CEC Cation Exchange Capacity

Not all soils are created equal if it weren't for chemistry, we wouldn't be able to grow many crops here.
It's like this, soils are composed of sand, silt, clay, and organic matter. Some have more sand and others
more clay. Each soil’s unique blend determines its color, texture, and storage capacity for nutritious
chemicals. Although incredibly small, nutrients still need their space and by space, we mean the area
surrounding the soil’s tiny particles. Keep in mind that surface area is not the same as particle size. For
example, clay particles are tiny compared to sand, but they have more than 1000 times as much
external surface area as the particles in an equal volume of sand.

However, if a nutrient just sits there unattached it will likely leech out from the soil and grains and will
not be available for plants. Remember that time when you rub the balloon on your friend’s hair and
stuck it to a wall? Well, a similar phenomenon occurs in the soil. Through their electrostatic energy,
nutrients cling to the clay particle surfaces. Nutrients like calcium, magnesium, potassium, and
ammonium are all positively charged chemicals or cations. And as it turns out, most clay particles and
organic matter in soil are negatively charged. So, many nutrients are positive, and particles are negative.
Perfect! In chemistry, as in romance, opposites attract. Good! No more leaching, but like the balloon on
the wall, the nutrients are only temporarily held. In fact, there's a shell of water molecules that form
around the cation. Preventing it from bonding permanently. This shell is often called the hydration
sphere, but that's a whole other topic. So, back cations. Basically, if a plant wants a nutritious cation like
potassium, it will need to exchange it for another cation or cation of equal charge. Luckily, plants
produce hydrogen cations that they can exchange. One hydrogen cation for one potassium cation. But
for nutrients with a positive charge of two like calcium, two hydrogen cations are needed. The higher
the positive charge, the harder it gets to exchange or trade cations. That's because a cation with a high
positive charge and small size is preferentially held by the soil over those with a lower charge or larger
size. Meaning that a large cation with a positive charge of one will be the first to be released. A divalent
cation having a charge of two will be released more easily that a cation with a positive charge of three.
Whether they are held tightly or not, the nutrients are available to the plant in exchange for other
cations. Not all nutrients are cations, however. Some are negatively charged compounds or anions. Since
anions like nitrate and sulfate have a negative charge, they are unable to attach themselves to
negatively charged particles, and as a result, leech out when watered. Of course, all soils are different.
There are soils in the tropics, for example, that have positively charged soil particles. And in that case,
it's the anions, not cations that are held temporarily and then exchanged with other anions. Most soils,
however, have negatively charged particles.

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(Electronegativity)

The more negatively charged the soil is and the more surface area a soil has, the more cation exchange
capacity it has. This is such an important factor for plant growth that scientists measure a soil cation
exchange capacity, CEC, to help farmers, determine how much and how often fertilization is needed.
That's because CEC is sort of like a cup size. Some soils are super-sized, but others have the kiddy cup.
Pouring too much will just cause a mess, but if you refill several times and still quench your thirst.
Farming in low CEC soils works almost the same way. Even though the soil has lower capacity, you can
fertilize more often using smaller amounts and the other plants will grow healthy and strong. It's a good
thing to do, otherwise, we'd have very little land to farm. So, the fact that farmers can grow crops
almost anywhere kind of seems like superhero powers, but really, it's just knowing about chemistry.