permaculture

[Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com>]

Peat, carbon or oil or must be particularly good examples of humus, if the 
definition that “humus is organic matter that has reached a point of 
stability to remain as it is for millennia” is correct. Yet all of these have 
no or only very little fertility.
 
Perhaps the trouble is that we want to perceive of humus as a substance, 
whereas it may be more like a process. Do we get closer to what humus 
actually is, if we narrow down its essence to a chemical substance such as 
humic acid or to its individual N atoms?  I don’t know!  I know that the 
fertility of my soil increases if I feed it with plenty of organic matter.  
The response is almost immediately - already after a year or two there is a 
remarkable increase in growth.  Perhaps the increased soil activity also taps 
stable humus that has been stored in the clay-humus complex for millennia, 
but that is hard to tell.  If it does the newly returned organic matter 
probably also goes partly to replenishing this long-term storehouse of 
fertility. Anyways, there is no doubt in my mind that the increased fertility 
is due to the increased soil activity that occurs as a result of the newly 
added organic matter.
 
Cheers,
Dieter


--- On Sun, 11/13/11, John D'hondt <dhondt@eircom.net> wrote:


From: John D'hondt <dhondt@eircom.net>
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Humus
To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Date: Sunday, November 13, 2011, 12:14 AM



There are quite a few nitrogens in humic acid which might account partly for 
the fertility it imbues but to me the structure of the molecule has always 
made me think of a soil hormone, of something with a messenger function.
john