Old Expired Vitamins ---UNCONVENTIONAL MINERAL SUPPLEMENTATIONS FOR PLANTS?---

[palmcity]

Many potassium pills from 2010 that I decided were not beneficial in preventing/helping my leg cramps back in the days I exercised more rigorously.

Hopefully the plants/fungi/ etc. can get benefits from the pills as I'm lightly sprinkling their canopy drip area today.

Has anyone else tried feeding plants with old mineral supplements like iron/zinc or just their multivitamin with minerals that they procrastinated  taking for years? 

May as well expand the Question of Plant MINERAL supplementation::: Has anyone tried throwing metal parts (automotive/plumbing/rusty nails/ etc. etc.) around their trees to increase minerals such as Iron/Copper/ etc???

We're looking for that sloooow release (oxidation/fungi/bacteria/plant/etc.) reaction....

[lebmung]

That is not such a good idea. Plants are not animals. Some minerals may be good for plants, but other can be toxic. In soil they break down to different compounds.
Metal parts are the worst. The plants need micronutrients in a very small quantity. Metal parts will lead to toxicity to both plants and consumer of the plants. For instance Iron is available to plant roots when the PH is right. FeO and the rest of oxides are toxic when available in large quantities. Copper is very toxic.
People are trying to grow plants organic without any pollution, why would you pollute you plants?

[palmcity]

That is not such a good idea. Plants are not animals. Some minerals may be good for plants, but other can be toxic. In soil they break down to different compounds.
Metal parts are the worst. The plants need micronutrients in a very small quantity. Metal parts will lead to toxicity to both plants and consumer of the plants. For instance Iron is available to plant roots when the PH is right. FeO and the rest of oxides are toxic when available in large quantities. Copper is very toxic.
People are trying to grow plants organic without any pollution, why would you pollute you plants?

Well, Thanks for posting...
I just would like to see some research to back up the assumptions listed as most on this forum have used products like copper for lowering fungal activity attacking trees/plants and cooper can be bad but is needed by plants also... Copper is also beneficial to humans but too much can be bad as described in this wiki::: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_in_health   .
Many of us still drink water from copper pipes... 

[nullzero]

Here is a great post regarding the topic https://permies.com/t/59030/Vitamins-Plants

[KarenRei]

You're dealing with such tiny quantities, it shouldn't have a meaningful effect either way.

I just got home from my land where I've been spreading bags of monoammonium phosphate (12-23-0).  8,35 ha (20 acres).  Each bag is 25 kg.  I've got 40.  I'm going to need at least 10 more.  And all of this should only remedy a small fraction of the phosphorus deficiency in the soil; I'm going to need to do it again and again for years.

Might as well toss them in; they're not going to have a significant effect 

[KarenRei]

Okay, for fun, I weighed a couple multivitamins (1,5g each).  The vitamins are:

450mg Ca
50mg Mg
20mg Se
18mg Fe
15mg Zn
2mg Cu
2mg Mn
0mg N
0mg P
0mg K

That's right, my multivitamins are NPK 0-0-0.    They're mostly calcium carbonate by mass.  Magnesium oxide is next.   So it's like liming your soil, with some micros.  Just tiny amounts of lime    The main micro is sodium selenate, which isn't really something you need to be supplementing. Iron is ferrous fumarate; not sure how that interacts with soil at various pH.  But they're 1% of the pills' mass, which even by iron standards isn't much. Zinc at 1% (zinc oxide) is actually not a bad level in a micro fert. Copper isn't as proportionally high.  And manganese is normally a more common micro than zinc, so these are pretty small amounts.  But either way, think of how little mass these pills are compared to a bag of fertilizer.

[Guanabanus]

Since Selenium is a trace nutrient that different plant species need very little of, if at all, this amount may be "noticeable" and probably beneficial.  None of the other ingredients will make any difference is those amounts, unless you put them around tiny plants like arugula or parsley.  I did that last fall, along with lots of regular fertilizers, and they all grew great.