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Characterization of Humic Substances

I'm very excited to share with you this very good news, that once again demonstrates that Soil Secrets is indeed 'cutting edge' in our industry.  First I'd like to cover the recent completion of testing conducted at Sandia National Laboratories on the Humic acid that we are formulating into our products.    The tests were extremely revealing and educational for us, in terms of teaching us about our own product and providing us with information concerning the Humic acid fraction that's  contained within the whole Humic substance of our products.  This is information on the 'Characterization of Humic Substances', with data and evidence that no other commercial supplier of Humic acids can provide.  Keep in mind that this is research that has never been done before and is exclusive to our company.   I'm weeding through both the SANDIA REPORT and the LOS ALAMOS REPORT now, which contains several hundred pages of data, so that I can reveal to you and to all our customers some of this information.  The reports themselves are for official use only of Commercial Proprietary Information. 

Comments

Anonymous said…
What is the best type of N to use with Humates for a Compromised site, like a mine tailings.
Anonymous said…
Why do I get residue in my Hydroseeder tank when I use the Humate granular material and when I use TerraPro Ag Supramolecular humic acids I get no residue left in the bottom of my tank?
Nitrogen can be supplemented on a mine tailing site, erosion control site or your home landscape in three forms, however the three are not equal. First you have the Nitrate form which is NO3- a very water soluble form. Then you have NH4+ which is an Ammonium Cation. Then you have protein, which contains amino acids which contains the element N. We eat protein because its the only way we can get N into our bodies, which we must have in order to grow and repair our tissues. You will notice that Nitrate NO3- has a negative symbol, which means its an anion which cannot be stored in the soil via the Cation Exchange Capacity. In other words it will be repelled as it has the wrong charge. Also since it is water soluble it easily is leached into the ground water. NH4+ with the plus symbol means its a cation which the Cation Exchange Capacity can grab and hang onto until a plant needs it. Third is the protein, which in my opinion is the best form of nitrogen since it most closely mimics the Soils Food Web of nitrogen transfer from the lowest trophic levels of life up the largest, including providing Nitrogen for plant life. In other words, from the smallest microbe on up, the bodies of the soil animals all contain protein, and the amino acids that make up those proteins can all be used as part of the nitrogen budget of plants and will do so in the perfect time release orchestration of nature that no bagged NPK fertilizer can match. Therefore Soil Secrets hangs it hat on providing a vegetable based protein product to fortify and instigate this process, using a protein material that has the highest possible Protein Efficiency Rating with the highest percent of Nitrogen per unit of protein. The idea is to jump start the process so it can continue on its own once the Soil Food Web is restored.
First I'll define the term Humate as that term is generally recognized as a material derived from a geological formation of Oxidized Lignite and not from compost or peat moss. Separation analysis techniques provided by commercial and university soil labs may show that a particular source of Oxidized Lignite/Humate has a good concentration of Humic Acids, however the method of doing analysis by those entities is only an estimate and not a true chemical analysis. Furthermore the methods used are not standardized, nor do they show any of the characterization (the functionality) of the Humic Acid found in the Humate, other then the fact that the so called active ingredient or fraction called Humic Acid was not extractible with water only. If you check your MSDS on Humate or the products that contain Humate you will notice that is says in the Physical Data Section: Water solubility is negligible or less than 1%, and there's your problem with using that substance in your hydroseeding machine. Commercial TerraPro is a formulation of Humic Acids manufactured by Soil Secrets, that's designed to work in a Hydroseeding machine without having this same problem described in your question. The good news is that we created this formulation without using caustic hydroxide chemicals that melt the Humate into a liquid soluble substance, a common product on the market sold either as a liquid Humic Acid or a powder that will reconstitute with water into a liquid solution.
Its important to understand that when you make something new, such as a formulation of Humic Acids, but you can't measure what you've made, then there's no way to know what molecular changes you are creating. In other words, it's a legitimate question to ask, are there any Humic Acid molecules left in a Humate material that was melted down with a caustic potassium or sodium hydroxide? The answer is that they can't answer the question! In our case, we can and have measured what we've formulated, which we did by performing a full characterization study of the Humic, Fulvic and Humin fractions found in all our Humic Acid formulations. This research confirmed for us that we were successful in our formulation efforts. The complex chemical analysis work was performed at both Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories over the past few years using a 'Commercial Proprietary' contract with Soil Secrets. This is not an endorsement by the National labs, only efficacious true chemical analysis research, that's unique in the industry.

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