When I was going to school at UW Madison for a degree in Food Science, I never gave much thought to soil. During the early years of my career I oversaw field operations for the commercial production of vegetables. With the exception of an acute awareness of plant pests, and the need for adequate moisture, I still did not have an appreciation for the complexity of soil. In the lawn and gardening industry, we talk about soil health. This is related to the soil’s ability to provide a fertile abundance of crops of all kinds. Good soil fertility requires not just a proper balance of nutrients, but an abundance of micro flora of beneficial bacteria and fungi. These microbes benefit plants in many ways, from assisting in making nutrients available to plant roots, to providing catalysts for chemical reactions necessary for sustaining plant life. Sulfur is an essential nutrient for most soil bacteria. Sulfur is also an essential nutrient for plant health because it is a structural component of proteins and peptides, is a catalyst for chlorophyll production, and converts inorganic nitrogen into proteins. Nitrifying legumes, like soybeans, peas, and alfalfa require sulfur to produce root nodules where atmospheric nitrogen-fixing bacteria live in symbiosis. Additionally, sulfur is found naturally in organic matter; though not available to plants in its elemental form, soil microbes convert the sulfur to plant available sulfate. A treatment of gypsum is a good source of sulfur in plant available sulfate form, and can be beneficial in sustaining and improving the amount and diversity of beneficial soil bacteria. See, I told you it’s more than just dirt!