correctors

While in any other type of fertilizer, the active ingredient is the element itself, this is not the case with ferric chelates. There is sufficient iron in the soil, so the chelating agent that accompanies it is primarily responsible for its action. This is where the chelate acts quite differently than other fertilizers. Thus, for example, potassium added to the soil may or may not be utilized, but a chelate will not only provide the iron applied to the crop, but can also increase the utilization of native iron in the soil.

The effectiveness of a chelate will therefore depend on its ability to perform this and other processes, as well as its resistance to adverse factors such as high pH, bicarbonate, competition for other metals, absorption by soil materials, and resistance to degradation of the organic molecule. The most commonly used molecule in iron chelates is EDDHA, which is synthesized in several isomeric forms: ortho-ortho, ortho-para, and para-para.

This differentiation is due to positional isomers, the structural position or arrangement of the chelating agents protecting the metal ion we don’t want to lose, in this case iron.

It is only the position it has when protecting the molecule that will later limit the way the metal ion is released.