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101 8 N in the Well In 1957, researchers at Michigan State University conducted a straightforward experiment involving the application of nitrogenous fertilizer to fields of sugar beets. They found that “300 pounds of nitrogen an acre applied at planting time” did not supply enough of the nutrient for the entire growing season. But plants that “received the same total amount of nitrogen fertilizer at three different times—one at planting time and two later—were well supplied with nitrogen the whole season.” The experiment also showed that, in the first case, only 50 percent of the nitrogen could be accounted for in plant tissue; in the second case, the amount entering the plant climbed to 70 percent. However, the researchers did not discuss, for either case, where the rest of the fertilizer ended up.1 It is not surprising that 1950s agricultural scientists showed little interest in the fate of nitrogenous fertilizers that flowed beyond the root zone. As Robert Rodale had suggested several years earlier in an issue of Organic Gardening and Farming, agricultural scientists tended to ignore questions not directly related to production.2 Although the cost of the lost fertilizer certainly mattered, where it ended up did not. In addition, compared to applications of insecticides, herbicides, and other chemicals designed to kill organisms, one hundred pounds of lost fertilizer over an acre of land seemed to be relatively harmless. Even public health officials, who knew that high concentrations of nitrate in well water could lead to “blue baby syndrome,” initially did not express much interest in the fate of fertilizers.3 For that matter, neither did the proponents of organic agriculture. They simply recommended that farmers avoid applications of industrial fertilizer and other capital-intensive inputs, which they saw as compromising the long-term health of not only the soil but also agricultural communities in general.4 One agronomist who did attempt to construct a nitrogen “balance sheet” 102 LE A R NING TO ESTA BLISH HUM A N-DEFINED LIMI TS concluded that the issue was too complicated to answer given the current state of knowledge.5 By the late 1960s, however, scientists had begun to ask sophisticated questions about the flow and fate of industrially produced chemicals in the environment, including nitrogenous compounds. Thanks to the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, which examined the fate of pesticides and insecticides, even the general public was becoming more aware of how small flows of material could affect ecological systems in subtle ways. At a societal level, this process of learning to ask questions about the fate of chemicals in the environment and rewarding those who pursue such questions surely represented a step toward developing a more sustainable relationship with the rest of nature. Wells, Nitrate, and the Creation of an Environmental Standard In the 1950s, farmers in the United States were interested in knowing more about the fertilizers they were beginning to use in larger and larger quantities , if only to make better use of their investment. In 1958, at the seventh annual meeting of the Agricultural Research Institute, an organization of “industrial, governmental, and private scientific members” formed under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences, a session on the research and development of nitrogen fertilizers led to a discussion about the need for practical advice on how best to use the various types of fertilizers available . Everybody agreed that huge increases in yields were possible. The question was how to obtain them profitably.6 The director of Allied Chemical’s fertilizer research program led the session. He noted that “in one corn test in 1956, a yield of 230 bushels per acre, containing about eleven percent protein, was obtained in a field across the fence from one that produced thirty-five bushels per acre and contained only seven percent protein. The difference in yield and quality, in this case, was due to the feeding.” Nobody questioned the results. What they did question was the ability of untrained farmers to obtain the same results. A representative of the Greenwood Seed Company, for example, noted that his company spent 50,000 dollars each year on fertilizers but had yet to receive any assistance from the manufacturer. Similarly, a representative of the American Association of Cereal Chemists wanted to know more about the use of urea, which was beginning to be marketed as a high-nitrogen (44 percent ) fertilizer that in the soil was converted into nitrate at...

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