CO₂ Sequestration Through Humic Substances

Biostimulants can be the starting point for permaculture or make integrated farming particularly successful. In any case, they are a contribution to climate protection.
 

Understanding the carbon cycle

Our planet is made up of a constant amount of chemical elements like CO₂.

The natural carbon cycle keeps the CO₂ content in each are in a dynamic equilibrium. In the living environment (the biosphere) and the air (called the atmosphere), the amount of naturally occurring CO₂ is very low, each at about 0.001 % of the total. The hydrosphere (water and ice) normally stores about 45 times as much, or 0.045 % of the world's supply.

This means that around 99.95 % is bound up in the lithosphere and pedosphere, i.e. in rocks and soil. These serve mainly as reservoirs and have only very low flow rates into the other areas. Between air, living organisms and water, on the other hand, the exchange is more dynamic. Short term storage is also much quicker.

Accelerated flow rates

Because of those characteristics, human activity results in the following: the burning of fossil fuels, the use of fossil carbon compounds to make cement, steel and glass, and intensive agriculture all release large amounts of CO₂ from its solid bond in rocks and soil. Oceans and plants absorb this up to a saturation limit, the rest remains in the atmosphere. Fallow soils additionally remove considerable storage and conversion capacity from the biosphere.

Greenhouse gases ensure that we have a livable climate on Earth. Over the millennia, a balance has been established that has a balancing effect on weather and climate zones. The entire living environment contributes to maintaining this balance. Primeval forests and peatlands are the most efficient CO₂ reservoirs on earth and should therefore not only be protected but also restored.

Climate protection in agriculture

A sustainable and practicable solution for intensive agriculture is the reactivation of depleted and used soils with the help of biostimulants such as humic substances for instance. These occur naturally as aquatic fulvic acids or in near-surface leonardite but can also be produced synthetically. The consequences of renaturation are an increased humus balance, improved soil activity and biodiversity, and better growing conditions for plants.

If several biostimulants are combined with each other, the positive effects are potentiated – these include microorganisms such as probiotics and mycorrhiza, easily assimilable amino acids, algae extracts and rock dust. Through their use, silted-up soils can soon store nutrients again, compacted soils are loosened, and salinized soils are neutralized and moistened. Desert and wasteland are transformed into humus soil – and this stores carbon dioxide.

Protecting soil, retaining CO₂

To ensure that the effect lasts, regenerative practices must be followed. Humus-rich soil requires less plowing – protecting microorganisms, root networks and soil structure, thereby keeping carbon dioxide underground. Mulching prevents losses to the atmosphere from solar radiation, and sensible crop rotations give the soil room to regenerate.

Biostimulants can be the starting point for permaculture or make integrated farming particularly successful. In any case, they are a contribution to climate protection.

What do you think about the use of biostimulants? Is the climate factor a priority for you or are you more concerned with the positive effect on the soil – with the side effect of CO₂ storage?