Benefits or harm of chemical humates

Do you know that widely used humates of chemical origin including sodium and potassium humates curdle in hard water containing salts. First of all these are divalent chemical compound of calcium, magnesium and iron, which are so abundant in the Ukrainian water resources.

Reacting with chemical humates salts precipitate as hydroxides clogging the sprayer nozzle and drip tape.

If added to highly mineralized water, chemical humates seem to actively dissolve coloring water dark. But in fact, chemical dissolution does not happen, instead fine-dispersed suspension is formed as salts of divalent metals that slowly settle to the bottom of the tank.

In practice the operator who mixes the preparations in a tank mix controls only the process of humates dissolution. But nobody watches the further changes in the mix, though it has already partially lost its effectiveness.

Thus, in our opinion, chemical humate manufacturers should warn the customers of using only pure and not mineralized water.

What can be the result of applying mineralized water commercially? First, it is the decrease in humic acids beneficial effect on plants as it has already been exhausted. Second, soils have become saturated with salt hydroxides which precipitate on the soil surface.

The scale of the disaster we are creating with our own hands can be assessed by the fact that the amount of metal salts in the Ingulets irrigation system which feeds most of the arable lands in Kherson and Mykolayiv regions is 10-12 times the maximum permissible concentration (for more details see the movie). As a result of intensive irrigation the field surface is covered with a layer of salt. Adding chemical humates into drip tape further stimulates salt deposition in the topsoil destroying living microorganisms and humus layer.

It is this problem that gave rise to the creation of non-chemical Bio-gel of organic origin, which "works" in the water of any quality.