Normally when starting an article there is much gnashing of teeth and wondering around the garden, or pub in my…

Well that’s Christmas out of the way again, thankfully, so we can now turn our minds to growing. Unfortunately, the…

Can you believe it, it’s that time of year again but of course this year is a little different as it hasn’t stopped raining for weeks on end. This fact alone has made the autumn season almost impossible (totally impossible in places) and we need to look at what we can do when we can travel as the soil is going to be in an unusual state. We need to accept that the consistent pouring down has had a sever cleaning effect on the soil.

For generations farmers and growers have simply ignored Silicon as a plant nutrient even though research has shown that it is equally important as Calcium, Phosphorous, Magnesium, Sulphur and believe it or not, Nitrogen. As we watch the farmer lead revolution on reducing inputs of fertilisers and chemicals Silicon will once again become known as an essential nutrient because of its ability, amongst others, of strengthening plant cell walls so that they can resist pest and disease attack plus they allow the plant to grow in high salinity situations which is a world-wide issue. Pest attack is further resisted because evidence suggests that Silicon reduces the amount of soluble Nitrogen available in the sap which attracts aphids.

We are seeing an immense interest in the use of Humic and Fulvic acids on farms and nurseries so it is important to know what they are, what they can do for you and to make sure you are not wasting your money. With so many products appearing on the market it is easy to be confused and in some unfortunate conditions, fooled. We first need to understand the concept of Soil Humus which forms a critical part of any soil. The term Soil Humus can very easily be interchanged with Soil Health as they are one and the same thing.

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There is now very little argument that soil life plays a huge part in growing healthy plants especially as we are seeing less new agrichemical come onto the market and many of the old ones disappearing.  Also, we must look at more natural ways of growing crops due to the awareness of our customers of what they are eating and also the low profitability of many of our crops so lower inputs are desperately needed. With these in mind it can only be advantageous to use a huge workforce that comes at a very low cost.