Curious about humic acid.

T

Takanotsume

I've been hearing good things about this stuff, namely that it's a soil conditioner that helps plants uptake nutrients, a natural PH balancer and not really something plants can be overdosed on easily.
 
I've also seen it suggested here as a way to improve plants that are growing in a coco coir based medium and that it can often help plants to green up if simply providing fertilizer hasn't been doing the trick.
 
They sell liquid concentrate on Amazon for a reasonable price, and was wondering if it would a good idea to try it on my plants as most of them are rather pale and seem like they're not receiving adequate nutrients despite me giving them moderate doses of complete fertilizer.
 
To clear up some of the fluff... changing pH alone, is sufficient to help uptake nutrients.  Lots of things do that.  What makes humic and fulvic acids so great, is that they also promote the breakdown of organic substances, to release enzymes and amino acids.  And pH buffering is the side effect, if you have alkaline substrate.   But I'd guess that you don't have that problem in Hawaii.  Here in Florida, our entire environment is alkaline and I use humic to natrually buffer.  Especially since I use things like eggshells for long-term calcium supplementation.
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Coco is an almost neutral substrate, unlike peat. (which is very acidic)  So you don't have to add much of anything, and it will grow great.  But it will definitely help you lower the pH, longterm.
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Here is an interesting video for you.  It shows Humic acid - derived from Leonardite - reacting with eggshells in pure water.  It's not highly acidic, so it isn't as impressive as adding eggshells to vinegar.  But I made it simply to prove to myself that there was some value in using it.  It also helped me to establish a reasonable dosing quantity, since there's not tons of info available, on the subject.  As a side effect, I certainly extracted both calcium (from the eggshells) and humic acid from the Leonardite. (which by itself is just a catalyst for the substance - you have to be able to get it to break down into free components)
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https://youtu.be/e8xEtCJBmmg
 
Well, the humic acid just arrived, so I think I'll give the plants a light dosage next time they need water.
 
I've tried a lot of different ferts at diluted concentrations that can be provided with every watering or once a week, but nothing seems to be making my aji limons green up, so I feel like there's something fundamentally wrong with the Pro-Mix they're in or the plants simply don't like the stuff as the shishito growing in the same conditions is about as green as it gets.
 
They started off green while they were just a few feet tall but once they start yielding fruit and getting bushy they seem to consistently begin losing color and the leaves have been smaller, as well.
 
SoHot said:
Solid7 is there a particular brand of Humic Acid you're buying?
Click to expand...
 
No, not per se, but I'd definitely experiment with multiple brands.  The one in the video is really coarse stuff.  I got a huge bag of it a few years ago.  I'm on the West Coast for a while, and I actually bought a higher grade, and finer mesh, for an experimental growing mix that I'm working on.
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This is the one that I bought: https://www.amazon.com/Lb-Pulverized-Leonardite-Unaltered-Oxidized/dp/B01J8X9VPE/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=5+Lb+Pulverized+Leonardite+-+Natural+Unaltered+Oxidized+Lignite+-+70%25+Humic+Acid&qid=1578555546&s=lawn-garden&sr=1-1  
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I didn't really choose a specific brand.
 
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