I am not all that learned on humic/fulvic/etc issues. According to what I read here, I would make a botanical tea (with aloe vera) and add a portion of what you have (a cup?) to that and apply as a foliar. There is a very good thread here on that. Let me see if I can find it. Here we are. Try this for a read and see if that helps. http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-...rienced-bio-ag-products-i-need-some-help.html
ordinarily i would not comment but when it comes to whining count me in. (i'm trying to agree with you, with humor). oh well might as well look at some humus porn until then...
if any ones interested i foundt aht picture atthis website Transition Culture random. I blame those spelling errors on a piece of some cinnamon bun i had earlier (vegan, gluten-free, delishious), seriously I get pissed when cinnamon buns are bad and this was GOOD.
So I need some help here please. I have a friend who may have an excess of lead in here backyard where she gardens. According to the paper/link left by MIW, http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1022134-humus-humates-humic-acid.html , humic matter can inhibit the uptake of certain metals, including lead, by plants. So my question is then, what is the cheapest source of humic material? We will want to cover her gardening beds several inches deep. My first thought is ewc's (not really cheap unless one has a flow through worm bin operating) or perhaps manure and plant waste. My other question, along the same lines, is I told here that rather than cutting her garden plants down and throwing the waste material in the compost bin (which is taken away by the city), that she just allow the plant material to stay on the ground as sort a mulch (which would also develop into humic material after many years). She insisted (she has a Masters degree and is hard to argue with at times) that organic farmers proclaim that this is a bad practice, that waste plant material must be worked into the ground, rather than left lying on top. Something to do with available nitrogen? Any help (links to studies?) would be appreciated. She has a 6 yo adopted daughter that I am very close to (I'm sort of a substitute Daddy figure) and I want to help them have a very healthy garden. Just found a very interesting site, but have as yet to read through. IHSS - What are Humic Substances? And a chart from here. Properties of humic substances
Here is a link to a reprints from ACRES Magazine on humic matter. http://www.saviskyproturf.com/doc/Humicsubstances.pdf This may be posted here already but here is BioAgs pdf on the subject. http://www.bioag.com/images/MY_can_NovDec09_40-44.pdf Here is the cheapest source of humic acid I have found so far. I need to review my notes again to see if it is useful to me and my situation. Since Humic Acids (HA) are a fraction of humic materials, I would tend to think of them as more of a DL given the above description I've given of DL. 1350 - Humic Acid - 85% Granular Soil Conditioner - 50 LBS
I'm curious about this and would like to have a discussion on the matter. DL, as I understand, is limited as it only has a couple of elements to it, where as ones liming needs can be handled by other materials that have a multitude of elements to it. However Leonardite has a multitude of humic substances to it, thus can fill many needs. So why is it like DL then? Hopefully you will be able to come back to address this LD, but if anyone else wants to jump in, please do! To the question above regarding LDs comment about Leonardite: This taken from the pdf link provided by MIW here; http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/1022134-humus-humates-humic-acid.html
Here is that pdf by TL Senn talking about humus and humic substances. http://3tiertech.com/pdfs/tech_docs/Review of Humus and Humic.pdf And another pdf of interest. http://ucanr.org/sites/nm/files/76657.pdf
WD, your friends concerns have some basis. Rotting plant material can rob N from the surface. Woody material, without a lot of N, would be worse. Plants with some N in them not so bad. Without any science to back me up, just from my experience I don't think using mulch negatively impacts the garden at all. I do mulch and think it helps. You could also broadcast some fertilizers on top the mulch. (alfalfa meal, soy bean meal, espoma) Cheap? How about hay bales or alfalfa bales? You may have something that is more appro in your geographic localation, like oat straw or whatever. Grass clippings, weeds, and leaf mulch might be a possibility too.....good luck.....MIW
Well I'm not telling her to put tree stumps on her garden, just the cut down plant material from her garden. If nitrogen is the issue, then it seems to me having a companion crop of some nitrogen fixing legumes (clover) would help? I'm reading conflicting material. Some say leave the material you would toss in a compost bin on the soil so as to not rob the soil of nutrients (and help build soil fertility in many ways), others say it will rob your soil of nitrogen. I'm confuzzled.
Just think of nitrogen as fuel. Composting is the same idea in a composter or on the ground, as mulch. If you had a tumbler full of wood chips it would take forever to break down. If you added some high N soy bean meal or alfalfa meal things would speed up fast. In my veggie garden I mulch with compost/ewc around each plant. Then in general and on top of that the soil surface also gets mulched with old plants, leaves, grass clippings and so on. Then the mulch and soil gets both a lacto b spray and some compost tea sprayed on the surface. I imagine the compost tea would settle any N concerns by itself, but you still could add N if concerned.......MIW
Yes, yes. Along these lines you may want to gift your friend a book called the one straw revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka. The book explores the same subject material, and one farmers solutions. One very insightful farmer btw......MIW
Yeah, she's a busy lady (single Mom) and getting her to pay attention to anything I think is important is always a trick. But I'll send her my copy. I know loads of cannabis growers, myself included, use cannabis leaf as a mulch. Doesn't seem to cause me to many problems, in fact my mother plant has never looked so good since I started using cannabis leaf for a mulch. I just trim the branch tips, cut them up and apply immediately to the soil surface. I've heard the old stories about wood chips and such sucking nitrogen (or more accurately, the soil microbes/bacteria) from the soil. Is there any science to this? Studies? But it does seem to me that just plant waste from a garden shouldn't do this. I like the idea of a bale of alfalfa laid down as a mulch. Perhaps I can get her to buy some and share it with me. She has a car.
WD, I googled the phase, mulch robbing nitrogen from soil, and got plenty of links. I tried to post some but lost my whole post. To spare me redundancy just use that phrase in a search......MIW
This seemed interesting to me. Which mulch is better - Soil Forum - GardenWeb It seems nitrogen robbing is not such an issue, especially with yard and garden bio mater.