CELTIX DIATOMACEOUS EARTH

Or DIATOMITE (NEWPRODUCT) (abbreviation DE)

Natural feeds and Fertilisers is the UK agent for World Minerals Food -Grade Diatomaceous Earth specifically for control of insects in grain, poultry housing and for natural parasite control (ADAS Trialled in Wales, UK)

Benefits of Diatomaceous Earth

• Safe non-toxic product
• Stored grain protector
• Prevents and controls many internal and external parasites
• Better feed conversion
• Healthier appearance of stock
• Reduction in manure odour
• Contains some trace minerals

This product is verified by The Soil Association in the UK for use in structural treatment of organic grain stores and under derogation for top dressing and admixing into the stored grain. Diatomaceous Earth is registered as a stored grain protectant or for structural treatment in Australia, Canada, USA, Croatia, Germany, China and some other Asian countries. In Australia it is used primarily as a treatment for empty silos.  [ www.mtsylviadiatomite.com.au ]

It is also verified as a treatment for Red mite in poultry houses in the UK and Australia.

It is approved as an anti-caking agent, filler and processing aid in feeds, but it has been reported to be much more beneficial than these classifications imply.

What Is Diatomaceous Earth

Diatomite is a naturally occurring material that has been exposed over thousands of square miles of the earth’s surface for millions of years. People live on it , farm on it and rear animals on it. Many species of wildlife (with the exception of crawling and burrowing insects) live on it. Streams with viable fish and wildlife populations, flow through it, and people, their animals and wildlife utilise the water without harm. DE is non-toxic, extremely stable and does not produce residual chemicals.

Diatomaceous Earth is a powder produced from diatomite, a sedimentary rock composed of silica shell remains of single-cell aquatic plants called diatoms. These algae-like cells still proliferate in oceans and lakes today, as they did at least 20 million years ago in the lakes and seas of the Miocene. The phytoplankton absorbs dissolved silica and converts it into a highly ordered bivalve shell made of porous pure silica with many small (0.5 to 1.0u) holes, similar in structure to that of a petri-dish.

Phytoplankton is responsible for much of the food and most of the oxygen that is consumed on the earth. About six tenths of all phytoplankton are diatoms, and the ocean averages 7 to 8 billion per square metre. Plankton diatoms divide once every 18 to 36 hours, and the life cycle of a diatom is about 6 days. Marine diatomaceous phytoplankton are often called ‘grass of the sea’ because many ocean creatures depend on them for food. Masses of them are consumed in the food chain, as it takes 10,000 lbs of diatoms to make 1,000 lbs of coepeds, then 100 lbs of herring and finally 1lb of tuna fish.

In spite of the immense variations in shape and size, each diatom species has two things in common, chemically the same silica shell and physically an intricate perforated structure. Most of the total shell structures do not survive the mining and milling process. Surprisingly this is not a requirement for the numerous applications that exist for Diatomaceous Earth .It is the myriad of interconnected pores and generally hard, irregular structure that is important to the functionality of this remarkable earth.

The key to high quality diatomaceous earth products is simply to ensure that the diatomite rock being mined is of sufficient purity and free from clays and other minerals. This sounds easy but in reality there are very few diatomite deposits world-wide that are of sufficient purity, and even then, very careful extraction has to be effected to prevent inclusion of impurities. Moreover strict attention must be paid to downstream processing to prevent melting of the diatomite structure.