The relative ability of soils to store one particular group of nutrients, the cations, is referred to as cation exchange capacity or CEC. Soils are composed of a mixture of sand, silt, clay and ...

5. Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC). This, plus base saturation levels, help characterize soil type, Friedericks says. Together, they show how a soil can hold specific plant nutrients in the profile.

The technical term for how well soil holds onto nutrients is called cation exchange capacity. The higher the CEC, the better the soil holds onto nutrients. For comparison, soils with a higher silt ...