Sustainability at Scale through Balanced pH

ECO2MIX as a Safe & Sustainable Turf Management Alternative

When a product or service is more practical and cost effective, it tends to scale. What is scalable then proves to be sustainable (or unsustainable, in many cases). What if I told you that the currently scalable (and thus, mainstream) solution for managing water and soil pH in agricultural and golfing lands involves using energy-intensive systems to burn sulfur? 

Enter: ECO2MIX -- an alternative solution to improve pH and turf conditions at a fraction of the cost and energy, and with better results. 

Scaling sustainability requires serving the needs of a variety of stakeholders, including plants. What does turfgrass need, fundamentally? For one, lots of water, but the quality of that water is as important as the quantity of water. For optimal turf conditions, soil and irrigation systems must have balanced (or slightly acidic) pH.

Based in Fresno, California, ECO2MIX offers an eco-friendlier alternative to the status quo solutions of water pH management in agriculture and golf irrigation systems. In the interest of providing a better golf product through balanced water and soil pH, irrigation systems often use sulfuric acid and sulfur burners.

ECO2MIX instead uses carbonic acid (CO2) dissolved in water (think: soda water without the bubbles) as an alternative that mimics the chemistry of natural rainwater and improves soil biology in a variety of ways, including:

• Improved irrigation water pH (and by extension, soil pH)

• Improved nutrient uptake for plants/turfgrass

• Reduced alkalinity & salinity of soil

• Reduced maintenance needs for the golf course (it’s a fully automated service)

• Reduced energy costs while avoiding environmental harms (and human safety risks of burning sulfur)

• Potential to improve carbon storage and even sequestration

• Potential to create other ecosystem services and regenerative improvements

While this solution is less harmful, it even offers ways to proactively improve (or regenerate) ecosystems while costing 20-40% less than existing systems.

Waldo Moraga is the President & CEO of ECO2MIX, while Carlson Herbert serves as a Marketing & Sales Specialist. Our conversation discusses how this venture unfolded and why it can scale to create value for the turf management and agriculture industries. 

Enjoy! 

You mentioned there’s a human-side and a more technical side to how the ECO2MIX venture began. Let’s start with hearing about the human-side.

Waldo: My journey with irrigation started in 1994 [in Chile]. By 2003, I started to realize that farmers needed help with their fertigation systems, so we looked for ways to address pH. Because of the hilly and dry terrain of Chile, our irrigation systems were actually more advanced than what I saw in the US.

We used sulfuric acid in the beginning because it was available cheaply from copper mining, but it came with long-term detrimental effects to soil health along with some concerns for human health. By working with farmers in Peru, I began to discover carbon dioxide as a natural alternative to mimic rainwater. ECO2MIX was born from wanting a soil pH management solution that was easy to use but would keep people safe.

Carlson: I’ll also add that in California, we have had terrible stories of accidents because of how close sulfuric acid systems on farms can be to the road. As for golf courses and turfgrass systems, sometimes we hear about neighbors to the golf course smelling the sulfur.

That segues well into my next question… please outline the problem that ECO2Mix aims to solve. Why is soil pH so important for golf courses to maintain?

Waldo: We focus on maintaining the optimal water pH, and ultimately soil pH. It’s about finding the sweet spot for pH, which means that it could go up or down. The goal is promoting turfgrass health through soil health and balanced water pH. Having the sweet spot of soil pH improves soil microbial activity, nutrient uptake, and water penetration.

Carlson: Regarding golf courses, we’ve heard about issues with seashells and calcium, thus having higher pH and poor conditions for turf quality.

Does the product apply more readily to some local climates and/or turfgrass ecosystems vs others? I would assume that it applies more so for turf with high salinity or maybe golf courses in coastal contexts.

Waldo: Most of the time, high pH soil has higher salinity or concentration of salts. On the golf course we have in Bakersfield, we have seen 37% reduction in electrical conductivity in two years, meaning that we have successfully managed challenges with salinity to improve turfgrass health.

Could you then describe how ECO2Mix works at a higher level?

Waldo: It’s a natural product that mimics what we see in rainwater, which is more acidic. It’s far more sustainable than the harsh chemicals involved in the sulfuric acid alternative. Plants improve photosynthesis when we apply water with carbon dioxide dissolved in it. The leaves of the plants can utilize the carbon right away, which improves the health of the plant overall.

Carlson: Our secret sauce is the patented system that dissolves all CO2 into the water, which does so very efficiently with almost no additional power required.

And how does your solution compare to other alternatives for addressing the main problem of soil pH? You mention biomimicry of rainwater, but couldn’t you simply use rainwater harvesting then? I’m also very curious about the regenerative possibilities of ECO2MIX. For example, could you combine this method with carbon capture to address multiple challenges at once?

Carlson: Well, great question! Regarding rainwater in California, we don’t have a lot of rainwater available, and furthermore the carbon dioxide available in rainwater wouldn’t be stable for weeks at a time.

Waldo: We have pressurized CO2 stored in tanks that requires essentially no energy to distribute in the irrigation system, so that makes us more efficient than alternative solutions. It takes only one horsepower, and with one small solar panel we can manage the control panel and minimal power needed. Existing sulfur systems require between 15-20 horsepower.

Carlson: The sulfur alternative also requires burning pellets to create sulfur dioxide. Technically, this is considered “organic” since it’s similar to what’s found in volcanoes, but the process is a headache and has additional environmental concerns. What we provide is fully automated and simple to operate. The appeal to golf courses is that they will have ideal pH without ever having to manage the system themselves. That frees up labor and other resources for the golf course to address elsewhere.

What have been the results? And are there any ways that the product could increase carbon footprint if you’re emitting carbon dioxide onto the golf course, even if in liquid form? What’s the net-carbon footprint of ECO2MIX?

Waldo: We have about 100 systems operating, and we’re continuing to think about ways to capture carbon while making our systems more sustainable. The way we apply the carbon currently improves plant health and ultimately carbon uptake.

 Carlson: We do also save on the energy efficiency component of pH management systems. While we can’t definitively say how much it’s improved, we have observed increases in soil carbon stored and without sharing too much, we are actively exploring ways to improve our sourcing of the carbon.

Is your product a replacement, supplement, or complement to other soil health solutions/tech?

Waldo: It could be any of the above. ECO2MIX is a full-service system that can improve multiple operational efficiencies without any additional capital expenses or labor expenses required. We just install it in a 10’ by 10’ space, and because it’s basically applying the same chemistry as rainwater, it’s compatible with many other solutions as a complement.

Are there other holistic possibilities as well like wastewater remediation? Especially in the municipal golf context, there’s such a need for wastewater treatment locally, so I’m curious about deeper ways to integrate nature and civilization.

Waldo: Absolutely! We’re doing that with strawberries already. We treat the irrigation water that comes after a wastewater plant, and our product makes it safer for applying to irrigation. The regenerative side of our process is especially highlighted for microbes. Life is carbon-based, so carbonic acid feeds the microbes and mimics natural processes. You can think of our product like sparkling water (without the bubbles), and because it’s dissolved there isn’t off-gassing of CO2.

Going back to the chemistry of the soil, you get a better use of nitrogen when you have balanced or slightly more acidic soil pH. That naturally creates less waste (improving nutrient cycling/uptake).

Something I’ve learned through investigating sustainability solutions for these several years is that financial sustainability equals scale, and scale equals ecological sustainability. What makes this product scalable and where will it go in the future?

 Waldo: Regarding partnerships, we have geography in mind, to partner with local CO2 suppliers and also irrigation companies.

Carlson: Our focus is also on providing service to customers, not just providing a product.In the near future, we are expanding outside of California to neighboring states, and we will want to work with partners who are also service-oriented. 

When you talk about regenerative systems, many companies are doing great work to put waste streams toward productive uses. We want to integrate that into our carbon dioxide sourcing, but we will have more to say on that in the future!