Why CaTs Has Staying Power

“The way CaTs helps with salinity is by aggregating the soil,” says Cook, who has a master’s degree in soil and water science from the University of California, Riverside. “When applied through irrigation, it allows the water to infiltrate and move through the soil more efficiently. CaTs helps open the soil to move salt more effectively below the root zone.”

CaTs is 100% soluble and about 130 times more soluble than calcium sulfate (gypsum), which is also used to improve water infiltration, Cook adds, noting that thiosulfate in CaTs is the component that makes it more soluble.

Because CaTs is liquid, it gets in the root zone quicker, unlike an application of dry gypsum. “Plants drink their nutrients, they don’t chew them,” Cook says. “If you apply dry gypsum, the plant can’t access it until it goes into solution. When you have that calcium thiosulfate already in solution, the roots can access it immediately.”

Calcium and Sulfur: Important Nutrients

Getting into the roots quicker is also important when looking at CaTs from a calcium nutrition standpoint, Cook stresses. Crops require calcium during a certain time span – at the end of bloom and at early fruit set.

Calcium is a nutrient that shouldn’t be ignored, Cook says. “While it’s a secondary nutrient, it’s sometimes underappreciated,” he adds.

Growers can literally see when their crops are nitrogen or potassium deficient. But it’s difficult for them to see if their crops are calcium deficient until later, Cook explains.

For instance, calcium-deficient crops could end up suffering from shrink. But calcium helps build cell wall strength in plants, which prevents shrink from occurring, Cook notes, adding that calcium can also prevent disease from developing when crops are in storage.

In strawberries, for instance, calcium helps produce firmer berries, leading to longer shelf life, Cook says. Overall, calcium improves crop quality and leads to higher yields.

The sulfur in CaTs is also an important nutrient. While sulfur is classified as a secondary element along with magnesium and calcium, it is an es­sential nutrient and often called “the fourth major nutrient,” according to Crop Vitality. Sulfur isn’t available in the soil like it once was prior to the Clean Air Act, when it was deposited on the soil in the form of acid rain and through atmospheric deposition.

“Sulfur is definitely a nutrient growers need to consider,” Cook adds.