Application of Natural Zeolites as a Strategy to Optimize Input Consumption for Sustainable Agriculture

Zeolites are aluminosilicate minerals and are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. The unique physical and chemical properties of natural zeolites, together with their abundance in sedimentary compositions and volcanic rocks, contribute to the importance of zeolites in many agricultural and environmental applications such as producing slow-release fertilizers and pesticides, increasing chemical fertilizers efficiency, decreasing nutrients leaching, increasing crop yield, creating zeolite growth media, zeolite amendment diet, prevention and treatment of animal and poultry diseases, water and sewage purification, refining contaminated soils and reclaiming wasteland. The properties of zeolites such as high ion exchange capacity, hydrophilicity/hydrophobicity and selective absorption enable them to be used for increasing livestock and crop production. It should be taken into account that any research on zeolites in Iran, where it has proven to be a rich reserve of these natural materials, is vital because it would lead to an increase in the use of natural resources in the country and reduction in the country’s dependence on expensive foreign inputs. In other words, the application of zeolites in the agricultural and environmental industries would help to maximize the utilization of inexpensive and locally available raw materials and minimum use of imported products that will face higher tariffs. In this article, while trying to introduce natural zeolites as an available material with unique properties, we briefly describe some features and some of their applications in the agricultural industry.