Why is it better to use KELP FIBER than inexpensive sawdust or wood shavings?
Sawdust, bark and wood shavings are comprised largely of cellulose, and cellulose is very low in nitrogen (being composed entirely of repeating units of glucose sugar). When cellulose is added to the soil, microbial populations explode in response to this new carbonaceous food source. This leads to a reduction of plant-available nitrogen by a process called nitrogen immobilization. The soil microbes need nitrogen for making protein just as plants do, and when they proliferate by digesting cellulose they convert available nitrogen into an unavailable form, namely microbial protoplasm. The 0.5% nitrogen that is usually added to traditional soil amendments does nothing more than “stabilize” the nitrogen content of the soil by providing just enough nitrogen to prevent nitrogen immobilization during its decomposition. It does not add any plant-available nitrogen to the soil. KELP FIBER, on the other hand, is very low in cellulose and rich in organic nitrogen (1.72%) and as it breaks down in
