Humic substances such as lignin and charcoal are formed by the microbial degradation of dead plant matter. Among these substances are humic acids — complex molecules that exist naturally in soils, peats, oceans and fresh waters. Humic acid is not a single acid; rather, it is a complex mixture of many acids containing carboxyl and phenolate groups.
Fungi is doing what it’s been doing for more than a billion years – eating rock, making soil, digesting pollutants, nourishing and killing plants, producing food, making medicines, manipulating animal behavior and influencing the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere. Yet, fungi are largely hidden from view and more than 90% of their species remain undocumented.
2021 is being compared to 2015 as a critically dry year for California. 2 million acres of farmland will fall woefully short of its required water supply. I mentioned in previous newsletters that Andaman Ag sells AquaVantage, a bio-degradable, starch-based polymer that’s used as a soil amendment, capable of absorbing up to 500 times its weight in water to store and gradually release it to crops. The result: crops require 30-40% less water, given the water holding capacity! We believe it’s a breakthrough product that can have a major role in helping to mitigate drought conditions.
We’ve decided to change the format for our newsletters for a while, and address questions from the field. I already do this indirectly: Many times these questions inspire me to conduct additional research and the information will then find its way into a newsletter. Fielding questions from growers is about as good as it gets for me, and I encourage all of you to send yours my way. We like to solve problems! If we get related questions, we’ll try to group them into a themed response.
I’m an organic almond grower and I’m looking for more nitrogen options. What do you recommend?
Organic fertilizers also help foster a healthy environment for beneficial microbes in the soil. Organic fertilizers typically contain smaller amounts of N-P-K than synthetic fertilizers they’re more beneficial to plants because they are taken up slowly as needed where synthetic fertilizers are quickly consumed.
In addition, organic nitrogen sources feed the soil biology while synthetic materials kill the biology and drive out other contributors to good soil like earthworms or nature’s fertilizer producing machines. While plants react to synthetic nitrogen, it breaks down the organic matter faster than plant residue and the dead microbes that go through cycles of bloom, can replace it.