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COPPER    Cu   (Target Level 10 - 12 ppm)

Copper is a highly important trace element for arable and livestock farming. Indeed, it plays a vital role in the whole food chain. Copper deficiency has become a very serious problem in the UK for several reasons. There are large areas of land, particularly in Wales and the South West  where, for geophysical reasons, Copper has never been plentiful and where the heavy use of agricultural chemicals in recent decades has greatly aggravated the problem. For the remainder, the same practices have reduced this once-plentiful trace element to borderline or deficiency status. Ruminants can only utilise Copper correctly in the presence of Selenium and 80% of UK soils are now Copper and Selenium deficient.

Deficiency of Copper in soils leads to poor quality, disease-prone, low-yielding crops with low nutritional value to humans and livestock   alike, after all we eat both the crops and the livestock. Good soil nutrition therefore leads ultimately to good human nutrition - if we cannot derive our trace elements from what we eat, then from where exactly do we expect to get them ?

Copper Deficiency Symptoms in Livestock                                                        

• Swayback (lack of co-ordination in hind legs)
• Anaemia (low red blood cell count)
• Sudden death in stressed cattle
• Poor fertility; neo-natal death
• Dull, lifeless coat; late loss of Winter coat
• Scouring (constant diarrhoea)
• General lack of condition
• Low milk protein and butter fats
• Rough, gingery coats in cattle
•  

Copper Deficiency Symptoms in Plantss

• Reduction in plant growth (photosynthesis)
• Reduction in dry matter production
• Reduction in cereal and all other yields
• Reduction in disease resistance; particularly fungal attack
• Reduction in fixation of atmospheric Nitrogen and Carbon Dioxide

If cereals and grasses have an un-natural, slight yellow look before they are 'greened-up' with fertiliser, then there is a very high chance that there is a Copper deficiency in the soil. Yield, disease-resistance and quality can all be greatly enhanced at very modest cost if this is the case.

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Last modified: June 24, 2003