Are fulvic/humic acids useful at all in non-organic hydro?

i was reading many articles and forum posts (now quite old) about the supposed benefits of the humic/fulvic acid supplements for the flowerign stage, sold by many nutrient suppliers at medium price.

for those who don't know exactly what they are, humic acid(s), and their water-soluble form fulvic acid(s), are component found in humus, peat coal shilajit etc: ie all derivations of degraded plant matter.

humic/fulvic acids supposedly help with nutrient breakdown in the soil and nutrient uptake (being chelators), as well as potentially inducing cell division in plants.

now, the beneficial effects are quite clear when used in soil system, or hydro system using organic nutrients (in which basic nutrients are not always in the available form). however i am in great doubt whether or not those supplements are beneficial at all in hydroponic system using chemical nutrients.
chemical nutrients require no breakdown from beneficial organisms, and are already chelated in the nutrient solution itself.

so my question is, are those supplements usefull at all in non-organic hydro system?
does anyone have any experience with them in systems like DWC?

do they really have cell division-promoting effect as claimed?

thanks

Ghard


edit, seems like many humic acids can have some auxin-like effect (source https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3001551/).

if that's the case i can see why people would see effects through foliar spray (which would otherwise be 100% useless). but at the same time you would obtain the same effect (foliar stretching, that is not really enhanced growth) with an auxin-based compound, which are also cheaper.

From my experience in hydro using it , I would say Not needed.

So in hydro, generally fulvic (low molecular weight) acids are considered more useful than humics. They do still have use in in-organic hydroponics as chelators.

Basically all "non-organic" hydroponics mixes have chelated micronutrients in them. Chelators themselves are almost always organic acids. You'll usually see... EDTA, EDDHA, etc listed for micro nutrients, which are actually organics. Fulvic and humic acids are basically both "high molecular weight" chelators. They basically 'hold' on to cations in a way that prevents them from forming unavailable substances with other ions. The chelators hold on to the ions in a way that still makes them available to the roots though. So basically you can think of it like an additive that helps keep the solution more stable, and makes things more available to the roots.

@Yesdog

thanks again for the heads up about chlorine/fulvic no-go

question for ya: how much ful power to use per gallon? here is quote from their faq
What are your recommended rates based on?
Because of our extraction process Ful-Power does not have any excess nutrients or
chelation agents that effect pH and ppm and ultimately limit the amount that can be used. We recommend what research shows works
and is of value.

the bottle says 10 to 30 mLs per gal. that's a broad range. i've been using minimum but am curious if i up the dose, what to look for both pro and con.

any thoughts?

rkymtnman said:

@Yesdog

thanks again for the heads up about chlorine/fulvic no-go

question for ya: how much ful power to use per gallon? here is quote from their faq
What are your recommended rates based on?
Because of our extraction process Ful-Power does not have any excess nutrients or
chelation agents that effect pH and ppm and ultimately limit the amount that can be used. We recommend what research shows works
and is of value.

the bottle says 10 to 30 mLs per gal. that's a broad range. i've been using minimum but am curious if i up the dose, what to look for both pro and con.

any thoughts?

Click to expand...

yo!

So, ful-power does make some interesting claims about it not effecting pH or ppm. As a soluble substance it with cation exchange sites.... it needs something there. Ful-mag is nice because the acids have already bound with Mg ions... no clue what else could be bound with it besides a metal cation. Might just be some stable organic cation that comes with it, not totally sure how that works (or the powder or raw extracts for that matter).

As far as amount, I almost always add ful-mag with my tap water when refilling the tank. My tap is kinda low on Mg, so helps keep it up with Calcium and helps balance the pH a bit. I have however tried to use ful-mag as a pH down in larger sources of water (and back when my ph was rising), and it was never really stable. Seemed to bounce back about as fast as other organic acids ive tried, citric (also a decent Ca chelator!) and acetic.

So my guess is that it's kinda unstable in solution, probably in large quantities too. This could be due to the fact that my fulvic source is bound with Mg (and caries an EC charge) and is rather acidic, it might not be as stable. But, I do know that fulvics can act as a nutrient source themselves for pathogens, so stable or not, overloading them might be too much organics for the solution and invite pathogens. And once it binds with Mg and Ca in solution, I can't imagine it would behave much different than fulmag. Really any organics are a potential target for microbes, even EDTA and such. And eventually they will oxidize and break down- EDTA is even photo sensitive to some degree, so I can imagine a big clunky delicate organic like the fulvic/humic group would sensitive to oxidizing too.

I did a test with RapidStart and fulmag once, it crackled a bit when i mixed em. RapidStart is really oxidizing (hence the metal can), and most hydroponic solutions are oxidizing to some degree, so i'd imagine any amount of organics you add will start some sort of decline.

With that said, I use the fulmag rather randomly and without much thought. If I use more of it during one adjustment, I just use less epsom to keep Mg in check. I'm almost out of the shit, so I must use it a lot.

So if they say it really doesn't have a PPM/TDS/EC measurement, it's going to be electrically benign and really not effect plant uptake in that way. Organic solubles do affect osmotic pressure tho, so overdoing it could cause some issues there, but would have to be a decent amount i think.

As far as range, I think everything I've seen has a pretty huge range. The fulmag bottle I have says to use '150ppm' worth for hydro. I mean, WTF is that?

Might just have to let your wallet guide you on this one lol The only thing really capping how much I use is the pH effect- so a world where that doesnt happen... not sure what I'd do.

Yesdog said:

Might just have to let your wallet guide you on this one lol The only thing really capping how much I use is the pH effect- so a world where that doesnt happen... not sure what I'd do.

Click to expand...

i filled my res before we went out of town for almost 2 weeks and pH was stable around 5.9 for the whole time. that was just using the minimum dose 10mL/gal. so i guess i'll keep it at that level and see how it works for the whole grow. picked up a gallon off Ebay for $40 which seemed like a good price to test it for a whole run.

thanks for all the info!

rkymtnman said:

i filled my res before we went out of town for almost 2 weeks and pH was stable around 5.9 for the whole time. that was just using the minimum dose 10mL/gal. so i guess i'll keep it at that level and see how it works for the whole grow. picked up a gallon off Ebay for $40 which seemed like a good price to test it for a whole run.

thanks for all the info!

Click to expand...

Any time! Awesome, guess it really must be pH stable then, might have to try out ful-power after my ful-mag is done.