Chemical and physical properties of coir

Chemical and physical properties of coir.
Link to this table

Property	Range found in literature1	Median value from literature
Total phosphorus (% dry wt)	0.036 - 0.41	0.036
Total nitrogen (% dry wt)	0.24 - 0.5	0.45
Total potassium (% dry wt)	0.4 - 2.39	0.819
Total carbon (%)	42 - 49	47.1
Total hydrogen (%)		4.4
pH	4.9 - 6.9	5.9
Cation exchange capacity (cmol/kg)	31.7 - 130	50
Electrical conductivity (ds/m)	39 - 2900	582
Total calcium (%)	0.18-0.47	0.40
Total magnesium (%)	0.11-0.47	0.36
Total copper (mg/kg)	3.1-10.3	4.2
Total zinc (mg/kg)	4.0-9.8	7.5
Total manganese (mg/kg)	12.5-92	17
Bulk density (g/cm3)	0.025 - 0.132	0.06
Water holding capacity (% by wt)	137 - 1100	566
Total pore space (%)	85.5 - 98.3	95.2

Primary references for this data:

• Cresswell
• Abad et al., 2002
• Abad et al., 2005
• Asiah et al., 2004
• Kumar et al., 2010
• Lodolini et al., 2017
• Shrestha et al., 2019