Liming of acidic soils increases crop yield and farming profitability. The effectiveness of a liming material for neutralizing soil acidity depends mainly on its calcium carbonate (CaCO3) equivalent (CCE) and its fineness. The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS) rules for agricultural lime (aglime) sales requires measuring Effective CCE (ECCE), which combines CCE and fineness efficiency estimates. Use of pelleted finely ground limestone has increased in recent years, but scarce field research has evaluated how ECCE evaluates the granulation effect on its acid neutralizing capacity compared with aglime. Therefore, a study was conducted at two Iowa State University (ISU) central Iowa farms to compare the effectiveness of calcium carbonate, calcitic aglime, and pelleted calcitic aglime at increasing soil pH and crop yield.
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