Yes. Growing and making your own Humic and Fulvic acids is ideal.
Raw Leonardite ( Oxidized Lignite ) is rather cheap and
can be composted to make that two group of acids soluble
and therefore available. That could be a cheap alternative. To
add a few hundred of Lbs ( depending on your compost pile
size ) of raw lignite to your compost pile can actually release
those two group of acids from the carbonaceous matrix.
You will get also the benefit of having lots of Ulmin in that material
which works better in the soil.
And, yes we need the Humic acid industry regardless the hype.
I believe that they do more good than harm to the agriculture.
jose
-----
Hi Jose -
I agree with your assessment about the hype involved with the humic acid
industry. But they provide a service to people who want to buy their
humic acid material, or need to build up their fungal biomass so they
can start making their own humics. So, test several products and see
which one works best for you.
Ultimately, I would like to see folks extracting their own humic acid
from their own compost. Fungi in thermal compost or worm compost make
fulvic and humic materials, and these can be extracted and applied
easily. However, no fungi, no decent humic material produced.
Simply moving water (simple water extraction or leaching) through
compost or worm compost fails to extract THE ORGANISMS and only pulls
out SOME of the soluble nutrients.
To do a good job of pulling out the whole range of humics, fulvics, and
soluble nutrients requires the mixing action in a GOOD compost tea
machine. You have to get the bubbles moving through the compost. The
Soil Soup or Growing Solutions machines, for example, do not provide
this mixing action, especially given the directions they provide to
people who buy their machines.
Aerobic compost tea gives you a high percentage of the soluble nutrients
AND the organisms. That's why the aeration has to be pretty serious, to
get the organisms and the soluble nutrients into solution, Tea then
increases the populations of beneficial organisms by maintaining
conditions that allows many of the BENEFICIAL organisms to grow to high
numbers.
For example, LASE and Blend, made by Huma-Gro (dealers I have worked
with for a long time, but not particularly much recently in Pascoe, WA),
have a base of leonardite, but then they basically compost the material,
extract the humics, concentrate them, and bottle it. These products can
be very beneficial, if you have at least a minimal fungal inoculum in
the soil.
So, grow your own humics in your compost, whatever kind of compost you
want to use. Then use a good compost tea machine to extract the
organisms and the nutrients. Applied to your plants in appropriate
amounts, at appropriate times, without killing the life you have in your
soil, you should be able to grow great, not-stressed plants.
Elaine
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
compost_tea-unsubscribe_at_yahoogroups.com
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service
<
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/> .
Esta mensagem foi verificada pelo E-mail Protegido Terra. Scan engine:
VirusScan / Atualizado em 30/10/2002 / Versão: 1.3.13 Proteja o seu
e-mail Terra:
http://www.emailprotegido.terra.com.br/
.
Received on Sat Nov 02 2002 - 14:35:20 EST