Calcium: The King of All Nutrients

The importance of Calcium can never be overstated, and yet it is one the last elements we consider when looking to improve our soil’s health. Ignoring Calcium, as part of any nutrient management plan, will have far-reaching consequences for all types of crops. Along with Boron and Phosphorus, Calcium plays a major role in cell development, right from germination, and is essential for the establishment and growth of plant roots.

Calcium is also key to vegetative growth potential, with well-supplied crops having the ability to produce far greater yields of biomass, which will have a vastly improved cell structure and will be less prone to lodging and bending. This improved cell structure also protects the plant from both disease & insect attack, reducing the need for chemical fungicides and insecticides.

A crop, fortified with Calcium, strengthens the whole plant, allowing for more efficient use of sunlight, carbon dioxide, water, nitrogen and other nutrients. And, with the Calcium to Magnesium ratio so important within both the plant and the soil, the challenge of Ireland’s high-Magnesium soils must surely make us look towards Calcium as the answer for tightly locked and poorly draining, Mag-heavy, ground.

Gypsum (Calcium Sulphate) is often suggested as the obvious response to excess Magnesium, but the reality is not quite so simple. While gypsum will indeed reduce the Magnesium levels, it will also reduce the pH, further locking up many of the essential nutrients within your soil. Instead, the application of Calcium Carbonate (in the form of ‘calcium lime’) will have the effect of both reducing the Magnesium, while also maintaining (or increasing) your soil’s pH.

G-Lime Granulated Lime is famously high in Calcium Carbonate (typically 97%), deriving from the world-renowned Ulster White Limestone found exclusively in North Antrim. It is made up of some of the finest ground limestone powder (99.7% of particles smaller than 125μm), bound into fertiliser-sized pellets with a delicate binder, capable of breaking down quickly on impact with moisture. It can therefore have a fast and effective impact on soil pH as well as reducing the negative effects of high Magnesium.

Managing and correcting potential imbalances of the soil’s cations (Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium and Sodium), as well as its overall chemistry, will help to improve its physical structure thus providing a vastly superior biological environment. It is the soil’s biological makeup that is so important for the successful management of any crop.

Understanding a soil’s Calcium level and its relationship to other major cations, and pretty much every other nutrient within the soil, is essential for plant and soil health and therefore should prompt all farmers and growers to carefully consider what type of analysis is carried out on their farm. The correct interpretation of a “broad spectrum” soil analysis will almost always lead to a necessity for lime, as the Calcium will both drive out much of the troublesome Magnesium and Potassium, while allowing vital nutrients, such as Boron, Phosphorus and Selenium to get through to the crop.

With Nitrogen fertilisers and organic manures leaching Calcium out of the topsoil year after year, it’s worth ensuring that Calcium becomes a natural part of your annual nutrient management plan. And what better way than with an annual dose of G-Lime, the fastest most-effective agricultural lime on the market.

For more information, or to discuss how you can apply a high-quality Granulated Lime every year for less than the historical 2 tonnes per acre of conventional limestone every 5 years (providing your pH is above 5.6), contact us HERE or call Jonny McKinney on 07841 341305.