# Fulvic/Humic acid anyone?



## Bjorn (Apr 24, 2015)

Was told from a trustworthy source that fulvic acid did wonders to his phrags. Are there anyone that uses it or that have experiences using fulvic or humic acid?


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## valenzino (Apr 24, 2015)

Bjorn said:


> Was told from a trustworthy source that fulvic acid did wonders to his phrags. Are there anyone that uses it or that have experiences using fulvic or humic acid?



I use both on all my orchids with good results


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## gonewild (Apr 24, 2015)

Trying it now, but too soon to see results from my use.


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## cnycharles (Apr 24, 2015)

I had used it a while back and it seemed to help (then ran out)


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## rbedard (Apr 24, 2015)

LOL; not on Phrags ... but I take Fulvic acid myself, and regularly use Humic acid in the vegetable garden. Definitely good stuff. Could see how it would be a benefit.


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## ALToronto (Apr 24, 2015)

Can we backtrack a little? What are these organic acids, where do they occur in nature, and if we want to supplement, what are the sources and dosages? And if I use products such as Inocucor, seaweed extract and fish fertilizer, am I already adding them?


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## gonewild (Apr 24, 2015)

Use them in addition/combo with the seaweed.


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## cnycharles (Apr 24, 2015)

I had used fulvic acid for a little while but got distracted. Humates and humic acid can be found in soils and i think more so in composts. The Suwanee river down in Florida that's known for being very brown because of many humates in the water. 
Both F and H are supposed to actively help transport chemicals in plant cells; would really have to read up in science journals and online to get the best understanding and I've forgotten some so don't want to misinform

I just used the rate the bottle said to use


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## valenzino (Apr 24, 2015)

gonewild said:


> Use them in addition/combo with the seaweed.



exactely what i do,fulvic+humic+seaweed+fish emulsion ....not best smell...

Now is over 1 year and seems all plants enjoy it....best results are on Coelogyne cool growers that can be difficult to grow like odoardii,kaliana,radioferens etc...

on Phrags results are very nice and also on Paphs (also small seedlings)


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## Bjorn (Apr 24, 2015)

And at what concentration/frequency should it be used?
I have been using "brown" bog water for many years with good results, perhaps this explains some of that?


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## gonewild (Apr 24, 2015)

Bjorn said:


> And at what concentration/frequency should it be used?
> I have been using "brown" bog water for many years with good results, perhaps this explains some of that?



1 gram per liter.


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## Bjorn (Apr 24, 2015)

One gram powder per liter? Every watering or just once say every two weeks?


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## Ryan Young (Apr 24, 2015)

Fulvic acid is found in seaweed fertilizer well at least in mine, and spray leaves once week, didn't notice much changed. the humic acid i get as a granular feed from crushed leonardite. I have used the humic acid for the last year with outstanding results a pinch per pot every month or so. It creates multiple new leads for me where there used to be just one. Stronger happier plants. 

Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk


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## gonewild (Apr 24, 2015)

Bjorn said:


> One gram powder per liter? Every watering or just once say every two weeks?



One gram of powder or liquid because it is only anyone's guess for the correct dosage now. (I'm testing a new seaweed product from Peru and my seaweed is also powder so I just guess at one gram).
I'm using as a foliar spray (drench) a couple times per week. I would mix in fertilizer also but it's not convenient because I use too much volume to irrigate.


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## Bjorn (Apr 25, 2015)

Thanks, I'll distribute it as I do with Kelp, though I'll bet one gram per liter is more than necessary.
Interesting smell of that stuf.......


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## Ozpaph (Apr 25, 2015)

I use both on my paphs and other orchids. No idea if it works, but I like to think so.
I get it in Oz from these guys - http://www.nutri-tech.com.au/


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## naoki (Apr 26, 2015)

I don't know much about this topic, but there appear to be big differences among products, based on the source of extraction. The ratio of fulvic to humid acid is very different.

http://www.bioag.com/educationandresources.html

Well, the information is not from the third party, so I'm not sure how reliable the info is, though.

More fluvic acid seems to be more promising for orchids (but more expensive).

In a couple scientific studies (with crops), they were using around 50mg/l, and above that, it wasn't any more (or less) effective.

I'm going to give a try with BioAg product, too.

Looks like there are methods of extracting humid acids from peat, humus, or composts. I think one paper talked about humic acid extracted from worm composting was more potent than the commercial products.


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## Stone (Apr 26, 2015)

You need ot be careful with rates. Too much will reverse growth!


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## gonewild (Apr 26, 2015)

Stone said:


> You need ot be careful with rates. Too much will reverse growth!



Too much will cause a plant to "un grow"? 
How does a plant reverse growth?
oke:

Seriously, do you have any data on rates that cause a growth problem?


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## Stone (Apr 26, 2015)

gonewild said:


> Too much will cause a plant to "un grow"?
> How does a plant reverse growth?
> oke:
> 
> Seriously, do you have any data on rates that cause a growth problem?



 Yes you know what I mean. As far as rates, I read something just 2 days ago where they found a down-turn in growth rate after a certain concentration but damned if I can find it now.
This abstract suggests 20ml and 50ml per L were optimum for 2 different formulations which kind of says that 50ml of the first and 20ml of the second was not as good.
If you would like to pay for the full text, I would love to read it:evil:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01904169809365424
In this trial 10-15ml was not enough and 100ml was too much:
http://thegrowcomp.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/P-Hydroponics-Greenhouses.pdf


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## Bjorn (Apr 27, 2015)

Stone said:


> Yes you know what I mean. As far as rates, I read something just 2 days ago where they found a down-turn in growth rate after a certain concentration but damned if I can find it now.
> This abstract suggests 20ml and 50ml per L were optimum for 2 different formulations which kind of says that 50ml of the first and 20ml of the second was not as good.
> If you would like to pay for the full text, I would love to read it:evil:
> http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01904169809365424
> ...



Thanks Mike, 
had a look and noticed you're having a typo in the above; the text says mg/liter, that is one tousand(1/1000) of ml/l or mg/l = ppm for that sake. According to the first paper 20-50ppm of the humic substance should therefore be enough. This is of course promising for those of us that have to pay:rollhappy:


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## Stone (Apr 27, 2015)

Bjorn said:


> Thanks Mike,
> had a look and noticed you're having a typo in the above; the text says mg/liter, that is one tousand(1/1000) of ml/l or mg/l = ppm for that sake. According to the first paper 20-50ppm of the humic substance should therefore be enough. This is of course promising for those of us that have to pay:rollhappy:



Oops. I guess it very much depends on what you are using. I tend to use everything at 1/8 recommended anyway. Can you get pure fulvic acid over there? (apparently it's a clear gold colour)


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## Bjorn (Apr 27, 2015)

I got it as a powder through e-bay. Quite expensive (partly due to freight- from the US) so I am happy with using small amounts. It dissolves easily and produces a dark brown solution at 10%. I have tried it together with kelp at 400ppm (each), but feel its better to add, say 25ppm to all water like I do with my fertiliser composition already.


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## naoki (Apr 27, 2015)

Interesting about the suppression at higher concentration in the 2nd paper. Both of them used hydroponic, so the optimum is probably different for orchids. There were some papers which used drenching (and foliar application). Some of them went up to 4g/l without negative effects (but no better than 50ppm). I can't quite relocate it.

[edit: I was wrong about this. The study was mixing in the solid humid acid to potting mix, so the unit was mg/kg of potting mix, not in solution. Also, there was negative effect at the high concentration]

It appears that there is BiaAg distributor in Holland. According to some other plant grower, their Fulvic acid (Ful-Power) uses different extraction method and more potent. Fluvic is better for foliar application, right? I went with their Ful-Humix (fulbic+humic) because it is in powder form, and much cheaper.


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## gonewild (Apr 27, 2015)

naoki said:


> Interesting about the suppression at higher concentration in the 2nd paper. Both of them used hydroponic, so the optimum is probably different for orchids. There were some papers which used drenching (and foliar application). Some of them went up to 4g/l without negative effects (but no better than 50ppm). I can't quite relocate it.
> 
> It appears that there is BiaAg distributor in Holland. According to some other plant grower, their Fulvic acid (Ful-Power) uses different extraction method and more potent. Fluvic is better for foliar application, right? I went with their Ful-Humix (fulbic+humic) because it is in powder form, and much cheaper.



Are you talking about 50ppm of the powder or 50 ppm of the acid?


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## gonewild (Apr 27, 2015)

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02370049#page-1


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## naoki (Apr 28, 2015)

gonewild said:


> Are you talking about 50ppm of the powder or 50 ppm of the acid?



I didn't read in details, but I'm guessing that it is measured in terms of the acid.


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## Brabantia (Apr 28, 2015)

A good paper about this subject:_here_.
For information: Orchids Focus Bloom (Growth Technology) is a 2-1-2 fertilyser and it has a .25% content in humic acid.


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## myxodex (Apr 28, 2015)

My question with with humic/fulvic acid supplements is knowing what brand to use. Some products are really hyped up and don't provide useful information, just a lot of marketing woo-woo. Some of the major producers have concerns that the disinformation used by some in promoting their products may actually harm their business in the long term. They have produced this document which gives some useful background which I thought might be useful. http://www.humintech.com/pdf/humicfulvicacids.pdf
Apparently some products contain hardly any humates or fulvates. 

When thinking about dosage, bear in mind that the most commercially viable source of humic/fulvic acid is from extraction of leonardite with strong alkali solutions, either sodium or potassium hydroxide. With sodium hydroxide extraction the resulting liquid has approximately 7.5% sodium (don't have a figure for the potassium extraction but guess that by weight this would be a bit higher). Apparently (?), the sodium hydroxide extract has higher "auxin like activity" than the potassium hydroxide extract and is thus favoured by some producers, not to mention that sodium hydroxide is quite a bit cheaper than potassium hydroxide. My problem is that I would like to know a few more details when I choose a product. With the fulvic acid preparations I would like to know if they separate out the excess salt produced from the acidification step in which the humic acid is precipitated (humic acid is only soluble as the humate salt of Na, K or NH4). I don't have an issue with these products containing salts, but I would like to know what salt and how much of it.


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## ALToronto (Apr 28, 2015)

Is Inocucor a reasonable source of these acids?


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## Bjorn (Apr 28, 2015)

Thank you myxodex, actually a few weeks ago, I read that article, but its always good to repeat. Nevertheless some interesting statements in it, e.g. that one kilo humate equals 30tons of manure!! Not sure where that brings us, but must be quite powerful stuff, if we get the right one.


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## gonewild (Apr 28, 2015)

I'm using Humic Acid liquid produced by GrowMore.
It is 12% Humic Acid and 2.3% Fulvic Acid.

I don't usually like to rely on a manufacturers info propaganda sheet to learn the truth about a product but GrowMores info seems pretty straight forward mostly about humic acid and less about how great their product is.

http://www.growmore.com/products/type/humic-fulvic-acids.html

I decided to use this product because it is the only one I can get here. 
But it seems like it is a good source to use so I'm happy I can actually buy it over the counter for $6 a liter.

The recommended dosage is 1 or 2 liters per 200 liters as a foliar spray.
At the lower rate that is equal to 5ml/liter of the liquid which gives a solution containing 600ppm of Humic acid and 115ppm of Fulvic acid.
If I use 1 ml (1gr) per liter then I'm applying 120ppm of humic acid and 23ppm of Fulvic acid.... that is in line with what the linked papers are finding as a good dosage.

Just like with any plant nutrient in order to decide on how much to apply you must consider the percentage that the source solution contains.


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## naoki (Apr 28, 2015)

Lost of links to interesting papers!



Brabantia said:


> A good paper about this subject:_here_.



Thanks, this, which is also suggested by myxodex, is a good easy read. It looks like that it is sponsored by the company, though?



myxodex said:


> My question with with humic/fulvic acid supplements is knowing what brand to use. Some products are really hyped up and don't provide useful information, just a lot of marketing woo-woo.
> 
> When thinking about dosage, bear in mind that the most commercially viable source of humic/fulvic acid is from extraction of leonardite with strong alkali solutions, either sodium or potassium hydroxide. With sodium hydroxide extraction the resulting liquid has approximately 7.5% sodium (don't have a figure for the potassium extraction but guess that by weight this would be a bit higher).



I agree that it is a bit difficult to weed the hype from real data. With BioAg products, they say that they don't use alkali/acid extraction. So they may contain less Na?



ALToronto said:


> Is Inocucor a reasonable source of these acids?



I doubt it. Inocucor is just effective microbes. If you use it to make compost (bokashi), then it would contain humid acid.

I relocated the study which compare the commercial HA (humid acid) with HA from worm compost. It appears that worm competed version is more potent because it appears to contain more phytohormones (auxins).

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1164556306000379
or
http://www.researchgate.net/profile...ant_growth/links/0912f50ecce34032b5000000.pdf



gonewild said:


> Are you talking about 50ppm of the powder or 50 ppm of the acid?



Actually, I was completely wrong here, Lance. They were using 50mg of solid HA per 1 Kg of potting media (not in solution). But Mike is right, that it is the general feature that too much of HA cancels out the positive effect (so net-zero or negative effect). This is in the paper liked in the previous paragraph and in the following:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038071799000498

According to this (similar paper suggested by Mike):
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...IvKer_sLg5iGasxGaCU8-4A&bvm=bv.91665533,d.cGU

The tissue analysis of this study showed that FA enhances K concentration in the tissue (well uptake of others were influenced, but K was the most influenced by FA). oke:


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## gonewild (Apr 28, 2015)

naoki said:


> Actually, I was completely wrong here, Lance. They were using 50mg of solid HA per 1 Kg of potting media (not in solution). But Mike is right, that it is the general feature that too much of HA cancels out the positive effect (so net-zero or negative effect). This is in the paper liked in the previous paragraph and in the following:



OK assuming the solid HA acid is 100% then 50mg/kg is 50ppm HA in the potting media. So maybe you were not wrong. oke:

But I think 50ppm HA in the potting media is a lot higher level for the plant to be exposed to than 50ppm in a foliar spray. Since in the potting media the roots would be exposed to it 100% of the time it may even be stronger than 500ppm foliar applied.

Didn't one of the papers indicate that the point at which the benefit stopped was 500ppm? But those testa were short term on germinating seeds, not mature plant tissue.



> The tissue analysis of this study showed that FA enhances K concentration in the tissue (well uptake of others were influenced, but K was the most influenced by FA). oke:



Oops! Now we are scrounging up extra K after having gotten rid of it with K-lite. :rollhappy:
Here we go giving our plants junk food again. :wink:

But actually the HA an FA seem to enhance how the plant uses the nutrients once in the plant and not just increase the plants ability to uptake the nutrients.....I think.

My interest in the HA and FA is how it may enhance the plants use of the stuff in seaweed extracts like amino acids, which it seems to do.


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## cnycharles (Apr 28, 2015)

From what I'd read a few years ago, they help transport material in plant and human cells in effect making things more available. This a wide generalization of course


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## jacobwilliams (Apr 30, 2021)

Yes, I am using humic acid for so many years. You heared it right. It's great, no doubt about that.


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## Ozpaph (Jun 30, 2021)

time to block these people!


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## BrucherT (Jun 30, 2021)

Does Ray have input?


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