Soils and Fertilization.I guess that if we are going to talk about the origin of soil (dirt) we have to go all the way back to the creation of the earth. However, modifications and improvements of existing soils, and creation of “soilless” mixes have made a big impact on plant propagation, improving a plants ability to survive.

The earliest record of the use and benefits of green manure crops dates back to ~1100 BC during the Chou dynasty.

Then Democritus of Abdera (460-360 BC) proposed “Mother earth when fructified by rain gives birth to crops for the nourishment of man and beast. But that which came from earth must return to earth, and that which came from air to air. Death, however, does not destroy matter but only breaks up the union of its elements which are then recombined into other forms.
Aristotle (384-322 BC) proposed that all material constituents were made up of four elements: earth, water, fire, and air.
Pliny the Elder (AD 23-79) whose real name was Cais Plinius Secundus, wrote of the advantages and disadvantages of animal manure, and the advantages of crop rotation. He wrote “It is universally agreed by all writers that there is nothing more beneficial than to turn up a crop of lupines, before they have podded, either with the plough or the fork, or else to cut them and bury them in heaps at the roots of trees and vines.”
Philippus Theophrastus Paracelus (1493-1541) disagreed with Aristotles’ four-elements theory and proposed a three-principle constituents theory. So also every vegetable of the earth must give nutriment to the three things of which they consist…These nutriments are earth and rain, that is the Liquor, each of the three parts of which nourishes its own kind-sulfur for sulfur, mercury for mercury, and salt for salt, for Nature contains these, one with the other.”

A letter written in 1678 by John Winthrop Jr. discusses the Indians method of soil improvement: “Where the ground is bad or worn out, the Indians used to put two or three of the aforementioned fishes, under or adjacent to each Corn-hill, whereby they had many times a Crop double to what the ground would otherwise have produced.”
Jethro Tull (1674-1740) believed that soil entered the root, therefore the finer the particles of soil, the more soil would go into the root, and t he more nutrition the plant would receive. This promoted tillage which enhanced the soil properties.

Theodore de Saussure, a Swiss chemist, is credited with the recognition that soil, not air, was the supplier of nitrogen, and that roots played an active role in absorbing water and salts.He debunked the long standing belief that plants generate potash. of nitrogen on plant growth was studied by many scientists in the 1840’s.
Justus Liebig’s book, Organic Chemistry in Its Applications to Agriculture and Physiology (1840), explained the various processes that were occurring in the soil. Before Liebig’s book, it was not commonly known how plants used air, light and water to grow, produce seeds, and set fruit.

In the 1840’s, chemical fertilizers began selling in France and Germany. The common practice of adding blood meal, bone meal, cotton seed meal, and rotted manure or compost to medias was eventually replaced when super phosphates and artificial manures were available on a limited basis in the 1850’s in America. They came into common use in the 1880’s.
In 1860 Sachs introduced in Germany a complete nutrient formula for growing plants hydroponically and in 1861 Krop described an improved formula used to this day. Although the six essential macro nutrients and iron had been identified by 1844, many of the remaining micro nutrients were still unknown at this time.

The first published attempt to develop the commercial potential of hydroponics was by Geriche in 1929. In the early 1900’s soil microbiologists discovered the importance of microorganisms in ammoniafication and nitrification. Peat and sphagnum moss became popular during the 1920’s. Vermiculite (mica) came into use in the late 1940’s.
Research on controlling the release of Nitrogen began in the mid 1940’s when urea formaldehyde reaction products proved to have controlled-release properties. In the early 1960’s encapsulation of soluble nitrogen sources was researched.

One of the earliest commercially prepared soilless media developed was introduced by Dr. A. Fruhstorfer in Hamburg, Germany in 1948. The University of California mixes were some of the earliest soilless media adopted in America during the 1950’s. In the 1950’s annually replacing rooting media became less prevalent as root-medium pasteurization was adopted.
The Peat-Lite mixes were introduced by Dr.’s J.W. Boodley and R. Sheldrake at Cornell University in the early 1960’s.
Slow release fertilizers such as Osmocote were incorporated into propagation mixes in the 1960’s for long term crops.
During the 1970’s volcanic materials such as perlite became widely used in propagation mixes. Different byproduct materials have been popular in different parts of the world at different times depending on the popularity of the main product.
Rockwool culture was developed in Denmark in the late 1950’s. By the early 1970’s horticultural rockwool was in production in Denmark.

Fertigation, fertilizing through the irrigation water, came into use in the mid 1970’s.