Plants do NOT need silver, nor do people.

Well, needs or not needs, this is still a question.
But definite fact is that our body contains silver among 80 minerals. There is a lot of info in internet about this.
My question was about influence of solloidal silver on macrolife in our soil.

There are many many more important things to worry about nutritionally and soil-health-wise than silver. In my opinion this is a sales gimmick.

Even if plants, and people, did need silver, if you maintain a healthy soil using plenty of compost and avoiding chemical fertilizers (which don't contain the trace elements compost does), it will be provided.

The Greek philospher Paracelcus is credited with the saying "The dose makes the poison." It all depends on how much you add. So, if you are going to do this, a question for you: how do you know how much silver you're adding? Are you buying some sort of product at a certain concentration? Again, I don't think it's worthwhile, but the way you figure it out is to first know what you're proposing to use.

By the way, the blanket statement "currently soil is depleted" is way oversimplified. Yes, it is generally accepted that many agricultural soils are depleted of certain trace minerals due to the use of fertilizers rather than organic compost and manure. It's certainly not true in my garden. Is it true in yours?

Compost is a good thing but it's not a magic thing.
Every sample of compost can contain or not contain some trace minerals. I spoke one time with people who are growing herbs for research. When they evaluate the same herb but grown when one kind of compost or composted manure was added is shows slightly different content from the same herb growing with addition of another kind of compost.
I am gardening on my soil for several years and using my compost. I can't say for sure if my compost has fixed all issues with depletion of some minerals because i can't they that my compost contains all kinds of minerals.
This is completely different question.

Some things connected with usage of silver are not sales gimmicks. Silver was known and used by people long time ago as a powerfull antibiotic.
I want to try what churches were (not sure maybe still are) doing. They put big silver thing in water for some period of time. Then they gave this water to people to treat some problems. This water could stay in open container without spoiling for long period of time. I saw it by myself.
Some people currently are using colloidal silver to treat sore throat, wounds and so on.

toxcrusard, thanks for reminding me that the dose makes the poison. Exactly that's why i placed this question on this forum.

I've been looking for any reference with silver as a required plant micro-nutrient but so far I can't find a single one. Nor could I find it in the tree leave analysis from Rutgers. I'm gonna guess it isn't all that important for plant growth.

I did find a few sites that were willing to sell me some kind of silver concoction to make me healthier! ;-)

Lloyd

...tree leaf analysis...

I never said that silver is a required plant micro-element.
I said that it's among 80 minerals that are found in our bodies.
Topic is about plants able to get silver from soil and we getting this silver from these plants.
Lloid, don't judge everything that you see.
There are happy people that don't have any big health problems and there are maybe much more happier people who lost all hopes going from doctor to doctor and finally got a solution from some alternative treatment.

I don't believe I am judging anything. I can't find any reference to any plant using or needing silver. I did assume if it is important to plants there ought to be something about it on the 'net.

Point me in the correct direction.

Lloyd

The Greek philospher Paracelcus is credited with the saying

You mean, Paracelsus the Swiss physician?

You do know that it can turn your skin blue, right?

NASA selected a silver water system for the space shuttle.
Have you seen blue astronaut?
I prefer not to go deeply in this discussion.
Was just wondering if somebody knows how water in which silver object was placed for some period of time can affect soil microlife.

brier, you are speaking in terms of apples and oranges. Using silver to purify water has long been done. Because of it's antibacterial properties, I would never apply it to soil.

You are talking about trying to ingest colloidal silver, another whole topic altogether.

There was a fella on the Today show several years ago that drank colloidal silver for some sort of health problems. His skin has turned blue. Supposedly the doctors said it is permanent. Its not for me.

I said that it's among 80 minerals that are found in our bodies. And so are arsenic, lead and cadmium ... do you want to supplement your soil with them too?

It's found there because the body has very few ways to excrete it, not because it's doing anything necessary. There are no biological processes that use silver, no proteins or fats or organic molecules that incorporate it.

>Was just wondering if somebody knows how water in which silver object was placed for some period of time can affect soil microlife.

It doesn't seem that anyone here knows that. This was your original question, although several topics came and went in between.

I think Lloyd's comments about it not being a plant micronutrient were directed at the issue of whether the plants would even take it up. Your proposal of applying it to soil in order to get it into the plants and then into your body depends on the plants taking it up from soil. They may, but if it's not a plant micronutrient they may or may not. Sounds like we don't have much information on any of this.

My gut feeling, from what (little) I know about toxins in soil and water, is that it would take quite a bit to have a significant effect. Soil has 10e9 microbes per gram, give or take an order of magnitude or so. It seems to me it would take quite a bit to have a significant effect on soil life.

Here's a paper suggesting that the amounts of silver in sewage sludge amended soil could be enough to significantly affect soil biomass.
http://www.jstor.org/pss/4314683

Here's another link to the ATSDR -
http://www.epa.gov/R5Super/ecology/html/toxprofiles.htm

scroll down to Silver, click the ATSDR 1990b link, and you can find the Tox Profile for silver, which discusses soil microbe toxicity. I didn't read it, I'll leave that to you.

This was 5 min of Googling, you can find more. I'd also suggest going to a university library and asking the reference people how to search the scientific databases, which will get you a lot more articles than Google - and full text besides.

One more thing: I used to work in a lab testing the degradation of pesticides and drugs in soil. The experiments included application of the test compound to a "sterile control" soil, which we sometimes accomplished with mercury. Never used silver, but we did make soil basically dead with mercury, even better than autoclaving.

Cool! I want my skin to turn blue...

I'm thinking a money maker here.......formulate a new liquor product with colloidal silver in it (we could call it silverschlager) and we can all turn into happy, intoxicated, blue Avatars! What a concept!!

Bet we could talk James Cameron into sponsoring -- I'm calling him now :-)

It was said "colloidal silver for some sort of health problems. His skin has turned blue. Supposedly the doctors said it is permanent."

Yes, it's permanent. But rather than a blue, as in true blue, the color is more an ashen gray.

The man I've seen on TV is not ashen gray. He's blue.

Here is a link that might be useful: colloidal silver

Egad. I would say that was a massive overdose.

Once again, the dose makes the poison. This guy took waaaay too much.

I wonder if the product he used had a recommended dose, and whether he paid any attention to it. I'll be a dollar he did not.

Thank you people for all information.
I completely aggree with toxcrusadr. Fact that there are drunks does not stop you from having any wine with your dinner.

He refused the first time, but he eventually agreed to a medical examination set up by the Today show. Use of colloidal silver can lead to liver or kidney damage. His liver and kidneys tested fine, though.

I seem to remember reading about the increased level of selenium in the soil in a part of Colorado I used to live was thought to be partially responsible for a reduced stroke rate as people there ingested it in their water/ food.

That being said, silver just might be picked up if you applied a large enough quantity in the soil. But that might adversely effect the microbes. Not to state the obvious- the expense of trying the experiment.

Silver salts, e.g., silver thiosulfate, are antagonists of the plant hormone ethylene. See http://postharvest.ucdavis.edu/datastorefiles/234-79.pdf.