The major (and almost only) thing sugar in a soil would do is provide a carb source for fungi (usually a healthy/good fungus when seeing a positive benefit). Other microbes could benefit, but they mostly do just fine on their own.

Humans need carbs to live...fungi need carbs to thrive...grass/plants don't do a whole lot with sugar carbs, but it can help a symbiotic benefit if good and receptive fungi happen to exist in your soil. That said, if your soil is full of bad/harmful fungi, it'll also feed that.

Still, I'd save the sugar for iced tea. Even as far as a carb source goes it's a fast-moving one through the soil when wet. Some people add a bit to their compost "starter/booster" mixes, though.

If anything, I would personally consider it a minor to ignorable consideration in almost any application.

Sugar is touted by enough gardeners that it would be worth a try to restore valuable microbes to a Chem-Lawn. Also comes under "if you haven't tried it, don't knock it". I had obvious and positive results from my experiment. Sugar is cheap. Agricultural molasses is even cheaper and apparently, I've read, contains fumic acid. I've used both.

"MOLASSES:⨠This is food, which feeds the natural bacteria and microbes whose role in the soil is to release the natural nutrients and minerals locked up in the organic material."

Quote from here: "Organic lawn care"

"More organic lawn care"

We only have to remember that the soil, while a medium, is a living thing and everything we do has a positive or negative effect, rarely a neutral one. Sometimes really simple things do work.

>"if you haven't tried it, don't knock it"

It's been tried...it's been studied.

As far as molasses goes, it's a rather expensive soil amendment with short term benefits. As far as long term benefits go, it's generally only good in high clay soils for loosening soil structure...and still, it's a bit of an expensive way to go about it.

In the short term it can boost microbial activity, feed fungi, and make available N that would ordinarily be tied up thanks to increased microbial activity. This increased activity can also help break down high-C source materials, which may be beneficial in compost piles. It also adds a bit of K to the soil, which is a minor, but measurable benefit.

Most people who already have a healthy soil with decent organic matter content can go about boosting the health of their soils without getting expensive amendments involved...or "charging" their organic matter via healthy compost additions.

I feel it's also worth mentioning, especially in the application of molasses, that there's a ton of recipes out there for applications/sprays/drenches which greatly underestimate how much of an addition you need to make to get a desired effect.

There's a lot of recipes which call for a few tablespoons, a 1/2 cup, etc to make a brew...which is fine if you're charging/applying to a small area (such as a small bed or compost pile), but is almost negligible if you're going to spread it over a few 100 sq ft. of lawn.

If you're brewing a compost tea, to feed/charge/release-nutrients of what you're brewing in the container, itself, it's a great use...especially with aeration of the brew.

As far as flat application in a spray/drench to actually work on the soil you're applying it to, you need to up your dosage. That can get a bit costly vs benefit.

Seems to me when I was doing research at the U of FL veggie crops dept. there was a guy named Dr. Sal Locasio doing vegetable research in FL with humates/humic acid, go find it yourself.

If you want help with your lawn, I would suggest going to the Gardenweb Lawn Forum. There is also an organic forum but it does not get as much traffic as the regular forum. Post a detailed description about what's going wrong or what you think is wrong. Be sure to put your location as diagnosing lawn problems is very location specific. If you live in SoCal, then you have to be very specific due to the winds and hills in the area. If you really want to tune up your lawn, I suggest you get a soil test ($20) from Logan Labs in Ohio. Nobody else will give you such extensive results for less than $100. But that is only if you want to push toward the Lawn of the Month.

If you would like to learn more about organic lawn care, click here. I wrote that FAQ many years ago. While I have learned a lot since then, the FAQ is good for a basic understanding of what works and why. Here is a picture of a zoysia lawn with a treatment of alfalfa pellets. It was posted on the lawn forum back in 2011 by mrmumbles.

{{gwi:79605}}
It is easy to see the improved color, density, and growth.

LuckyGal, you sound like a nice person. I would like to gently suggest that you ignore the advice at the two links you posted. The one about the sugar with the link to the Dirt Doctor is relatively harmless. The Zimmerman guy looks like a local guy with a local perspective. He might know what works on his lawn but he needs to get out and see the world. He could do that by going to the GardenWeb Lawn Forum, for example. Spend a few years reading there and then go be a guru. His advice to over seed a thin lawn with fescue is such a narrow recommendation that it is meaningless outside his personal lawn. It completely overlooks the reason for why the lawn might be thin. There are six very popular types of turf grass. Thinning happens on all of them, but the solution is different for most of them.

I could go on but it is much easier to talk about what works for specific situation than it is to come in the back door and explain why someone's wild ideas are not worth addressing. I feel that way about Howard Garrett's suggestions for dry molasses or sugar. There is one time that using sugar can help a lawn. Using it monthly or even seasonally, to me, is a waste of money and time. If your soil is healthy, the grass will produce plenty of sugar to feed the soil microbes. That is one of the functions of grass.

I don't doubt that putting sugar on a lawn makes little sense, but it isn't because of the fact that eating a lot of refined sugar is bad for a human.

An interesting analysis here, though I don't know what the credentials of the author are:

Here is a link that might be useful: decent soil, don't bother

Dr. Faust is a bit of a wingnut. He's one of those "modern medicine is designed to kill us" types. He believes we've "broken" nature and he's there to sell you a few pounds of cure in humic and fulvic acid amendments.

That said, unlike other wingnuts that share this belief (like the computer technical writer turned "health ranger" Mike Adams)...Dr F actually has training in his field.

He's one of those guys that believes chlorinated water is dangerous, kills nutrients and causes cancer, etc etc

He used to (may still) push the belief that you can cure and prevent diseases by growing food in nutrient rich soil. Tuberculosis was one of the things he was pushing in the 1980s as a cure you could get by adding amendments to your soil.

This is all quite convenient since he happens to produce and sell these soil amendments.

I'd approach any of his work with extreme caution.

-edit-

I just found this online...evidently he now considers chimself a shaman faith healer and has nixed the Dr for a Rev title. Whatever pays the bills...

http://www.sun-angel.com/medical/view.php?MID=25

This post was edited by nc-crn on Sat, Jan 12, 13 at 23:11

Most everything I find about adding sugar to soils is anecdotal, "my tomatoes have a better flavor since I added sugar to the soil they were planted in". My tomatoes have a much better flavor when they are grown in my soil that is well amended with organic matter, compost, and that soil is well mulched with shredded leaves, in fact most everything grows better and is bothered by fewer insect pests when grown in the soil I have that is well amended with organic matter.
Plants manufacture sugar by photosynthesis and plant roots exude sugar which helps attract some of the fungi that form that symbiotic relationship with plants known as the mycorrhiza relationship. From that bit of knowledge I think some people have hypothecized that adding sugar to soil is good. It is unnecessary and is expensive and really does little to benefit the Soil Food Web. Molasses, a complex sugar, is different. Unprocessed cane or beet sugar may also be different because they will have other nutrients then the sucrose, glucose, fructose empty calories.
Make your soil into a good healthy soil by adding ample quantities of organic matter, nothing more is really needed.

Ok, that's a start, at least you are beginning to define what you mean by "sugar".

NC, I suspected Faust had/has an agenda. However, that little piece impresses me because it allows for the logical likelihood that humate is unnecessary or even unhelpful in some situations, notably moist soils with high OM levels.

"From that bit of knowledge I think some people have hypothecized that adding sugar to soil is good. It is unnecessary and is expensive and really does little to benefit the Soil Food Web. Molasses, a complex sugar, is different. Unprocessed cane or beet sugar may also be different because they will have other nutrients then the sucrose, glucose, fructose empty calories.
Make your soil into a good healthy soil by adding ample quantities of organic matter, nothing more is really needed."

Yup, everything Kimmsr said here is 100% TRUE.

"Yup, everything Kimmsr said here is 100% TRUE"

Is that said with a straight face?

I think a better rating would be more like 90% in my opinion.
'Truth' includes more than true facts. Some of the slyist deceivers tell only that part of the truth to sell their product, get re-elected, or get their view bought into. They leave out important parts because they would weaken their case.

I am not implying that kimmsr is doing those things. I believe he is fairly sincere and is a valuable contributor here.....I just disagree with some things.

Well Wayne it is one hundred percent true if on has that magic compost that has the exact amounts of EVERYTHING needed at ALL TIMES.

But I have tried frammin on the jim-jam and frippin on the krotz and I have yet to find that magic compost.

Also have not found the magic compost here either, although I did not know about the jim-jam framming...

Some human-plant analogies work fine. Beer, for example. I need beer as a nutrient. It's also beneficial to plants - if applied after filtering through a human.

What was the question?

Magic compost? Are you saying there really is a use for sugar in a field crop? Wow, even if there was I would have no idea what thats like? You know, to throw money away.....

A spraying of molasses water will always stimulate microbial growth, that would be an example. It would also stimulate the germination and growth of young weeds, before tilling in, as will beer. That was and maybe still is a traditional practice in some parts of Europe.

Saw a 1/2 hour long infomercial on the rural tv channel last night about this outfit touting humates/humic acid to large scale farmers of many agronomic crops. Sadly, instead of showing trials of how the stuff they sell had actually performed, they mostly had some guy talking about it. The whole program made claims about performance but baked it up with nothing and then made more claims, this pattern continued throughout. I wish I could remember the name of the company who made the program to sell their stuff but, I don't. Watching the program made me very hesitant to try humates due to the poor effort made by this outfit, their claims seem dubious in the light of nothing to back them up.
The program was so poor they may be doing a disservice to humates, pushed me away some and I was willing to sit and listen with an open mind for a 1/2 hour.

A certain company is touting Leornardite as a great source of Humates, is this just a expensive ammendment that is no better than Organic matter?

If you apply "commercial" humates, chances are you're going to see some positive results if applied properly and in a great enough amount.

That said...cost vs. alternatives.

Many home gardeners can afford to supply these humic substances -much- cheaper using compost, homemade compost teas, or just general organic amendments.

Also, if you don't have a good organic fraction built up in your soil they will not persist and you'll have to keep buying/supplying "commercial" humates.

NC, I would challenge your last assertion. What are you basing that on? Humates do not break down further on a time scale that would have any effect on a human lifetime. I will bet you dollars to doughnuts that when I get to my pasture in florida I'll be able to find humate particles that I spread three years ago.

There is a reason that the florida citrus industry is paying attention to humates now. Cost is relative when measured against going out of business and spending a lot of money on cides meanwhile.

I'm basing it on cation/anion exchange capacity and availability.

Technically, you could get that with clay, but without humic substances there's not much release from it's holding/attraction to clay mineral layers.

Humates can be viewed as a catalyst for soil activity. It's not much on it's own. It's what it does to the availability of minerals in the soils it's applied to.

I think pnbrown's point was that you should not have to keep adding them constantly. If they really are humates, by definition they don't decompose further.

Ah.

Yeah, some decompose quickly and some (most) slowly depending on pH, moisture, heat, and the type of humate source material used.

I will begin hunting for humate particles that I have spread in the last few years. it isn't something I have though of doing but if I can't find any I'll have to give more credence to NC's assertion.

There's a wide range of "humates" out there that will degrade according to particle size, type of humate, weathering, etc.

They're unavailable to plant/soil use unless they're breaking down.

If that is true then there would be no superior point to them, certainly not at the prices that they fetch.

Surely I have not encountered a compost that gets similar results in very nutrient-poor and overly-drained soils, after much use of compost and manure in that type of soil. The main question will be whether areas that have had them for a year or two now will continue to give good results without additional humate added. As with compost and biochar, I don't add humate without some mineralizer like a broad-spectrum rock powder.

There is a point to slow dissolving acidic substances, such as mineral humates.

Along with the minerals/nutrients the mineral humate sources contain, the various acids released cause other nutrients in the soil to release or otherwise cause an exchange in the soil that was held.

In a round-about way, think of a grain of clay as the center of an atom and nutrients/elements are being held onto it (and within layers of it) as "electrons surrounding the nucleus". When the humic acids hit it, they exchange out or release these "electrons" as plant/soil available. This is a kinda crude way to describe it, but it kinda works.

pH, weathering, and the size of the mineral humate particle will determine how quickly these acids can work their way into the soil. If you place a 3" rock of a mineral humate an inch in the ground it won't work as quickly or as effectively as grinding that same rock into .1mm grit...that said, it won't persist as long in such a small size, either.

Also, the word "humates" is kinda catch-all...for some people it's a mineral, for others it's organic matter...both can contain humic substances/acids.

My understanding was that mineral humate (by this I think you mean the mined products commonly marketed as "humates") does a similar job to clay particles, IOW, greatly increases the CEC of very low CEC soils. Soils entirely or almost entirely lacking clay particles, like most florida sand soils, for example.

Thermic sands, due to being warm or hot almost all the time, and to having no clay, consequently have extremely low levels of SOM. Less than 1% is not uncommon for a pasture. This is where humate logically would have a proportionately immense effect, since unlike typical composts the high temperatures should not "burn up" humate and that is what we seem to be seeing, based on experiments at two locations. However, the experiments are very new, so the longer-term duration of the humate effect is pretty well unknown to us at this point.

Faust raises the idea that humates work best in alkaline soils with low SOM, so that is another factor. The sandy soils I am dealing with are slightly to fairly acidic, so that may limit the benefit of humate.

For those new to this subject, I'll clarify what I know so far about mined humate sources:

The most commonly seen on the market are the "leonardites", from the southwestern US. These are either mined specifically for sale as humate or perhaps in some cases are a byproduct of coal-mining. There is some criticism of this type as being microbially inactive and possibly useless for horticulture. Although I tried these in a very small quantity I did not do so in an isolated enough manner to say whether there was much effect.

The other source I know about is humate that I am fairly certain is a byproduct of heavy metal mining operations in north florida and south GA (the heavy metal sands are often mixed up with ancient bogs is what I suspect). These are rapidly becoming available in that region as growers are starting to use them and so secondary businesses are recycling the mining byproducts for that use. This is so called "young" humate and is supposed to be highly active with microbes.They are generally taken from saturated environments whereas the leonardites have been dry for millennia.

Very interesting info. I know from env. chemistry what these are, but have never learned much about their use as amendments or where the products come from.

Are the microbes in the 'active' products special in some way? There are (of course) plenty of microbes in the soil already, so a sprinkling of humates would rapidly be incorporated into the biological environment. I am curious why it would make a difference whether the product came pre-loaded with microbes.

Tox, I think that again this where the results will have everything to do with the soil environment in question. As mentioned upthread the best results are seen in the worst soil conditions, where SOM is very low and consequently so is the desired microbial population. I think that is why the humate is largely sold to the golf course industry. Most crop-production operations are done on high quality soils, so to spend money on humate makes little economic sense.

As I mentioned, the florida citrus industry is an exception. The crop is high-value but the soils are very poor to start with and have been very degraded by decades of salt fertilizer and fungicides. So some operations are finding it does make sense to buy humate.

Humates seem to be material high in humic and fulvic acids...Old material in beds that are finished decomposing ...as long as they remain in their present situation.

Besides firming up golf courses, what would be the value of them in gardens? Would it be to give the sandy soil some body that could hold nutrients and organic matter?

If used with nothing else, what good will the best humate in the world do on calcareous soils? Seems their acidic action would be pretty limp compared to my highly calcareous soil's ability to keep micros. bound up unless I perhaps dumped an awful lot of the stuff on the ground.

calculated from a soil analysis result once how much ag. sulfur I'd have to add to the top foot of my soil to neutralize 90% of the bicarbonates(just for fun) and realized I could not afford to do that for my garden, literally. From that, it seems unlikely to me that humic acid would be anywhere near affordable and I'd likely get a lot less bang for the buck, so to speak. The minerals are there in my soil, that isn't a problem.

Some humates, such as Leonardite, actually react with soils with high pH and release their humic acids.

It's most organic matter (very hard organic matter) bound with aluminum/P/K/sulfur and other minor substances.

It's rather slow-release, but it does "decompose" well in alkaline soils.

Wayne, to your last question: precisely so.

They have some acid functional groups but they are very weak acids, and their usefulness is in providing ion exchange sites for nutrients rather than pH adjustment. At least that's how I understand it.

Oddly enough, my soil is pH 7.2 or 7.3, not horribly high but all those darned bicarbonates just tie up all the micros and won't let them go until they get neutralized with an acid and warm, moist soil. That's where the ag. S comes in. I'd irrigate with sulfuric injected water (bad bicarbonates there too) but that would be a hassle I no longer would enjoy at this point in my life.

So, will the humates cause an acidic reaction in the soil sufficient to get the micros free from the bicarbonates and then weakly bound to the humates?

I've been using three different products that contain humates or humic acid for years with absolutely wonderful results.

I first ran across a product called Rich Earth, while in Williamsburg, VA. It sat around for a few years, started to clean out my shed and found it. I put a teaspoon in the water which I put onto a nearly dead plant and, within 24 hours I had new growth. The plant came back with a vengeance. I then started experimenting with the rest of the five pound bag and found humic acid was like fertilizer on steroids, it worked that well.

Then I ran across humic acid in a product from Nature's Lawn called Aerify Plus, which also contained a surfactant, helping my clay to break up. The humic acid gave my lawn a much darker green appearance and it stayed green even through most of a drought. After two years of using Aerify Plus I switched to an All-in-one product for my lawn, which also contained humic acid. I continued buying 25 pound bags of Rich Earth, for both my garden and my lawn and it looked like I had the best green thumb in the world.

At the top of this thread someone asked if anyone had experience with humic acid. I have and I swear by it. I do all my gardening organically, I avoid commercial fertilizers studiously. By using lots of compost, manure, natural mulch (local nondyed double shredded bark), humic acid, mycorrhizae and aerify soil conditioner, my garden and my lawn are the envy of the neighborhood.

Humates may add something to the soil if the soil has an active Soil Food Web to convert that stuff into something plants can use, but without that active Soil Food Web little will happen. If you have adequate amounts of organic matter in the soil things such as humates will be there, just as there will be fungi that form that mycorrhizal relationship with plants.
Humates also come from coal. If you have a lot of money to spend on things of little to no use go ahead and spend it on these things, but at the same time get adequate amounts ofr organic matter in the soil so you won't need to enrich someone else needlessly.

This post was edited by kimmsr on Sat, Jun 7, 14 at 6:47

I agree with pn brown. I live in SW Fl, and the use of humic acid in sand 'soil' works wonders. I suppose it just depends on the base you are working with from the get-go.
I've lived here over 30 years and swear by the stuff.

YES,,,humate is for real...not expensive either if bought in the powder form and mixed with good water...the dirtdocter says you can use in place of compost tea...i do and it is much easier...one lb of the stuff is enough for my gardening for years...it keeps forever....i like it mixed with seaweed extract and unsulphured molasses, mostly used as drench...i use teravita 90 %...about 15 dollars a lb plus shipping from amazon...best use three ways, seed treatment, foilar treatment and soil treatment....increases plant health and thereby bug resistance and some frost protection...good stuff...the indian

Lydia Pinkhams Magic Eiixar will do the same thing except you drink it instead of adding it to your soil. At 90 proof alcohol it will help solve many problems, for a while.

Humates have been subjected to scientific testing in New Zealand (for commercial farming) on soils that had not been fertilised in 150 years, the soils had high Ph levels (5.2+) the tests concluded that Humates improved the soil quality at a minimum to the same level as commercial phosphates but overall provided improved soil fertility

There is no question that humates improve soil quality, the question is from whence do they come. Coal has humates as do other forms of organic matter. Humates derive from organic matter so add that and don't spend your money on some magic elixir that you do not need.

kimmq is kimmsr

My son-in-law works for a company which produces both agricultural and health products from humate. Their product is made from ancient sources and looks like a granular shale before processing, not coal. I use it on my garden soil and in my compost piles. The product says it improves water retention (I have silty-sand soil) and I always thought this was because it was a bacteria condo. Anyway, I have excellent results using humate. This is the most in depth discussion I have seen on the subject and appreciate all the comments.

Pnbrown, if you still post on this forum, I'd like to know more about the humates you bought in north Florida. I live in NW Florida and have extremely sandy soil and humates may be a good way to improve my soil. What and where did you buy the humates you referred to? Thanking you in advance.

Humates are simply what is left of organic matter after that organic matter has been digested fully. Add organic material to the soil and you will have humates. Perhhaps this article will be of some help.

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/newsletters/hortupdate/hortupdate_archives/2002/jun02/art4jun.html

kimmq is kimmsr

Thanks for the response kimmq. I saw that article while doing some research, but because of the age of the article (14 years) I thought it to be outdated. Gleaning from the article, it doesn't appear to be the answer to adding OM to my sandy soil. And the quest continues. Again, thanks for the response.