Dick - Gypsum as a Soil Amendment

OHIO AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT CENTER
Gypsum as a Soil Amendment and
Potential for Water Quality
Benefits: Ohio Case Stury
Warren A. Dick
The Ohio State University
dick.5@osu.edu

2
What is Gypsum?
Gypsum is a very soft mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the
chemical formula CaSO4·2H2O. The word gypsum is derived from a Greek word
meaning "chalk" or "plaster". Gypsum is moderately water-soluble. The source of
gypsum is both mined and synthetic.
Gypsum from New South
Wales, Australia
Gypsum Powder

3
Early History
Benjamin Franklin
“This hill has been
land plastered”

4
Early History
Dr. William Crocker - History of the
Use of Agricultural Gypsum. 1922.
Gypsum Industries Association,
Chicago, IL (p. 7-36)
I. The Early Use of Gypsum as a
Fertilizer
II. Recent Studies on the Function
and Quantity of Calcium and Sulphur
in Crops and and the Supply of
Sulphur in our Agricultural Soils.
III. Calcium in the Nutrition of Plants

5
Early History
History of the Use of Agricultural
Gypsum. 1922. Gypsum Industries
Association, Chicago, IL (p. 7-36)
IV. Gypsum as a Stimulant
V. Gypsum as Specific for Black Alkali
VI. Gypsum as a Preserver of
Manure
VII. Effect of Gypsum on the Nitrogen
Available for Crops
VIII. Gypsum Not a Substitute for
Agricultural Lime

6
History of Gypsum in Agriculture
Gypsum as a Preserver of Nitrogen – In pioneering
work by Heiden:
“Gypsum has great power in preserving the volatile nature of
manure. It does this in large part by transforming the volatile
ammonium carbonate into the non-volatile ammonium sulfate
with the formation of calcium carbonate.”
Further work on this topic was done by Ames and Richmond at
The Ohio State Agricultural Experiment Station (Soil Science,
4:78-89, 1917). Using gypsum to preserve nitrogen for a 20 cow
herd could provide $152 benefit in one year.

7
Relative Numbers of Atoms
Required by Plants
Mo 1
Cu 100
Zn 300
Mn 1,000
B 2,000
Fe 2,000
Cl 3,000
S 30,000
P 60,000
Mg 80,000
Ca 125,000
K 250,000
N 1,000,000
O 30,000,000
C 35,000,000
H 60,000,000

8
Causes of Sulfur Deficiencies
in Crops
 Shift from low-analysis to high-analysis
fertilizers
 High-yielding crop varieties remove more
S from fields at harvest
 Reduced atmospheric S deposition
 Declining S reserves in soil due to loss of
organic matter (erosion and tillage),
leaching, and crop removal

9
3 4 5 6 7
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Depth(cm)
pH
pH
Al3+
Typical pH profile for a
Blount soil

10
limestone + gypsumlimestone
1 2 3
Corn Root Density m/1000 cm3
Depth
(cm)
20
40
60
80 Modified from Farina &
Channon, SSSAJ (1988)
CaSO4 + Al3+ Al(SO4)+ + Ca2+
(toxic) (non-toxic)
Gypsum can ameliorate
aluminum toxicity,
especially in the subsoil,
by forming soluble
complexes with Al3+.

11
Early History

12
Two specific objectives:
(1) Demonstrate at a field-scale the practical application of
gypsum agricultural fields to reduce phosphorus loading to
surface waters in the Maumee River and Grand Lake St. Mary’s
watersheds in Ohio.
(2) Assess typical on-farm management practices to
document/demonstrate agricultural practices that can best
take advantage of FGD gypsum to enhance crop yields.
Ohio Department of
Development Project

13
Soil Test Values - Sulfur
Year (20yy)
SoilSulfurContent(ppm)
Y = 28.6** - 1.74**
R2 = 0.86
02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14
40
30
20
10
0

14
Average Corn Yields from
2002 to 2005 (Ohio)
N Rate (kg ha
-1
)
0 50 100 150 200 250
5.0
5.5
6.0
6.5
7.0
7.5
8.0
8.5
9.0
Y=5.80+0.029x-0.00009x2
(R2
=0.85)
Y=5.19+0.021x-0.00003x
2
(R
2
=0.96)
S
No S
CornGrainYield(Bu/A)
170
150
130
110
90
0 45 90 135 180 225
N Rate (lbs/A)
(R2 = 0.85)
(R2 = 0.96)

15
Water Quality - Agriculture

16
Phosphorus and Soil
Management
Site Total P
(0 - 12 in)
Soluble P
(0 – 0.5 in)
Wooster 580 (PT)
609 (NT)
45 (PT)
160 (NT)
Hoytville 867 (PT)
868 (NT)
38 (PT)
282 (PT)

17
Water soluble P in 0.5 in soil layer
(4 T/A gypsum, 1:3 w/v soil:water)
0.000
1.000
2.000
3.000
4.000
5.000
6.000
7.000
8.000
9.000
10.000
CS - C CC CS – S
Hoytville Samples
+ Gypsum
- Gypsum
Crop Rotation
10
8
6
4
2
0
SolubleP(ppm)

18
Water Quality Benefits
Effect of Gypsum on Water Runoff, Soil Erosion
and Soluble Reactive Phosphorus (SRP)

19
Samples were collected
from the Rolland Wolfrum
Hale Farm (Hicksville,
OH) on December 20,
2012.
Tile Drain

20
Samples collected from the Ken Hahn Farm (Antwerp, OH) on
January 6, 2013.
Tile Drainage Samples (1)

21
Effect of Gypsum on P
in Surface and Tile Waters
(Kevin King USDA-ARS)
Mercer County very near to the Grand Lake St. Marys watershed
Overall Conclusion (to date)
For water quality, the benefit of gypsum
was to decrease soluble P concentrations
and loading in surface water runoff and
also concentrations of soluble and total P
in tile discharge. When considering overall
P loadings as well as concentrations, the
water quality benefits after one year of
gypsum were minimal. Testing into a
second or third year will be extremely
important to determine the longer-term
benefits of gypsum to affect water quality.

22
Summary of Gypsum Application Effects
The equation of the line that defines the points on the graph is y =
43.85 – 0.02063x where “y” is the percent reduction in
phosphorus concentration and “x” is the number of days since
gypsum application.
Tile Water Drainage
Results – (through
June 29, 2015)
(1) 89 Events Sampled
(2) 9 Locations
(3) P concentrations
Gyp(-) = 0.086 mg/L
Gyp(+) = 0.055 mg/L
36% reduction

23
Precipitation pH and Phosphorus
National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NRSP-3). 2007. NADP Program Office, Illinois
State Water Survey, 2204 Griffith Dr., Champaign, IL 61820
 4.1
4.5
4.9
5.3
 5.7
Lab pH

24
Precipitation pH and Phosphorus
Phosphorus is the nutrient most directly affected by soil pH
Soil pH

25
National Standard
Notice of Proposed Changes to the National Handbook of Conservation Practices for the Natural Resources Conservation
Service
[Docket No. NRCS-2015-0003]
PROPOSED FULL TEXT FOR PRACTICE STANDARD CODE 333 (333-CPS-1)
Natural Resources Conservation Service
CONSERVATION PRACTICE STANDARD
AMENDING SOIL PROPERTIES WITH GYPSUM PRODUCTS
Code 333 (Ac.)
DEFINITION
Using gypsum (calcium sulfate dihydrate) derived products to change the physical and/or
chemical properties of soil.
PURPOSE
• Improve soil health by improving physical/chemical properties and increasing
infiltration of the soil.
• Improve surface water quality by reducing dissolved phosphorus concentrations in surface
runoff and subsurface drainage.
• Improve soil health by ameliorating subsoil aluminum toxicity.
• Improve water quality by reducing the potential for pathogens and other contaminants
transport from areas of manure and biosolids application.

26
http://ohioline.osu.edu/b945/index.html

27
Increasing National Interest at the
Scientific Level
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Gypsum/info

28
The article (left) is a good
overview of the problem
and the current level of
scientific understanding of
its cause.
https://www.agronomy.org/publications/csa/pdfs/60/2/4
www.agronomy.org/fil
es/publications/crops
-and-soils/amending-
soils-with-
gypsum.pdf

29
Conclusions
Gypsum, as an agricultural amendment, can provide
multiple benefits including:
(1) improved crop production,
(2) reduced soil erosion, and
(3) reduced phosphorus movement off of agricultural
fields.
This leads to a win-win-win situation.

30

31
Bioaccumulation Factors

Dick - Gypsum as a Soil Amendment

More Related Content

What's hot

Viewers also liked

Similar to Dick - Gypsum as a Soil Amendment

More from Soil and Water Conservation Society

Recently uploaded

Dick - Gypsum as a Soil Amendment