no welfare payments on this farm!!!!!!!! | great post and lots of great answers, i think i could write a book on the differances betwween the two. the reason i like to talk about humic matter or humus is cause I dont like to be wrong or cause some farmer to have problems cause of what I say. If i said a high om soil is a good thing, that may be right 60% of the time but there is alot of times when that is not true. there is a BIG differance between high organic matter and high humic matter. The posters above hit the nail on the head, Soil life is so important but yet becoming very ignored in the last 22 years of farming. there are labs that have their own way of measuring bacteria, but that is so hard to compare from year to year becasue of temp and weather differances, but humic matter is a snapshot or result of the soil life for the entire year. the humic matter increase will not hurt you and will always show a better soil, but on the other hand a increase in organic matter does not always mean good soil. hence that is why in a previous post I stated my goal is to not have a high organic matter cause I want it all in humic matter and that was slightly incorrect and i apologise for that and hope it didnt lead you in the wrong direction. i hate not being clear. the basic point i wanted to make was the humic matter is showing you a snapshot history of what your soil life and managment is doing rather then the o.m. test which can provide mixed results. everyone needs to do what works best on their own farms and testing, but I encourage everyone to maybe do some testing of humic matter and encoperate it into their research and learning, i think it will provide a more accurate reading of what is happening on the farm. another example would be using a refractometer to measure plant helath rather then just looking at a dark green plant and assuming its doing ok. Great post and great answers by all. and last thing, I am a very curious and crazy guy who dreams up the weirdest things, and I have never had anything that midwest labs couldnt test, i know john maghini is wondering what the heck I am think alot of time but he or ken find a way to test it for me and also explain the test to me. I think I spoke to ray ward 3 or 4 years ago and he can test it too along with a and l labs. I wish more labs would offer it in a package, but with time maybe that will happen. |
Humus is good isn't it?
