Yo DGC,
Does anyone have experience with using Calcium Lactate? I normally use Calcium Nitrate to correct calcium or nitrogen deficiency, and it works very very well. I would like to have the freedom to use a soluble, fast-acting, calcium fertilizer without the addition of nitrogen.
In my own experimentation, using 1 tsp per gallon calcium lactate powder will give approximately 100 ppm of elemental calcium. However, it seems that the nutrient solution has trouble saturating the media with the calcium lactate addition. Also, the plants don’t seem to assimilate it as easily as calcium nitrate.
I’m using my own home-cooked organic soil that is coco based (1/3 coco, 1/3 compost, 1/3 rice hulls, with amendments). I add soluble fertilizer when my plants need it. My pot size isn’t large enough to go pure-organic, which would be ideal – but that’s not my current situation.
Respectfully,
Beast in the East
Curious to see where you came across this form of calcium. It is a somewhat complex additive. There is an L form and a D form. Much like amino acids, plants can only uptake the L form so first off you need to see what your working with. Most seem to be a mixture of both L and D but they show the D form creating a bond with L form and in turn locked up the usable form. Also it states the solubility increases with temperature like most things but the increase in temperature leads to fewer available calcium ions. The thing we want from the additive. Real crappy, but they suggest using a gluconic acid which is an oxidized or fermented sugar molecule, glucose. Naturally produced in fruit and honey and it is a good chelator for calcium, iron and other metals. Not really sure how your going to source all of this but it seems like it will work. Im interested in the acidity regulator factor of the calcium lactate raising ph too much. I currently use calcium carbonate chelated in amino acids a omri biomin product. But it will raise the ph to 8 when I add too much, but it really doesn’t hurt my plants. Truly enjoying diving into these eye opening topics. Stay irie
Yo JustCoolin! I was searching around for “calcium salts”. It seems like my choices for adding calcium are limited to calcium nitrate or calcium chloride. I’m not cool with adding chloride to my soil because it’s not needed in those quantities by my plants – never got a chloride deficiency, you know?
So I was searching around and saw the calcium lactate, which is the “L” version instead of the “D” version. I purchased it from a company called “bulk supplements”. This was pretty expensive for an agricultural amendment, so it’s not appropriate for a farm-scale application, but for my few pots under one light it’s just fine for the price – even cheaper than brand name fertilizer. I recall an episode of “The Potcast” where a breeder was using calcium lactate in living soil and seemed to be happy with the result.
I was also considering calcium citrate as an alternative. I was searching for the ingredients used in Grow More brand “Flowering Cal-Mag” but I can’t find any info. Could be that it’s just calcium chloride.
Since you mentioned pH. I had done a little test. Took a gallon of pH 6.4 water, which was from my regular reservoir. Added the 1 tsp calcium lactate, then read the pH to be 6.0. I only tested it once, and so it’s not good science at this point, since the outcome was not proven to be repeatable, but that’s interesting to mention I think.
Interesting you should mention the temperature range for solubility, that was a major point for me as well! But also I was thinking there could be some micro-biological nature to the benefits as well. For instance, maybe the microbes can easily process calcium lactate. But then, what is lactate? And do microbes like to eat it? So many questions that I don’t think the common grow-knowledge can answer at this point.
Can you speak a bit on the chelated calcium carbonate? Really interested in your source for this, or your process if you chelate while mixing? Also curious what media you’re growing in.
I searched the flowering calmg safety data sheet. The only way to find out what’s really in a bottle. Only if it’s not proprietary. It ended up being calcium glycerophosphate and another form calcium glucoheptonate
Good find. That’s an interesting ingredient list. It seems like both are used for human consumption. The first of which as an antacid product called Prelief.
Oops didn’t mean to finish posting. So that looks like a chemist had fun. Not sure about those sources. The calcium carbonate is just limestone, but the product i use is chelated with vegetable amino acids which gives a nitrogen value of 1 and calcium level 5. The amino acids have a nitrogen molecule in the mix with carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. Biomin safergro is an omri listed brand. I know you didn’t want nitrogen but you could use an un chelated version just limestone. Also gypsum is similar in an addition but its combined with sulphur and it lowers ph. I use a similar amended coco, perlite, peat, ewc and some other beneficials. Also i run hybrid aero/dwc just to keep me busy. Really just look at your ph and depending if your usually adjusting up or down then the appropriate calcium source is applicable. There are known microbes to break down the D lactate form but I’m not sure they are manufactured yet. The lactate is simply hydrogen and oxygen no real microbe nutrients there and carbonate is carbon and oxygen. Both fairly inert as far as growing goes. I found a calcium gluconate which looks readily available and used in tissue culturing but must be pretty expensive, mostly used in medicine. Happy growing and keep trying new things. Stay irie
I have a bottle of the growmore flowering cal-mg right here and it says, “Derived from calcium citrate, calcium Gluchoheptonate, calcium carbonate, and calcium Acetate..” it also has a bunch of things they derived the mg from. Hope that helps.