Agricultural lime

In livestock farming, hydrated lime can be used as a disinfectant measure, producing a dry and alkaline environment in which bacteria do not readily multiply.

Agricultural lime is injected into coal burners at power plants to reduce the pollutants such as NO2 and SO2 from the emissions.

Lime can improve crop yield and the root system of plants and grass where soils are acidic.

[8] Farmers typically become interested in soil testing when they notice a decrease in crop response to applied fertilizer.

[12] Because the acids in soil are relatively weak, agricultural limestones must be ground to a small particle size to be effective.

By combining the chemistry of a particular product (CCE) and its particle size the Effective Calcium Carbonate Equivalent (ECCE) is determined.

The ECCE is percentage comparison of a particular agricultural limestone with pure calcium carbonate with all particles smaller than 60 mesh.

Brazil's vast inland cerrado region was regarded as unfit for farming before the 1960s because the soil was too acidic and poor in nutrients, according to Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug, an American plant scientist referred to as the father of the Green Revolution.

However, from the 1960s, vast quantities of lime (pulverised chalk or limestone) were poured into the soil to reduce acidity.

Such introduction of agricultural lime has resulted in researchers wrongly concluding that certain prehistoric individuals originated far abroad from their burial sites, because strontium isotopic results measured in their remains and personal effects were compared to burial sites contaminated by agricultural lime.