Busted: Humic and Fluvic acids do Not occur in nature

[Rev. Green Genes]

Humic Acid.

Role of Humic Acid (bacterial/fungal and chemical mediated long hydrocarbons, alcohols, sugars, lignins)

•Made from Decomposition leftovers

•Coiled polymer stores energy

•Hydrophillic and hydrophobic parts

•It coils in on itself in water

•Hydrophobic parts inside

•Hydrophyllic parts out into the water

•Binds cations, immobilizing plant nutrients for later use

•Hydrophobic organic compounds such as pesticides and metals (bioremediation) are absorbed by the hydrophobic parts

Role of Humus in the Soil Ecosystem

•Aggregate stability and formation

•pH Buffer capacity

•High CEC/nutrient holding capacity

•Source of mineralizable N, P, S, micronutrients

•Darkens soil color (soil warms faster)

•Greater water holding capacity
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Proof that humic substances exist in nature:

The following exerpt from "Characterization of soil humic substances by ultraviolet-visible and synchronous fluorescence spectroscopy"
Nadezda Fasurova and Lubica Pospisilova

Journal of Central European Agriculture. 11.3 (Nov. 2010): p351+.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2010 Sveuciliste U Zagrebu


"Humic substances (HS), natural organic materials represent mixture of relatively small organic components, which form supramolecular structures held together by dispersive forces such as [pi] - [pi] and van der Waals interactions (5). Assessment of the best analytical method for complete HS characterization is still being discussed. HS differ in molecular weight, elemental composition, acidity, and cation exchange capacity and often they are classified into three major groups (fractions) according to their solubility as pointed (27). That means: humic acids (HA), fulvic acids (FA) and humins. The HA fraction consist of hydroxyphenols, hydroxybenzoic acids, and others aromatic structures with linked peptides, amino compounds, and fatty acids. Fulvic acids are typically composed of a variety of phenolic and benzene carboxylic acids. FA molecule held together by hydrogen bonds to form stable polymeric structures or by association with polysaccharides that are easily separated by adsorption on charcoal or by gel chromatography. FA contain more oxygen, less carbon and more acidic functional groups, particularly-COOH to compare with HA. Humins are considered to be insoluble fraction consist of the humic type polymers that form strong associations with minerals Schnitzer and Khan (27). A difficulty with HS chemical extraction is that they are tedious and labour intensive and not suitable for large numbers of samples. New approaches of spectrometry that include a wide variety of the spectroscopic techniques have been successfully applied.


The application of humic substances in agriculture, environmental and medicine is known (21). Their using as heavy metals absorbents and for pollutant sequestration is quoted by (2), (6), (9), (11), (23), (29)."


According to Orlov (19) and Kumada (14) visible spectral lines and indexes ([Q.sub.4/6]) are able quite well characterized HS quality, maturity and condensation degree.


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More Proof that humic substances exist in nature: and that they can be identified and extracted without ph 13 treatments.


Excerpt from "Chemical Composition and Physical Properties of Humic Substances"

• W. Flaig, H. Beutelspacher, E. Rietz
• Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1975

"IV. Isolation of Humic Substances

The substances that are formed from plant material during humification consist of a
mixture of various compounds. Because these compounds have very similar properties, the
extraction of substances with uniform compositions is very difficult. The extraction is accompanied
by more or less large alterations, such as hydrolytic degradation or condensation
reactions, depending upon the procedure. These alterations especially accompany colored
substances, such as fulvic acids, hymatomelanic acids, and humic acids, which are formed
during humification. Therefore, the separation procedures lead to very different results.
according to the physicochemical properties.
A further difficulty in extracting substances is the fact that the organic substances in the
soil are bound by bivalent and trivalent cations and possibly by hydrogen-bridge linkages of
phenolic or aliphatic hydroxyl groups or of carboxylic groups, and also, to a lesser extent, of
amino groups with silicic clay minerals. Polar solvents with high dielectric constants, which
increase the dispersity of humic substances or which-increase the solubility by disrupting the
hydrogen bonds of the fixed metallic cations and immobilizing them, are most efficient extiactants
causing little chemical alteration (WHITEHEAD and TINSLEY [1964]). The solvents used
should be selected for the substances desired, so that purification and separation in substantially
uniform components without chemical alterations are possible."

 

[pop22]

Awesome! Good to see people doing their own research! I don't mind being proven wrong, this is how we get information out to people!

 

[Rev. Green Genes]

Overall, the article cited is busted, yes. But that still does not "prove" that this is any good for horticulture. It does show how in a field setting organic residues are processed into these humic substances, and that is where the benefit is at scientifically. Growing in small volumes is a whole other animal, so to speak.

 

[Rev. Green Genes]

This site has depth. And easy to read. This kind of information is not easy to come by. This guy loves his work.

http://www.teravita.com/Humates/HumateIntro.htm

 

[calliandra]

hey guys, thanks for all the great links, looking forward to perusing them!

However, I didn't even look at the original link from gardenmyths - that guy has proven to me without a doubt in the past that his takes on subject matter can be very biased and contort factual information in hard-to-catch subtle ways to serve his own purposes - so I'm not going to sully my already confused mind with what he spewed about humic substances
Cheers!

 

[cloudsosmoke]

Some good info in this thread - thanks all

I just got 100g of this
cheap from eBay

Humate made using wood (..I think)

It says
By the end of the 1990s, experts of the Research and Production Enterprise "Realizatsiya Ecologicheskikh Tekhnologiy" (eng.: "Implementation of Ecological Technologies") accomplished the long-term development of the unique technology of producing humic substances through imitation of natural humification of plant wastes of various genesis, with a wide range of humic substanсes in the output. The final product is a highly efficient and practically feasible humic (without carrier) fertilizer with microelements in the form of chelates

http://www.lignohumate.com/en/about_gumat/lignogumat/

I’m only novice Gardener
I’m trying it out