Soil organic matter consists of a heterogenous mixture of plant, animal, and microbial material in various stages of decomposition. It possesses characteristics which at present are not very well known. Careful studies have been directed towards the behavior of organic matter as it affects plants directly and man indirectly. Consequently, much tire is devoted to its study from the point of metal inactivation and chelation, the earlier investigations failed to produce results worthy of the

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... s expended, so a loss of interest in the continued pursuit of knowledge resulted, about two decades ago when it was learned that many polyvalent metals in the soil exist as insoluble metallo-organic complexes, an interest was renewed in the study of soil organic matter interaction and chelation.