80% of people who think of salts think about what we use on our foods. That is known as sodium chloride.
However when we're talking about our plants and getting salt build-up or flushing salts we are talking about a variety of salts. This salt we have stuck to our definition has been forced upon us. Think of people who say I can't eat salt, that's because they have too much sodium chloride in their system. Anyway onto gardening!
According to Wikipedia:
Source: Salt (chemistry) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The ionic compounds are elements which we get from our fertilizer, such as calcium, magnesium, nitrogen, phosphorous etc. The acids used that I've seen most are phosphoric acid, sulfuric acid, and EDTA which are attached to the elements. This is what makes some thing a "magnesium phosphate" or "magnesium sulfate".
To sum it up, when we reference salts in garden we mean minerals.
However when we're talking about our plants and getting salt build-up or flushing salts we are talking about a variety of salts. This salt we have stuck to our definition has been forced upon us. Think of people who say I can't eat salt, that's because they have too much sodium chloride in their system. Anyway onto gardening!
According to Wikipedia:
In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of related numbers of cations (positively charged ions) and anions (negative ions) so that the product is electrically neutral (without a net charge). These component ions can be inorganic such as chloride (Cl−), as well as organic such as acetate (C2H3O2−) and monatomic ions such as fluoride (F−), as well as polyatomic ions such as sulfate (SO42−).
Source: Salt (chemistry) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The ionic compounds are elements which we get from our fertilizer, such as calcium, magnesium, nitrogen, phosphorous etc. The acids used that I've seen most are phosphoric acid, sulfuric acid, and EDTA which are attached to the elements. This is what makes some thing a "magnesium phosphate" or "magnesium sulfate".
To sum it up, when we reference salts in garden we mean minerals.