Hey guys, I've seen a few soil mixtures and threads where people refer to the use of Humic Acid, I'm new to Organic so did a bit of reading on it, but I'm still confused as to its uses. So alot of articles refer to the organic degradation and its natural use in the world, but how does it precisely aid organic soils and growing please? Also, can you only buy it in bottled form? Is it vegetarian and can you make it? Any advice, help appreciated. Vegi
Read here - Properties of humic substances And here - Frequently Asked Questions for Humic Acids in Crop Production And here - BioAg humate, fulvic, humic acid and general humates info That'll get you started. J
This will give you a solid working knowledge of what Humic & Fulvic Acids are and their uses in the garden. In my opinion it is redundant to use Humic acids if you are building a high quality organic soil based on (good, viable) compost/vermicompost as these two items already contain Humic substances in large amounts & too much can be a bad thing, causing weird growth. J
A worm bin can supply all you need since they produce it as a byproduct. In the most simple terms, it's the stuff that turns the water brown when you make EWC tea. Jerry provided some most excellent links. Wet
I agree. I wont ever use HA as an additional standalone input because of what's already been pointed out above. I almost feel the same about BioAg's FA product. I personally have just kept with the basics for INDOOR CONTAINER gardening and am real hesitant to add additional humic substances and FA liquids. Let me put it this way, if a grower overdoes any single thing to excess in a container grow to the point the plant starts showing any kind of malaise you're pretty much done for that grow. It's hard to undo a problem to soil that is confined to a container. Go easy with all things.... EDIT: I suggest you stick with quality vermicompost to do what is needed in the grow paradigm and leave all HA and FA add-ons out of the puzzle until such time you've had time to recycle your medium 2-3 times in order to establish a baseline for your soilless mix, your irrigation water, and your overall grow environment. Until you know what you're working with for your situation it's best to go real slow and focus only on the basics. I don't categorize man-made extractions of HA and FA as 'basic tools' IME. Focus on the basics and performed well you won't want any extra baggage to have to contend with. Just IMO, VOE, IME, BTDT kind of thingy-thing
I use it and bokashi then compost the soil in a trash can. It blooms white molds and resembles mycellium taking over a spawn cake.
you can make your own humic by slowly rinsing a high quality compost with plain water through a sieve, and the brown water extracted is humic acid rich water! check out Dr. Elaine Ingham on youtube for more detailed info on this, but that's it in a nutshell.
Hi vegi, thanks for asking the question. I recommend you use humic acid. Humic acids make nutrients more available. It also removes harmful toxins in the soil, so they can't enter the plant. This benefit is impressive when you consider today's soil environments. If you use humic acid in the correct quantity and keep in mind the right formula, the results will be excellent.