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  • From: Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Humus
  • Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2011 01:02:31 -0800 (PST)

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





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