Lime alternative???

[John-W-WI]

I keep seeing this ad on Craigslist, I can't believe it's the answer to soil PH.

Does anyone know what they are talking about?

Here is the direct link:
https://eauclaire.craigslist.org/grq/5836496212.html

It won't last, so here is a screen shot too:


Thoughts?

-John

 

[yoderjac]

John,

I think there is a thread on here discussing this. It was discussed heavily on the other site. The consensus of the soil science guys was that it was just another magic bean product. I probably couldn't do the soil chemistry discussion justice like some of the soil science guys.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[MoBuckChaser]

Anything with the words "Bio and Liquid" in the title, in the farming world, translates into "Snake Oil", "Lose Money", "Sucker Born"..........

You get the drift!

 

[tooln]

pstt hey buddy have I got a deal for you.

Run from it as fast as you can.

 

[MoBuckChaser]

Liquid Lime
What is liquid lime? It is simply a liming product that is dissolved in water. It is typically a high-quality lime with small particle size that dissolves easily in water. Liquid lime usually has a high relative neutralizing value (RNV) so it can quickly modify soil pH (for more information on RNV check out University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension ID-163).

However, since lime is dissolved in water, it typically consists of approximately 50% lime and 50% water by weight. Therefore, per ton of liquid lime applied, you would only be getting ½ ton of lime. If you needed 2 tons per acre of 100% effective lime you would probably need to apply over 4 tons per acre of the liquid lime — well in excess of 700 gallons per acre. That’s a lot of liquid to apply in one application, so you'd probably have to make multiple applications throughout the year to get the amount of effective lime on the field recommended by your soil test.

Liquid lime is an actual product with some distinct advantages (fast acting) and distinct disadvantages (takes a lot of material to get the amount of carbonates required). However, CaCl2 is not liquid lime and has no liming ability. When researching the product being marketed in Kentucky that the farmers were referring to as liquid lime, the product website says "liquid calcium presents growers with an alternative solution to lime applications." The website also states that “Calcium neutralizes soil acidity.” This is simply not true, because as shown in Equations 1 and 2, it’s not the metal (calcium or magnesium) in lime that reduces the H+ activity, but the associated anion.

The other sales pitch made was the need for available calcium, an essential plant nutrient. The marketing materials implied that CaCl2 provides calcium you are not getting from your lime, saying “ag lime tends to be insoluble and can take years to break down and show its effectiveness.” It is true that limestone can be moderately soluble, but the finer particles in limestone are soluble and provide available calcium fairly quickly.

 

[wiscwhip]

What you see in the OP above is an extremely expensive, short term alternative to actual ag lime application. It MAY give you a quicker response, but it is also a very, very short lived and overall expensive solution to a problem that nothing more than a good quality soil test, the application of proper amounts of ag lime, and time will take care of the "right" way. 2 gallons of liquid lime cannot contain any more than 2 gallons of Ca(with the water to hold it in suspension, it obviously would be much less than the whole of the 2 gallons, but you get my meaning), as no one has yet come up with a method to stuff 10 gallons of $h!t in a 5 gallon bucket. When your soil test calls for 2 tons of lime, you must put on the equivalent of 2 tons of lime and you can't get that in 2 gallons of anything. Not to mention the fact that you might be paying for all those micronutrients that your soil may or may not need, no way to know any of that unless you have micros included in your soil testing and most guys don't do that for food plot purposes. If you did, and you needed to add the micros, you would have an accurate amount of each to add, and would not be paying for extra stuff you do not need. Also take into consideration that most micro recommendations are a few pounds(or more) per acre. How many pounds of each of those "52 micronutrients" do you think are in 1 gallon of that liquid? We all know that water is around 8.3 lbs/gal, milk is more dense at about 8.6 lbs/gal, and gas is less dense at about 6.3. That said, to get any appreciable, useful amounts of micronutrients in that gallon jug, it would have to weigh somewhere in the range of 100+ lbs. A gallon of mercury weighs around 113 lbs, I doubt this is anywhere close to that.

 

[Maddog3355]

I know a guy that sells liquid fertilizer and used to spread liquid lime. His sales pitch was that it worked quicker. I was at his place one day and he was trying to clean the above ground tank that had held the liquid lime. The lime had settled and was solid lime 6 ft. It was a mess trying to get that out of there.

 

[John-W-WI]

Thanks for the replies. I figured it was too good to be true!

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