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The best kept secret

Have you been using TerraCottem for many years but forgot about the science behind it? Or maybe you have just recently discovered the soil conditioner and are keen to know how it can help you in your work?

Ready to dig underneath the surface and discover the secret? Soil and roots are key to this story.

Let’s start with soil.

It plays a vital role in the earth’s ecosystem. Without soil human, animal and plant life would be very difficult.

• Soils provide anchorage for plant roots;
• Soils supply plants with essential minerals and nutrients;
• Soils hold water and air;
• Soils are a habitat for many insects and billions of organisms.

An "ideal" soil holds sufficient water and nutrients, but at the same time allows a constant flow of air. Air flow brings oxygen to the roots and to micro-organisms and removes carbon dioxide from the soil. However, as most things... few soils are perfect. If the soil’s shortcomings are not addressed properly they are likely to make your work more difficult.

There are almost always limiting factors. Soils are either too dry or too wet. Or they lack nutrient retention. Or maybe they are too shallow.

With the correct soil conditioner, you can overcome these limitations.

So, what is the best kept secret?

TerraCottem helps you to delight your clients. It helps you grow plants in challenging conditions, minimize replacement cost of dead plants and trees, lower the watering frequency, build lawns that are greener than on the other side of the fence and achieve mature gardens faster. Yet, TerraCottem is used in small quantities. It’s difficult to see once it’s in the soil while the results speak for themselves. On the one hand, TerraCottem’s trade secret, the growth precursors, have a big impact on plant growth. And on the other hand, you have the product’s synergetic effect. It means that the benefits of the total product on plant growth are greater than the sum of the benefits of its separate components on plant growth.

How does it work?

The TerraCottem soil conditioners are a proprietary mixture of more than twenty components each from different groups all assisting in the plant growth processes in a synergetic way:

• Growth precursors or biostimulants;
• Cross-linked hydroabsorbent polymers or hydrogels;
• Specially selected fertilizers;
• Carrier materials;

TerraCottem works at root level

TerraCottem is a potent, dry, granular product. You mix it in small quantities with the soil. That’s where the action takes place, at root level. It’s important to get good root development from the very start. That’s how you lay the foundation for thriving and lasting plant growth.

TerraCottem is activated by watering the plant

Compare it with charging a battery. Once charged, the "magic" starts. The hydroabsorbant polymers or hydrogels contained within TerraCottem start to swell upon contact with water. They absorb water and nutrients and expand into a gel-like substance. And oh, correction: better compare TerraCottem with a rechargeable battery as the soil conditioner will have numerous dry / wet cycles during a period of 8 years.

The polymers absorb the water and fertilisers

Water and nutrients are absorbed at root level by the hydrogels. In soils with low water retention, that water and part of the nutrients would normally be lost to leaching and evaporation.

100g of TerraCottem can be "charged" with over 9 litres of water!

This water is then kept at the disposal of the plant that accesses the stored water on demand through its root hairs, keeping the water in the root zone for a longer period of time. As such, both the volume and frequency of necessary irrigation can be reduced up to 50%.

As said earlier, the hydrogels also absorb nutrients within that soil solution. TerraCottem's specially selected fertilisers provide a balanced nutrition of both macro and microelements to the plants.

The growth precursors encourage root hair growth

These root hairs grow inside the polymers and absorb the required amount of water and nutrients. The growth precursors play a very important role in the initial growth phase of the plant. They are TerraCottem’s trade secret. They are but a fraction of the product – 0.25% to be precise - but potent and crucial for plant growth! These biostimulants activate root cell elongation and differentiation. In other words, they stimulate the plant to grow more and longer roots, faster. The bigger and healthier the root system, the bigger and healthier the plant.

In addition, roots are encouraged to grow more rapidly to depths where more water is present.

Watch TerraCottem in action

The TerraCottem soil conditioners also contain carrier materials. These are selected for their chemo-physical properties, further enhancing the products' retention of water (WRC) and nutrients (CEC). They also allow homogeneous distribution of all components.

Synergetic effect

Each TerraCottem component has its positive impact on plant growth but it is above all the synergy of all the product’s scientific balanced components which makes the TerraCottem soil conditioning technology so unique and successful.

Let's summarize!

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