Is research on plant mineral nutrition still necessary when inorganic fertilizers are readily available? The simple answer is ‘yes’! The use of inorganic fertilizers depletes natural resources and can impose a heavy financial and environmental cost. For example, reserves of rock phosphate (the primary source of P for fertilizers) are diminishing whilst the production, transport and application of inorganic fertilizers account for 2·2 % of global energy use (170 Mt crude oil per year). Furthermore, some crops do not recover fertilizers effectively, and unrecovered minerals can pollute adjacent land and water. Since many ‘natural’ species require infertile habitats to thrive, a decline in biodiversity can follow. Optimal crop nutrition is also vital to human, livestock and crop health. Over three billion people worldwide (and many more livestock) do not receive adequate amounts of crop‐delivered minerals, such as calcium (Ca), zinc (Zn), iron (Fe) and selenium (Se), in their diets. Conversely, the over‐delivery of minerals to the diet may also affect health of humans and livestock. In crops, appropriate fertilizer applications can reduce disease and pest problems and improve storage quality. Finally, research on plant mineral nutrition is important to overcoming the constraints of crop production on marginal land (e.g. saline or acid soils). This book comprises papers presented at an applied plant mineral nutrition workshop, held at the University of Helsinki, Finland, in December 2000. The stated primary objective of this workshop and book was ‘to increase public awareness of the contribution of inorganic fertilizers to past and future food supplies’. The book’s 313 pages are split into 43 chapters/articles, ‘selected for inclusion after a process of peer‐review and evaluation by an editorial board’. A feature of the book is its international scope. Amongst the highlights are articles on mineral uptake by onions grown in tropical Venezuela, on the effects of Ca supply on sweet cherry fruit production in Poland, on intra‐ and interspecific variation in nitrate concentrations in the tissues of different vegetables in Lithuania, on the fertilization of apples in China, and on the mineral nutrition of Egyptian and Ukrainian apricots. There is, however, a certain amount of repetition in the book. For example, 21 of the articles are contributions from Dris (17 as sole author), and most of these focus on apple nutrition. Overall, however, the articles do cover a wide range of fruit and vegetable crops (although 25 % of book is based on apples). Many of the articles in this book are very short (several are less than 200 words long, or, in other words, shorter than this review). However, other articles are more detailed and comprise tables of data collected from field experiments designed to test the effects of inorganic fertilizers on crop traits, such as yield, mineral content and crop storage quality. It is a pity that more of the authors have not synthesized data in graphical or diagrammatic forms. For example, graphical data are presented in only 15 of the 43 chapters, and there are no diagrams or pictures in the book. It is also a pity that more information on ‘. . . recommendations for fertilizer use and current fertilizer practices in different countries’, or on ‘knowledge‐based management tools’, is not given to the reader, as promised in the preface. This book will appeal to a specialist audience comprising attendees of the workshop and selected plant mineral nutritionists working in the field of horticulture.