Magnesium chloride is an ecological and cheap alternative to road salt. How to protect plants from post-winter physiological drought?

When using road salt, remember about the impact of chemical de-icing agents on the surface itself, but also on its immediate surroundings. Unfortunately, on our roads, sidewalks, parking lots, etc., rock salt (sodium chloride) still reigns as a commonly used de-icing agent. Its use is as strange as it is ecologically and economically unjustified. Also strange is the resistance to the use of the more efficient and environmentally friendly magnesium chloride alternative.

How to get rid of snow and ice cheaply?

Rock salt is slightly cheaper than magnesium chloride. However, to effectively remove snow or ice from 100 m2 of surface, we need to use about 18.3 to 20.5 kg of rock salt and only 0.8 to 2.5 kg of magnesium chloride. In addition, sodium chloride or rock salt works only to -5, -10 degrees Celsius. So its use below these temperatures is completely ineffective. Rock salt doesn't fight ice, it just turns wet snow into salt water. Brine freezes at a lower temperature compared to water, but it is a very high temperature for our winters -5, -7 degrees Celsius. Magnesium chloride not only absorbs water and turns it into a solution. Magnesium chloride binds water, but during this binding of water it generates heat, i.e. it heats the immediate surroundings and thus actively dissolves the surrounding snow and ice. Following this line of reasoning, the higher the temperature melts more snow, more water appears, so the temperature continues to rise. The process continues as long as the magnesium chloride buffer is not exhausted. To put it simply and in a nutshell, as long as all the magnesium chloride does not dissolve. The temperature range of this reaction reaches as much as -55 degrees. However, at temperatures below -25, -30 degrees, the period of producing the first moisture that will initiate the process takes a very long time. At such low temperatures, the humidity is very low and magnesium chloride needs a long time to "start" the reaction. In the range down to -25 degrees, this thermal flywheel works very well, effectively removing snow from the applied surface.

Impact of road salt on the environment.

Road salt, and especially rock salt, i.e. sodium chloride, used in large quantities, gets under our feet, destroying shoes, under the wheels of our cars, accelerating their corrosion. In large quantities, it also gets into the soil, causing the effect of physiological drought. Physiological drought is a phenomenon in a nutshell consisting in the presence of water in the environment, but in a form that prevents the plant from absorbing it.

What is physiological drought caused by traditional road salt?

Sodium chloride present in the soil causes the phenomenon of physiological drought, raising the ionic potential of water in the soil to a level comparable to the level of ionic potential in plant tissues. Put simply, water saltier in the soil than the body fluids in the plant cannot penetrate the plant. Water on both sides of a permeable membrane - e.g. a plant cell wall - strives to equalize the ionic potential. That is, if we have a salty tissue fluid on one side and water devoid of ions on the other side, then the water tends to balance the ions on both sides of the semi-permeable barrier. Since there are no ions on one side of the barrier, and a lot of them on the other, water penetrates from the ion-poor environment to the ion-rich environment to “water it down”. This is what happens with normal water management in the soil. However, when we disturb this economy by introducing an excess of ions, e.g. from traditional road salt, we have the opposite situation. On the one hand of the cell membranes we have concentrated brine in the soil and on the other the physiological fluids of the plant. If the ion concentrations are at a similar level, the plant has difficult access to water. However, if the brine in the soil has a clearly higher concentration of ions than the fluids inside the plant tissues. Instead of from the soil to the plants, water flows from the center of lower potential, i.e. from the roots, to the center of higher potential, i.e. the soil. In this way, it is not enough that plants in heavily saline soil after winter de-icing cannot take up water, they are actively deprived of it and additionally dried. Year after year, such treatment will not be tolerated not only by a lawn or a line of conifers, but even a tree several decades old.  

How to protect plants from post-winter physiological drought?

The most effective solution to the problem of annual soil salinization is to resign from traditional road salt in favor of magnesium chloride, which is more efficient than traditional road salt - i.e. rock salt and, scientifically speaking, sodium chloride. So it is released into the environment less. Hence the lower ecological pressure. Smaller amounts of the substance do not cause the effect of physiological drought. By itself, in excessive amounts in the soil, magnesium chloride is obviously harmful, but in smaller doses it is a desirable source of micronutrients and as such is used in agriculture as a fertilizer. In addition, magnesium chloride does not damage footwear, does not accelerate the corrosion of vehicles, does not irritate the paws of our four-legged pets.

In sum. By using magnesium chloride, you will not only save money on de-icing, but you will also not endanger the greenery surrounding the property, the shoes of passers-by and vehicles. In this case, economics goes hand in hand with ecology. Ditch traditional road salt for organic magnesium chloride.

Affordable magnesium chloride as well as other road maintenance and de-icing agents available at distripark.com .

*This article is for informational purposes only. The presented description, in particular the use of the products, is exemplary and constitutes non-binding information about the characteristics and possibilities of their use/application. In any case, before using the product, consult a specialist whether the specific use is safe and justified. We do not bear any responsibility for the use of the proposed solutions, even in very similar situations.