Questions and Answers

Understanding the Importance of Cation Exchange Capacity

I was recently asked to provide a simplified explanation on the importance of Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC) values. My Response: CEC is the ability of a soil to hold onto plant nutrients. The finer the particle size the higher CEC value, generally speaking. For example sand particles are course and visible to the naked eye, where as clay particles are fine and are not visible to the naked eye. So clay will have a higher CEC value than sand. It is obvious to most of us that sand cannot hold onto water or nutrients as well as a soil with a finer texture. Therefore, soils rich in Clay and Loam size particles are universally recognized as being better for farming - CEC explains this. The numerical value for CEC represents how much nutrition can be held by a given amount of soil. For example one pound of a clay loam soil with a CEC value of 20 will hold 4 times as many nutrients as a sandy soil with a CEC value of 5. 20/4 = 5 . It's all about math, for example Nitrogen in

Growing Pecan Trees in Western Alkaline Soil

It's common to see nutrient and water inhibition compromise the production of pecans in the arid western states, particularly where the soils are high pH, which can tie up nutrients such as zinc, iron, phosphorus and more. Keeping soils moist is also a problem because the regions were we grow pecan are not wet bottomland soils where pecan is native, but are high and dry desert soils where irrigation is essential. If the irrigation water is high in dissolved solids, the problem is made worse. There are many good things Soil Secrets can offer pecan growers that can overcome these obstacles, by improving the moisture management of the soil, improving nutrient solutioning and availability of both the native minerals as well as the purchased minerals, and improving the porosity of the soil so that water and oxygen can penetrate meters deep without the need to subsoil with machinery. How's this done? By using the power of Nature's own bio-chemical called the Carbon Matrix. Starti

Food Nutrient Density and Why our BIOpack is so important

Can you tell the difference? The first image shows a field that was not sprayed with your Consortium Soil Probiotic called BIOpack. The second image field was sprayed. Look at the difference in color and the overall biomass increase the treated field. BIOpack is ATCC Certified (American Type Culture Collection) and USDA Biobased Certified. All 20 species included in the BIOpack are exact species that will perform a known Mode of Action which will provide a specific benefit to the crop you are growing. For example if your lawn, trees, or crop are not getting enough iron pulled out of the soil to satisfy the needs of the crop or plant, than BIOpack can fix that problem by provided a microbe for that particular nutrient. Bottomline is that BIOpack will improve the Nutrient Density of any crop you grow as it improves the solutioning of the mineral element in the soil from a normally not water soluble into a water solution so the plant can drink it. This is important

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