Welcome to the website of the regional IHSS – Chapter of the Czech Republic
The Czech Chapter of the International Humic Substances Society was established at Brno University of Technology, Faculty of Chemistry by prof. Miloslav Pekař and Lubomír Rákos in 2008. Members of the Czech chapter of IHSS organize meetings regularly and they resolve the issues related to the research and applications of humic substances. The aim of this website is to introduce of humic substances to the public. The main emphasis is given especially to their behaviours, effects, issue of standardization of humic products.
The Czech chapter of IHSS has 15 members in 2016. This organization is formed mainly by the scientists from different Czech scientific institutions:
- Brno University of Technology, Faculty of Chemistry, Brno, Czech Republic
- Faculty of Agrobiology, Food and Natural Resources, Prague, Czech Republic
- Mendel University in Brno, Brno, Czech Republic
- Research Institute for Fodder Crops, Ltd. Troubsko, Czech Republic
- University of Pardubice, Pardubice, Czech Republic
- AMAGRO s.r.o., Prague, Czech Republic
Contacts on the members of IHSS-Czech are here.
Czech chapter national meeting 2025
The meeting of the Czech chapter of the IHSS and others interested in humic substances, took place at the Faculty of Chemistry, Brno University of Technology, on April 25, 2025. The meeting was linked to realization of the project “Improving the monitoring of the state of agricultural land affected by military operations“ and supported by this project. At the meeting, about 15 participants were present, mainly from academic institutions, but there were also representatives of traditional industrial companies.
The meeting was opened by Miloslav Pekař (Brno University of Technology), Czech national coordinator, who delivered a brief update on the current situation of the IHSS (corporate membership, the last conference in Rimini, the next conference to be held in Brno in 2026). Then, the following contributions were presented:
· Karolína Drápalová (Brno University of Technology) reported on her experience with the TAM III calorimeter used in the investigation of soil microbial life, including also the effect of lignohumate on the activity of soil microorganisms.
· Michal Kaline (Brno University of Technology) followed up with a description of soil respirometry, particularly with reference to the OxiTop equipment that is now installed at the Faculty of Chemistry thanks to the project mentioned above.
· Kristýna Müllerová (Brno University of Technology) spoke about soil humic hydrocolloids, particularly those found in lysimeter waters.
· Lubomír Rákos (Amagro) described the current state of the humic market and evaluated 25 years of Amagro activity in this market.
· Martina Klučáková (Brno University of Technology) described an original “tubular” approach to the study of pollutant transport (diffusion) in soil, specifically the transport of drugs as contaminants penetrating into the soil environment.
· Tomáš Weidlich (University of Pardubice) focused attention on synthetic humic substances and also described the interesting exploitation of the Kolbe-Schmitt reaction for humic synthesis from organic waste.
· Vojtěch Enev (Brno University of Technology) then discussed related analytical and characterization methods and their application to synthetic humic materials.
· Ladislav Menšík (Czech Agrifood Research Center, Prague) discussed the use of near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) in the evaluation of the quality of soil organic matter.
· The meeting was closed by František Novák (formerly University of Chemical Technology, Prague), who reflected on humic substances as a second life of biomass and on life after life.
During the meeting, the project mentioned above was presented. It is supported by the NATO program Science for Peace and Security, under Grant Nr. G6296. More information on this project is available on its website http://land-security.org/.