A crop growing in the right quantity and quality can only be secured if nutrients are provided in an adequate quantity and available form. Copper (Cu) has primary importance among microelements in growing winter wheat. Lack of Cu hinders nitrogen uptake by plants. Therefore, increasing bioavailability is important in crop production. It has been conducted successful foliar fertilisation experiments with Tetraamminecopper(II) sulphate for several years. The efficiency of the applied compound was enhanced by the application of a retarded nutrient-supply. To secure retardation, ion exchange was carried out in NaA type synthesized zeolite with Tetraamminecopper(II) sulphate. Structure of Tetraamminecopper(II) sulphate, and zeolite ion-exchanged by copper-tetraamine was analysed with a derivatograph and X-ray diffraction. Derivatograph analyses revealed heat stability. X-ray diffraction analyses revealed that copper-tetramine ions exchanged a significant part of the sodium ions of zeolite in ion exchange.

Zn is an essential micronutrient involved in a wide variety of physiological processes. Soils are tested for zinc in many countries with several extractants. Each country has its validated methods, best-suited for its soils. The current study was designed to compare different zinc content measuring methods with seventy-one samples from Hungary. The data were first compared for the whole dataset and then in certain categories such as CaCO3-content, pH, texture and clay content. The zinc content was determined by the water extraction, KCl-EDTA (ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid), Mehlich 3, CoHex (cobalt hexamine trichloride), and XRF (X-ray fluorescence) methods. Based on the analyses of all the data, we can conclude that all the methods are different. However, further analyses during the comparison of the methods based on the influencing factors, such as the pH, lime content, texture class, and clay content proved that, in some of the cases, there are similarities among the methods and, this way, we can get more knowledge on the measurements and the results provided. Farmers can gain extra knowledge from the comparison of the influencing factors to know where intervention is needed to use extra Zn for the proper fertilisation of their plants.