CHELATION!

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Hello there and welcome back to the podcast. I'm Dr.
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Russell Sharp and today's episode is a joint podcast where it will be on Hydroponics
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Daily and also Serial Killers, the podcast all about the pest,
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diseases and weeds of arable crops.
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So whether you're into soilless cultivation or you're growing crops in your
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field, this episode should be of interest to you.
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It's a podcast all about chelation of micronutrients
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and this is very important subject it's
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a subject that there's a lot of misinformation about and there's
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a lot of dodgy products out there both in
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what they claim to do and also their environmental sustainability and also there's
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some interesting news out of the utreema lab today which i am super excited
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about which i want to share with you hence the reason I've dreamt on a podcast
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rather than set about creating a slick marketing campaign to tell everyone about it.
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So first of all, let's talk about what chelation is.
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Chelation was discovered in about the 1920s, I believe.
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And chelation is Greek for claw,
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and it's a way of nutrients being
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held in solution by other
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molecules in special bonds called
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coordination bonds and a number of these around a central metal normally atom
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okay so that's what chelation is so the holding of nutrients in solution as
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opposed to just a normal salt going into solution so So take iron as a classic example.
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Iron sulfate would normally dissolve and the iron and the sulfate molecules
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would float around as they are.
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And then take iron EDTA, for example, the EDTA molecule binds the iron at numerous
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points holding it in solution.
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So the most frequently chelated nutrients are iron, manganese, zinc, copper.
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They are four micronutrients. And then calcium is sometimes chelated out of the macronutrients.
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Magnesium rarely, because it is fairly soluble across all ranges.
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Iron is by far the most sensitive to pH and oxidation, making iron chelates
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essential in most systems where you're using iron.
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The arable farmers on the serial killers podcast will
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say well we don't care about iron because we've got plenty of iron around but just
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bear in mind that iron is is probably the
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most commonly chelated in fertilizer because it
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goes on sports turf and lawns as well so loads
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of chelated iron and that's the reason they do that is that it's better solubility
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when mixed with other things and also it lasts longer in the soil it stays soluble
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for much longer because it's resistant to falling out precipitating it together
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in things like iron phosphate and things like this so widely used.
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And most chelations occur with, the most common one is EDTA,
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ethylenediamintetraacetic acid, easy for me to say, EDTA.
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And there are a number of different variants of EDTA.
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There's DTPA, eddha
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and heedta and they
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work at different ph ranges and they work
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better on certain nutrients so edta is
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great for iron zinc manganese and copper especially lower
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ph ranges so where sports for example that's
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a lower ph range tends to grow a lot lower ph
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dd dtpa that works
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around seven that's used for iron and slightly alkaline systems.
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So used a lot in aquatic systems
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aquariums and things like this for EDDHA that
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is used at pH 9 so used for
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iron in really hard water or high pH systems and
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then HEEDTA if
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you haven't lost you already used for niche formulations now
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other there are other chelates that are used especially
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in arable crops you will
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find mixtures of just sulfates with
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citric acid and then they've said or chelated
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with organic acid because they've added a bit of citric acid to bring
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the ph down to get the the nutrients into solution that's not
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proper chelation to get proper chelation with citric
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acid you need to form something like ferric ammonium
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citrate not just ferric citrate so be very aware there's a couple of companies
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out there just selling if you look on the safety data sheet you'll see a list
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of all the sulfates and then a bit of citric acid and then they're claiming
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chelation that's nonsense as far as i'm concerned and the arable farmers unless
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you want to be sold a pig in a poke always look out for that.
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And then you'll also find, what else will you find?
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You might find amino acid-based chelates, especially in arable farmers.
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But again, they chelate at a very low concentration.
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So all the nutrients will be at very low concentrations because amino acids
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can't get the nutrient content you can get with things like EDTA,
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but also things like ammonium citrate.
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So i used to work for a company that made lots and lots
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of iron ammonium citrates i know i know
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about that one it's a it's a good alternative to edta because
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there are disadvantages which i'm going
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to go on to so as i say nonchulated salts like
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ferrosulfate copper sulfate they can precipitate out
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of solution as the ph rises or when reacting with
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phosphates and so that's something you have to look out for
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and they stay dissolved and plants available
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even in tricky environments so they're really good for foliar application and
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they can extend the nutrients usable life especially in recirculatory systems
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in hydroponics so you've got to make sure you choose the right one though check
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your system now onto the drawbacks we said there's a lot of.
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Sulfate plus citric acid you know nonsense products out there on the market
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they're expensive so arable farmers won't tend to use edta products very often
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or similar products because they're not cost-effective compared to the sulfates.
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So when we've priced up chelates, we often miss out on a lot of arable crops if we have to use EDTA.
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There's an over-application risk because you keep the nutrient solutions for
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longer, there could be toxic buildup.
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But the main one is environmental persistence.
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Some chelates like EDTA don't break down easily in the
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environment and so they are
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non-classed as non-biodegradable and also
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there's a question mark over whether they actually
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release the nutrient to the plant when the plant wants
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them do they hold on to them too hard and can
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they once to release their nutrient absorb a heavy
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metal out of the soil and give it to
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the plant or to you human who's eating food that contains
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edta so and then
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they can so they could complex a metal
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unintentionally a heavy metal so there
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are disadvantages and then the one
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that we're excited about today at utreema is that we've created a alternative
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to the synthetic edta chelates for boron so boron is usually ethanol amine is
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is like a precursor to edta and it's used to chelate boron for cauliflowers,
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brassicas, oilseed rape.
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Things like this and so it's a synthetic non-biodegradable chelate it's used
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in all of the boron products that are chelated all the liquid boron products
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on the market and the is this boron ethanol amine product and we've got an alternative that uses natural.
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Source of chelation and it's a really high concentration as well and it's biodegradable
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but the beauty of it is is that it's optimized around ph 6.5 whereas all these
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other liquid products, they've got a pH well above 8,
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which means that it's not optimal for plant growth, and also it's non-systemic.
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And the problem with boron is, the reason you get boron deficiency is because
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it doesn't move in the phloem.
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It only moves in the xylem normally. Whereas we've created a natural mimic to
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the way boron moves around in rose plants, and rose plants don't get boron deficiency
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in their young growth because they can use this special natural chelation.
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So we've mimicked that and we will
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our product will be systemic in the xylem and the phloem which is fantastic
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so really excited to launch this product if i've ever talked to you about boron
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in the past get in contact with us now because this is something that's going
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to be massively utreema and we'll be including a lot of our products so it's
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higher solubility than boron,
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borax natural chelation it's different to the market because everything else
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is just boron ethanol amine.
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We're looking to see whether it can be organically certified.
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And it's unique to eutrema and pH optimized so we're really excited about that
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boron is a nutrient that is often overlooked but is essential for really good
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yield especially in brassicas so,
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yeah be careful so be on the lookout
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for that if anyone wants to trial it let me know because we'll be
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making loads of trial samples soon and we want to
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test it on brassicas so if you're going on brassicas let me
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know whilst we say be careful in your tank mixing
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even with even with chelates because they can
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fall out of solution we've you know edta is classed as
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being so stable at low
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phs but it's not when you get down below
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ph4 i think it's it
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crashes out and it really will block everything up it will turn the whole liquid
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into gunk i have done it on more than one occasion so i know that that is the
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case so yeah look at chelation if you're struggling with micronutrients and
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you're constantly getting micronutrient deficiencies in your crop.
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It doesn't have to be EDTA.
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There are natural alternatives that can chelate your micronutrients.
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Eutrema are experts at this. Basically, 90% of our portfolio that is unique
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is all about getting stuff that shouldn't be into solution, into solution.
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So whether that is phosphorus liberator, it's getting phosphorus into the solution
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whether it's gold leaf or liquid gold as it's called in the uk keeping calcium
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and phosphorus and iron from interacting negatively in a bottle.
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But if i said salicylic acid tricontinol getting tricontinol into solution.
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Loads of our portfolio is basically getting stuff
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into solution that shouldn't otherwise be possible ferric phosphate
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for our slugger product ferric phosphate is normally not soluble
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when you tell fertilizer companies that we've got a ferric
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phosphate liquid they're like what because they know it should
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be impossible so that's what we do
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at utrema we've got we've got novel technology novel chemistry that
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we don't talk about we don't patent it because it's all know-how so
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if you're interested in looking at more natural chelation then
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get in touch with us and or just check out the utrema
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portfolio because it's all a lot of the technology
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is already commercialized it's just this boron one that's not so
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be really interested to anyone who's interested in natural
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chelation get in touch if you have been
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shared this podcast because you're into chelation then you
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are the person who shared it with you a nice cold drink and also
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if you could share this podcast by just taking a screenshot of your podcast
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provider and then post it on social media and say this podcast episode was amazing
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you've got to check it out that would mean the world to me so whether you're
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listening on serial killers or hydroponics daily that would mean a lot we also
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have a third podcast that i'm going to start doing called,
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grass me up which is all about lawns and sports turf however this podcast episode is not as.
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Relevant because yes iron edta is is a big an
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iron citrate and iron sorry iron
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ammonium citrate they're big all the other micronutrients especially
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boron boron's not used so much in in sports turf
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and and lawn care so i didn't want to do that one as well so
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thank you very much for listening i'm just waffling now until tomorrow
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if it's hydroponics daily goodbye and if it's serial
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killers it's once in a blue moon i'm afraid until we get josie back she she's
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available so we should be doing some more podcasts soon just once the diggers
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go away from outside our office and we can record in peace that's when we'll
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be doing the next episode thank you very much for listening until next time goodbye.