The loss of fertilizer shipments coming from the Persian Gulf as a result of the Iran war got me thinking about the chemist Justus von Liebig, a prominent 19th-century proponent of the mineral theory of plant nutrition. Liebig is the popularizer of what is now known as Liebig's Law of the Minimum. The law states that the least available essential nutrient limits the growth of plants. This means once a grower runs out of one essential nutrient, adding extra of others will not make up for the lack of the one that is limited. Liebig's eponymous law…

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