No products in the basket.
Many sea-mineral liquids, rock dust, and seaweed-based inputs advertise:
But from the standpoint of plant physiology and chemistry, these claims raise immediate red flags.
This blog breaks down exactly why, using the periodic table as the foundation.
Plants require 12 truly essential mineral nutrients:
Macronutrients:
Secondary nutrients:
Micronutrients:
Beyond these, several elements are beneficial but not essential, such as:
Even with these, we reach no more than 16 elements.
That’s why Eutrema’s flagship product Liquid Gold (UK) / Gold Leaf (US) includes the essential set—not 60 or 90.
So how do companies justify the higher numbers?
Some products claim to supply more than 60–90 elements. These claims usually originate from:
But most of those elements are:
To understand why, we must go to the periodic table.
There are 118 known elements. If a product claims to contain “90+ elements,” we must ask:
How many of those 118 could realistically, safely, and naturally appear in a fertiliser?
These are unreactive and cannot be present in fertiliser and have an effect on plant growth or health:
Helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon, radon, oganesson.
Remaining possible elements: 111
Elements 95–117 do not occur naturally (e.g., americium, californium, fermium).
These would only appear due to nuclear contamination, and never required in a fertiliser.
Remaining: 88
Examples:
Remaining: 85
These cannot appear in safe fertiliser products as they are radioctive:
Remaining: 77
Arsenic (As)
Lead (Pb)
Mercury (Hg)
Cadmium (Cd)
Beryllium (Be)
Thallium (Tl)
Radium (Ra)
These are elements are crazy toxic, you could never justify their inclusion in any fertiliser!
Remaining: 70 possible elements
Even if a mineral product did contain trace contamination from ~70 elements:
The question then becomes:
Why would a fertiliser boast 70 elements when plants only need 12–16?
This is where marketing often outpaces science.
Claiming 70–90 elements sounds impressive, but the meaningful measure of a fertiliser is:
Eutrema’s formulations focus on delivering essential nutrients properly, including making silicon, calcium, and phosphorus stable in solution—something conventional chemistry typically fails to do.
This is where advanced chemistry provides real value, not inflated element counts.
If you encounter a fertiliser boasting “60+, 70+, or 90+ elements,” ask:
“Please provide a full list of the elements.”
If they cannot provide it, or the list contains radioactive, synthetic, or toxic elements, the claim collapses.
Plants do not need 90 elements.
They do not benefit from 60 elements.
They barely need more than 14.
When you see oversized numbers on fertiliser labels, recognise them for what they are:
marketing, contamination, or misunderstanding—not agronomy.
For growers in hydroponics, sports turf, and arable production, focus on essential, bioavailable nutrients backed by chemistry—not inflated element lists.
For unique fertilisers, biostimulants, and organic biopesticides engineered with real chemistry, explore Eutrema.co.uk.
Article by Dr Russell Sharp
If you would like to keep up to date with subjects just like this, you can listen to both our podcasts! Links can be found bellow:
Hydroponics Daily Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hydroponics-daily/id1788172771
Cereal Killers Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cereal-killers/id1695783663