A soil conditioner is a product which is added to soil to improve the soil’s physical qualities, usually its fertility (ability to provide nutrition for plants) and sometimes its mechanics. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_conditioner

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Farmers have long recognized the need to enhance soil properties, including its structure, fertility and water retention by using soil amendments such as fertilizers and conditioners - https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/farming-natural-resources-...

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Note added at 17 hrs (2019-04-05 10:45:17 GMT)
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A soil conditioner is a substance that can be added to soil to change the soil properties.

We carve out this definition to provide distinction and clarity for our customers. In today's “fast green” world we see an overabundance of fertilizers and a heavy focus on the chemical inputs, but we often ignore the other two categories of soil amendments. At Southland Organics we distinctly divide soil amendments into three categories;

Fertilizers - be it organic or synthetic a fertilizer is a soil amendment that provides adds nutrients. The primary nutrients that fertilizers add are nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. These are also called macro-nutrients. There are 72 trace elements or "micro-nutrients" that fertilizers can add as well.

Soil inoculants - are soil amendments that add biology to the soil to improve the soil food web. Often these focus on bacteria or fungi but can also include beneficial nematodes and other biology that play vital roles in the carbon cycle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle) or nitrogen cycle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_cycle). Soil biology plays a tremendous role in a healthy environment.

Soil conditioners - enhance soil properties and are often called soil enhancer. These products do alter the soil structure, but that is only part of the effect. Soil properties include many areas such as cation exchange capacity, soil ph, water holding capacity, or soil compaction.

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