Understanding the Essential Role of Calcium in Enhancing Soil Structure and Plant Health

00:00:14 Calcium. The biggest problem with calcium is, is it does not play well with just about everything. Phosphorous especially. 00:00:21 So you gotta be really careful of the calcium source that you use and what you're trying to mix it with. So, uh, a lot of times, you know, a foliar calcium, uh, 00:00:30 in my opinion, probably needs to go out either by itself or choose a company that you can actually, 00:00:36 you know, that it's gonna blend with. Please jar, test it, guys. Uh, I've had, I've gone through this. Not a fun day. For me, 00:00:43 Calcium is just so important on many, many different aspects, whether it's keeping the, uh, you know, the strength and the stem, the cell walls, 00:00:53 and, uh, managing the water through it. And more so for us in the Carolina, especially as Piedmont area is our soils. 00:01:08 So calcium in a, in a, in a plant's life, it adds to cell wall, you know, cell structure. It adds, you know, some strength, some durability, right? 00:01:16 I'm out here in my environment, my calcium levels in my soul are very low, and I'm magnesium highs, right on my base saturations. 00:01:24 So the problem with calcium is, is it's such a a, it's, it's such a heavy charge. It basically will tie up a lot 00:01:31 of every other thing in, in your soul And our, our clay soils that our magnesium is very high on. 00:01:41 We have high, naturally high mag soils, and our calcium is low. And what you find is the ground gets very, very hard 00:01:52 when you get that scenario. And it's like bricks, Calcium adds porosity to your soil. So I've got more reaction from calcium by adding it 00:02:02 to my soil than adding it to my plant. Now, when my plants are deficient in calcium, I can add foliar fertility with calcium. 00:02:10 Um, and it does help, um, it's kind of a bandaid. It's not, I'm not gonna say it's a bandaid for a hatchet wound, but it helps move 00:02:18 the needle a little bit. But calcium and soil adds the porosity in the soil, and it will actually not only let more water flow, more 00:02:26 filtration of water go in it, it can actually hold on more water and, and help you so you don't dry out so easy. 00:02:43 This basically, when that calcium to mag ratio gets inverted in your mag tire than your calcium, your soils are extremely tight 00:02:52 and the water runs off more than it does soaking up when you get these big rains. 00:02:57 So it's very essential to understand what your calcium level and your magnesium level of your soil is so that you can get 00:03:07 that corrected, because it's very important in the plant. But there's so many things more to calcium, 00:03:13 that calcium helps do, and corn and soybeans both, if you can feed it into the soil, you can actually change your soil suck structure. 00:03:20 So how I look at it is two different ways. As a farmer, I will need to feed it from the bottom, and I'm gonna try to get some of it pulled up 00:03:26 through the roots, up through the plants. That's how casting wants to move. And then I try to accommodate the top 00:03:31 and try to put a little foliar nutrition of cow and try to meet everybody halfway. So I'm trying to build a better structure. 00:03:39 I'm not saying I'm trying, I'm out here on the East coast. I'm not trying to build a hurricane proof plant, 00:03:43 but it does definitely help, especially in soybeans where we have a, a tremendous amount of branching and there's branches break off this a, 00:03:51 is some structure to that plant. So it's been a big ch game changer in some of the high yielded soybeans that I've had, 00:03:58 and it's been a big game changer in my high yield and corn that had, We use a lot of gypsum in the soil to build 00:04:10 that calcium level as well as sulfur. And then we use what's cal citic lime that we get right off the Atlantic Ocean. 00:04:19 And, uh, South Carolina at Myrtle Beach, we get that lime and it's, it's this really good high calcium source. 00:04:26 Um, it helps build the pH of the soil up, which is very important. We always wanna maintain a 6.5 pH 00:04:34 that makes all nutrients available the most available that you can get in that 6.5 range. So don't forget your calcium, look after your soil first. 00:04:47 If you're already high in calcium in your soils, then your tissue samples will show you if you're deficient 00:04:54.195 --> 00:04:55.605