Introduction to Humates

Potassic humate has amazing properties due to the fundamental role of humic acids in the biosphere of the planet. Their application allows to increase ecological cleanness, nutritional and taste qualities of agricultural crops, to reduce the terms of growth and ripening, to save from adverse weather conditions and technogenic burden, to increase the yield of plants, to restore soil fertility, to increase productivity and to improve the health of birds and animals, to increase health and increase life expectancy of a person.

Humate can be used not only in its pure form, but also as additives to various preparations used in crop cultivation, animal husbandry, veterinary medicine, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, oil and gas industries and other branches of industry. They increase the efficiency and safety of mineral and organic fertilizers, minor-nutrient elements, growth regulators, plant protection products and many other substances.

The search for new ways to improve soil ecology, water and the atmosphere of the planet engrosses the minds of an increasing number of scientists. This reflects the objective attitude of the society to the environmental consequences of the human activity development. The widespread use of technologies aimed at living standard raise, but at the same time violating the ecological balance in nature – is one of the basic problems of the development of world civilization.

The growth of industry and a number of technogenic catastrophes have led to the contamination of huge areas with heavy metals, toxic waste from the chemical and metallurgical industries, petroleum products, and radionuclides. Large cities are the heavily polluted zones, where huge damage is inflicted to the people health, the plant and living world.

The decision of the global task of providing food to the rapidly growing population of the Earth is also accompanied by the emergence of environmental problems. So in the early 50's of the last century, the intensive use of pesticides and agrochemicals has made a real revolution in the production of crops in the most developed countries, allowing to solve the food problem through doubling of crop yields, but at the same time violated the ecological balance in the plant and living world. Together with weeds, diseases and pests against which pesticides were used, bees and other useful insects, as well as soil-forming organisms died. Residues of pesticides inhibited the growth of croppers, got into the human body and animals, causing damage to health, were washed away with rainwater into waterbodies, where damaged aquatic fauna and flora.

Excessive use of mineral fertilizers in some regions of the world (Australia, the islands of Oceania) has led to virtually complete destruction of soil microflora and, as a consequence, organic matter of soils and the destruction of their structure. Even in the famous blackearths of Russia, due to their intensive exploitation, a humus component has undergone a series of irreversible changes, losing its low molecular weight humic acids, which led to a sharp decline in fertility. Similar problems are observed in poultry and animal industry. Various feed additives are widely used in the last 30 years in the diet of live-stock animals and domestic animals to surrogate the missing food ingredients. Among them are mineral, protein and fat nutritional supplements, vitamins, biostimulants, complex natural compounds (sapropel, peat, and humates), synthetic products (enzymes, hormones, antibiotics, adaptogens, antioxidants). However, the widespread use of some chemical additives in feeds has led to the quality of products decrease in these industries.

The search for new ways of rehabilitation and improving the productivity of farm animals with the help of feed additives at high demands on the ecology of meat and dairy products has naturally led to an increase in research on the use of alkaline salts of natural humic acids - humates. Their high ecological safety and unique ability to improve metabolic processes and increase the energy of cells are very positively exerted on living organisms.

Naturally, environmental problems have attracted the attention of the world community, which has become increasingly concerned about the harm done to human health by pesticides, agrochemicals and other products of soil, water contamination and air pollution. This happened against the backdrop of growing awareness of the factors of a healthy and long human life as a fundamental value.

In Europe, the United States, Russia, Ukraine and other countries, there are constantly working commissions that have already prohibited hundreds of harmful substances. As a result of this work, more strict modern security standards have been adopted, which has led to the appearance of less harmful types of these substances and the development of alternative agricultural technologies.

One of such agricultural technologies, called "organic farming", is based on the complete refusal of chemical yield enhancement preparations and return to natural resources of fertility preservation and increase. "Organic farming" as a reaction to the concern of a certain part of the world community of potential harmfulness of pesticides and agrochemicals is rapidly developing. In global agriculture today organic products sales have already reached 22 billion dollars. However, the relatively low productivity of organic farming and high production costs still do not allow solving food problem on a global scale with this method.

At the same time, the demand for ecologically clean food continues to grow ahead of the growth of the population of the planet, and a sharp and complete prohibition of the use of pesticides and agrochemicals is not possible in the absence of an adequate alternative, as it will lead to a decline in the whole field of human activity and humanitarian catastrophe. Therefore, the greening of agriculture should be gradual, stage by stage.

At the first stage, it is necessary to set the task of finding new ecological and simultaneously effective technologies of preservation and increase of agriculture productivity, based on the gradual reduction of chemical burden, disinfection of accumulated harmful substances in the soil, refocusing of chemical production to more safe substances and increasing the use of natural sources of fertility.

At the final stage, the areas of human agricultural activity on the surface of the planet must differ from the natural landscapes only by the accelerated formation and accumulation of organic and mineral nutrients in the soil, sufficient to compensate their absorption by the herbage of cultivated croppers, as well as the use of environmentally safe means of maintaining the level of harmful factors (weeds, diseases, pests) in balanced condition below the threshold of harmful effect. In this case, the structure and composition of the cultivated soil should not change, providing the necessary stable living conditions and the development of soil organisms.

A fundamental solution to the problems of ecological safety of agriculture will be the recovery of the natural balance between the intensity of extraction and the intensity of accumulation of nutrients and other substances essential to plants without degradation of the structure and composition of the soil due to the transition to a widespread use of special types of multi-nutrient organic and humic mineral fertilizers, natural stimulants and humus substances of the new generation.

With the similarity of the general problem definition to the whole world, the optimized ways of its solution may vary for different countries and geographical regions of the planet, depending on their individual characteristics.

Thus, a significant advantage of a number of countries (Russia, the USA, Canada, Australia, Ukraine), as compared with most other countries, is the presence of brown coal deposits with high content of natural humus substances, and their disadvantage is the location of a large part of agricultural land in the area of risky agriculture. Based on the foregoing, you can safely buy potassic humate in Ukraine of better quality!

Ironically, but the combination of these two factors gives such countries a unique opportunity to adopt the optimal concept of agriculture ecological safety, taking into account their natural and climatic characteristics. This concept involves the widespread use of humus substances of natural origin, capable to improve soil condition, reduce the use of pesticides and agrochemicals, and mobilize internal protective and productive reserves of plants in conditions of unstable climate. It should lead to the development of agriculture, based on the protection of plants and production of high yields with a careful attitude to the environment and care for human health. At the same time, natural competitive advantages in the fertile soils and reserves of natural humus substances will be realized. Other countries can become successful importers for the use of humus substances in their territories.

Why are natural humus substances claiming a key role in greening of agriculture in most countries in the 21st century?

The point is that during more than of half a century of research history a large number of scientific facts were accumulated, convincingly testifying the basic importance of humus substances in the functioning of the ecosystem "water - plant - soil". Unlike pesticides, agrochemicals and certain types of feed additives, humus substances do not have allergenic, anaphylactoid, teratogenic, embryotoxic, phytotoxic and cancerogenic properties; are absolutely harmless to plants, useful insects, animals and humans. The Russian scientific school has been holding firm leadership in the world for almost a century in research on the chemical composition and soil properties. Without diminishing the contribution of Ahard, Berzelius, Maurice Schnitzer, Wolfgang Sichmann, Robert Faust, Thomas Senna, Robert Pettit and other foreign scientists in obtaining and disseminating knowledge about the role of humus substances in agriculture, it should be noted that advanced scientific achievements and technological solutions in this area belong to Soviet and Russian science.

Professors Vasyl Dokuchaev, Volodymyr Vernadsky, Dmitry Pryanishnikov, Lydia Khristyeva, Dmitro Orlov and other scientists have laid a solid scientific foundation for radically change of technology for using the soil to grow plants. Right now Russian soil science has accumulated a critical mass of discoveries that can lead to a scientific and technological revolution in agriculture. And the most radical changes are expected in the area of new ideas for the implementation of the potential of humus substances.

More than 50 years ago at Kherson University L. Khristyeva isolated from the soil humic acids in the form of a solution of their sodic salts (humates); she poured plants with it and found that they significantly accelerated their growth, forming a powerful root system. So the biological activity of humates was determined for the first time.

Point-by-point, due to the outstanding scientific results obtained by Soviet scientists L. Khristyeva, D. Orlov, E. Kukharenko, M. Kononova, I.Perminova and several scientific schools, knowledge about the application of humates in crop, animal and poultry farming, as well as in some branches of industry and medicine, were accumulated. These knowledges were widely discussed in scientific publications, at scientific conferences, but remained little known to the general public, since they could not find practical application due to the lack of industrial technologies for the production of cheap and quality humates.

Our new technology of humates production developed a basically new recipe for humic preparations, which includes modified salts of humic acids, chelate forms of trace elements, sulfur and other useful substances; and the first industrial technology of humates new generation production, which has no analogues in the world, was created. It is based on deep scientific knowledge and allows getting absolutely new enriched low-ballast and ballastless products in various physical forms (powders, granules, tablets, solutions, pastes, gels, and chelate complexes) with completely non-waste production and low production costs.

Potassic and sodic humates are not just the new standard of humate of the highest quality category with guaranteed stable properties that provide accurate dosage and well-predicted effect. They also are distinguished with the highest content of biologically active substances among such products of the world market, the concentration of which reaches 90%.

Due to its amazing properties to increase the energy of the plant cell, to stimulate life processes of living organisms, to accelerate the growth and development of plants and animals, to increase the useful effect of other substances, new natural substances were called humates.