Have any gardeners or vegeatable farmers used any of the humic acid products? I know someone living in Idaho who is curious about using them and I would like to know what people have found when using these products.
I used to sell one to the hydroponic industry a few years ago, I dont know what the current market is like. In an inert and sterile system it may have merit.
Humate and Humic Acid in relation to turfgrass from Dr. Kussow of the University Wisconsin - Madison.
I have personally use humate in my vegetable gardens,and ornamental gardens. The results comes form the vegetable garden because you can taste the difference. It gives the vegetable a firmer texture and it increased the flavor to extraordinary level. It increase the sugar content by maybe twenty five percent, this even if the pH and fertilizer program is less then perfect. The new thing in humate or humic shale is the extraction of fulvic acid. It is being consumed by people to treat certain maladies, of which I know little. If a dilute portion of fulvic acid and water is applied as a foliar spray at night it will induce growth, even during the dormant periods of summer. The humate is made up of three basic acids, fulvic, humic and ulvic, each acid is responsible for it own set of benefits. These are not acids as we typically think of acid and they do not change the pH of soil. Humate, applied to the soil will improve it's biological structure in every way that is of benefit. If you want earth worms, apply humate, if you want to detoxify your soil add humate, if you want to break down clay use it, if you want to cut on the use of fertilizer use humate. If you want to increase the mycorrhizae relationship use humic shale. If you want to skip using fertilizers all together do it. But don't take my word for it , I am no body but this guy is : Dr. T.L. Senn Head Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Horticulture,Clemson University what does this old boy have to add to the topic. Here is a link to a paper that he wrote on fulvic: http://www.richearth.net/Dr_Senn.htm#Characteristics of Fulvic Acid
Right, except that site is trying to sell you something. Alarm bells go off in my head anytime I see a site using the word "Miracle", "World's Finest" and "Most Powerful" in describing a product. Here's some research involving biostimulants, with mixed results (and certainly not the kind claimed by the above article): Effects of Soil Amendments and Biostimulants on the Post-transplant Growth of Landscape Trees
Yes that is right Dan I didn't see that Home Page radio button until you mentioned they were trying to sell something. Thanks
