posted 12 years ago
There is a whole science now around the idea of "peak phosphorus". Essentially it is a mineral nutrient in chronically short supply, readily lost be leaching and erosion, and by the export of plant and animal matter from an ecosystem. Strict recycling of all of these, geological processes, and the slow movement of nutrients back inland from oceans (such as by means of migrating salmon and similar fish) keep phosphate in adequate supply in primeval wildlands, and we must emulate this in our systems to address phosphate deficiencies. Simply put, make your site a complete nutrient trap, returning everything possible, and be sure to import more nutrients, preferably not in refined chemical form, than you export. Ash, rock powders, bones and bone meal, seaweeds, and animal manures are all decent short-term sources of P.