Watch: Breaking Down the Cost of Degradable Sulfur
In the world of agriculture, it’s understandable to look at products like degradable elemental sulfur as a commodity – and make purchase decisions based on price. After all, how much difference can there be from one sulfur to the next?
The truth is…sulfur is sulfur.
BUT (and this is a big but) when buying degradable sulfur, the single most important ingredient is the clay. And it is the quality of bentonite clay that has the biggest impact on the cost of degradable sulfur.
As Daryl Schuster, President of Keg River, explains in this video, “For those of us that manufacture sulfur bentonite fertilizers, the costs are going to be very much similar on everything – except for the clay cost.”
Schuster reveals that the best-quality clays used in bentonite sulfur can cost 100% more than the lowest-quality clays.
He says that the top manufacturers see the value in purchasing premium clay and that retailers and farmers will too. Because it is the clay quality that determines how completely and how effectively the sulfur will break down in the soil.
“If the bentonite quality is not what it should be, then what you’ll find is whole pastilles of sulfur in the field that may not have degraded from last year. And if (they didn’t) degrade in the last year, then they’re (never) going to degrade.”
“When you pay a little bit extra for a premium product, your customer is going to get all of the value of that product,” Schuster says.
Click here to watch our video and learn more about what goes into the cost of bentonite sulfur, and why higher-priced products with generally offer more complete breakdown and more consistent performance in the field.