Soil Flocculation
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trixstar108087Soil Flocculation
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trixstar108087Understanding How Cation Nutrients
&
Soil Structure are Related
By Michael Martin Meléndrez
Only healthy soil can grow
a nutrient dense food.
You are what you eat!
Soil
Must be able to hold onto water, hold onto nutrients, keep
some of the nutrients in a nutrient solution with water,
allow water and air to penetrate, and allow roots to
expand into it.
This is called Soil Structure.
Top Soil
is a soil rich in
carbon in the
molecular form of
Humic Substances
‘Soil
‘S il Food
F d Web”
W b”
Supramolecular Humic Substances
are also known as Humus.
They:
1. Solubilize minerals in soil making them available. This
helps prevent nutrient tie-
tie-up caused by alkaline soils.
2. Helps retain water and hold mineral nutrients in a soil
nutrient solution for plant use.
use
3. Chelate nutrients by having a huge Cation Exchange
Capacity.
Capacity y.
4. Helps to Flocculate the soil structure into aggregates
forming good soil structure!!!!!!!!!!!
5 There
5. Th are also
l hundreds
h d d if nott thousands
th d off other
th
benefits that Humus provides a soil.
How Humic Substances relate to soil fertility
by providing a Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC) that a Sand,
S d Loam
Sandy L or Loamy
L Sand
S d may be
b weak k in.
i
Sand
Cation
Nutrients
held by
Humus
Poor CEC Good CEC
Low Humus High Humus
Plant Nutrients
Notice that Cations have a positive charge.
Humus has a negative charge which attracts
positive charged cations.
cations. This is called the CEC.
The CEC value of Humus prevents the leaching of
the nutrient Cations.
Nutrient Symbol Cation Anion
Nitrogen N NH4+ NO3-
Phosphorus P H2PO4-
Potassium K K+
Calcium Ca Ca++
Magnesium Mg Mg++
Sulfur S SO4=
Iron Fe Fe++
Manganese Mn Mn++
Boron B H2BO3-
Copper Cu Cu++
Zinc Zn Zn++
Chlorine Cl Cl -
Molybdenum Mo Mo04-
Cobalt Co Co++
CEC Values
V l
Ranges in the Cation Exchange
Capacities of various soils and
materials, at a pH of 7.
Note that Humus has a much higher
CEC value than Compost.
Compost. It’s
important to understand that
Humus and Compost are not the
same thing!
Dispersed Soil
Dispersed Soil is when salts in the soil cause the clay
particles to collapse.
1. They crack when dry
2. Seal when wet, which suffocate and rot roots
3. Inhibit water from percolating
4. Are hard to dig in, or plow
5. Hard when dry, sticky when wet
Dispersed clays
Soil clay particles can be unattached to one another
(dispersed
dispersed)) or clumped together (flocculated
(flocculated)) in
aggregates. Soil aggregates are cemented clusters of
sand, silt, and clay particles.
Dispersed Particles Flocculated Particles
This is bad! This is good!
In all but the sandiest soils, dispersed clays plug soil pores
and impede water infiltration and soil drainage.
Flocculation is important because water and oxygen
moves mostly in large pores between aggregates.
aggregates
Also, plant roots grow mainly between aggregates.
How do we fix a dispersed
p
soil?
Add Flocculating Cations
We can divide cations into two categories
g
1. Poor flocculators
Sodium
2. Good flocculators
Calcium
Relative Flocculating
Magnesium Ion
Power
Sodium Na+ 1.0
Potassium K+ 17
1.7
Magnesium Mg2+ 27.0
Calcium Ca2+ 43.0
Sumner and Naidu, 1998
Flocculating Cations
Calcium is a p
powerful flocculating
g
cation 43 times stronger than Sodium.
Which is why Gypsum can help
reduce salt in a dispersed clay.
clay
Aggregate stability (dispersion and flocculation)
depends on the balance (SAR) between (Ca2+ and
Mg2+) and Na+ as well as the amount of soluble salts
(EC) in the soil.
+ + +
++ ++ ++
++ ++ ++ ++ + + + +
EC Higher EC
Lower EC
Tip the scale this Dispersed
way and d you will
ill soil
il
flocculate the soil
Soil particles will flocculate if
concentrations
t ti (C 2+ + Mg
off (Ca M 2+) are
increased relative to the concentration of
Na+ (SAR is decreased).
EC
Flocculated Dispersed
soil
il soil
il
Soil particles will disperse if
concentrations of (Ca2+ + Mg2+) are
decreased relative to the
concentration of Na+ (SAR is
increased).
increased)
EC
Flocculated Dispersed
soil
il soil
il
Dispersed Clay Particles
Before rehabilitating the arboretum soils, the clay was collapsed, hard,
and sealed to percolation of water.
“Few things are harder to put up
with than the annoyance of a good
example”
Mark Twain
Flocculated Clay Particles
Arboretum soils today, showing the clay now aggregated and not sealed.
It’s Humic Acids chelating the flocculating cations that do this!
