The Benefits of Humic Substances in Agriculture

Welcome, friends. Welcome to the webinar and happy to see all of you this morning. It's a beautiful spring morning and I know that it's the time of year when all of us have a lot on our plate and lots happening and going on. So I'm really grateful that you were able to be here on the webinar this morning. We have quite a number of people who already showed up, including several of the AEA team members are able to be here as well. So welcome all. The topic for the discussion this morning is humic substances and the benefits of humic substances in agriculture ecosystems. How to think about them, how to use them, how we use them, and how you can produce the biggest impacts. I have some slides that I'll be going through and reviewing some of the main points, the topics that we should be thinking about, of how to use humic substances. So the conversation around humic substances is not a new conversation. The use of humates, leonardite and humic acids, fulvic acids, is becoming much more widespread. In the last three to five years, they've moved from being materials that were only used in exceptional instances by the mainstream and in the domain of organic and biological agriculture to being materials that are much more widely used. They're now used by many conventional fertilizer applicators, and for very good reason, because they're very effective materials and they can be even more effective when we use them correctly and we use them well. So I wanted to speak a little bit about what humic substances are, what the differences are between humic acids versus fulvic acids and some of these various compounds, and how to think about them. So the foundational piece, the term humic substances, is generally used to refer to this overarching category that contains people describe humic substances sometimes in the context of compost and the need for compost to produce stable humic substances, or the need to produce stable humic substances in the soil profile. And these are the humic substances that we really want to foster and develop in our agriculture ecosystems. It is possible for us to develop and build these humic substances in soil profiles and in compost based on how we manage biology, how we manage plants, et cetera. But the conversation, while this is an important part of the conversation, a part of the conversation that's much more familiar for many growers is thinking about humaic substances in the form of a product. So thinking about humic acids versus fulvic acids versus dry powdered humates, either water soluble humates or humates as a Soil amendment. There's been a lot of discussion around the relative benefits and strengths and weaknesses of these various products. We've tested these various fractions for many years, and I wanted to offer a commentary to what we have observed and what we've experienced and how we think about using these different fractions and these various products. So it may be useful to think about the source of these various humic substance fractions and how they originate. So the parent material. Generally, when we see humic acid products or humic substance products in the marketplace, some few composts being an exception, generally the term of humic substances or humic acids and so forth is used to refer to products that are derived from a mineral ore called leonardite. Leonardite is a layer of ultra soft coal. It actually comes from the layer above the layer of soft coal. So it's this very, very soft coal and is essentially very compressed carbon. And concentrated carbon contains about. It's been a while since I looked at this, but if I recall correctly, somewhere in the neighborhood of about 35 to 40% carbon on an elemental basis, in addition to hydrogen and oxygen, of course. So we have this very concentrated source of carbon that is very old and contains very. It's also a very concentrated source of these humic substances. So these humic substances in the leonardite and sometimes leonardite is also just simply referred to as humates. This ore is then ground and crushed, in some cases pelletized, and sold as a dry product for use as a soil amendment. And then this material is also fractionated and fractured using chemical extraction agents and then marketed as humic acid and fulvic acid. So the lenardite ore, the raw humate, has three primary fractions. And there's a lot of discussion around the area of defining humates, defining humic substances, and exactly what defines them from a molecular perspective. These substances have not yet been defined from a molecular viewpoint to say that they are composed of X, Y and Z. And this is largely the case because these materials are so complex and they are so fluid, they are constantly shifting. The molecular components are constantly rearranging, restructuring themselves. They behave completely as if, though they were alive. They're very much living compounds that are constantly moving and adjusting and adapting to the environment, etc. For this reason, it's been very hard to define exactly these and other reasons. It's been hard to define exactly what defines humic substances. So the definition in the industry historically has been to define these substances based on how they are extracted from the parent material. And this gets into Some really interesting conversations when manufacturers seek to develop liquid products that are water soluble from humates. They take this raw leonardite ore and put it into a liquid solution, which most generally contains potassium hydroxide. Occasionally, some manufacturers might also use sodium hydroxide or other alkali extraction agents. They put it into a large container with a very alkali solution, a ph of about 12 to 13. And this is the equivalent when you think about potassium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide. Sodium hydroxide is lye that is used to make soap. So this is a very powerful, very strong extraction agent. A liquid solution of potassium hydroxide and humates will be agitated for a period of time ranging anywhere from 24 to 72 hours. At the end of that period, the agitation stops. Material settles down to the bottom of the tank, and then the fluid solution, the liquid solution, is drawn off the top of the tank. It has a very dark black color generally, and then it has a PH of about 12 or 13, sometimes as low as 11. The pH of that solution is then reduced using acetic acid to a ph range of about eight or nine. And that material is now sold into the marketplace as humic acid. And as you can see, the word acid is actually a misnomer because it doesn't actually have an acidic ph. It's very alkaline. Essentially, the way to think about humic acid is the liquid humic acid is either the dry sold and then sometimes this liquid material is then dried to form a dry water soluble powder. And the dry water soluble powder. And the liquid usually contains an appreciable potassium content, a few percentage points that are a result of the potassium hydroxide extraction agent that was used. So the way to think about these humic acid liquids and dry water soluble powders is that they are essentially, they are the fraction that can be extracted with an alkali. In other words, they are soluble in alkali, they're soluble in alkali in the solution, and they can also be soluble in alkaline soils. Then at the conclusion of this manufacturing process, after the material is all extracted and pulled off the top, the next step is they now put a solution back into the container, back into the tank, and this time it's a very acidic solution, usually having a PH in the neighborhood of 2 to 3 that has been acidified with acetic acid. Again, the material is agitated for a period of 24 to 72 hours. And at the end of this period, the solids are allowed to precipitate to the bottom, the liquid is pulled off the top, and now we have this golden amber, honey color liquid that is referred to as fulvic acid. So fulvic acid will end sold directly as is as it comes from the tank, typically having a PH range somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 to 3. So the way to think about fulvic acid is that fulvic acid is, first of all, it is truly an acid, but it is also the fraction of humic substances that is soluble in an acid environment. There are some substantial differences between humic acid and fulvic acid fractions. The fulvic acid fractions are generally much smaller, they have a smaller molecular weight. And there is a lot of evidence to suggest, well, not evidence, but proof in fact, that plants can actually absorb fulvic acids directly as the complete molecule, as the complete compound, either from the soil profile or through the leaves. And for this reason, it's very frequently added to foliar applications. And it's commonly used as a chelation agent to speed the absorption of nutrients from foliar applications or when applied to the soil profile. Then, as we continue thinking about the manufacturing process, so now we've pulled off everything that is soluble in alkali, we've pulled off everything that is soluble in acid. And the fraction which remains is the fraction which is not soluble in acid and it's not soluble in alkali. This is the insoluble fraction fraction that is extremely stable and has a tremendous capacity to enhance biology and biological activity in the soil profile to an even greater degree than either the humic acid fraction or the fulvic acid fraction. This remaining material, which is leftover, is referred to as human. The human has essentially this incredibly resilient material which can't be degraded by alkali, it can't be degraded by acid. So it's extremely stable in the soil profile, and it has a tremendous binding capacity to hold and absorb nutrients. And it also provides a structure for biology in which soil organisms can really thrive and proliferate very rapidly. And I think this is actually another important point worth making about all of these fractions of humic substances, both humic acid, fulvic acid, and human. There's sometimes the conversation that happens, particularly in the context of fungi and that humic substances are a food source for fungi, or they're a food source for biology. And that is incorrect. These humic substances are extremely stable compounds that when they are produced in compost or when they are produced in soil, rather than being in a concentrated fossilized form, when they're actually produced in soils or in compost, stable humic substances are the end result of fungal decomposition, they cannot be decomposed any further. So it's the equivalent of, if we think about our own digestive tracts and the different forms of carbon that we can consume, we can consume the pectins that are in an apple. So we can use an apple as a food source, but we cannot use wood as a food source. We use wood to build a house and a home for us to live in. The same is true of biology and humic substances. These humic substances, these complex humic substances that are coming from humates and from Leonardite, are not a food source for biology. They are a substrate for biology. And as a substrate, the fraction which is not soluble in either alkali or acid is the most effective substrate that can provide a home that biology can really proliferate in very rapidly. So those are the three fractions from a manufacturing perspective, of how we think about them being produced and extracted. So when we look at the benefits of what huminic substances can provide, there are many resources online that describe the agricultural benefits. And perhaps the ic reference, the 4 inch doorstopper book that is a must have, I would highly recommend is titled Organic Soil, Humic, Phobic and Microbial Balance by William Jackson. It's not widely available. It is available online. It's $140, $150 book and worth it. Absolutely worth it. At the time that it was published, it was the compendium of all the leading humic substance research that had been done up to that point in time. And it's an amazing reference. So when we look at all these various benefits, we can see that humic substances have been documented as being able to prevent nitrogen leaching. And here it says provide a fungal food source. Already shared my thoughts around that. Stabilize phosphorus, increase absorption of nutrients, tie up chemicals in the soil profile, and tie up toxic elements in the soil profile such as cadmium and sodium, can increase plant biomass, enhance root growth. It's a very powerful chelation agent, so it can chelate toxins and prevent plant absorption, increase water retention, microbial growth, soil structure, buffer ph values, et cetera, et cetera. But there's one point that isn't explicitly stated here, but it's implied. When we think about preventing nitrogen leaching and stabilizing phosphorus in the soil profile, we have to ask the question, how does that happen? How can humic substances prevent nitrogen from leaching and how can they stabilize phosphorus? And the answer is that typically when we think about soils and soil nutrient holding capacity, we think about CEC cation exchange capacity. Because clay colloids and other silt sand colloids in the soil profile primarily have a negative charge. And these negatively charged colloids have an attraction for positively charged nutrients called cations. We don't often have a conversation around soil's capacity to hold anions. But what is actually happening is these humic substances have not only do they have a high cation exchange capacity, Typically these humic substances, the raw leonardite ore, the raw humates, will have a CEC depending on the mine of the source, anywhere from 200 to 300. So they have an extremely high cation exchange capacity and they have an equally high anion exchange capacity. Not only do they have negatively charged sites, but they also have positively charged sites where they can hold nitrates and phosphorus and phosphates and bind them and prevent them from leaching through the soil profile. This is one of the secret uses, and I believe one of the most effective ways and places to use humic substances is to combine them with anions. We can combine them with phosphorus, with nitrogen, with sulfur, boron, molybdenum applications. And in every case, when we combine humic substances with anionic nutrients, anionic fertilizers, we can apply much less product for an equal or greater crop response. When we combine humicarb with liquid nitrogen, our typical recommendation is to reduce nitrogen applications by at least 30% because the humic substances will hold the nitrogen so effectively that and they will not leach out of the system so that we have and they will also give us an effect, a sustained release throughout the entire growing season. So I already mentioned and referred to the impact that these humic substances can have on biology. They are the ultimate substrate in the soil profile. If you want to produce a petri dish of biology with very rapid microbial growth, the microbial development of the soil profile, they need these stable humic substances for optimal performance. I already described the extraction process that is used. The challenge, in my opinion, this is actually a substantial downside of using commercial humic substances or humic acids and folvic acids, is that the potassium hydroxide extraction process in particular substantially denatures the humic substances that are in the product and they denature the various fractions and we lose a lot of the potential effectiveness. We gain some ease of use because now it's a true liquid and it is truly water soluble. And that reminds me of a quote from William Albrecht. Actually read it, reread it again just recently. His comment was that the idea of making fertilizers soluble is a foolish idea, and that fertilizers and nutrients should be available but not soluble. This is exactly what humic substances can deliver. When we combine humic substances with nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers, they can make nutrients available but not soluble. And that is how we can add these materials to soils and to plants and crops that actually need them, but without having such a severe detrimental effect on soil biology. And then the key, of course, what differentiates our product humicarb, from these results, from these other products in the marketplace, is that we do not extract it chemically. We retain all the bioactive components that are denatured from the potassium hydroxide, from the alkali, and the acid extraction process. So humicarb still contains all three of the original components, it still contains the humic acid, it contains the fulvic acid, and it contains the human, all combined in the natural complex that they're found in naturally occurring, in the original anodite and in the original ore. So how do we use humicarb to get the greatest crop response and the biggest economic performance? Our uses, we have three primary uses for. Well, first, first of all, it is so effective at helping to develop biology that humicarb has become a mainstay. It goes into small amounts of. It go into almost every single product that we manufacture because it is so effective. This is why many of the products that you get from us will have a very dark, almost black color, is because we include humic substances in just about everything that we do. But in particular places where we use straight humicarb by itself is to blend it into liquid nitrogen applications or liquid phosphorus applications. And we blend this into the solution. Whether we're applying Liquid 32, Liquid 28, 10, 34O, whatever the case might be, we typically blend it in at a rate of 3% of the total liquid solution, either by weight or by volume. There's generally not substantial differences between those two. And what we've learned is that 3% of the solution, enough for the humicarb to bind all of the nitrogen or phosphorus or whatever nutrients are in that solution in the molecular form. So this is an important point. We are not recommending 3% of the solution, or we are not recommending. Don't think of this as putting in 3%, the actual units of nitrogen, actual pounds of nitrogen, or pounds of phosphorus, because we don't want to. In this case, the nitrogen and the phosphorus does not exist in the solution as the nitrogen atom or phosphorus atom, but it's part of an entire molecule of Nitrate or ammonium or phosphate, phosphite, whatever the case might be, polyphosphates, orthophosphates. And so we need to. Our goal is to bind the entire compound. Let's bind the entire molecule. And so if we want to bind the entire molecule, it's much easier to calculate looking at the total liquid solution, rather than looking at the units of fertilizer that we are actually applying units of nutrients. A second use for hemicarb, this has actually become a very popular use for hemocarb is blending it into liquid manure lagoons at a rate of 1 to 2 gallons per 10,000 gallons. And by the way, we can also use Humicarb in bedded pack and in dry mineral applications. But it is easier to apply and produces the biggest responses in liquids. What happens? The original reason we started using Humicarb was for odor remediation, odor control, 1 to 2 gallons per 10,000 gallons, depending on the concentrations of manure in the water and the odor, etc. Typically in most situations, 1 gallon per 10,000 gallons is enough to completely lock down all the manure release. What happens again? Humicarb has this very high anion exchange capacity and it bonds with and absorbs all of the hydrogen sulfide, all the various sulfide forms. And so it basically becomes a very effective odor blocker. It absorbs all the odors. And because it stimulates biology to such a degree, it also, and again, this is dependent on the volume of antibiotics being fed and other stuff that's going into the manure pit, etc. But it can also really facilitate digestion of the manure and completely remove a crust and it can help to remove a sludge at the bottom of a manure pit as well. So it can really help facilitate biological digestion. It reduces odors very substantially and as you can tell, it does not take very much at all. The best part is that it also, in the references that we provided, it also described how it can complex and tie up toxins. It substantially reduces the liquid manure's ec, electrical conductivity, the salt content, salt index and so forth, such that when it is combined with liquid manure, liquid manure is applied. We do not have the damaging effect on biology. So we've actually observed this where farmers were pulling liquid manure out of a lagoon and spreading it, and then halfway through the process they added the humicarb in, agitated the entire manure pit and then continued with the applications without Humicarb. The following day there were dead earthworms on top of the soil profile, hundreds, thousands of dead earthworms. And where the humicarb had been combined, there were no dead earthworms at all. This was a process of just simply mixing in the humicarb minutes before application was not an extended period. So the greatest results from manure digestion and facilitating biological digestion in the pit, of course, happen when it's mixed in in advance. But it can also be mixed in just before applications for its odor mitigating effects and for increasing the friendliness of the material to the soil biology. So we've been, we've had humicarb available for, well, for the last six or seven years, since we've been manufacturing our own products. It's a very effective material. We haven't typically talked about it a lot in past because it's not a nutrition product. And we've realized that many people are not aware of the effects and the benefits that they can actually achieve from using more humic substances and using humocarbon in their systems. So feel free to reach out to our team and have a conversation to see if it fits into your system and works with what you are doing. So we have a few questions coming in. Thank you for those. Michael Grove, ask the question. Is there a benefit to adding humicarb to compost piles or is that counterproductive? It's a good question, Michael. It's not necessarily counterproductive. It will have the effect of increasing fungal populations, in particular in a compost production operation. It can also have the effect of reducing odors, if that is a concern. So you can reduce and tie up and bind odors and reduce the odors coming from a compost pile. With that being said, the one thing that. Actually, there's one important point that I failed to mention. It is possible to add enough humicarb that you can actually induce a nitrogen deficiency. This, of course, is not going to happen. If you're doing a liquid nitrogen application, you combine it with nitrogen, because then you have the nitrogen and humicarb together. But we actually had one grower who, not on our recommendations, but without us being aware of it, he read some research on the effects of humic substances and he purchased humicarb and put it on an application rate of 2 gallons per acre at planting on corn, and quite severely without, without combining it with nitrogen, and produced a quite a substantial nitrogen deficiency effect because the material was so effective at binding nitrogen that actually prevented the plant from absorbing it. So I would offer that caveat that that's also a possibility in a compost Pile, the compost pile. Of course, we need to make sure that we have enough nitrogen to balance out the carbon that is being provided, etc. So if that is not a concern, then I think there can be benefits to adding small amounts of hemocarb to compost. Not necessarily counterproductive, as long as we make sure that we manage the nitrogen aspect. It's a very good question. David Widman asked the question. I've heard that fulvic acid will negate radiation. Are you aware of this, David? That's. That's also a very interesting question. And the answer is that I have heard and I've read references to reports which indicate that humic substances in general, not fulvic acids in particular, but humic substances in general, do have the capacity to bind and hold radioactive isotopes of elements, such that you can have radioactive isotopes showing up in soil profiles or perhaps in water and have them not to be absorbed by the crop. I haven't actually read the reports themselves, but I have heard the conversation and references made to that dialogue on a number of different occasions, and I'm not surprised that that would be the case. I do believe that probably is the case because these humic substances, they have this amazing capacity and this characteristic that I'm really intrigued by that is called homeostasis. And when we think about homeostasis in biological systems and soil and plant systems, the foundational idea is that soil and plant systems and some of these compounds in some manner have the intelligence to choose what to absorb, what will be beneficial to life, and what will be toxic. So in soils where we have high cadmium levels and we're concerned about cadmium absorption by spinach, for example, we know that we can apply humic substances. They will bind to cadmium. And even though the cadmium is still present in the soil profile, spinach plants won't pick them up anymore. Same is true of sodium. And the interesting part, when we think about homeostasis, essentially what homeostasis means is that plants, soil biology, the combination, obviously, they're constantly communicating and taking care of each other and supporting each other. They collectively determine whether they want to absorb more or less of any given nutrient. Humic substances have an incredible capacity for homeostasis. They can increase the absorption of some nutrients and decrease the absorption of other nutrients, or in different situations. In one situation, humic substances can increase the absorption of, let's say, molybdenum, for example, and another situation, they can decrease the absorption of the molybdenum to balance out what the crops requirements are. This is a fascinating process that we don't fully understand. We can measure it, we can test it, we can identify and see that it works, but we don't fully understand the mechanisms of how it works and why it works. And thus kind of simple catch all phrase. The way that we describe it is we say, it's easy to say, oh, that's a homeostatic process. Yeah, it is. And it's really beautiful that it works that way. But it still doesn't answer the question of how does it work and why does it work that way. It's a very good question. David, this question coming through from Ashwin. Hi Ashwin, glad to see you here. Can we mix fulvic acid with sulfate based micronutrients, as in cobalt sulfate? And will this work? So the answer is yes, you certainly can combine the two in a tank mix and is likely to increase the absorption and the effectiveness of a cobalt sulfate. But in and of itself, just combining them into the same tank is not enough to ensure that you have a good chelate and that's not perhaps necessary either. But there's a bit more involvement to the process of making sure that you have good quality chelates. But that's a good question. Adam Bowerman. Hi, Adam asked the question, are humic substances generally higher in worm castings than in compost? It depends on the quality of the compost when we're producing really high quality compost. I have personal experience with the compost being produced by Midwest Biosystems and Midwest Biosystems operators. From my perspective, the science that they have developed is these are the ultimate winemakers of making compost and they don't even refer to their compost by that using that word anymore. They brand it and market it as humus, it is sold as humus and it has. So they actually measure and optimize to produce a very high content of humic substances. So that is extremely high quality humus. Most compost, particularly what I would refer to as commodity compost, does not contain an appreciably high level of humic substances. And in that case then generally worm castings would have a higher level than what most people refer to as compost. So that's the best answer that I have for you, Adam. It's a good question. David Woodman asked the question, will the nutrients in the manure be less on a report because the humicarb absorbs them? David, the answer is generally no, because the extraction process in the laboratory is generally strong enough to still extract those nutrients that are contained in the humic substances unless you apply a lot. So it is possible if you apply enough humic substances, the nutrient content can actually drop. On a manure report, it can actually drop substantially. And this is a bit of a sidebar, but this is actually why many of the AEA products and nutrient products have such a low nutrient analysis, low nutrient guarantees. In many cases, there's actually a substantially higher nutrient content contained within the product, but it doesn't show up on the lab reports, on the specific lab reports that are required from a regulatory perspective to identify the concentration of nutrients within that product. Because they're so complex that they don't show up on those types of lab extractions. They will show up in other extractions and we can show and verify that they're in there. But as a result of that, that's why many of our products actually have a very low nutrient guarantee. Scott Palmer has a comment. We put BlackMax22, which I'm assuming is a humic substance product, not one that I'm familiar with, at 15 gallons of the acre in apples and have changed CEC numbers for the better and help with return bloom. However, if we get extra rain later in the season, we tend to run out of potassium because fruit causing fruit issues during storage. Why and how to make this situation better? This is a great question, Scott. And yes, I can see these humic substances would increase. They do generally increase the CEC when applied at those application rates. Without knowing more details about your specific situation, it should be possible to apply potassium amendments. The soil profile, preferably potassium sulfate. Sulfate of potash potassium chloride is not generally a good idea in these types of situations. A potassium sulfate application should be able to remedy the problem that you're identifying and the minimum level that you'll need. You need at least 125 parts per million potassium showing up on a Melek 3 extraction or that would be even on low CEC soils, you'll need at least that amount. So you may need a higher than a 5 to 7% base saturation. But then on higher CEC soils, you can go up to 5% base saturation. On apples generally not producing any additional downsides. Another factor to consider to address the situation that you describe is to address manganese. When the trees have enough manganese, they become much more efficient at absorbing potassium. From the soil profile, manganese can actually upregulate potassium absorption. So that is something that you might consider as well. Hope that helps. Here's a great question from cattle and Skirtu. Do the humic Substances have a reducing or oxidizing effect. The raw leonardite ore has a slightly reducing effect and humicarb has a slightly reducing effect when they are extracted. Potassium hydroxide, the alkali extraction agent is obviously very strong oxidizing agent. So that would have an oxidizing effect. And the fulvic acid extracted by acetic acid is also slightly reducing. Michael Grove asked a question. When people say increase organic matter in the soil, is this the same as saying increasing stable human substances, or is this referring to living green material? What is the difference between organic matter versus humic substances from AEA standpoint? That's a good question, Michael. And it points to the challenge of confusing language and confusing terminology and not having a clearly defined lexicon. So when we think about developing organic matter in soils and we think about developing really active microbial populations, what we really want, what we really should be measuring is microbially active carbon. Microbially active carbon is a fraction of carbon. This specific metric is a metric that is measured on the Haney analysis that was developed by Rick Haney at the usda, being conducted at Ward Laboratories and several other laboratories across the country. And this is an analysis which actually measures microbially active carbon, which is essentially the fraction of carbon that biology can interact with and can utilize as a food source. It's the apple versus a two by four analogy once more. It's a very important fraction of carbon to measure because there is no correlation between microbially active carbon and total carbon or total organic matter. So it's possible to have soils which have very high organic matter and have very low microbial active carbon and be biologically almost dead. The classical example is muck soils, which might have 40% organic matter, but have been treated with anhydrous ammonia for the last 30 years and can barely sustain a biological population because they have no microbially active carbon. Conversely, it is also possible to have soils which have low levels of total organic matter, but very high levels of microbially active carbon. An example would be a very sandy soil, which is low organic matter but has a high level of microbial active carbon, can still sustain a very active microbial population. So if we are seeking to develop really healthy, fertile soils, we need to begin measuring and managing microbially active carbon in the soil profile. So, Michael, that's not an immediate direct answer to the question that you asked. I'm introducing some new lexicon and some new terminology into the conversation, and I hope that helps. It's a very good question. Dean Cantor asked the question what are the applications for hemicarb in a large organic garden where no manure is used? You have to be very careful because you want to make sure that you don't induce a nitrogen deficiency. So you can use it, but you have to use it very cautiously. Malcolm Ledbetter asked the question, are there any issues with mixing fulvic acid and microbial solutions? Could they work as a synergistic stack to be used as a foliar spray to the point of runoff and are also as a soil drench? Would that be optimized and beneficial to the microbial solutions? Malcolm the answer is definite. Very strong, yes. Folvic acids and humic substances and microbial products work very well in combination with each other. We need to be cautious about using humic acid and have it be a very dilute mixture, if we do at all, if it's a chemical extraction because of the potassium hydroxide. But fulvic acids would work well and humicarb works very well. Actually, humicarb, in my observation experience, is perhaps the most effective of any humic substances when combined with microbial products for a couple of reasons. One is besides the obvious, which I already pointed out, that they contain the human and the fulvic and the humic acid fractions still undenatured. There is also, there seems to be a pronounced benefit for many microbial inoculants in being protected from ultraviolet radiation, so protecting them from direct sunlight. The microbes, the bacteria are smart. They will seek to hide themselves behind a black molecule whenever they have the opportunity. So if we can add humicarb to a spray solution to a tank mix and turn it black whenever we're adding biology, our biology is going to have a much greater degree of survivability as a result of that. Greg Pennyroyal Hi Greg, glad to see you. My vineyards are on a domestic water system, hence have chloramines. Oh no, that's a bad word. And total salt concentration of 250 to 300 parts per million. The most economical application method of humic substances is through the drippers in the irrigation system. Assuming that a non extracted form is best biologically will still have the same chemical bonding of the chloramines and salts as a soluble fraction form of humic pulvic acid. Will a non extracted form of humates like humicarb plug up the drippers? Should we use a completely soluble form in the drippers for the chemical bonding and add the full humic substances to the soil directly? For biology, Greg, the humicarb will be orders of magnitude more effective at absorbing chloramine than the alkali extraction humic acid. And they can be used in the irrigation system and they will not clog up drippers. We run them through drip irrigation systems with 200 mesh filtration all the time. The humicarb has the smallest particles of any of our suspension materials because it's a relatively soft material and it's easy to fracture and fractionate. So we're typically looking at our finished product particle. Particle sizes are right in the vicinity of about 1 micron. So it's very easy to send through a system should not be a problem at all. Olivier asked the question have humic acids any potential to be put in the furrow side seeding with various trace mill elements and inoculants for potatoes, beetroots and other crops? And the answer is yes, you can combine them. You can create a synergistic stack with inoculants and trace minerals and so forth in the furrow app planting. They work well when combined. They work best when combined with other materials. Another question from Michael. Does humicarb work with foliar applied amino acids? That's an interesting question. I don't have a lot of direct experience where we've actually tested it and measured the two side by side, both treated and with amino acids treated and untreated or combined or not with hemocarb. The short answer is I don't know. I don't expect that it would be a challenge, but I also don't have experience to know. So I'm sorry I don't have a better answer for you, but I don't know how what the interaction would be like with amino acids. Question from Peter van Hoeff. Question is problem with C in Holland, with legally obliged injection of manure slurry in the soil profile is an enormous loss of electrolytes. It means on a small strip of 2 cm every 15 cm we are injecting the slurry at a rate of 25 tons of slurry per hectare. We get at least 150 tons per hectare on this small strip. Would the Humicarb be strong enough to prevent problems on this largely over fertilized strip? Peter, the answer is definitely yes. And I will say that from experience because we've observed similar injection systems here and I'd have to do some math and do some conversions on a per acre basis, but I think we'd be in the same general ballpark. And so yes, humicarb is strong enough to bind of the electrolytes, all the salts and all of the potential hazards that are in the liquid manure and prevent that negative and oxidizing effect in that very concentrated strip. The only question that would remain to be answered is how much Humicarb needs to be applied and to achieve that effect. And it will depend on how concentrated the liquid manure is, how much water is being applied to manure, water to manure ratios, etc. Again, the greatest that we have ever done was 3 gallons per 10,000 gallons. So it's a 0.03% solution. That's the greatest concentration that we have ever had to apply to completely bind all of the salts and everything that was in the solution. So I would expect that we should be able to have that exact same effect with the situation that you're describing as well. It's a very good question. We use an electrostatic sprayer. This is from Richard Brockman, using an electric electrostatic sprayer. Will the electrical charge be a problem with using Humicarb? Richard? I don't believe that it would be. I don't understand what it would be. We do work with growers who are currently using electrostatic sprayers and putting Hemocarb on with those. And the important point to remember is that almost anytime we work with growers on our program, we are applying Humocarb. It's embedded within the products that we manufacture across the board. And so it's a very common application and I'm not aware of any challenges. We've been doing it on scale for some time. Chad Wall asks a question. Hi Chad. In subsurface drip with high levels of manganese that require peroxide injection to prevent manganese precipitation, which clogs emitters. Would Humicarb help? I don't know. It's possible. We could test it in a jar solution pretty easily. I know that it does help for a similar problem with iron. So we're able to inject Hemocarb and prevent iron oxidation from happening, peroxidation from happening once it leaves spray novels, etc. So it's possible, but I don't know. We'd have to test it and find out. It's a good question, Chad. Alright. I think those are all the questions that have come through. I want to thank all of you for participating and for the questions that you've asked. I really enjoy the participation. Thanks for taking the time out of your day to attend and I look forward to speaking with you again in the future. Feel free to reach out to the AEA team if you have any questions about Humocarb or how you can apply it and use it in your system. Have an awesome day. Awesome spring. Happy growing. Thanks everyone. Bye.