Modern day, high density agricultural operations, including tillage, irrigation, fertilization and multiple cropping, deplete organic matter in the soil, and most importantly, the humus component of soil organic matter.

Organic matter is divided into two main categories:

1. organic residues, i.e., plant material, manures, etc. in some stage of partial decay, and
2. stable soil humus.

Stable soil humus, a smallpercentage of total soil organic matter, is the end product of organic matter decomposition when performed under anaerobic, or oxygen free, conditions, beneath the soil surface. The resulting organic structures can be hundreds of years old and are considered a slow renewable resource. Organic residues formed at shallow depths add little, if any, to the reserves of stable soil humus.

Soil scientists tell us that stable soil humus is categorized into three distinct fractions. These fractions are typically found in nature in a balance consisting of 50 percent humins, 10 percent fulvic acids, and 40 percent humic acids. The thousands of individual organic structures within each of the classes are considered the “active ingredients” within soil organic matter. Soil productivity is enhanced when these components are found in abundance as they are in naturally high organic soils.

Actagro has the patented nutrient technology to deliver the baseline effect of high soil organic matter. Actagro’s ability to produce active, suspended humin, makes it the only known company that can deliver the natural balance of humin, humic and fulvic components. A unique patented complexation process allows these organics to be manufactured, with nutrients, in a stable solution that will achieve high organic concentration in the soil. Actagro’s phosphate products, made with organics, used in a quantity to achieve 15 pounds of actual organics per acre, and concentrated in a fertilizer band, will consistently produce the “abundance effect” of naturally high organic soils. To further understand the effect that abundant soil organics can deliver, let us examine the individual components of stable soil humus.

Humins are the more “plant active” fractions of stable soil humus and contribute to plant health in several ways. Certain components in humin can be directly absorbed and transported into the plant vascular system and used in numerous metabolic processes. Plant growth hormones have also been identified within humin and this helps to explain the growth stimulation associated with this fraction. Other structures within humin are adsorbed onto the surface of the root hairs where they stimulate vigorous root development and serve to protect roots from the harmful effects of salts and toxins in the soil solution. Humin structures can also react with some insoluble and/or semi-soluble nutrients and micro-nutrients in the soil, to form soluble nutrient compounds that can be readily absorbed by roots.

Humic and Fulvic Acids are the more “soil active” fractions of stable soil humus. These structures have the potential to influence a number of reactions in the soil, enhancing the soil’s performance, including cation exchange capacity, soil structure stability, water retention, microorganism activity, and the buffering capacity of the solution.

Actagro manufactures unique plant nutrient products. By complexing nutrients with organics, Actagro imitates the processes of nature. By using the types and ratios of naturally occurring soil organics, plant nutrients from Actagro are protected from tying up in the soil, maintained in a form that can be readily absorbed into the plant, and serve as a buffer between plant roots and harmful salts and toxins.

Actagro began the process to research and study the humus component of soil organic matter in 1980. The focus, and special emphasis, was to discover the effects of humus on plant nutrient uptake, and how, as closely as possible, to duplicate it from natural sources. The result of that mission has beenbreakthrough technology, enabling Actagro to manufacture unique plant nutrients reacted with humus. Actagro’s products are extremely efficient, highly plant responsive, and sensitive to the environment.

Nature has an unsurpassed ability to effectively provide nutrients to plants through a small amount of soil humus. The relative small quantity of stable humus in most agricultural soils ranges from 1/10% to 1%. It is a tiny fraction of the total soil volume, but plays a critical role in every function of productive soil. Continuous cropping rapidly depletes soil humus, and soil productivity is reduced as the depletion occurs. Even a slight reduction in actual humus can dramatically reduce soil productivity, increasing the demands for fertilizer to simply maintain the same level of productivity.

Nutrient uptake in plant roots is virtually impossible in the absence of soil humus. Applied organic matter is not stable soil humus. Conventional fertilizers (crop residues and manures) incorporated into shallow depths are rapidly decayed by oxygen-loving – areobic – bacteria. Applied organic matter is simply consumed (or oxidized) during the decomposition process, and has little, if any, potential to become stable soil humus. This process contributes to the short-term health of the soil, but does not replenish soil humus. Humus levels can decrease, even when organic matter levels in the soil are increasing!

Humus Defined

Humus is an essential ingredient for maintaining the dynamics and productive potential of the “rhizosphere,” the dynamic world around the root zone of a plant. Microbiologists claim that in the significance of plant life, the processes within the rhizosphere are second only to photosynthesis. Establishing and maintaining the optimum health of the rhizosphere is one of the most crucial choices a grower can make pertaining to crop productivity.

Natural soil humus has the ability to solubilize and extract nutrients from the soil, and hold these nutrients in an absorbable form for plant absorption. Technically, humus compounds consist of acids, polysaccharides, phenols, benzenes, aldehydes, ketones, amines, waxes, and resins that have a synergistic effect on soil microbes, plant nutrients, and plant roots. Any carbon-containing material in the soil derived from plant and/or animal sources is classified as “soil organic matter.” Humus compounds are included in this broad classification. Soil labs report most soil organic matter to consist of partially decomposed organic material such as crop residues, raw manures, and so on. The balance is actual humus, and can range from 1% to 35% of total organic matter. Products which are labeled as “peat”, “compost”, “manure” or even “humus” are not humus, and do not contain humus.

Five Effects of Humus on Soil and Crop Production

Humus enhances soil structure, increases water-holding capacity, buffers the soil solution, stimulates soil microbes, and much more. It plays a vital role in plant nutrition in five ways:

1. Humus provides for nutrient storage. Humus can account for up to 90% of the soil’s ability to store nutrients. Soil labs measure this storing ability and report it as Cation Exchange Capacity. A cation is simply a nutrient with an overall positive charge. The average CEC of humus is 500. Compare this to an average of 40 for clay, 20 for loam, and 5 for sand, and it becomes understandable why humus dramatically increases the soil’s ability to store nutrients.
2. Nutrients properly combined with humus are protected from tying-up with other soil minerals. They are able to remain available for root up take. Nutrients, like one end of a magnet, have either a positive or a negative charge. Negatively charged elements, such as phos-phorus, are attracted to positively charged minerals like calcium, iron, and aluminum. When phosphorus is combined with these materials, insoluble compounds are formed that cannot be utilized by plants. When phosphorus is properly complexed with humus, it becomes insulated, or shielded, from attraction to other minerals, and remains available for plant consumption.
3. Humus delivers nutrients to roots in a readily absorbable form. Phosphorus, for example, can only be absorbed as a single, or orthophosphate, molecule. When properly complexed with humus, phosphorus is held and protected in the ortho form.
4. Humus buffers the toxic effects that inorganic fertilizer and soil salts may cause. Inorganic foliar fertilizers have caused what growers recognize as “tissue burn.” Less visible is the damage these salts have on tender root hairs when inorganic fertilizer is soil-applied.
5. Certain compounds within soil humus (particularly the humin compounds) can stimulate plant growth and vigor.

Sources of Humus

Nature provides a highly concentrated source for all three classes in an insoluble, humus-like subterranean layer called “leonardite.” Leonardite is a rich, organic strata, developed from prehistoric plant and animal residues by anaerobic bacteria under heat, pressure, and time. Because it is insoluble, leonardite provides little or no agronomic benefits if used directly. However, bound within it are the STABLE organic structures of soil humus. Actagro’s patented technology unlocks the essential active ingredients in leonardite for direct and immediate results on soils and plants.

Actagro Technology

Actagro has the technology to isolate and solubilize all three classes of organic compounds found in natural soil humus. The recombination of these three classes essentially developed the mixture of humus compounds that only Actagro is authorized to label as “Organic Acids derived from leonardite” by the State of California. Used alone, the positive effects of any one of these three classes can be realized, but with mixed results. When all three are combined, the overall performance and plant growth response is tremendously enhanced.

Actagro’s first step has been to identify specific combinations of humus compounds that work best with particular plant nutrients. For example, it took thousands of trials and errors over an eight-year period to find the correct combination to react with zinc.

The second step is to react a specific organic combination with a particular nutrient partner in a process called “organic complexation”; a natural process found within the rhizosphere. It is the mechanism that keeps nutrients from tying-up in the soil, maintains them in a readily absorbable form, and protects plants from the phytotoxic salt effects of inorganic materials.

Organic complexation is the result of lightly bonding the organic acid to the nutrient. It is not a simple blending operation, it is a precisely controlled reaction performed in a carefully monitored facility. It is similar to the chelating process, which creates a protective barrier to prevent the nutrient from tying up with other soil minerals. However, using Actagro’s process, the entire organic complex molecule is readily absorbed by roots or foliage, unlike relatively large chelate molecules, which must release the nutrient at the root tip before absorption can occur. This absorption of the organics, in addition to the nutrient itself, creates the consistent and dramatic plant responses experienced with soil and foliar-applied Actagro plant nutrients.

Actagro’s organically complexed orthophosphate, one key nutrient which is responsible for root development in soil, has shown uptake efficiencies averaging 65% in long-term studies covering a range of soils and crops. That is, for every 100 pounds of organic P205 applied, 65 pounds ends up in the crop. This is a dramatic comparison to the extremely low uptake efficiency (17%) of inorganic phosphate fertilizers. The polyphosphate form, which is common to some conventional fertilizers, cannot be directly absorbed by plants. It converts slowly (and not completely) to the ortho form. As it converts, it is left unprotected. It can readily tie-up in the soil, dramatically reducing the uptake efficiency. Actagro’s organically complexed phosphates allow reduction in fertilizer application rates, while maintaining yield and improving quality.

Actagro’s success has made us more determined in the continuing challenge to develop the most effective, efficient, and environmentally sensitive plant nutrients available.

Actagro’s liquid solutions are easy-to-use for micro-irrigation injection systems, and buffered to reduce any possibility of toxicity in the concentrated zone of root feeding.

Actagro’s organically complexed nutrients are ideal for foliar feeding, since they are safe and gentle on plant tissue, readily absorbable into the plant system.

Actagro’s proven performance in soil-applied nutrients is the result of maintaining the nutrient in a readily absorbable form, protecting the nutrient from tying up in the soil, and buffering the plant from any phytotoxic effects that might be experienced from salts or soil impurities.

Actagro’s many products are compatible with each other, as well as a wide variety of agricultural chemicals. This allows the grower more flexibility during application.

Using Actagro products at recommended rates will not significantly increase overall soil humus levels. However, an optimum concentration of humus can be achieved by placing Actagro’s humus-based products in the root-feeding zone—where they are needed. Adding humus to soil rebuilds the productivity of soil— now, and for the future.