Fertilization of crops is nothing new to American farmers, but other than when they apply livestock manure, have you wondered about the origin of those crop nutrients?

Honestly, I hadn’t given it a lot of thought either, but I was recently given the opportunity to go back in time — and deep — to the origin of some of the potash that is used by U.S. farmers.

Nutrien Ag Solutions invited a group of agricultural media to visit its headquarters in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and although we got to tour the company’s canola-breeding facility, the highlight of the visit was a trip to the Allan potash mine, one of six in the Nutrien portfolio.

An elevator ride 1 kilometer (0.62 miles) below the Saskatoon prairie opens to an underground city of sorts, where a number of shafts have been bored into the potash deposit that has been hiding for between 360 million and 380 million years.

At its farthest, the mine workings stretch about 13 miles north to south and just over 9 miles east to west. The farthest mining face is located almost 12 miles from the shaft, or a 60-minute drive. Electric vehicles resembling golf carts or larger people carriers are the mode of transportation.

Listening to Zoe Belanger, mine operation general foreman, explain the geology is interesting and fascinating, as she says most of the southern half of the province of Saskatchewan is a potash deposit that has been formed by an ancient seabed. (Watch the video to hear her explain this more thoroughly.)

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As the multimillion-dollar boring machine did its work chewing away at the wall face, and the conveyor of the “new” product whizzed past us, it was mind-blowing to think that we were the first humans to ever see this ore that is more than 360 million years old.

As media are prone to do, we asked a lot of questions, and one was about the most interesting “find” while extracting the potash, such as any amazing fossils. The quick answer is that there was nothing to be fossilized at the time the seabed had dried up. The oldest known fossils aren’t even 4.5 million years old.

That is some old potash you are applying to your fields.

Quite the process

Canada is the world’s largest producer and exporter of potash, accounting for about 38% of the world’s total potash production. Global potash production was estimated at 64.6 million tons in 2022.

Nutrien Ag Solutions is the world’s largest potash producer, first mining and shipping potash in 1959. Construction at the Allan mine, about 28 miles southwest of Saskatoon, began in 1964, and the first potash vein was struck in 1967. The first ton of ore was hoisted to the surface in April 1968, and the first rail car of potash was shipped in July of that year.

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There are about 56 miles of belt lines underground, transporting the mined ore to the skips that hoist the product to the surface for further processing at the mill. These skips can hoist a 54-ton payload.

Access to the catacomb of potash city is through either the skips or elevators that transport workers — and media — to the working mine and back. This means that anything needed underground needs to be transported via either mode. Those multimillion-dollar borers need to be lowered piece by piece in the elevator or skip and reassembled down in the mine.

Today, more than 70 rail cars can be loaded in a 12-hour period. The mill can produce over 12,000 tons of the finished product each day. After the borer does its work, the potash ore is hoisted to the mill to begin the milling process of crushing, grinding, de-sliming, flotation, drying, sizing, compaction and crystallization. That entire process, from boring to ready for shipment, can be done in as little as six hours.

That is a pretty quick turnaround on a product that has been in storage for more than 360 million years.

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