Some experts think humus makes soil more fertile. Others say humus helps prevent disease in plants and food crops. When humus is in soil, the soil will crumble. Air and water move easily through the loose soil, and oxygen can reach the roots of plants. Humus can be produced naturally or through a process called composting. When people compost , they collect decaying organic material, such as food and garden scraps, that will be turned into soil.
Photograph by Iris Fong , MyShot. Compost and Humus Compost, like humus, is made of decomposed organic material. Compost usually refers to material created by people from leftover foods and yard waste. Humus usually refers to the natural decay of material such as leaves in the soil's top layer. Also known as plant litter and tree litter. The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit.
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Compaction: Good soil is loose and crumbly because it has lots of air spaces. Plant roots are able to penetrate soil deeply for extended drought resistance and stability. Air is also essential to the micro-life that lives on its organic content and processes its nutrients to create fertility.
Typically soil in a home landscape is compacted so to reduce compaction, regularly add humus by spreading mulch or organic material on bare soil in beds and under trees and shrubs. Dig in compost, peat moss or the like into garden beds when planting to improve aeration.
Sandy soil: Sandy soil has large particles with large air spaces between them. Therefore, it drains so quickly that it dries out quickly. Also, water-soluble nutrients leach out rapidly before the plants can use them. Humus incorporated into sandy soil acts like a sponge, absorbing and holding moisture and any nutrients dissolved in it.
Replenish the humus content of sandy soil at every opportunity. Clay soil: Clay soils are so thick because they have small particles with correspondingly small air spaces between them. They tend to stick together and cause water to fill up the air spaces. Since moisture does not drain from this soil well, plant roots rot. This is not humus.
I am not sure what the question is. If you are asking which type of soil has low humus levels — it is not soil dependent. It depends on what is growing in the soil. I build closed terrariums. I use organic, no chemical or time release potting soil. Is there much humus in such soil? Do I want humus in the soil? I make some mostly full, stalks and stems as big as wanted.
And some with seeds or seedlings that one does want to grow but to a limit. I use tropicals to zone 5 like ivys, ferns… And also Orchids! They do not grow in soil, Do they have access to humus naturally!?
A product you may be interested in or already know of: Nutro-Gro? I have come into possession of a bottle with a homemade but detailed label. Claims to be humus. Unfortunately the label is faded in places but it looks like instructions for garden beds of ml per L of water and a gallons per acre dosage? I dont know where it came from but Im in Edmonton, AB.
Any knowledge of this product. Any sold product that claims to contain humus does not contain it. In fact humus does not even exist — see a newer post; Does Humus Exist? Fertilizing an acre takes pounds of nutrients, not a couple of ml. I have been reading The Living Soil, , and this has led me to a wealth of older works, which has shown me that the truth has been ignored by those who were supposed to be looking out for our health.
Here is some of them: — first in response to humus. Humus is the byproduct of microorganisms. It can be manufactured by making compost the correct way, which must include animal manureally and urine with vegetable wastes. Search for a copy of his pdf. Learn about it.
The material you have at the end of composting is not humus. It will take much more time and degradation by microbes to become, what people consider to be humus. These relationships can be developed in straight peat moss — which does not contain humus. Unfortunately, it looks as if many of our ideas about humus are wrong.
We sheet compost in our food forest in Southern California, and we noticed a layer of organic material had formed a crust on top of the soil. This seems to be where the alkaline clay soil and the organic material are interacting and transforming. Hello I live in northern new Brunswick i have a wood lot and on that wood lot there is about 3 ac.
Thanks for your comments. I have nutrient deficient beach sand in South Australia. What do suggest is the best compost Composition to eventually create Humus. My rule of thumb is to use what ever you can get locally. Local means it is not transported very far, which means it is much more environmentally friendly. Leaf mold is a living organism—a fungi. It lives on leaves and in soil and helps degrade organic material. The term is also incorrectly used to describe the resulting material after fungi digest the leaves.
It is best to think of this type of leaf mold as a form of compost. Organic material that has been broken down to a certain extent, but which still contains lots of nutrients for plants. I was talking about the finished product that comes from rotting down leaves, like what is found on the forest floor.
This will take you to the definition of Humus. This was the main point of my post. The word humus is used incorrectly in a lot of places. Even though some people refer to leaf mold as humus—it is not the correct definition. If you collect leaf mold from the forest then it is not yet completely broken down. It is basically compost. If you are talking about the soil in the forest, then it will contain leaf mold from the current year and humus that is a result of decomposing organic matter from past years.
The former might be useful in the garden. The later would also be good for the garden, but it should not be removed from the forest for environmental reasons. Secondly, it would be better for the garden to use compost or your leaf mold that you are making.
This adds nutrients to soil in the short term, and humus in the long term. With a view to preserving soil aggregation, low till or no till gardening has been suggested. I would loosen the top inch or so of the soil before planting seed. They have difficulty sending their initial root into compacted soil.
It is interesting to learn that humus is basically some form of carbon. I vaguely remember reading an article in one issue of the Rhodo Society publication which described the research on some large areas in Argentina with very fertile soil right next to extremely poor soil area, and the only difference they found was the presence of carbon in the fertile area.
Keep in mind that carbon is not nutritious to plants. Sugar and starch also consists mostly of carbon, but they are not forms of carbon. The real value of the humus is in conditioning the soil and holding on to nutrients.
Carbon also has a holding property for nutrients — it is used in aquarium filters to remove toxins from the water, and it can be used in home water filters for the same reason. Adding crushed charcoal to soil may help a bit to hold nutrients, but I doubt that it would have the same soil conditioning affect as humus.
It also does not add nutrients. It is better to add organics. Is there any reason to believe that there is much humus as part of these crumbs? On the other hand, the stuff looks just like what I imagine plants have in mind when they daydream about what they want their roots to growth in.
Find out how to add more of it to your garden…. Press here to subscribe. Garden Myths - Learn the truth about gardening. What is Humus? By on You have probably heard that humus is an important part of your soil, but few people know what it is and why it is important.
We are talking about humus, not hummus!
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