The Bitter Truth about Potassium Chloride

I’ll never forget the day I took a group of visiting South African biological farmers to the University of Wisconsin Dairy Forage Research Center near Sauk City, Wisconsin. While viewing the dairy herd, a dairy nutritionist in the group made some quick observations about how the herd was suffering from a litany of clinical symptoms and one of the farmers said they were not “happy” cows. Then we strolled out of the barn to see the forage fields, and without hesitation almost every one the farmers pinched off some of the alfalfa and tasted it. I did too: it was very bitter! They instantly made the connection between the horrible taste of that forage and those “unhappy” cows; the fact that the cows’ disorders were nutritionally based was evident to that group, but not the presenters.

If you are a biological farmer, you will appreciate the fact that a land grant college is taking a big risk by refuting agronomic dogma taught by universities, ag-extension agents, co-ops, and supported by the fertilizer industry. If you use a lot of potassium chloride fertilizer, please read the monumental peer reviewed research (published by Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems) article.