For what reason would you use Zeolites as a soil amendment? Possibly as a means of absorbing some contaminants but not to replace organic matter.

He would use it because the Dirt Doctor, Howard Garrett from Dallas, promotes the heck out of it in his weekly radio shows.

I do have some experience with zeolite. I also happen to be the lawn forum moderator on Howard's website. During one discussion quite awhile ago, we discussed zeolites. I mentioned that I used the HEB grocery store brand of Hill Country Fair Traditional Kitty Litter, which is 100% zeolite. Then the zeolite know-it-all came on and said, "Oh NO! You need to use this other kind of zeolite." And that zeolite is only sold at these few stores in the Dallas area. Over time it has come to light that the HEB kitty litter comes from exactly the same hole in the ground in Tilden, Texas where the "right" zeolite comes from - the one that the k-i-a guy was recommending. So there you have it. You can find the "right" zeolite at every HEB in Texas. It is literally dirt cheap in the ugly blue bag.

So about my experience with it. I had a root that bulged up from a washout spot in my front lawn. Mower bumped across it every week and was driving me crazy. Had I used sand to fill the low spot, the mower would have just pushed the sand away. So I used this chunky, zeolite kitty litter. I used an entire bag of it in that one spot and sort of smoothed it out. It smothered the St Augustine so I pulled some strands out to keep it from all dying in there. The kitty litter worked perfectly in that spot and you'd never know there was a root there.

What effect has the kitty litter had in that one spot? Nuthin! Nil. Nada. No effect. You cannot find that spot to save your life. It is just as if the zeolite was not there. If 20 pounds of zeolite in a 4 square foot area is not enough to have an effect, then that product does not work for that.

Garrett's theory is that zeolite is filled with pores that will hold nutrients and give them up to the grass later. Well I don't see any effect at all. His other argument is that it will act like a filter to filter out impurities of some sort. Again, I don't think so.

plenty of reasons to use it.. sorry to bump this old thread.. but you need to find feed grade zeolite, not the kitty litter stuff. might as well use perlite as the kitty litter.

This is what you should look for. I actually have a mine close to my house that i can buy from here in eastern oregon but there are plenty of places to order it from online although the shipping cost makes it a bit over priced... i get an 80 Lb bag for 13$...

â¢Helps Hold and Slowly Release Valuable Plant Nutrients
â¢Reduces Nutrient Leaching
â¢Improves Aeration of the Soil and Minimizes Compaction
â¢Helps Reduce Watering by Retaining Soil Moisture
â¢Improves Strong Root Development
â¢Supports Beneficial Microbe Activity in the Soil

Here is a link that might be useful: ZEOMAX Turf Aid

This post was edited by G.Gnome on Fri, Mar 22, 13 at 18:48

I have been to places where there is a lot of volcanic rock and also places where shale is and nothing grows in either of them until there is an accumulation of organic matter.
Why would adding a mineral substance to the mineral soil you already have make that soil better?

I believe kimmsr, has a point.
Just as with charcoal, those pores that fill up with nutrients in order to release later, need to have OM to work with, in the first place. Microbes live in the pores of charcoal and nutrients adsorb to the walls of those pores,yet the OM needs to be the fuel that keeps the operation, operating.

But assuming there is already organic matter in the garden soil, then you would expect zeolite to do the things it does. I will not go so far as to confirm that they do what G.Gnome says. The name of the company that provides the zeolite to HEB (mentioned in my earlier post) is Zeotech, the makers of Zeomax. Their mine is in Tilden, TX. It is the same stuff you can buy for a lot more under other labels. The kitty litter is very dusty stuff. The dust is probably as good for the soil as the bits and pieces of zeolite. I still maintain it has no effect. You cannot tell where I poured 20 pounds of it.

The people that are in the business of selling any given product will tell you that this product is the greatest thing since sliced bread, so they should be the last people to quote about whether any product is good, bad, or indifferent.
Some of the independant research I have seen about these products tells me that if a large enough quantity is added to a soil with adequate amounts of organic matter, there might be a small increase in yield with little difference seen in plant health. If these types of products are added to soils without adequate levels of organic matter little difference in yields has been seen.

I first became interested in zeolite after the Fukushima disaster and hearing how much of the radiation is already reaching the west coast via rain fall. It's traditionally been used to help clean up toxic waste sites due to its molecular structures ability to trap heavy metals and other unwanted positively charged particles..then we come to its uses as a human detox supplement for this same property. So after reading about the science behind this, I became very interested. It's really easy to poo poo on somes one's marketing, I get that, people are skeptical of things they don't understand and think someone is just trying to sell them something.but I highly suggest you all read more about it and give it a try. Even if it doesn't give you a crazy yield increase, which I've never heard anyone claim by the way, that's not the point, cleaner food with less heavy metal contamination is the main impetus.. All the other benefits are just icing.

I am still experimenting myself and will follow up after this next harvest.

http://www.chemistryexplained.com/Va-Z/Zeolites.html#b
http://sciencenetlinks.com/science-news/science-updates/zeolites/
http://www.bza.org/zeolites.html

I just realized that this thread is in "organic lawn care"... So my apologies for that. I doubt you all are eating your grass...

I take offense that you think Americans are so petty as to react to a knowledgeable foriegner. :)
You echoed what I was thinking about the stuff. Well written.

Natural zeolite's primary benefit is to improve soil fertility through improving the nutrient holding capacity. The other benefits while real are of secondary importance. Peer reviewed research available on the web do a pretty good job of documenting what natural zeolite can and cannot do.

First, natural zeolite cannot improve plant growth if the soil, environmental, and management conditions are perfect or if a good or poor natural zeolite is used improperly. Zeolite cannot improve the genetic potential of the plant.

A good natural zeolite will have a high cation exchange capacity (CEC) to act as a reservoir or buffer for the ammonium and potassium in the soil. A soils lab can measure your CEC for about $30. This reservoir will hold and release these and other nutrients in the root zone thereby reducing leaching or run off of these nutrient.

Also, a good natural zeolite will have low clay. It is not unusual of the cat litter grades of natural zeolites to clump or form mud balls - good for a cat litter, but bad for a soil amendment.

Organic matter, vegetative waste, will improve a soils ability to hold both moisture and nutrients and will provide a food source for the Soil food Web that will feed the plants growing in that soil, and much of the vegetative waste can be had for free while Zeolite will cost you some of your hard earned dollars.
Why would anyone spend money on something that is of very littel real value to the Soil Food Web when what is of real value is readily available and free?

I am late with commenting but just found this discussion. It has been interesting and I appreciate the info. I started looking into using zeolite in the organic garden because of some research I'd read about from a professor at Cambridge University, Dr. Peter Leggo. His works involves using zeolite and organic matter to produce crops in contaminated or poor soil. The following is from Dr. Leggo's bio at Cambridge. It is a very good explanation of how zeolite functions. In response to the question of why anyone would or should buy/use zeolite, I'd quickly say to reduce use of fertilizer or amendments (very expensive for quality ones) and especially to reduce the amount of water necessary for growing since zeolite acts to retain water in its air pockets. Even for areas where water isn't scarce, you should consider it would require less labor and money to water/amend. I live in the desert so water retention and reduction of salt buildup in the soil is very important to me.

http://www.esc.cam.ac.uk/people/research-staff/peter-leggo

Research: Stimulation of Nitrifying Micro-organisms by an Organo-Zeolitic Soil Amendment and its Effect on Plant Uptake of Nutrients

A mixture of organic waste and crushed zeolitic tuff when added to soil will boost the population of nitrifying micro-organisms to a high level. The resulting nitrification provides a source of nitrogen, in the form of nitrate, together with a supply of protons which dissociate cations from the soil particulate matter. Phosphorus present in the organic waste is available for plant uptake together with potassium and other elements essential for plant nutrition. The organo-zeolitic-soil system acts biologically to supply plant nutrients, provided air and water are present, and in this respect functions differently to inorganic fertilizers that are currently used to enhance plant growth. The dynamics of the biological fertilizer is controlled by the rate of nitrification and plants growing in such an amended soil environment balance the uptake of nutrient ions to maximise growth. This behaviour has been demonstrated in experiments covering a variety of higher plants grown in both normal and contaminated soils.

Most everything I find on the use of Zeolites as soil amendments is by those with a vested interest in selling the product. Most of the research on use of Zeolite indicates that in soils lacking adequate levels of organic matter they can be beneficial and in soils contaminated with toxins they are useful.
However, I can find nothing that tells me that in soils with adequate levels of organic matter adding Zeolite actually does much to make that soil any better then the organic matter.

It was recommended I use Sweet PDZ for my chickens to absorb waste and to keep the ammonia smell at bay. When I looked at the ingredients, it's just zeolite. Much finer than the kitty liter. Since we live in a very hot area I'm going experiment with it in containers.

Shanna - I use Sweet PDZ in my chicken coop. I have a 'poop board' under their roost that catches all of their droppings at night. I put a 1-2" layer of PDZ on the poop board and it does a great job of deodorizing the manure/ammonia. I just use a kitty liter scoop every few days to clean the manure out. Some of the PDZ sticks to the manure so when I put the manure into the compost I get the added benefit of zeolite in my compost and eventually the garden.

I'm interested in using zeolite in raised beds for its water holding capacity. Trying yo determine how much to use for a given volume of soil. For pearlite Its recommended to use at 1/3 of the mix but I think zeolite requirement would be a lot less. I saw somewhere to use 50 pounds for 1000 sq ft of garden worked in to 6 or 8 inches. Anybody know the answer or have thoughts on this?

Is your soil pretty sandy rojos? I did a google search and I think you are pretty close on the application rate. The link below states 30 to 60 lbs. per 1000 sq. ft.

Zeolite application as soil amendment

My soil is not sandy. In fact, I added the zeolite to raised beds which have mixed peat moss, tree leaves and Black Kow composted cow manure in approximately equal proportions. The first time I watered it the water went through to the bottom quite quickly. After adding the zeolite it seemed to retain water much better. I used 50 pounds in each 640 square foot bed.

Sounds like it worked! I have about 700 sq. ft. total between my 20 raised garden beds. I think over the 5 years that I have used Sweet PDZ in my chicken coop I have gone thru at least a couple hundred pounds much of which eventually finds it's way into my garden via composting. My soil drains well but also retains water well.

That's good to hear. I'm just about to start planting greens in my beds. As an interesting sidenote, the zeolite I'm using is mined about 40 miles from where I live in southern New Mexico and shipped to Spokane, Washington (which is where I am originally from) and packaged as Sweet PDZ and made available at Tractor Supply stores where I buy it here. It had go go a long way to get to where I could buy it.

That's interesting rojos...too bad you can't just go buy a truckload from the mine! I sometimes buy mine from TSC but I can get a 40 lb. bag from Missouri Farm Association for $15 which is a little better price than $10 for 25 lb. at TSC.

Right, LoneJack. I called the mine and they only sell large lots wholesale. Oh well, I got it at not too bad a price I'm thinking, compared to lots of other things. Thanks for your interest.