Using calcium sulfate in hydroponics

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Calcium is a very important element in plant nutrition and can be supplied to plants through a wide variety of different salts. However, only a handful of these resources are significantly water soluble, usually narrowing the choice of calcium to either calcium nitrate, calcium chloride or more elaborate sources, such as calcium EDTA. Today I am going to talk about a less commonly used resource in hydroponics – calcium sulfate – which can fill a very important gap in calcium supplementation in hydroponic crops, particularly when Ca nutrition wants to be addressed as independently as possible and the addition of substances that interact heavily with plants wants to be avoided.

Gypsum / Calcium Sulfate
Calcium sulfate dihydrate (gypsum)

There are some important reasons why you don’t hear too much about calcium sulfate in hydroponics. Some websites actually recommend heavily against using this substance in hydroponic nutrient solutions. Why is this the case? The core issue is calcium sulfate’s solubility, with this substance traditionally considered “insoluble” in chemistry. However all substances are soluble to one or another degree – even if to an extremely small degree – but calcium sulfate is actually at the very border of what is considered a soluble substance in regular aqueous chemistry.

At 20C (68F), calcium sulfate dihydrate – the form most commonly available – has a solubility of around 2.4 g/L. In practice this means that you can have up to around 550 ppm of Ca in solution from calcium sulfate dihydrate before you observe any precipitation happening. This is way more than the normal 150-250 ppm of Ca that are used in final hydroponic nutrient solutions that are fed to plants. You could supply the entire plant requirement for calcium using calcium sulfate without ever observing any precipitate in solution. At the normal temperature range that hydroponic nutrient solutions are kept, the solubility of calcium sulfate is just not an issue. To add 10 ppm of Ca from calcium sulfate you need to add around 0.043g/L (0.163g/gal). You should however avoid using calcium sulfate for the preparation of solutions for foliar sprays as it will tend to form precipitates when the foliar spray dries on leaves, the leaves will then be covered with a thin film of gypsum, which is counterproductive.

Calcium sulfate has a great advantage over other ways to supplement calcium in that the anion in the salt – sulfate – does not contribute as significantly to plant nutrition. Other sources, such as calcium chloride or calcium nitrate, will add counter ions that will heavily interact with the plant in other ways, which might sometimes be an undesirable effect if all we want to address is the concentration of calcium ions. Other sources such as Ca EDTA might even add other cations – such as sodium – which we would generally want to avoid. Calcium sulfate will also have a negligible effect in the pH of the solution, unlike other substances – like calcium carbonate – which will have a significant effect in the pH of the solution.

Solubility (g per 100mL) of calcium sulfate as a function of temperature for different crystalline forms (see more here)

A key consideration with calcium sulfate is also that its dissolution kinetics are slow. It takes a significant amount of time for a given amount of calcium sulfate to dissolve in water, even if the thermodynamics favor the dissolution of the salt at the temperature your water is at. For this reason it is very important to only use calcium sulfate sources that are extremely fine and are graded for irrigation. This is sometimes known as “solution grade” gypsum. I advice you get a small amount of the gypsum source you want to use and test how long it takes to dissolve 0.05g in one liter of water. This will give you an idea of how long you will need to wait to dissolve the calcium sulfate at the intended temperature. Constant agitation helps with this process.

An important caveat with calcium sulfate is that its relatively low solubility compared with other fertilizers means that it cannot be used to prepare concentrated nutrient solutions. This means that you will not be able to prepare a calcium sulfate stock solution or use calcium sulfate in the preparation of A and B solutions. As a matter of fact the formation of calcium sulfate is one of the main reasons why concentrated nutrient solutions usually come in two or more parts, to keep calcium and sulfate ions apart while they are in concentrated form. Calcium sulfate should only be added to the final nutrient solution and adequate considerations about temperature and dissolution time need to be taken into account.

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11 Comments

  • Abas mosh
    June 22, 2020 @ 5:16 am

    THANKS FOR THIS RESEARCH

  • Mike (Skybound)
    July 10, 2020 @ 8:41 pm

    Hi, can you write a blog about how to improve calcium uptake and/or grow thicker/stronger stems? To make my solution of
    NO3 – 133
    NH4 – 7
    P —— 50
    K —— 210
    Ca —- 130
    Mg — 50
    S —— 80~
    Si —– 40
    Hydro Buddy does fine with just the calcium nitrate, so I almost never use the gypsum, but IDK if my Ca uptake suffers b/c of too much P or a cation imbalance.

    Also, another idea for a blog entry is high brix in hydroponics and what is possible. I’ve tried for a few months to up my brix but failed every time and the highest I recorded I believe was a 5.

  • Toni
    September 25, 2020 @ 8:27 am

    Could you please advise in which order to blend the CaSO4 ?
    I use the below salts and blend them in the below order.
    Is this correct order for the blend?

    EPSOM MgSO4.7H2O
    Magnesium Nitrate Mg(NO3)2.6H2O
    YaraTera REXOLIN APN Micro blend
    Potassium Sulfate K2SO4
    Potassium Nitrate KNO3
    Potassium Monobasic Phosphate KH2PO4
    Potassium Silicate solution K2SiO3
    PH- adjust as needed H3PO4
    Calcium Nitrate (ag grade) 5Ca(NO3)2.NH4NO3.10H2O
    Calcium Sulfate (Dihydrate) CaSO4.2H2O

    • admin
      September 25, 2020 @ 9:04 am

      It depends on the specific conditions you’re working under and what you’re trying to achieve. Is this a concentrated solution? A final nutrient solution? What’s the composition of the water? Temperature of the solution? Etc. Please use the link at the top of the website to book an hour of consultation time if you would like my help in preparing nutrients under your specific conditions. Thanks for your comment!

      • Toni
        September 25, 2020 @ 9:35 am

        Thanks, I appreciate your expertise but I’m still just playing and experimenting with lettuce, basil, and tomatoes, pure garage hobby under cheap DOB LED :)
        I have 0.01g scale so I measure each nutrient and blend it directly to the solution which is around 20C, 50L or 25L containers. I’m fairly familiar with the concentrations and purity and I just want to make sure that I’m blending in the right order which I believe should be the correct one.
        I use tap water, here in Sweden we have rather good water quality and I have the water content analysis copied in the HydroBuddy sheet.
        I noticed previously that adding sulfates after Ca(NO3)2 will precipitate the Ca from the Calcium Nitrate and was wondering if adding Calcium Sulfate at the end might affect the previously added Calcium Nitrate. However, both are very small quantities, depending on the formula its around 15 grams of each per 45L water.

  • Ari
    October 26, 2020 @ 5:12 pm

    Thanks Dr. Daniel Fernandez
    start walking past all of the articles here.

  • CocoGrower
    January 20, 2022 @ 11:04 am

    How do we feel about “Hydrated lime” in coco coir? Its like 135ppm Ca per gram and max solubility is 6 grams per gallons (if i understand the sds sheet which says 0.165g per 100g) . Its 51% Ca, 0.6%mg (71.5% CaO and whatever hydroxide is…). Is there a reason we dont hear about it? Is it due to PH rise from its skyhigh ph?

    • admin
      January 21, 2022 @ 7:16 pm

      Thanks for commenting. Calcium carbonate would raise the pH of coco too much. In order to use it you would need to have an acidic media. For example, peat moss is commonly amended with lime to take advantage of its high pH.

  • Michael
    January 23, 2022 @ 4:50 pm

    Hello,
    I’m a hobbyist hydroponic gardener from europe.
    Thank you for your great blog and YT Channel and especially for HydroBuddy

    I live in an area with soft water (EC 0.2) and was experiencing problems with calcium deficiencies in tomatoes (blossom end rot)
    when switching from peat based and coco based substrates (amended with lime) to a substrate-less hydroponic system.
    I started using calcium nitrate (Yara Calcinit) combined with commercially available NPK fertilizer (Compo Hakaphos Soft Plus (14-6-24))
    but recently many nitrate based fertilizers are no longer freely acquirable for end consumers.
    I thought about substituting the calcium nitrate with calcium sulfate but I’d need to solve ~30g of CaSO4 dihydrate in 100L of water to achieve my desired concentration of Ca ~100mg/L.

    My question is: Which max. sulfate concentration is advisable in a hydroponic nutrient solution?

    In an other blog article you described sulfate as a ” benign anion in hydroponic culture” but how much is too much?
    My nutrient solution would have about ~140mg S/L or ~420mg SO4/L when using calcium sulfate plus NPK fertilizer.
    (120mg N; 20mg P; 150mg K; 30mg Mg; 100mg Ca and ~140mg S per liter)
    I found a paper (https://doi.org/10.1016/S0304-4238(96)00948-X) about variyng SO4 concentrations (up to 20.2µmol/L; ~1.94g/L of sulfate) on tomatoes stating:
    “The tomato is capable of withstanding high sulphate levels as long as the ratios between the major elements and the sulphate ions are appropriate”

    Can I expect problems with a potentially toxic SO4 concentration in my nutrient solutions when used in a recirculating system?
    And can you recommend an author, a book or papers I should read?

    Thank you in advance

  • Artem
    November 28, 2023 @ 2:05 pm

    I believe the main problem with using calcium sulfate is the ballast sulfate anion. This is a relatively useless anion that will help increase the EC of the nutrient solution and decrease the pH in the root zone. The chloride anion works in exactly the same way.

    • admin
      November 29, 2023 @ 6:06 am

      Sulfate is useful in solution, essential to plant life, it is plants’ main source of sulfur. While it is true that this requirement is reached with relatively low sulfur concentrations and that further sulfur additions are not useful, a bit of excess sulfur does no harm to the plant and can help achieve other required cation concentrations.

      Your statement about sulfate and pH is also wrong. As a conjugate base of a strong acid, sulfate does not decrease pH. Sulfate ions will not decrease the pH in the root zone.

      Chloride and sulfate chemistry is also very different. Chloride for example has strong interactions with nitrogen uptake, which sulfate completely lacks. Plants are much more sensitive to chloride vs sulfate concentration.

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