Humates are considered commercially available forms of humic matter for use in agriculture, environmental, industrial, livestock and human wellbeing. 

Humates are in essence the salts of humic and fulvic acids. Humic compounds make up the bulk of organic matter in the World’s soils. Through millions of years compaction of plant and animal material, this material can be found Worldwide. Humic matter comes from a variety of sources including aquatic environments, geologic deposits and wetlands. Humic matter is also created from agricultural, industrial and municipal activities.

Humates have been used in agriculture for many years, possibly thousands of years by early corn,
squash and bean farmers in the Southwest U.S. In other countries, humic and fulvic acid use has been ongoing for many years with continual dollars put into research. However, In the U.S. there has been much misinformation regarding the use of humates, unintentionally spread by suppliers, distributors and marketers who are not scientists and who do not understand the humate research available (this is also due to lack of uniform testing, which we will go into later). Only in the last decade or so have we even understood how humates work. We now talk of an auxin-like response, not really knowing what causes it. It was never realized how effective humate was at very low application rates and how much soil change it can effect in a short time. Stimulation of biomass production at the bottom of the food chain is a part of the benefit of humates. Release of essential minerals from the soil for plant uptake is part of this process.