Soil Remineralizers and Silicate Fertilizers: Regional Solutions to a Healthy Agriculture

This book presents the principles of soil remineralization as a strategy for developing sustainable agriculture based on healthy soils. The intensive use of synthetic and highly soluble fertilizers in agriculture develops environmental impacts associated with greenhouse gas emissions and the decline in soil health, requiring the development of sustainable regional solutions in soil fertility management. Mineral inputs derived from silicate rocks, or simply silicate agrominerals, despite being more abundant and occurring close to agricultural areas, only began to be studied systematically and adopted at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The multifunctional inputs derived from silicate agrominerals can be divided into silicate fertilizers and soil remineralizers. The use of these inputs alone or associated with other regional inputs, such as biochar and bioinputs, constitutes a strategy to develop healthy soils based on local and regional solutions. The multifunctionality of sources derived from silicate agrominerals is related to weathering reactions, which promote three direct effects: supply nutrients, increase pH and create new mineral phases.