William Albrecht

William Albert Albrecht (September 12, 1888 – May 19, 1974) chairman of the Department of Soils at the University of Missouri, was the foremost authority on the relation of soil fertility to human health and earned four degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. As emeritus professor of soils at the University of Missouri, he saw a direct link between soil quality, food quality and human health. He drew direct connections between poor quality forage crops, and ill health in livestock and from this developed a formula for ideal ratios of cations in the soil, the Base Cation Saturation Ratio. While he did not discover cation exchange in the soil as is sometimes supposed, he may have been the first to associate it with colloidal clay particles. He served as 1939 President of the Soil Science Society of America.
Twenty years before the phrase 'environmental concern' crept into the national consciousness, he was lecturing from coast to coast on the broad topic of agricultural ecology. (C. Edmund Marshall, In Memoriam, 'Plant and Soil' vol 48.)
Early life.
William Albrecht was born of German ancestry on a farm on the prairie of north central Illinois in the Mid-West United States. After attending the local school he progressed via preparatory school to the University of Illinois where he obtained a B.A. degree in liberal arts. This led to a position teaching Latin and other subjects at Bluffton University, Ohio.
Albrecht later returned to Illinois to gain a B.S. degree in biology and agricultural science. He then started graduate research in Botany whilst also teaching in the department of botany. This period was key to his lifelong devotion to scientific study of plant physiology and agriculture. It enabled him to take a microbiological view of plant structure whilst addressing the soil as a variable environment (either favourable or unsuitable). He presented his doctoral research in 1919, and it was published in the journal "Soil Science" in 1920 titled 'Symbiotic nitrogen fixation as influenced by nitrogen in the soil' His paper concluded that the nitrogen level in soil had no significant effect on fixation by legumes.
Career.
Albrecht was a devout agronomist, the foremost authority on the relation of soil fertility to human health and earned four degrees from the University of Illinois. He became emeritus professor of soils at the University of Missouri. Dr. Albrecht saw a direct link between soil quality and food quality, drawing direct connection between poor quality forage crops, and ill health in livestock.
From the late 1930s, as chairman of the Department of Soils at the University of Missouri, he began work at the Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station investigating cation ratios and the growth of legumes. He had been investigating cattle nutrition, having observed that certain pastures seemed conducive to good health, and at some point he came to the conclusion that the ideal balance of cations in the soil was "H, 10%; Ca, 60 to 75% optimal 69%; Mg, 10 to 20% optimal 12%; K, 2 to 5%; Na, 0.5 to 5.0%; and other cations, 5%".
While Albrecht was a highly respected soil scientist, he discounted soil pH, stating that "plants are not sensitive to, or limited by, a particular pH value of the soil." Instead, he believed that the benefits of liming soil stem from the additional calcium available to the plant, not the increase in pH. This belief has continued to be held by followers to this day, despite opinions to the contrary. Like much of the early research into BCSR where soil pH was not controlled, it is difficult to draw solid conclusions from Albrecht's research in support of BCSR.
Throughout his life, Albrecht looked to nature to learn what optimizes soil, and attributing many common livestock diseases directly to those animals being fed poor quality feeds. He observed that :
Albrecht was a prolific author of reports, books and articles that span several decades, starting with his reports on nitrogen fixation and soil inoculation in 1919. MVG
Soil depletion.
Albrecht was outspoken on matters of declining soil fertility, having identified that it was due to a lack of organic material, major elements, and trace minerals, and was thus responsible for poor crops and in turn for pathological conditions in animals fed deficient foods from such soils.
He laid the blame as:
Death and commemoration.
On his death he left his research papers to his friend Charles Walters who promoted the ideas by founding the magazine Acres USA, which continues to be at the centre of the ideal soil movement, and is the current owner of the research papers.
List of publications.
Albrecht published widely from 1918 through 1970: