Secondary Nutrients and Micronutrients
“A nutritionally-balanced crop is much better able to withstand stresses put upon it by adverse growing conditions (cold or hot, dark or bright, wet or dry, etc., weather).”
– Noel Garcia, CCA, Technical Director, Texas Plant & Soil Lab
What is a chelate?
A chelate is a complex organic molecule that surrounds the nutrient ion. Chelates are used as carriers for micronutrients, to keep them in solution and protect them from reactions that cause the micronutrient to become insoluble and unavailable to the plant. Chelation allows nutrients to remain available to the plant even if environmental conditions are less than optimal. There are many forms of chelates that can be used, ranging from EDTA, citric acid, amino acids, and organic acids.
THE EDTA DIFFERENCE
Unlike other micronutrient sources such as -complexes, partial chelates, and natural organic complexes, EDTA chelated micronutrients are 100% available to the crop. Other micro sources contain too little complexing agent and undergo major chemical changes, delivering significantly less micronutrient in a form available for plant uptake. While these sources of micros may offer cost savings at first, they can actually create deficiencies for lack of nutrient availability.
EDTA fully chelated micronutrients are specifically formulated to prevent nutrient tie up.
With the EDTA chelating process, a ring-like structure is placed around the micronutrient, protecting it from being tied up with the soil or other nutrients, thus ultimate nutrient availability to the plant is assured, and deficiencies can be corrected.
ALPINE® 100% EDTA CHELATES
Other manufacturers do not offer EDTA chelates or use a percentage of EDTA and some other chelating agent. ALPINE micronutrients are fully chelated and can be applied to soil at planting time or foliar spray applied directly to the plant. The stability of ALPINE chelated micronutrients makes them compatible with most pesticides and won’t settle out or react with other components in ALPINE liquid fertilizers. ALPINE 100% EDTA chelated micronutrients include: calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, and zinc.
