A New Way to Deliver a Proven Science
Thanks to HGS BioScience’s Extracted Granule Technology, farmers can enhance the soil to grow healthier crops and leave behind a legacy of improved soil conditions for the next generation.
Our soils are stressed and more farmers are realizing it,” says Mike Steffeck, CEO of HGS BioScience. “Farmers understand soil has been damaged over the last several decades due to various agricultural practices. Decades of high-intensity agriculture have increased soil salinity and decreased microbial activity, resulting in less resilient soil.”
But it is not all unwelcome news about soil, adds Steffeck, whose Jacksonville, Florida-based company is a global leader in soil health and a pioneer in extracted humate products. The good news is “there is a lot of momentum around improving the soil,” he says.
Today, farmers want to reduce the salt levels in the soil, improve microbial activity, and increase the cation exchange capacity (CEC), Steffeck states. While farmers want to do this for themselves to grow healthier crops, they also want to do it for the future farming generations of their land. Steffeck believes soil health has become more personal for farmers. “Soil health is a legacy that a farmer can pass down,” he says.
Steffeck wants to help farmers revitalize the soil through HGS BioScience’s products, which he says are important for leaving a legacy. He says the company’s extracted humate products provide greater soil health benefits than raw humates alone.
Humates have been around for more than 50 years, Steffeck says, noting that companies have been mining and distributing raw humates since the late 1960s. In the 1990s, companies began extracting the most active components from humates — humic acid, fulvic acid, and carbon — and applying it to the soil, which revitalized the soil more quickly. Companies began manufacturing and selling humates in a liquid form, and farmers using them saw a “tremendous yield impact” on their crops and soil, he adds.
Steffeck says that while liquid humates are great for the soil, they are not easily applied with dry fertilizer, which makes up the majority of fertilizer applications. To solve this challenge, HGS BioScience is taking a different approach to manufacturing humates. The company has developed a patented extracted humate granule that allows retailers and farmers easy application with dry fertilizer.
The technology begins with sourcing raw leonardite from high-quality North American deposits. Humic and fulvic acids are extracted from the leonardite into a liquid using a wet extraction process, and then flash dried into a powder using HGS BioScience’s proprietary filtration and spray dry system. Then, value-added products, including biologicals, can be added before the powder is formulated into the extracted granule. Because of low-use rates, the formulation also allows farmers to get humates on more acres, Steffeck adds. “This is the most effective and convenient way to deliver humates to the soil,” Steffeck says.
New Products and R&D
HGS BioScience recently debuted a new product, HumiK ONE, manufactured from its extracted granule technology. HumiK ONE is composed of 60% humic acid, 5% fulvic acid, and 10% potassium. The humic acid improves the soil organic matter and cation exchange capacity while regulating soil pH, Steffeck explains. The fulvic acid chelates and transports micronutrients. The potassium helps with the movement of water, nutrients, and carbohydrates within plant tissue. Overall, agronomic benefits include improving soil structure, higher water infiltration and retention, increased nutrient availability, better stress tolerance for plants, and ultimately, increased crop yield potential, Steffeck says.
HumiK ONE is an updated version of HGS BioScience’s HumiK WSG, a granule product that’s been available for about five years. “We just knew we could make it better,” Steffeck says.
What’s different is that HumiK ONE’s granules are more uniform in shape and size. HGS BioScience also installed new equipment that coats granules to reduce dust, making the product even easier to handle. The coating also makes the granules more compatible with urea and other nutrients by allowing seamless blending to make spreading easier.
Steffeck says converting humates into granules that can be blended with other fertilizers makes for “a more convenient product” when compared to liquid humates. “The delivery system of HumiK ONE acts as a platform to deliver other technology,” he adds.
One technology the system can deliver is biologicals, which is why HGS BioScience recently created HumiK Bio, a product that adds five microbes and sea plant extract into the HumiK ONE granule. Steffeck says it further helps with phosphorus availability and stress management. Other new products carrying additional technology include Tiger HumiK 4%, a combination of HumiK ONE with sulfur, and HumiK ZN, a combination of HumiK ONE with zinc.
HGS BioScience is investing in substantial research and development, specifically in the building of a Research and Development facility and pilot plant at the company’s Sardis, Mississippi-based manufacturing site. The facility aims to expedite technological innovation and drive the adoption of standardized testing methods. The primary goal is to discover and develop innovative humic-based formulations to improve soil health.
The pilot plant represents all aspects of HGS BioScience’s production, including humic and fulvic acid extraction, liquid blending, spray drying, dry powder blending, and granulation. There is also a product development lab and a quality assurance/quality control lab that tests products from the company’s plants.
“With our pilot plant, we can now take different technologies and find the best way to build them into our HumiK ONE formulation,” Steffeck says.
HGS BioScience’s products are made in the U.S., where the company has five manufacturing plants. Steffeck says HGS BioScience is currently collaborating with other companies, and is open to broader collaboration.
Steffeck realizes there are many products on the market that aim to improve soil health. He says the way that HGS BioScience’s products stand out is that they “offer a new way to deliver a proven solution that farmers can trust.”