A soil amendment is any material added to a soil to improve its physical properties, such as water retention, permeability, water infiltration, drainage, aeration and structure. Soil conditioners do a lot of the same things, but can actually alter the chemical structure in
soils as well, often removing undesirable characteristics .

The goal is to provide a better environment for roots or microorganisms to thrive in. To do its work, an amendment or soil conditioner must be thoroughly mixed or blended into the soil.

The amendment product cannot simply be thrown on the surface or buried into it. the effectiveness is reduced unless proper mixing occurs.

We are offering a range of unique organic and inorganic soil treatments and conditioners ideal for Western Canadian soil problems.

Many of our treatments are mineral based compounds designed to change undesirable soil properties via natural chemical processes to reverse or change the soil's chemical electric (ionic) structure to that of a more favorable disposition.

Clay soil is both a blessing and a curse. If you have it, you may not be able to think of it as a blessing at all but you may feel better to know that clay soil is capable of holding more of the nutrients your plants need than any other type of soil.

How Do You Know If You Have Clay Soil ? If you live in Alberta, especially Southern Alberta it's highly likely that you have a lot of clay in your soil. Areas like Calgary and surrounding communities are almost all clay soils. Our top soil layer is so thin in the central and southern region of Alberta it is often only a couple to three inches max, then it's all that wonderful montmorillinite clay, heavy clay or silt like soil underneath thanks to Alberta's past life as a sea floor. Urban areas are particularly notorious for having crappy soil in yards and gardens. Why is that you ask ? the simply answer lies in where the soil comes from. When developers and builders are preparing a new residential area, they start by removing all the top soil with those large Terex grading trucks. These trucks remove the first 2-3 inches of real top soil but also take about 6 to 8 inches or more of the clay substrate below that with it and it gets mixed in with the good soil. They then mix dump it into those large piles to await the day it's taken back to the yards and lots in the development. A lot of soil is often left over and then sold to garden centres and other bulk product resellers. These guys will screen it so it looks nice and fluffy and often even black enough to look like soil, it's then called "screened loam". The truth is , this is a poor excuse for loam. It's mostly clay and clay contaminated soil that now looks deceptively like soil. it's NOT, it's still mostly clay and will make a very poor base for lawns and gardens

Here's a simple test you can perform to see if the "loam" you have is mostly clay or not. Take a look at the photo on the right. Take a small handful of the soil or loam and add a bit of water to wet it, then compress or roll it on your hand..does it hold the shape ? is it sticky and slippery ? if it acts like this it's definitely clay.

The trouble with clay soil is that it doesn't just hold onto nutrients, it binds them up and makes them unavailable to plants and It holds onto water too meaning that you are likely to have poor drainage. This also means poor absorbtion or penetration into the soil where moisture is usually stored for dry periods.

This ability to hold onto water makes it swell up during periods of heavy rainfall and then, in hot weather, it shrinks,
leaving your soil looking cracked and parched. Have you ever noticed that while watering your city lawn, it will only
absorb the water for a few minutes then the water starts to pool and run off into the street. This is because the clay in your soil under the lawn has swollen up and is now blocking the water from penetrating deeper, now all the water simply runs off or evaporates in a day or less.

On top of this, clay soil likes to hold onto weeds. It seems unusually attached to them. Weeds are adapted to thrive in poor soils and can penetrate into the hard soil with thick tap roots, so much so that it won't let you dig out a weed without taking half your soil with it.

With clay soils, the goal is to improve soil aggregation, increase porosity and permeability, and improve aeration and drainage. Soil conditioners can do this by making physical changes to the soils structure by chemical processes nad reactions. Fibrous amendments like peat and compost are the most effective organic amendments in this situation.

Sand should never be used, mixed with clay it will form a concrete like texture.

What Do I need to Fix the Soil Problems ?

So know we know we have nasty clay soil how do you get the organic stuff into the soil while it is covered with the lawn ?

The answer is two fold, you need to use some soil conditioners like Clay Doctor, Gypsum or our Borregro products as well as organic amendments like Top dressing compost or other organics into the lawn to help, but that will take years for the organics to work there way down deep enough to make a difference.

Here is where soil conditioners can help. Adding soil conditioners and treatments in the form of natural mineral and refined compounds to the lawn's surface can help a lot in a shorter time period .These treatments will penetrate and alter the chemical and micro electrical properties in clay and begin breaking down the strong chemical binding action that makes it sticky and also quickly improves it's porosity so that air and water can penetrate deeper into it.

Click here for a list of Soil Conditioners and details on each product.

Other Clay Soil Problems

Clay soils warm up very slowly in the spring. This characteristic can mean a delay of a week or more in planting seeds in a vegetable garden or setting out annual bedding plants, in effect shortening an already limited Alberta and Saskatchewan growing season.

A clay soil often has poor drainage. That means that the soil remains saturated with water after the spring thaw and after heavy rains. If this happens, plant roots will be deprived of oxygen and the general health and vigor of the plants will be reduced.

Because of their high water-holding capacity, clay soils are also subject to alternating expansion and contraction due to alternating freezing and thawing. This can result in "heaving," whereby plants are pushed out of the soil, as well as the breakage of plant roots.

Crusting and cracking (due to drying) are also problems in clay soils. Crusting impedes root penetration and prevents seedling emergence. Cracking causes the tearing of roots and other plant parts.

Finally, clay soils are difficult to work if the moisture content is not "correct": If too wet, they are gummy and impossible; if too dry, somewhat like concrete.

Soils of all textures, but particularly clay soils, will compact under "heavy traffic" conditions, as when a pathway is made across a lawn or garden. Horses will trample clay soil over time in pastures making them hard as pavement.

Smaller soil particles lump together (flocculate) to form tiny soil balls. In clay soils, this has not happened to any degree. Our Calcium based soil conditioner products aids the clay particles to lump together (it's a chemical reaction/bonding)

By adding soil conditioners the natural chemical process that results helps the tiny particles to group together (agglomeration) to form larger particles and because you have larger particles, you have more air space and water movement. Both of these things are good for the tiny feeder roots and soil microbes.

Organic vs. Inorganic Amendments:

There are two broad categories of soil amendments: organic and inorganic. Organic amendments come from something that is or was alive. Inorganic amendments, on the other hand, are either mined or man-made.

Organic amendments include compost, worm compost, sphagnum peat, grass clippings, straw, manure, biosolids, sawdust and wood ash. I personally love alfalfa pellets as an easy fertilizer soil amendment for lawns and gardens.

Inorganic amendments include vermiculite, perlite, tire chunks, pea gravel and sand. These are merely examples.

Wood ash, an organic amendment, is high in both pH and salt. It can actually increase soil problems and should not be used as a soil amendment.
See the warning about use of wood fibre and soil mixes with wood fibre at the bottom of the page.

Again - Don't add sand to clay soil -- this creates a soil structure similar to concrete.

Organic amendments increase soil organic matter content and offer many benefits. Organic matter improves soil aeration, water infiltration, and both water- and nutrient-holding capacity. Many organic amendments contain plant nutrients and act as organic fertilizers.

Organic matter also is an important energy source for bacteria, fungi and earthworms that live in the soil. In Alberta our soils are painfully low in organic material thanks to the fine clay particles and drier climate. This means there is very little organic matter in the soil for those really important beneficial soil microbes to live on. Plus the fact that we use chlorinated city water to water our lawns and gardens which kills or weakens soil microbes.

To increase organic mass in your lawn's soil consider leaving the clipping on and adding extra mass by top dressing or adding compost, peat moss or alfalfa pellets a few times a years or yearly. To increase the soil microbes you can add compost tea.

Note : We offer a full range of application services from top dressing to application of liquid nutrient solutions, compost teas and soil matrix solutions.

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Warning : Wood products like sawdust, wood shavings, mulch, bark chunks and other wood fiber will rob the soil of nitrogen and oxygen while it slowly decomposes. This can be very harmful to plants and trees. It can also attract pests and disease.

Fungi like Fairy Ring mushrooms are attracted to wood fibre in soil and can result in infestations of mushrooms and fungi in your lawn or garden.

Beware of garden soil and top soil sold by garden centres that uses large amounts of wood fibre in their soil mixes. it is more common than not. I checked with most of the garden and top soil soil resellers in Calgary and found almost all of them used sawdust, wood fines or bark material in their soil mixes..it makes the soil look nice and fluffy and soft, but in general is more harmful than good. It certainly does not add any nutrient value and as I said actually robs nitrogen and oxygen from the plants roots.

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