MyAgLife Podcast: Automated Water pH Control

Recorded at the 2024 Crop Consultant Conference and aired on the MyAgLife podcast, Ep. 946. Taylor Chalstrom of MyAgLife interviews ECO2MIX founder Waldo Moraga.

Taylor Chalstrom: Automating irrigation water pH control has been an available tool for some time using the industry standard sulfuric acid. But a newer alternative is available to the agriculture industry that is not only safer for applicators, but also more sustainable for the soil. Waldo Moraga is with ECO2MIX which uses injected carbon dioxide to form carbonic acid for water pH control instead of sulfuric acid.

Waldo Moraga: Carbonic acid is what we make when you dissolve CO₂ in water. It’s like using rainwater. Rainwater is exactly the same as carbonic acid. When the CO₂ in the atmosphere is washed out by the rain, you have a pH of 5.5 or 5.2/5.4 in the rain. So we are duplicating that in a specific proprietary system that we can make some more acid.

And it’s safer because it’s no harsh, no chemicals, you don’t store any acid. You just store a carbon dioxide tank at the field. So that’s what makes it more sustainable.

Taylor Chalstrom: Moraga has been in the irrigation and fertigation industry for decades and has multiple years of experience using the traditional pH control method of sulfuric acid. Compared to sulfuric acid, which can potentially harm plants and soil, as well as the applicator, carbonic acid provides growers with optimum water pH while improving soil biology and soil structure.

Waldo Moraga: The sulfuric acid does the work of adjusting pH. But we have seen a lot of soil turn into dirt because the excess of acid and start to reduce all the microbes in the soil.

But at the same time, when you switch to a carbonic acid system, we have seen a lot of increment on the microbial activity. We have some tests done side by side, sulfuric and carbonic, and it’s exactly the difference. What the carbonic acid increase, the sulfuric acid reduce. So it’s more natural, and it’s the only carbon based acid.

So we are bringing carbon to all those microbes for food there. So that’s what we have as an experience. What we’re doing is more natural, more according to nature. Every farmer is waiting for rain all the time, and we are making rain all year long.

Taylor Chalstrom: Moraga said irrigation water treated with carbonic acid is meant for use alongside any other agricultural input, be it fertilizer, insecticide, etc. Basically an outright replacement for any sulfuric acid system with the goal of sustainability in mind. Moraga said water pH control with carbonic acid can be helpful in both conventional and organic settings.

Waldo Moraga: So far, right now, the most common practice for organic is the use of a sulfur burner. They burn sulfur and they mix that sulfur dioxide gas with water to make sulfurous acid.

It smells like rotten eggs and it’s harsh. Nobody likes to work with that. And the carbonic acid is absolutely, 100% natural, and it’s organic.

Taylor Chalstrom: You’re listening to My Ag Life, I’m Taylor Chalstrom.