The EW Podcast - Joel Simmons with Lawrence Mayhew - The EarthWorks Why

Thrilled to bring back our friend and chemist, Lawrence Mayhew. As always, we run through a gamut of topics including humic substances, biological activity in the soil, the humification process and the life of soil microbes.  Lawrence is always informative and entertaining and has become one of our most anticipated guests. In this conversation we talked about a new procedure for testing soil nitrogen known as the ACE (Autoclaved Citrate Extractable) Nitrogen process. Lawrence shared some information about a recently published paper from researchers at Michigan State University. Although this paper was only published in the fall of 2023 and has no known commercial testing facilities using the method, Lawrence is very excited about its potential. We ended the conversation talking about how the state of California tests products for humic acids, a flawed method, that does not take into account that when humates are added to a formula that contains cations, like calcium, the humic acids combine with the cations and is no longer extractable as a free molecule. But the good news is, this is exactly what we want to see because it tells us they are doing their job. As always, the conversation with Lawrence is intense, interesting and fun.

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