Promoting Healthy Lifestyles for Over 50 Years

People have asked me over the years how we came up with the Planters Trace Mineral Fertilizer. The truth is that like many great discoveries, it happened entirely by accident.

Joseph H. Lionelle at the Planters mineral mine. He used Planters regularly on his own ranch, and worked tirelessly on informing the agricultural community on the importance of organic farming and remineralization.

The year was 1947 and thanks to recent events, chemical fertilizers had been introduced and were considered to be not only the modern way, but the only way for a farmer to operate. My grandfather, Emil Lionelle, was working at a gypsum mine in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. One day, on the way home, he took special notice of an unusual looking rock. For whatever reason Emil picked up the rock and took it home with him. Arriving home, Emil absentmindedly tossed the rock into one of the family’s tomato planters. Two weeks later, he was surprised to find that the tomatoes with the unusual rock had doubled in size compared to the other tomato plants. Emil took his son, Joseph, and the two of them scoured the hillsides until they found the deposit where the rock had come from. After initially finding the deposit, the two of them hand packed 100 lbs of the rock and took it back to their farm. It was there on the farm that they noticed their pigs had a strong interest in the mineral. So they allowed the pigs to start eating it. Previously the pigs had been suffering malnutrition like many other livestock in the area, but after their diet was supplemented by the minerals, the pigs began to improve in health and soon became topnotch animals. Working with local veterinarians, it was determined that most of the malnutrition had stemmed from the plants in the area lacking in mineral content. Exploration of the mineral led to applying it on the soil which produced even stronger results. As the plants grew healthier, so did the animals that fed upon the land. This was the beginnings of U.S. Soil, a company that chose an all natural product in a time where it was unheard of to do such things.

Emil's son, Joseph H. Lionelle (Big Joe) worked tirelessly on building the U.S. Soil company and making the product a standard the others try to compare against. However, it took more than a few years of discovery and experimentation before they were able to release their first shipment. Initially he focused on producing a fine powdered product that was easily mixed into livestock feed as a supplement. This product was and is known as ELX. He began with a feed supplement because many farmers and ranchers liked the results from the feed, but at the time the "modern wonders" of chemical fertilizer were first and foremost. Few farmers saw a reason to try an all natural product. Remember, not even a generation prior their ancestors had been using non-chemical setups, and yet somehow that was now considered to be backwards. Eventually deciding that farmers wanted a product that could be mixed with NPK based on soil tests, the Lionelles mixed up their first batch of fertilizer. The fertilizer was called MTO (Made to Order), and in 1954 the very first truckload was shipped to Dalhart, Texas. Four years later, the family decided that to be true to the product and the ideals of the company. They didn’t want to be mixing the mineral into a chemical blend. MTO was discontinued and efforts began on another product, one that would change the company and the lives of many farmers for the better... that product was Planters Trace Mineral Fertilizer.

The initial form of Planters was very similar to the ELX animal-feed supplement, a fine powder. At that time the Lionelles were shipping primarily to Texas and New Mexico for use on cotton and peanuts. The product was mainly sold under private labels for assorted distributors, and to this day I’m still amazed at the number of "Planters by-such-and-such" bags people show me they’ve saved.

So where do I enter the picture? I started with the business as a kid; but it was around 1969 that you may have first noticed me. That was when I thought it would be fantastic if the Planters product could be produced in a granulated form. I still remember the meeting with one of the first engineering firms I contacted. I had asked them to come to Salida, Colorado, so we could discuss what it would take to make a production facility. My office was in the back of the family gas station, and the engineer upon seeing this laughed and said that a granulating facility would cost in excess of 50 million dollars. Fortunately for me, my family had taught me the value of perseverance; remember Emil and Big Joe combing the hills for the mineral deposit? I continued looking for a way to granulate the product. We learned that there were many chemicals that would work just fine for granulating, but if there was one thing we were determined to do, it was to keep our product all natural. Serendipity struck again enabling us to find a novel and all natural way to granulate our product. Many fertilizers were difficult for the farmer to work with due to the amount of fines in the product, so when we came out with a granulated fertilizer, Planters II took off like a wildfire. The year was 1972, and it was then that U.S. Soil established its first fully in-house sales force and many of our distributors who joined us then are still with us to this day.

Emil was a firm believer that progressive thinking enables change, and Big Joe worked hard to establish U.S. Soil as a progressive thinking company. Our ideas and values have appealed to generations of farmers and more than a few non-farmers, as we learned in 1974 when famed actor Lorne Greene joined with us to become our company spokesman. Mr. Greene was a firm believer that the product helped the local community, farmers and future generations. It’s a belief that we feel has held up time and again over the decades.

Many people have asked us "How unique is Planters?", and in 1975 our company decided to learn the exact answer to that question. We had always known it took very special geological circumstances to form the mineral deposit. We were about to learn that this was one of those cases where unique would truly live up to its meaning. U.S. Soil literally searched the world for a deposit with the same qualities as the Planters mineral, and while we found similar deposits, Planters out produced all of them. We even tried to duplicate the mineral compound in a laboratory environment and ended up with results that just weren’t comparable. Not unlike a Stradivarius violin, we found that while you could make something that should be an exact copy, there was that secret and unknown x-factor that we may never be able to reproduce or find elsewhere.

The U.S. Soil processing plant crushes, granulates and bags the Planters mineral using processes that are unique to the industry.

The years have gone by and while Emil and Joseph H. Lionelle are no longer with us, their efforts have produced a company whose legacy has helped shaped the field of organic farming. We have also been blessed with new faces and now the fourth generation of Lionelles; my three sons, Jim, Joe A., and Albert, are all involved with the company. In a lesson of history repeating itself, one of the first things Joe A. did was update the granulation process, not unlike I had done exactly thirty years prior. I’m proud to say that we are still a family-based company and something tells me that four more generations down the road customers will be able to call the U.S. Soil offices and speak to one of Emil Lionelle’s descendants. We are firm believers in keeping the land healthy for our children. This planet is our legacy to those who come after us and we owe them the best.

On the forefront of change, U.S. Soil has constantly updated their production techniques, many of which are patented and innovative. Today, we’re working on new ways to bring the Planters Trace Mineral Fertilizer product into households and farms across America. We’re over 50 years old and looking forward to what promises to be at least another 50 years of excitement and innovations that aid you in making not only the best farm you can but the healthiest one as well. We look forward to having you join us in that journey.

Sincerely,
Joseph E. Lionelle
President, U.S. Soil