7 Benefits of Langbeinite Fertilizer

If you’re looking for an organic potassium fertilizer, langbeinite is a great option. This naturally occurring rock provides plants with a large amount of potassium as well as notable amounts of sulfur and magnesium. Plus, it’s readily available and easy to apply.

Whether you want to enhance disease-resistance or help your garden deal with hot, dry days, this fertilizer can help. Keep reading to learn some of the benefits of using langbeinite fertilizer in your garden.

What is Langbeinite?

Langbeinite is a naturally occurring mineral composed of potassium (K), sulfur (S), and magnesium (Mg). It is also known as K-Mag or Sul-Po-Mag. The mineral has a slight iridescent shine and may be clear or shades of pink, yellow, and green.

Gardeners and farmers use langbeinite as an organic fertilizer. It has an NPK ratio of 0-0-22 and contains 11% magnesium and 22% sulfur.

Benefits of Using Langbeinite in the Garden

Adding langbeinite fertilizer to the soil increases the amount of macro and micronutrients. But how do these elements help garden yields and aesthetics? Here are some of the benefits of using langbeinite.

Doesn’t Change Soil pH

When it comes time to add potassium to the garden, many people think of lime. However, both garden lime (calcium carbonate) and dolomite lime (calcium, magnesium carbonate) raise the soil pH, which isn’t always helpful.

Most species prefer neutral or slightly acidic soil. The pH scale goes from zero to 14, with zero being extremely acidic and 14 being extremely basic or alkaline. 7 is neutral. That means you should aim for a soil pH between 6 and 7.

If your soil pH is at or above 7, you don’t want to add any materials that will raise the pH. So, what do you do if you need to add magnesium? Turn to langbeinite. This material provides a large amount of magnesium without altering the soil pH.

If you’re unsure of your soil pH, I recommend testing it before adding fertilizer. Mail-in soil test kits provide you with the pH and nutrient levels, but you can also find kits that only measure the soil pH.

Improves Drought Tolerance

If you notice your crops are wilting even though the ground has only been dry for a few hours, the soil may lack potassium. This element is essential for water movement, so a shortage leads to problems with water moving between cells and sagging, wilting leaves.

Potassium also helps plants open and close leaf pores, known as stomata. On warm days, plants release water through their stomata to help cool themselves. However, potassium helps close stomata on hot, dry days to conserve water.

Adding a potassium-rich fertilizer to your soil will help ensure your plants have the nutrients they need to deal with drought stress. Since langbeinite contains 22% K, it’s a great way to add this nutrient to your garden.

Improves Response to Stress

Sulfur is an important component of multiple compounds that help plants respond to environmental stressors like low temperatures, high salt levels, and heavy metals in the soil. These compounds include thiamine (vitamin B1), glutathione, and coenzyme-A. While you don’t have to understand these compounds, remember that sulfur is essential for helping plants respond to adverse conditions.

Magnesium is involved in activating various enzymes. Some of these enzymes drive plant responses to cold, heat, and other abiotic stressors. Therefore, adequate soil magnesium levels are key to keeping your garden healthy.

You’ve already learned how potassium helps plants respond to drought stress, but this element also helps them face other stressors. Since it is heavily involved in the transport of water and nutrients, this nutrient helps them deal with salt stress and oversaturated soils.

Allows for Photosynthesis

Magnesium is a key component of chlorophyll, the pigment that gives plants their green color. That’s why magnesium-deficient plants often display light green or yellow tissue.

Chlorophyll is also an essential part of photosynthesis—the process used to capture energy from the sun and produce sugars. Plants then use these sugars to form complex structural molecules or as fuel to form amino acids, enzymes, and other necessary compounds. If there is a deficiency of magnesium, they have a difficult time completing photosynthesis and forming the compounds they need.

Since langbeinite contains 11% magnesium, it helps add this nutrient to the soil. Crops can then take magnesium from the soil and use it to build chlorophyll molecules.

This organic fertilizer also supplies sulfur, an element heavily involved in the production of chlorophyll. While sulfur isn’t part of chlorophyll molecules, it helps in the development of these photosynthetic compounds. Therefore, low sulfur leads to a lack of chlorophyll molecules and decreased photosynthesis.

Improves Yield

Whether you want bushels of large red tomatoes or baskets of green beans, langbeinite fertilizer can help you reach your goals. That’s because this product contains three essential nutrients: potassium (K), sulfur (S), and magnesium (Mg).

S is a key part of many of the enzymes that spur necessary plant reactions. It helps form chlorophyll, which ensures plants have the sugars they need to produce larger molecules and complete chemical reactions. Adequate levels of sulfur are especially important for legumes. That’s because sulfur helps them form root nodules that host nitrogen-fixing bacteria. An increased number of root nodules means legumes like beans and peas have access to more nitrogen.

K plays a key role in the opening and closing of leaf pores, which means it regulates the inflow of carbon dioxide and the outflow of oxygen. When there is a deficiency of potassium, they may have difficulty obtaining the carbon dioxide necessary for photosynthesis. This nutrient is also involved in the activation of enzymes involved in biological processes.

As I’ve mentioned before, Mg is a key part of chlorophyll molecules. If plants don’t have access to enough magnesium, they won’t be able to photosynthesize and grow. That leads to stunting and decreased yields.

Helps Fight Diseases and Pests

The three nutrients in this fertilizer help improve resilience against insects and diseases. Here’s how each nutrient helps plants fight back against these attackers.

Sulfur helps form compounds known as secondary metabolites. These compounds aren’t directly involved in growth and development but rather serve functions like fighting off diseases and sending messages throughout a plant. Without these secondary metabolites, plants cannot properly respond to attacks from diseases and insect pests.

Adequate levels of potassium are necessary for good disease resistance. When plants lack this nutrient, they develop thin cell walls, weak stalks, and short roots. All of these features inhibit its ability to resist infection from bacteria, fungi, and viruses.

A plant’s ability to resist disease also correlates with the ratio of nitrogen to potassium. While adding nitrogen to the soil can lead to rapid growth and large leaves, high nitrogen coupled with low potassium can leave crops susceptible to disease. Therefore, make sure to add a K-rich fertilizer if you’re adding large amounts of nitrogen.

Numerous studies have shown that a decrease in magnesium correlates with increased plant disease. This may be because magnesium is crucial to energy production that drives plant defenses.

Doesn’t Burn Foliage

When you hear about “fertilizer burn,” it’s easy to assume that any type of fertilizer can harm plants. However, this is actually a type of salt burn that occurs when you add too much salt in the form of fertilizers. That’s right, many fertilizers are salts!

Synthetic sources of K, like potassium chloride and potassium sulfate, are salts. Therefore, they can easily burn plants if you over-fertilize or experience a dry spell.

Since langbeinite isn’t a salt, you don’t have to be very concerned about this fertilizer burning your plants. That’s not to say you should haphazardly spread it in your garden, but you don’t have to worry about it immediately harming your plants if you add a bit too much.