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Old May 14, 2012   #24
RayR
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Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Cheektowaga, NY
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Originally Posted by rsrb View Post
Would "Fuller's Earth" also work? It's similar, and also marketed as a cat litter product (7 lbs for $1 at the local, um, dollar store) but haven't done enough research to determine whether it might also be suitable for plants. The Moltan products, even at AutoZone, do at least mention planting on the label....
"Fuller's Earth" is a name that is used broadly to include many forms of weathered volcanic clay. You could have 2 different products claiming to be made from "Fuller's Earth" and both can have totally different properties and mineral composition.
If you could find a clay that had similar properties to DE (soft rock-like structure, stable in water and a near neutral PH), then it might work, but I haven't found one like that yet. They all tend to be lower in PH, 6.0 and under.
For instance, Moltan's other cat litter and oil absorbent products that are not DE is made from Montmorillonite Clay that is from their mine in Tennessee. I got some of cat litter version, it is a hard non-swelling clay, stable in water and absorbent but it tested to be a PH, of 4.8. Just for fun I tried a side by side comparison growing onion seeds in it and DE. I was actually surprised that the onion seedlings germinated and grew in such an adverse PH situation, but they didn't do very well compared to the onions in the DE. (See picture, this was at 30 days from seeding)
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