Volcanic rock dust is touted as having many useful benefits \u2013 but is it worth buying rock dust? We asked botanist Ken Thompson for his advice.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s more on myth-busting additives for soil<\/strong><\/p>\n Rock dust is finely ground volcanic rock.<\/p>\n Apparently there\u2019s almost nothing this finely ground volcanic rock can\u2019t do, including producing bigger yields, healthier crops, better flavour and improved resistance to pests, disease and drought<\/a>.<\/p>\n Fortunately, there have been two big, well-designed scientific studies of the effects of rock dust, one in Scotland and the other in Sweden, and both found exactly the same: nothing. There was no effect on yield, plant nutrient content or soil<\/a> chemistry.<\/p>\n These studies also show why they found nothing. As the Scottish analysis puts it, \u2018a high degree of rock weathering was required to release small quantities of trace elements from rock dust samples\u2019. In short, it\u2019s not easy to get anything out of rock dust, and even when you do it\u2019s mostly sodium, with small amounts of calcium and even smaller amounts of other constituents. So the most rock dust might sometimes do is raise soil pH a little, although in the Scottish study it didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n Soil is mostly rock already, so adding a bit more was never likely to make much difference. But rock is pretty inert stuff, so if you still feel like using it, it\u2019s very unlikely to do any harm.<\/p>\n More on soil<\/strong><\/p>\n Botanist Ken Thompson looks at whether it’s worth buying rock dust to use the in the garden as fertilizer <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":23260,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2023\/06\/rock-dust-fertilizer-should-you-buy-it-for-your-garden.jpg",1181,1181,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2023\/06\/rock-dust-fertilizer-should-you-buy-it-for-your-garden-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2023\/06\/rock-dust-fertilizer-should-you-buy-it-for-your-garden-300x300.jpg",300,300,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2023\/06\/rock-dust-fertilizer-should-you-buy-it-for-your-garden-768x768.jpg",768,768,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2023\/06\/rock-dust-fertilizer-should-you-buy-it-for-your-garden-1024x1024.jpg",800,800,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2023\/06\/rock-dust-fertilizer-should-you-buy-it-for-your-garden.jpg",1181,1181,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2023\/06\/rock-dust-fertilizer-should-you-buy-it-for-your-garden.jpg",1181,1181,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Botanist Ken Thompson looks at whether it's worth buying rock dust to use the in the garden as fertilizer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/23259"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What is rock dust?<\/h3>\n
What is rock dust supposed to do?<\/h3>\n
![\""Preparing\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/18\/2023\/06\/GettyImages-1477984208-f4401e4.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"Preparing\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>What do trials on rock dust show?<\/h3>\n
Should I buy rock dust?<\/h3>\n
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