What is SoilTech?
SoilTech is an environmentally-friendly, liquid mixture consisting of 11 different polymers. In scientific terms, this complicated mixture is very large, with a combined molecular weight of over 20,000. Because of this mixture’s high molecular weight, it’s very, very stable. One of the polymers in SoilTech is hydrophilic, which means it’s attracted to water. Two of the polymers are strongly hydrophobic—they avoid water. The other 8 polymers are negatively charged.
SoilTech is also amphoteric, which means it’s both positively and negatively charged, functioning as both an acid and a base, although it’s mostly negatively-charged. It is also a polyelectrolyte – an electrolyte is a non-metallic electric conductor in which current is carried by the movement of ions. A polyelectrolyte is simply an electrolyte of high molecular weight.
There is a VAST difference between SoilTech and other products on the market that claim to “aerate” - these liquids are usually surfactants, polyacrylamides, penetrants, or wetting agents. If you have used any of those products before and found the results less than stellar, please don’t let that keep you from trying SoilTech. SoilTech is completely different.
Polymer definition: many segments; a naturally occurring or synthetic compound consisting of large molecules made up of a linked series of repeated, simple monomers; consisting of repeating structural units. Monomer definition: one part or segment; a molecule that can combine with others to form a polymer.
Molecular weight definition: the sum of the atomic weight of all the atoms in a molecule. Atomic weight definition: the average mass of an atom of an element (i.e. oxygen’s atomic weight is about 16; carbon’s is 12; nitrogen’s is 14, sodium’s is 23, etc.)
How does SoilTech work?
Two things happen when you mix SoilTech with water and spray it on your turf. The tightly-coiled polymers expand. The hydrophobic polymers run from the water, but the hydrophilic polymer is well-attached, so it gets dragged along. The positive and negative charges push and pull each other, kind of like 2 magnets with the wrong ends pointed at each other. The hydrophobic quality works with gravity, moving, stopping, moving, stopping, through the soil, opening up pathways. The negatively-charged polymers are responsible for the clumping of the soil into larger clumps, making large particles rather than small particles, changing the structure of the soil. Humic acid alone will aggregate soil, but SoilTech does it on a much, much larger scale, because so many molecules are strung together to create one very large polymer.
Because of SoilTech’s stability (remember, it has a very large molecular weight) it lasts a long, long time, usually about a year, dependent on variables like weather. Other liquid “aeration” products have a very short life compared to SoilTech.
The other result of spraying SoilTech on your turf is that, due to its electrical charge, SoilTech is able to grab onto the sodium in the soil, removing it to a lower level in a process similar to chelation. The sodium is taken out of the root zone area. Excess sodium in soil (usually from a water source) can be a disaster for the plants growing in the soil. Sodium carries a positive charge, while clay is negatively charged. The result is that the sodium smashes the clay together, resulting in compacted soil – very difficult for roots to grow through. Moreover, and equally important, is the fact that sodium occupies exchange sites that would normally be occupied by calcium, magnesium and potassium - sodium virtually competes with these nutrients to be taken up by the plants. When the sodium is removed, the plants can then more easily take up the nutrients they need to be healthy.
And since SoilTech is a liquid, it covers every inch of your turf or soil. Using a mechanical aerator on your turf, or adding gypsum to your soil cannot affect every inch of it like a liquid can.
SoilTech is completely safe and environmentally-friendly. It’s safe for all plants and compatible with just about any material that is normally applied to turf. It’s also not only safe but very beneficial to use in fertigation systems, as it cleans the sodium out of them.
If you have any questions about SoilTech’s properties or how it works, please feel free to call Eric Mosley at 1-877-288-7511. We welcome all questions, no matter how technical, and we can even put you in touch with the soil biologist who invented SoilTech.