Gardening Articles: Care :: Soil, Water, & Fertilizer Improving
Soil With Gypsum by Garn Wallace with Shelly Stiles Gypsum is
one of the best sources of calcium, the most important of the
secondary plant nutrients. But calcium is more than a nutrient.
It is the major balancing element in plants and soils. It
protects, within limits, from nutrient excess and deficiency,
problems caused by both high and low pH and heavy metal
contamination. Along with organic matter, calcium improves soil
structure. Gypsum as Fertilizer Pure gypsum is 23 percent
calcium and 19 percent sulfate (CaSO4-2H2O). In the hierarchy of
the 16 essential plant nutrients that begins with non-minerals
hydrogen, oxygen and carbon, calcium is seventh and sulfur is
ninth. Calcium is the plant nutrient most likely to be
unavailable to roots when needed. An essential nutrient itself,
calcium also improves root uptake of other plant nutrients,
especially ammonium nitrogen. Calcium does not move from old to
new plant tissues, so a constant supply o