• Facebook
712-433-0000 • Toll Free 877-474-SOIL
Soil Solutions LLC
  • About
  • Products
    • PRO CAL 40
    • NatureGro
    • Nutra Bio
    • NatureGro(C)
  • Services
    • Maximum Farming System
    • Field Application
  • Resources
    • Crop Response
      Case Studies
    • Reports & Links
    • From Our Desk
    • Newsletter
    • Blog
  • Contact
  • Menu Menu
You are here: Home1 / Blog2 / General3 / Why Gypsum Works in Your Soils: Part 4. Gypsum offsets high magnesium in...
Printer Friendly Printer Friendly

Why Gypsum Works in Your Soils: Part 4. Gypsum offsets high magnesium in soils

October 23, 2015

1In the past and in many “Soils” books magnesium and calcium were put in the same category concerning effects on soil physical properties.  The reasoning was that they both had two positive charges.  In recent years, these ideas have changed.  Magnesium has a greater attraction for water and thus has a larger hydrated radius than calcium.  This causes soil particles to remain farther apart and more dispersed.  For this reason soils with higher magnesium contents have less water stable aggregates and less pore integrity.  These soils usually are stickier and remain wetter and saturated longer.   If saturated, root growth is diminished significantly.

 

What does this mean for you, the farmer?  These soils with high magnesium remain wetter and colder in the spring and timing of field operations are more difficult.  Sidewall compaction is more common in these soils since they tend to “slick off” with any sheering. The picture above shows a soil with a magnesium content greater than 25% and a CEC greater than 30.  Notice the poor soil structure and how compact the soil is (less soil porosity).  By increasing the calcium concentration relative to the magnesium, you can change the properties of these soils greatly.  If the pH is low, you can increase the calcium concentration relative to magnesium by adding high calcium lime.  If the pH is 6.0 or above an effective means of increasing calcium relative to magnesium is adding gypsum.  Gypsum is more water soluble than lime at a pH above 6.0 and will give you a faster response.  With gypsum the calcium will replace the magnesium on the soil particle and the magnesium will react with the sulfate to form Epsom salt and will be leached deeper into the profile or removed with drainage water.   This means that you can be more timely with your field operations.

 

This year we had several farmers observe that they were able to plant the fields where they had a2pplied the gypsum, but were not able to in the fields where no gypsum was applied since those fields were too wet.  The field to the left shows the difference where gypsum was applied vs. no gypsum on the amount of water standing after a rain.

 

Nitrogen efficiency is decreased in soils with higher magnesium since the soils often times lack oxygen and soil nitrogen is denitrified or lost.  Also since microbial activity isn’t as great when oxygen is depleted there isn’t as much organic nitrogen released to the growing crop.  Refer back to the blog on calcium and having a good balance between nutrients to understand why an imbalance of calcium and magnesium is detrimental.

 

In fields where gypsum has been applied tillage operations require less horsepower since they are not a sticky and do not pull as hard.  When installing drainage tiles in fields where gypsum has been applied, a tile plow will pull much easier.

 

In summary, gypsum is a good source of water soluble calcium as was highlighted in a previous blog.  This calcium will displace magnesium on the soil particle increasing calcium base saturation.  This will improve soil physical properties.  As the magnesium is displaced, it will react with the sulfate ion and will leach deeper into the profile or be removed with drainage water.

Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on X
  • Share on WhatsApp
  • Share on Pinterest
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Share on Reddit
  • Share by Mail
https://soilsolutions.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/2.png 360 480 Andrea Meyer https://soilsolutions.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/logo.png Andrea Meyer2015-10-23 09:40:582017-01-06 11:47:22Why Gypsum Works in Your Soils: Part 4. Gypsum offsets high magnesium in soils
Printer Friendly Printer Friendly

Recent Posts

  • Why is Gypsum Critically Important When Tiling Saline Sodic Soils?
  • Protect Your Plants—Get a Great Start To a High Yield Finish
  • Merry Christmas!
  • What Caused my Yield Variations in 2020?
  • Procidic Gives Yield Responses In Corn Even When Disease Presence is Low
Mascotte
Soil Solutions, LLC

2120 Pearl Street|Onawa, IA 51040|Phone: 712-433-0000|Toll Free: 877-474-SOIL| Email: andrea@soilsolutions.net

© 2025 Soil Solutions, LLC.  All Rights Reserved. | Privacy Policy

Website by: Heartland Internet Solutions

Why Gypsum Works in Your Soil: Part 3 Gypsum Improves Alkali soilsWhy Gypsum Works in Your Soil: Part 5 Helps Amend High Aluminum Low pH Subs...
Scroll to top

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

OKLearn More

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Privacy Policy

You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

Privacy Policy
Accept settingsHide notification only