lighting through the metal fence. Well everyone up and down our neighborhood grew cucumbers on chain link fences and they were numerous enough for us to steal and no one noticed.
 
gardener
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Fantastic, but I was a little skeptical. I tried the first link and it was retired. This 5 minute educational video from PBS's NOVA provided confirmation of the posts from 11 years ago. Thanks all you sages for inspiring me to learn more each day!
https://nm.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/nves.sci.earth.nitrate/lightning-produces-nitrates/
 
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The new purple deck of permaculture playing cards
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/paulwheaton/garden-cards
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