Humic Acid - what strength, how often?

[Smoke]

I have never heard of humic acid before, I read above where its used only in non organic mixtures to make them more suitable to plants. Does this mean that totally non organic is less than desirable for Bonsai? I ask as some swear by non organic mixes, while others use soil or a soil/non organic mix. I have grown in soil, in mix and in non organics such as aquarium gravel and small pea pebbles, the only difference I have ever found that is the gravels take much more watering and fertilizing. I like the gravels as they are easier when I repot, more or less shake the stuff off while the organic and even mixes usually ha to be sprayed away from the roots. The only stuff I have really hated is the stuff, I don't know the name, the stuff that is like little pieces of white styrofoam that gets stuck in the roots and ruins the look of the soil. Other than that I have never had a real problem with any soil or mix as everything seems to grow fine in whatever I use. lately I have been going with a mix of the crushed red lava rock and soil and fine composted pine bark in equal amounts, 1/3rd of each and it seems like everything else I have used over the years , the plants grow.

ed

Compost! That is what humic acid is. Humates are derived from the composting of organics. When organics breakdown they compact, give off heat and require nitrogen to do all this.

Organics in bonsai soil tend to clog soil particles and can create anaerobic areas in the soil with no oxygen and begin to rot. The next innovative thing in bonsai was to get rid of organics in the soil and move towards inert materials that did not cause rotting conditions. Also with these super porous soils it is virtually impossible to over water and there fore making it much easier to keep bonsai in a work related invironment with watering clocks and timers that can water three times a day if needed.

What is missing is the invironment that made grandads tomatos taste so good, the good old compost he added to the garden. What humic acid can do is add the benificial part of the compost (humic acid) without all the soil clogging organics, (rotton leaves, yard clippings, coffee grounds, egg shells) to the pot.

Soil components are not what makes a plant healthy. In fact in hydroponic farming, which makes super human pot plants, there is many times no soil even used untill the very end. You could grow plants in styrofoam packing peanuts and probably do a decent job. Fertilizing is what makes plants healthy and grow and thrive. Good soil along with good fertilizing makes plants strong enough for the stress we put them thru.

Above you mention composted pine bark. "Compost" is in the word so you have introduced small amounts of humic acid right there. The problem is the word composted is used to mean most anything now days. If the bark is not truly composted, then it will rob all the nitrogen from your soil that you put in by way of fertilizer as it continues decomposing.

True compost is black and smells like mushrooms and is sweet smelling. If your smells like sawn wood or sawdust, or is the color of sawdust and retains bark texture then it is not composted as is really defeating your purpose.

 

[JudyB]

So does the chicken manure need to be composted before use as a fertilizer? I have access to chickens...

coop poop! pretty much says it all.

I'm also now wondering if my "composted" bark I had been using was not really composted. Could've been part of my underfeeding issue from last year. But I've switched to all non organics this year, so I'll just have to watch the ones who didn't get repotted this year. Does mulch that isn't composted to begin with, become composted over a period of time in a pot?

 

[jk_lewis]

In the FWIW department: I don't use ANY additives on my bonsai -- no S'thrive, no 101 (whatever that is), none of the Roots products, no humic acid, no b-12 - 13 - 14 OR 15, or any other magic elixir that gets touted to produce gigantic tomatoes, pumpkins you could live in, or any of those other wunnerful things horticultural snake oil marketers try to palm off on the unsuspecting public. I just add NPK and the minor trace elements periodically.

My trees are as healthy and green as anyone else's, and have been for going on 40 years now.

So, you pays yer money and you makes yer choice (as "they" say). I prefer to keep my money handy for another pint of Guiness every so often.

 

[FrankP999]

jkl,
what trace element product(s) do you use and what is your application schedule?
Thanks

 

[grouper52]

I prefer to keep my money handy for another pint of Guiness every so often.

You must be referring to that old guy's secret "Beer-Epsom salts-Ammonium" recipe for bonsai fertilizer! (no kidding, BTW, for those new to the hobby).

I prefer to save my money to use the way that guy plaintively wailed about in his famous quote from the Great Soil Wars: "What are we supposed to use? Ground up hundred dollar bills??"

 

[misfit11]

BTW...

Anyone notice where my fertilizer is?

Not sure if you addressed this, Al. Are you referring to the slow release granules on the surface of the soil? It seems that the pine has the slow release around the edge of the pot vs. the close-up of the trident has the granules everywhere. Is this correct?

 

[jk_lewis]

jkl,
what trace element product(s) do you use and what is your application schedule?
Thanks

I have a couple of bottles -- different products. What matters is the elements included. Both have a very full regime.

The fertilizers I use also have trace elements (most of them) so I only add periodically -- usually 10cc per gallon of mixed fertilizer. On the rare event I use fish emulsion (which have no measurable trace elements) I will have added them to the 16 oz bottle when I opened it -- 20 cc per bottle. But I only use fish emulsion in the winter, and then rarely.

I despise "schedules." But then, I'm retired. I tossed schedules out the window years ago.

 

[ghues]

This is a very interesting thread and thanks Al for the great explanations. After reading your earlier threads this will be my second year using humic acid.
I have a query? You state "Particle size is another consideration. Most people in the USA use soil with a small particle size. Soil like haydite, oil dry, ditamatious earth, turface and even akadama is too small for proper air exchange in the roots".

Like most things we do doesn't ones location/ climate/trees species play a role in determining such things as soil particle size? Just wondering out loud here – large particles equals large air exchange… so in cold and very cold climates wouldn’t this allow the damaging cold air to penetrate into the root zone thus causing damage?
Cheers Graham

 

[Smoke]

Not sure if you addressed this, Al. Are you referring to the slow release granules on the surface of the soil? It seems that the pine has the slow release around the edge of the pot vs. the close-up of the trident has the granules everywhere. Is this correct?

"I try" to keep the fertilizer as close to the trunk as possible. It seems that watering has moved my fertilizer on the pine to the edge. Mostly it still is around the trunk on the trident, keeping rootage close to the trunk as possible.

 

[Smoke]

So does the chicken manure need to be composted before use as a fertilizer? I have access to chickens...

coop poop! pretty much says it all.

I'm also now wondering if my "composted" bark I had been using was not really composted. Could've been part of my underfeeding issue from last year. But I've switched to all non organics this year, so I'll just have to watch the ones who didn't get repotted this year. Does mulch that isn't composted to begin with, become composted over a period of time in a pot?

I have not seen many "composted" items come out of a bag composted to the point of what can be done at home with a tumbleing composter. Take a drive to the country anf find a cattle crossing, the kind with railroad irons over the road and dig a couple shovelfuls of that black spongy stuff out from underneath the crossing. That stuff is pure gold for a garden, really would plug up a bonsai pot though. The key is to get the same benifit of the heavily composted stuff from under the crossing in a form that will not plug up a pot.

Will bark compost in a pot? Sure it will. Bacteria are at work on that same as being in the ground. It is bacteria that works on fertilizer and breaks that down into a usable form for the roots to use. XChemical fertilizers like miricle gro and Peters do not need bacteria since the NPK is in salt form and readily availble for use ASAP. That is why two days after a miricle gro application out of a hose end sprayer, you see a huge flush of green. Instant , presto! Organic fertlizers are slow to react and show slow steady fertilization over a period of months because it takes bacterial action on the fertilizer to break it down to ions for the roots to use.

 

[Klytus]

Chempak trace elements earlier this month followed by sparing use of Horticultural lime,next up is Sequestrene and blood,fish and bone followed by liquid seaweed and then normal liquid feed.

I would have used granular rose food but there wasn't any.

But i use Orchid bark,Cat Litter and whatever compost comes to hand combined with slow release balls and charcoal.

Maybe a little rootgrow too.

 

[painter]

smoke what brand of fertilzer are you using if you dont mind me asking?
thanks
painter

 

[edprocoat]

Compost! That is what humic acid is. Humates are derived from the composting of organics. When organics breakdown they compact, give off heat and require nitrogen to do all this.

Organics in bonsai soil tend to clog soil particles and can create anaerobic areas in the soil with no oxygen and begin to rot. The next innovative thing in bonsai was to get rid of organics in the soil and move towards inert materials that did not cause rotting conditions. Also with these super porous soils it is virtually impossible to over water and there fore making it much easier to keep bonsai in a work related invironment with watering clocks and timers that can water three times a day if needed.

What is missing is the invironment that made grandads tomatos taste so good, the good old compost he added to the garden. What humic acid can do is add the benificial part of the compost (humic acid) without all the soil clogging organics, (rotton leaves, yard clippings, coffee grounds, egg shells) to the pot.

Soil components are not what makes a plant healthy. In fact in hydroponic farming, which makes super human pot plants, there is many times no soil even used untill the very end. You could grow plants in styrofoam packing peanuts and probably do a decent job. Fertilizing is what makes plants healthy and grow and thrive. Good soil along with good fertilizing makes plants strong enough for the stress we put them thru.

Above you mention composted pine bark. "Compost" is in the word so you have introduced small amounts of humic acid right there. The problem is the word composted is used to mean most anything now days. If the bark is not truly composted, then it will rob all the nitrogen from your soil that you put in by way of fertilizer as it continues decomposing.

True compost is black and smells like mushrooms and is sweet smelling. If your smells like sawn wood or sawdust, or is the color of sawdust and retains bark texture then it is not composted as is really defeating your purpose.

I am assuming you read my post you quoted in this reply, so I will also assume you knew before you wrote this I realize that one can grow healthy plants in almost anything, as that is what I had written in the piece you quoted, I have grown plants in aquarium gravel and pea gravel etc... and the only difference was the amount of watering and fertilizer needed. I am also very familiar with composting, composted bark is readily identifyable and as I make it myself I am sure of what I am getting.

In Hydroponics its all the time, not just many times, that no soil is used, the plant is grown in water rich in nutrients.

In fact , soil components are exactly what makes a plant healthy, that is what we try to mimic with fertlizers, and as I now know humic acid, which I now have a explanation of. Thank you for that. I would assume from your reply that Humic acid is unneccesary in a mix like I use, thats all I was wondering about.

ed

 

[Smoke]

smoke what brand of fertilzer are you using if you dont mind me asking?
thanks
painter

Gro power tabs, gro power granular, and miricle gro Shake and Feed (green balls).

 

[Smoke]

In Hydroponics its all the time, not just many times, that no soil is used, the plant is grown in water rich in nutrients.


ed

'

The growers I have seen do their cloning hydroponically and then pot them as liners for sale in dispensaries. I am sure there are many ways to skin that cat.

 

[edprocoat]

'

The growers I have seen do their cloning hydroponically and then pot them as liners for sale in dispensaries. I am sure there are many ways to skin that cat.

I am sure that many hydropinically grown or started plants end up in liners or some other medium, but hydroponics by definition is grown in water. Once removed from the water its no longer hydroponics. Some use certain gravels to stabilize the plants, its also referred to as aquaculture. Its all geoponics afterall.

ed

 

[daygan]

The growers I have seen do their cloning hydroponically and then pot them as liners for sale in dispensaries. I am sure there are many ways to skin that cat.

Right. And just to add more twists to an interesting subject and go a little further down the bunny trail, I've found two "exceptions", though Ed is still correct, as no actual soil is used, but an inorganic substrate: Passive Hydroponics and Ebb and Flow Hydroponics

Note that some call passive hydroponics "semi-hydroponics", as, I suppose, some consider it not really full-blown hydroponics because of the use of the substrate. Also interesting is that this is, I think, essentially what many of us are doing when we use inorganic soils and fertilizers.

 

[Smoke]

Right. And just to add more twists to an interesting subject and go a little further down the bunny trail, I've found two "exceptions", though Ed is still correct, as no actual soil is used, but an inorganic substrate: Passive Hydroponics and Ebb and Flow Hydroponics

Note that some call passive hydroponics "semi-hydroponics", as, I suppose, some consider it not really full-blown hydroponics because of the use of the substrate. Also interesting is that this is, I think, essentially what many of us are doing when we use inorganic soils and fertilizers.

Finally someone gets it.

 

[davetree]

I am sure you could make a hydroponic bonsai pot that had solution pumped through it continuously. Or you could run a water line through a regular pot and do it that way. It's a small step really, but I don't know how much of an advantage it would be. Might be for people in really hot weather as you can cool the solution with a chiller.

 

[edprocoat]

Gro power tabs, gro power granular, and miricle gro Shake and Feed (green balls).

Hey !! Who ya callin' "green balls" ?

ed