Talk:Alkali soil

Title
Why is the title "Alkali" and not the adjective "Alkaline"? Why is the title "soils" and not "soil"? Badagnani (talk) 02:33, 23 November 2007 (UTC)


 * It is customary to use the term "alkali soil" instead of "alkaline soil" even though "alkaline soil" should be better. I do not know why it is like that, but it is a historical fact. One of the first publications on this subject uses the term: Akali soils. Not all alkali soils are the same, that's why it is perhaps better to use the plural "soils" instead of single "soil", but in principle it does not matter, either option seems OK to me R.J.Oosterbaan (talk) 10:12, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Some definitions have been re-defined R.J.Oosterbaan (talk) 21:33, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * This article treats sodium as the only or main cation contributing to soil alkalinity. What happened to calcium? Most people are familiar with the relationship between lime in soils or bedrock and alkalinity, but there are few circumstances where sodic alkaline soils occur, except in regions like the African Rift Valley. Why? Because sodium is rapidly leached from soils and sources of sodium (e.g. feldspars) are comparatively insoluble. Calcium, not sodium is the dominant cation in alkaline soils. Plantsurfer (talk) 21:12, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I am curious to learn the reference to a study finding that calcium is dominant in alkaline soils and the cause of alkalinity. In chemistry, sodium is called an alkali metal and the name alkaline soil is related to this. The hydroxide NaOH is a highly soluble and strong base. R.J.Oosterbaan (talk) 19:59, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
 * See also Talk:Alkali_soils below.

Needs sorting out
Calcareous soil redirects here rather than to Calcareous If Oosterbaan's description above is correct then that redirect should be changed. A paragraph on the distinction may also help for lay people like me. 71.236.26.74 (talk) 13:51, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I have adjusted the redirect accordingly. Calcareous soils are normally only slightly basic (pH<9) while the term "Alkali soil" refers to strongly basic soils (pH>9) owing to the presence of sodium carbonate while sodium belongs to the alkali group of metals. R.J.Oosterbaan (talk) 14:49, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I have come to realise that in the discussions so far there may have been a misunderstanding about the difference between alkalinity and basicity as explained in Alkaline. R.J.Oosterbaan (talk) 16:43, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Replies to requested clarifications in 'Soil Improvement' section
The explanation on leaching factor is available in Soil salinity control

Spent acid is a acid weakened by use such as metallic pickings in metal works and nitration process in fertiliser industry, etc. The spent acid has fair amount of acidity (pH 3 to 6) to neutralise alkalinity in irrigation water / soils. In addition, spent acid contains metallic salts such as ferrous, aluminium, etc. salts which also participate in reducing alkalinity /pH / RSC index by converting sodium carbonates in to other sodium salts. There is no carry over of harmful metallic salts unlike in acidic soils of Europe since the alkali soils has excess pH.

Please delete your clarification tags from the main text.49.207.221.221 (talk) 07:11, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Cleanup tag of February 2018
As invited by the flag shown here above, I did some cleanup of the code markup, especially with respect to the chemical formulas and equations. The layout is somewhat improved, but there remains work to do for the multiple notes. Shinkolobwe (talk) 17:39, 28 June 2021 (UTC)