What brand is it?

Just look up what iron chelate actually is.

Does your soil need it? Only a professional soil test knows.

What? Chelate synonym of salt? It is synonym of being available to be absorbed by living organisms if necessary!

Tox did not say a synonym for salt, simply that it is a generic term, just like "salt" is a generic term.

tj

Iron is a micro nutrient, plants need small amounts while an excess can be harmful so a good soil test is necessary to see if additional amounts are needed and if the deficiency (if there is one) is not due to other factors such as soil pH.
Chelated Iron is a form of Iron more readily available to a plant. There are acceptable to organic growers chelated iron products that will have the OMRI stamp on the label. If that is not there it may not be acceptable to a commercial organic grower but could be to someone that is not selling what they grow.
Before you use this be sure you need it.

If the chelating agent is bunch of letters like EDDHA,DTPA or EDTA it's synthetic.

Common organic chelating agents are lignosulfates and citric acid.

The synthetics are far more effective but rather nasty critters so use wisely and sparingly as a last resort.

tsuga - thank you, that is indeed what I meant.

Thanks kimmsr and garg for the detailed info, you two have probably forgotten more about this than I'll ever know. :-p That's what I like about this place, I end up looking up stuff that people ask about, or else getting edumacated by you guys.

A gardening consumer publication writing about Slug pellets says that some ferric phosphate pellets also contain a
chelating agent, called EDTA, to make the iron more soluble and this chemical is highly toxic to earthworms.

Not much to add here. Chelate means that a metal atom is part of the ringed molecule (ie the molecule has a 'ring' structure and one of the atoms involved is a metal).

There's the chemistry bit to add to the other technical stuff. And it is more available to soil/plants because as a general rule of thumb a ring structure is more easily broken apart....

Not sure why you would use this product though unless you have a confirmed deficiency of iron in your soil from a professional test...

Well, here's a question...does it matter to you if your product/process is certified organic?

To me, it makes a difference. Because if i have to certify, i'm really not interested. And if I don't have to certify, I have options that are perfectly reasonable that certain certification programs prohibit.

Just because it is organic doesn't mean it's not a chemical. Just because it's a chemical doesn't mean it's not safe.

If it isn't OMRI listed it cannot be used in organic certified operations. It also cannot be used in organic certified operations unless you follow certain rules about applying any ammendments or treatments that include some kind of documentation or testing to show it is needed.

Just to muddy the waters a bit more, one must use a chelator that is appropriate for their particular soil, wrong chelated Fe in the wrong soil, won't work for the intended purpose. For instance, EDDHA is the chelator of choice for calcareous and alkaline soils as opposed to DTPA which is for slightly acidic to slightly alkaline soils.

Haven't we gone around the iron phosphate chelator hurts earthworms merry-go-round before? The studies show little harm at the recommended dosage levels.

Also, unless there is a reason you need certified organic products I don't see the need to worry about it in this instance.