You should've done fertilizer alone as one of the methods. The charged biochar may very well have benefited from the fertilizer. I'd like to see the difference between plain fertilizer and these other treatments as well as these treatments (biochar and humic) with fertilizer. Nonetheless I do like these tests. I think this channel will continue to grow if you keep showing us tests like this which demonstrate the value of certain products.
Agree. This was interesting but it would be interesting to see the results of the control if the same amount of fertilizer was used. That way the only differences in the samples would be the biochar, humic, and combination of the two.
Yeah, especially when you consider biochar isn't meant as a fertilizer by itself, but instead more of a soil conditioner that over time improves the soil. So, in the short term such as this, biochar would only help as well as the fertilizer it is charged with
you really should have had a 4th sample. a control with fertilizer added but no humic acid or biochar so we could see the difference that the humic acid and biochar had over just a proper fertilizer regiment alone. that's where I wonder what benefit it has. I already have a pretty bang on fertilizer regiment I use on my lawn. now as I look further into the benefit of biochar, I wonder how much gain/benefit I will gain over my already properly fertilized lawn.
So all three treatments also had fertilizer, but the control did not? Then you've changed more than one variable, so the control is useless. You should have fertilized the control the same as the others.
This was good. Each year, I use BioChar on my lawns (coring / sand) and gardens in the spring. It's a good holding medium. Along with that, I throw in a slow-release and Seamungs (a pelletised seaweed, fish, humic-acid and manure mix) give it a good dose for the lawn. Then a 1-time lite dusting of powdered soap to aggravate the grubs and to counter hydrophobic in the soil. I notice many are commenting about the lack of using fertilizers. I would say that IF you added a fert (animal/plant made waste) to your study, then you would've polluted your work due to there being so many different types of ferts, as well as showing a preference. So just staying with 'natural mediums' makes sense.
@@Earthau I'm in Tassie. It's a product made here in Tasmania. Just google (hals, Horticultural and Landscaping Supplies) and you should get something. I tried leaving a link but it's not allowed.
I tend to agree with the other critical comments. By not controlling for the fertilizer application you can't differentiate which parameters (fertilizer, humic acid and biochar) have what effect sizes. It's possible that the humic acid and/or biochar could have had a positive correlation, no correlation or even a negative correlation on plant growth, color and root density/depth when compared to the fertilizer alone. Your videos are great. Showing experiments like this are incredibly valuable. I feel this one should be revisited though.
*The more Oxygen used to make Bio-Char the more POT-ASH is made. Potash is HIGHLY alkaline as Pot-Ash and Animal Fat is how the pioneers made Soap 150 years ago!! The Humic acid may simply be Neutralizing the Pot-Ash within the Poorly made Bio-Char. The Bio-Char machine I built uses 5800 Watts of electric power at 240VAC for 2 hours and it's totally air tight so the pH of my Bio-Char is right at Ph 7.2 (More like activated Carbon) - When I made Bio-Char the old way buy burning wood in an open flame and then smothering the glowing amber's the pH was 10.9 when mixed with water which burns the roots of most plants. I'd try mixing your bio-Char with sulfur or sulfuric acid or just make the Bio-char in a 99% anaerobic atmosphere (no air!!!) to keep the pH of the Char as neutral as possible.*
Very informative video! These results, however, may only pertain to what you call your "native soil". How about a repeat with the three major soil types: clay, loam, and sand - all three with a moderate organic content to begin with? That would provide data that would cover a much broader range of your viewers conditions. Thank you so much for your channel! This information really helps.
I agree, testing next with 3different soil compost and say bare root roses. Imgrowing bare root roses at present. I bought fulvic acid. Not sure how its to work
A Brix refractometer would be another great way to determine benefits of humic acid and biochar. In fact, I'm so excited by this idea that I'm ordering my own refractometer and setting up trials of my own!
Would hope you guys would let some of the experiments go on for longer. Like the Kelp one should eventually realese Potassium, but the test went on too short. Anyways great work. I would love to see how dried and crushed banana peels would do.
I would think that the denser roots of the humic means that they didn't have to go as deep meet the needs of the plant. Humic looks like it would be the winner in all circumstances here. I would love to see this same type of testing done with mycorrhizae.
Very interesting. I am growing since mid July here in Brisbane city,state of Queensland, Australia 26 bare root roses with high i tense fragrance. I bought Fulvic powder. It looks and smells like ground coffee. Is that normal?
Now that we know this , how does microbes in some fertilizers affect the growth of roots if any. I see a definite improvement in my garden with microbe fertilizers.
Unfortunately, because of the methodology used, this "study" is interesting but very limited in it's applicability. This is because all the humichar and humic acid were mixed into the soil samples. This limits the usefulness of this "study" to growing situations where you have control over the entire volume of soil. However, in an application such as turf, the humichar and humic acid will be added as a top treatment which adds the additional variable of penetration depth. I understand how much more difficult it would be to repeat this "study" in relatively undisturbed native soil, but as it stands, it's applicability is limited. This "study" certainly points to these products being worthy of further study!!! These results are very interesting! Can you repeat the study on undisturbed native soil please?
I wish this was a good comparison, but especially with tomatoes, each plant can have vastly different health after seeding in the same soil. There also should have been a fertilizer control.
@@SoiLab Yea but you missed the fertilizer alone. Most people want to know if these humic and biochar products do more than fertilizer. We know an untreated plot won't do much but what about a fertilizer plot. How much of the biochar results is simply the fertilizer it's charged with? These are the real questions we have. Fertilizer alone can produce significant results so we want to know if humic acid and biochar are really worth the cost compared to just fertilizer. Honestly the humic results are interesting because I don't believe you added fertilizer unless it came with some so clearly the humic may be doing something if it didn't have fertilizer in it but again it's easier if we see fertilizer alone compared to humic or even humic + fertilizer, etc.
Looking at the washed roots and compare them by eye is not enough information to set the diferences. You shold compare them by weighing roots dry matter
Without a fertilizer only control comparing the efficacy of Humic Acid and/or BioChar to root development is pointless. You have 2 or 3 variables. Fertilizer, Humic Acid, and Biochar. By not controlling for all but one single variable, your experiment is inconclusive. I put forth the hypothesis that you saw less root growth on the first sample, simply because it did not get any fertilizer. Based on your testing you can not conclusively disprove my hypothesis because you did not control your variables. You should have put no fertilizer on any of them (my personal and admitted valueless recommendation because I'm a random person on the internet), or put an equal amount of fertilizer on each of them. Looking at the top growth on each of them, the control is the only one that seems to have a significant, visually observable difference. Again I would hypothesize that that difference is do to the fertilizer alone and that humic acid or biochar made no difference to the top growth, and you cannot disprove that hypothesis from this testing. Matt Martin at The Grass Factor did a great video on humic acid efficacy (titled: Is HUMIC ACID A Scam? (Research Says...)" and based on multiple University studies, humic acid alone does NOT add any root mass, and in combination with fertilizer does NOT add to root mass greater than fertilizer alone. In fact, humic acid can bind phosphorus (as well as micro nutrients) in the soil and be detrimental to development. From reading a some of your other comments, I understand that this was not the intended test of this experiment. As a result, not all the variables were controlled in a manner in which would provide conclusive results. Therefore, what you've done is created an entertaining video, but no conclusive data. You've also created a situation where people who don't catch that you've included more than one variable in your experiment an impression that humic acid and/or biochar will increase root mass and there is absolutely no evidence in the video (or that I've been able to find outside this video) to support that conclusion. Sorry for the writing an entire pamphlet in the comments, but people need to understand that the fertilizer is likely the contributing factor to root growth, not humic acid and/or biochar.
@tomg3460 thank you for the comment here. When we started the original study shown in our last video we were not going to do the root wash but the viewers were curious about the below ground differences, so we simply did a root wash to examine this. If you drop out the UTC, we are simply comparing Fertilizer + Humic, Fertilizer + Humic & Biochar, and Fertilizer + Biochar. You can see differences in rooting structure between these three treatments with the same fertility base.
@@SoiLab You didn't really answer Tom's question at all. I re-watched the previous video ("Humic Acid and Biochar Does It Work?") to see whether the control did or didn't get the same fertilizer. But assuming I didn't miss it, you didn't say -- very frustrating. The comments show that many of us (almost all subscribers, I bet) want to know. Please respond!
@Andersons Humichar is hands down the best. I have been using it for several years and even on mine and neighbors yard we have thick carpet like grass. The stuff is on another level
You should've done fertilizer alone as one of the methods. The charged biochar may very well have benefited from the fertilizer. I'd like to see the difference between plain fertilizer and these other treatments as well as these treatments (biochar and humic) with fertilizer. Nonetheless I do like these tests. I think this channel will continue to grow if you keep showing us tests like this which demonstrate the value of certain products.
Agree. This was interesting but it would be interesting to see the results of the control if the same amount of fertilizer was used. That way the only differences in the samples would be the biochar, humic, and combination of the two.
I second the motion
Yeah, especially when you consider biochar isn't meant as a fertilizer by itself, but instead more of a soil conditioner that over time improves the soil. So, in the short term such as this, biochar would only help as well as the fertilizer it is charged with
Yes I agree! But grown in a better soil to allow a less aggressive root wash.
Love that Humic!
It's your fault that I'm traveling down this path, thank you! That humic 12 has got me thinking 👍🏿
you really should have had a 4th sample. a control with fertilizer added but no humic acid or biochar so we could see the difference that the humic acid and biochar had over just a proper fertilizer regiment alone.
that's where I wonder what benefit it has. I already have a pretty bang on fertilizer regiment I use on my lawn. now as I look further into the benefit of biochar, I wonder how much gain/benefit I will gain over my already properly fertilized lawn.
So all three treatments also had fertilizer, but the control did not? Then you've changed more than one variable, so the control is useless. You should have fertilized the control the same as the others.
In addition, not being told the quantity treated on each...
Are you a ®etarded person?
@SpartansTurf It's constructive criticism you numpty
This was good. Each year, I use BioChar on my lawns (coring / sand) and gardens in the spring. It's a good holding medium. Along with that, I throw in a slow-release and Seamungs (a pelletised seaweed, fish, humic-acid and manure mix) give it a good dose for the lawn. Then a 1-time lite dusting of powdered soap to aggravate the grubs and to counter hydrophobic in the soil.
I notice many are commenting about the lack of using fertilizers. I would say that IF you added a fert (animal/plant made waste) to your study, then you would've polluted your work due to there being so many different types of ferts, as well as showing a preference. So just staying with 'natural mediums' makes sense.
Where and in what form do you buy your biochar? Using Seamungus you are obviously in the great land down under.
Cheers
@@Earthau I'm in Tassie. It's a product made here in Tasmania. Just google (hals, Horticultural and Landscaping Supplies) and you should get something.
I tried leaving a link but it's not allowed.
I tend to agree with the other critical comments. By not controlling for the fertilizer application you can't differentiate which parameters (fertilizer, humic acid and biochar) have what effect sizes. It's possible that the humic acid and/or biochar could have had a positive correlation, no correlation or even a negative correlation on plant growth, color and root density/depth when compared to the fertilizer alone. Your videos are great. Showing experiments like this are incredibly valuable. I feel this one should be revisited though.
Love this nerdy stuff, great work. I'll continue to keep using Humid Acid.
*The more Oxygen used to make Bio-Char the more POT-ASH is made. Potash is HIGHLY alkaline as Pot-Ash and Animal Fat is how the pioneers made Soap 150 years ago!! The Humic acid may simply be Neutralizing the Pot-Ash within the Poorly made Bio-Char. The Bio-Char machine I built uses 5800 Watts of electric power at 240VAC for 2 hours and it's totally air tight so the pH of my Bio-Char is right at Ph 7.2 (More like activated Carbon) - When I made Bio-Char the old way buy burning wood in an open flame and then smothering the glowing amber's the pH was 10.9 when mixed with water which burns the roots of most plants. I'd try mixing your bio-Char with sulfur or sulfuric acid or just make the Bio-char in a 99% anaerobic atmosphere (no air!!!) to keep the pH of the Char as neutral as possible.*
What are you using it on? does it make huge difference because thats a lot of work and supplys
LOL
Very informative video! These results, however, may only pertain to what you call your "native soil". How about a repeat with the three major soil types: clay, loam, and sand - all three with a moderate organic content to begin with? That would provide data that would cover a much broader range of your viewers conditions. Thank you so much for your channel! This information really helps.
I agree, testing next with 3different soil compost and say bare root roses. Imgrowing bare root roses at present. I bought fulvic acid. Not sure how its to work
Thank you for the great videos and research.
Great video. Thank you!
Thanks for this video guys!
Interesting study buddy... WOW. Now as a novice, I understood the importance of Humic acid for plant growth.
Cool experiment. Yes humic without fertilizer would be interesting, cheers.
Yo thanks for the update man
Really learning lot from you
Awesome video, Well done!
Good test but IMO the control should have received fertilizer
Informative video nice sharing knowledge
A Brix refractometer would be another great way to determine benefits of humic acid and biochar. In fact, I'm so excited by this idea that I'm ordering my own refractometer and setting up trials of my own!
Would hope you guys would let some of the experiments go on for longer. Like the Kelp one should eventually realese Potassium, but the test went on too short.
Anyways great work. I would love to see how dried and crushed banana peels would do.
I would think that the denser roots of the humic means that they didn't have to go as deep meet the needs of the plant. Humic looks like it would be the winner in all circumstances here. I would love to see this same type of testing done with mycorrhizae.
I love it! great testing!!!
Great video!! Thank you!!
God bless you.
Fantastic, thanks
Very interesting
please feature benefits and cons of neem oil
Why was the control in a smaller container?
I use mycorrhiza......phenominal stuff!!
Don't you need to weight the roots to get the root-mass?
I figured acid was acid and I didn't have humic acid so I used battery acid. Boy, was i in for a shock. 😂
Very interesting. I am growing since mid July here in Brisbane city,state of Queensland, Australia 26 bare root roses with high i tense fragrance. I bought Fulvic powder. It looks and smells like ground coffee. Is that normal?
Humic for the win once again. I spray it everywhere.
very cool! thanks :)
Thanks champ!
Great video as always. Now please please do a video on the crazed internet trend of BANANA TEA fertilizer!
could it be that the humic had more surface area to grow with the bio char ,therefor more beneficial?
Now that we know this , how does microbes in some fertilizers affect the growth of roots if any. I see a definite improvement in my garden with microbe fertilizers.
The better the root, the better the fruit!
What kind or type of fertiliser should he have used?
So Humic DG vs Humichar?
which ones have fertiliser?
Unfortunately, because of the methodology used, this "study" is interesting but very limited in it's applicability. This is because all the humichar and humic acid were mixed into the soil samples. This limits the usefulness of this "study" to growing situations where you have control over the entire volume of soil. However, in an application such as turf, the humichar and humic acid will be added as a top treatment which adds the additional variable of penetration depth.
I understand how much more difficult it would be to repeat this "study" in relatively undisturbed native soil, but as it stands, it's applicability is limited.
This "study" certainly points to these products being worthy of further study!!! These results are very interesting!
Can you repeat the study on undisturbed native soil please?
I appreciate the feedback and will see if I can incorporate similar treatments in a field study or demonstration next growing season.
should have done a control with fertilizer only. The soil you used looks like it has not compost in it. I bet that would have made a BIG difference.
I wish this was a good comparison, but especially with tomatoes, each plant can have vastly different health after seeding in the same soil. There also should have been a fertilizer control.
This is why we ran 3 replications for each specifically for tomatoes.
@@SoiLab Yea but you missed the fertilizer alone. Most people want to know if these humic and biochar products do more than fertilizer. We know an untreated plot won't do much but what about a fertilizer plot. How much of the biochar results is simply the fertilizer it's charged with? These are the real questions we have. Fertilizer alone can produce significant results so we want to know if humic acid and biochar are really worth the cost compared to just fertilizer. Honestly the humic results are interesting because I don't believe you added fertilizer unless it came with some so clearly the humic may be doing something if it didn't have fertilizer in it but again it's easier if we see fertilizer alone compared to humic or even humic + fertilizer, etc.
What kind or type of fertiliser?
Missing the "Fertilizer Only" sample
usefull video👍🏻
Looking at the washed roots and compare them by eye is not enough information to set the diferences. You shold compare them by weighing roots dry matter
No
miss the soil + fertilization, probably will also make better grow
Without a fertilizer only control comparing the efficacy of Humic Acid and/or BioChar to root development is pointless. You have 2 or 3 variables. Fertilizer, Humic Acid, and Biochar. By not controlling for all but one single variable, your experiment is inconclusive. I put forth the hypothesis that you saw less root growth on the first sample, simply because it did not get any fertilizer. Based on your testing you can not conclusively disprove my hypothesis because you did not control your variables. You should have put no fertilizer on any of them (my personal and admitted valueless recommendation because I'm a random person on the internet), or put an equal amount of fertilizer on each of them. Looking at the top growth on each of them, the control is the only one that seems to have a significant, visually observable difference. Again I would hypothesize that that difference is do to the fertilizer alone and that humic acid or biochar made no difference to the top growth, and you cannot disprove that hypothesis from this testing.
Matt Martin at The Grass Factor did a great video on humic acid efficacy (titled: Is HUMIC ACID A Scam? (Research Says...)" and based on multiple University studies, humic acid alone does NOT add any root mass, and in combination with fertilizer does NOT add to root mass greater than fertilizer alone. In fact, humic acid can bind phosphorus (as well as micro nutrients) in the soil and be detrimental to development.
From reading a some of your other comments, I understand that this was not the intended test of this experiment. As a result, not all the variables were controlled in a manner in which would provide conclusive results. Therefore, what you've done is created an entertaining video, but no conclusive data. You've also created a situation where people who don't catch that you've included more than one variable in your experiment an impression that humic acid and/or biochar will increase root mass and there is absolutely no evidence in the video (or that I've been able to find outside this video) to support that conclusion.
Sorry for the writing an entire pamphlet in the comments, but people need to understand that the fertilizer is likely the contributing factor to root growth, not humic acid and/or biochar.
❤
Why wasnt a fertilizer only not included? Without that this tell us absolutely nothing.
@tomg3460 thank you for the comment here. When we started the original study shown in our last video we were not going to do the root wash but the viewers were curious about the below ground differences, so we simply did a root wash to examine this. If you drop out the UTC, we are simply comparing Fertilizer + Humic, Fertilizer + Humic & Biochar, and Fertilizer + Biochar. You can see differences in rooting structure between these three treatments with the same fertility base.
@@SoiLab You didn't really answer Tom's question at all. I re-watched the previous video ("Humic Acid and Biochar Does It Work?") to see whether the control did or didn't get the same fertilizer. But assuming I didn't miss it, you didn't say -- very frustrating. The comments show that many of us (almost all subscribers, I bet) want to know. Please respond!
@Andersons Humichar is hands down the best. I have been using it for several years and even on mine and neighbors yard we have thick carpet like grass. The stuff is on another level
Half the video is a waste of time with talking