It's true. We make statements and claims that don't necessarily agree with traditional fertilization practices and principles. And we have good reason...it works.

Here's this issue's example:

Controlling Salts

The best approach to controlling salts is to use products that provide humic and fulvic acids in an organic carbon base. Fulvic acid combines with all nutrients, making them effectively organic. It also naturally displaces sodium and makes all nutrients more available over a wider pH range. Humic acid has a high affinity for sodium and acts as a buffer by taking it out of solution and neutralizing its harmful effects. The organic carbon greatly increases microbial activity. The microbes assimilate nutrients and hold them in the root zone, effectively transfering the burden of nutrient cycling (or CEC) from the soil to the microbes. Additionally, the organic carbon base can have a CEC of up to 500 compared to 50 or less for the soil itself. This natural process holds more of the nutrients we apply in the root zone and available to the plant. This allows for significant reductions in the amounts of fertilizers, and therefore salts, that we need to apply.

Gypsum (calcium sulfate), like all fertilizers, is a salt. Adding gypsum to the soil to control sodium is using a salt to try to fix a salt problem. While it is true that the calcium in gypsum will replace the sodium on the soil colloid, it still results in an increase in total salts because you've added two more salts, calcium and sulfate. Part of the theory is that the sodium that has been replaced with the calcium would then be removed from the root zone by leaching. But the irrigation water we use is the source of the sodium in the first place!

Gypsum is also used to adjust pH, which it temporarily does as the sulfur in the gypsum combines with hydrogen in the water/soil to form sulfuric acid. However, this downward spike in the pH literally fries the beneficial soil microbes and the soil pH returns to its former value very quickly.

This Issue's Product Spotlight:

JTM Ligno Cal Nine - Provides fulvic acid and super-availiable calcium to displace sodium, increase nutrient availability and facilitate leaching even with high sodium irrigation water.

JTM CalMag - Provides all the benefits of LignoCal Nine plus super-available magnesium. Use after leaching to replace the calcium and magnesium lost during leaching.

JTM Activator Extract - Added to your tank mix on a regular basis, this product provides both humic and fulvic acids along with organic carbon to stimulate beneficial microbial activity.