Historical, Archaeological, and Indigenous uses of Charcoal in "Farming"

[erich]

A few years ago,can't recall where, I saw an article on the Terra preta soils comparing it to the native arboriculture practiced by the east coast Indians. What the Europeans saw as virgin hardwood forest was in fact a large scale permaculture of predominantly nut trees.

 

Over the past 25 years I've experimented in my soil prep regimes with charcoal, ag gypsum, the expanded clays, this is what I have come to believe is the biggest bang for the buck , at least for my clay & loam soils in the Shenandoah valley of VA:

 

Permatill (also called VoleBloc): a mined expanded slate from NC, in the bag or if you have a big job you can get it by the tractor trailer. It is also used as growing medium for "Green Roof" installations.When roots hit it they bifurcate like crazy

 

Mycorisal fungus inoculation: The sleep then creep then leap phenomena of new plantings is over come by the acceleration of the reestablishment of the symbiotic fungal / root relationship. M-Roots is the best , 25 billion per 40 lb bag @ $13, both indo and exo species

 

Good old Compost: I have cultivated several poultry farmers over the years into making compost, at $20 per yard , I top dress with an inch before mulching every year, and let the worms feed the deeper soil. My worm populations have gone from 1 per every 2 shovels of soil to 5 per 1 shovel.

 

Also a big WiltPruf Fan , and water holding polymers (SoilMoist) for containers

 

Erich

[Michaelangelica]

I recall reading a paper published in the eighties that suggested that native peoples here in the Pacific NW of N. America (where I live) had terraformed large tracts of land in the area around modern day Fort Lewis, about 75 miles or so south of Seattle. These large cleared areas were called "prairies" by the European settlers and had been thought to be natural formations. Scientists studying the area, however, were surprised to discover that these clearings were in fact man-made, created by "burning off" the temperate rain forest cover and encouraging the growth of certain plant species that the native peoples then harvested.

We have so much yet to learn.

Same thing in Australia but the Aborigines had about 50-70,000 years maybe more to change the environment.

Captain cook when he "discovered" Australia commented on the many fires he saw on the East Coast.

Early Botanists had no idea that the bio-diversity, the total environment had been man made! This has been a very recent an amazing revelation.

The theory is that Aborigines used "Firestick" farming to encourage the growth of grasses; this attracted herbivores(kangaroos etc) which they hunted.

Much Australian Flora now will not germinate without fire or at least smoke.

You can sometimes even buy "smokey water' to soak your native seed in so they will germinate!

Soils here are poor so the burning would have added some fertiliser and perhaps charcoal to the soil.

any most are sensitive to excess phosphorus and should be fertilized with special "native Plant" fertilsers low in phosphorus.

Our farmers use masses of Suppephosphate in order to grow wheat

 

This is from the CSIRO

CSIRO PUBLISHING - Australian Journal of Soil Research

 

Phosphorus requirements of Australian native plants

 

Kevin A. Handreck

 

Abstract

Many Australian plants have highly developed abilities for acquiring and conservatively using P.

This is seen as an evolutionary response to the combined environmental pressures of fire, soil P levels that are in the lower part of the range for world soils, and low and eratic rainfall.

In natural Australian ecosystems, more than 50% of the P in the A horizon is in organic combination.

Organic matter is the main source for the growth of perennial plants, so the only successful assessments of ‘available’ P measure labile organic P and microbial P.

However, the inorganic P of ashbeds is essential to the rapid establishment of fire ephemerals and tree seedlings in natural ecosystems

. Almost all Australian plants develop associations with mycorrhizal fungi, or produce hairy roots, as ways of increasing P uptake. Highly developed abilities to redistribute P from ageing to young tissues enable Australian plants to have a low P requirement per unit of biomass production

--

Michael :lol:

[Michaelangelica]

A letter to Nature:

 

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7108/full/443144b.html

 

Correspondence

Nature 443, 144 (14 September 2006) | doi:10.1038/443144b; Published online 13 September 2006

 

Biochar trials aim to enrich soil for smallholders

William I. Woods1, Newton P. S. Falcão2 and Wenceslau G. Teixeira3

 

Department of Geography, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045, USA

INPA/CPCA/Solos e Nutrição de Plantas, Av. André Araujo, Noo 3936, Bairro Petrópolis, CEP. 69011-970, Caixa Postal 478, Manaus - AM, Brazil

Embrapa Amazônia Ocidental, Rod. AM 010 - Km 29, CEP. 69011-970, Manaus - AM, Brazil

 

Sir:

Your recent News Feature "Black is the new green" (Nature 442, 624–626; 200610.1038/442624a) accurately summarized the origin, discussions and goals of the Terra Preta Nova group at the recent World Congress of Soil Science in Philadelphia.

.

Thanks Erich

I can't afford to subscribe to Nature but found this on the next page of the link you gave. (I was recently told by an Australian science discussion group that biofuels from cellulose was impossible.)

Most of our NSW and Tasmanian Old Growth Forests are now sent to Japan by the wood-chip-shipload to make origami (or maybe bio fuel?)

Correspondence

 

Nature 443, 144 (14 September 2006) | doi:10.1038/443144c; Published online 13 September 2006

Biochar and biofuels for a brighter future

 

M. H. B. Hayes1

 

1. Chemical and Environmental Sciences, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland

 

Sir:

 

Your excellent News Feature "Black is the new green" (Nature 442, 624–626; 200610.1038/442624a) refers to President Bush's announcement that $150 million is to be put into converting cellulosic precursors to ethanol — a very modest amount, considering the plight of petrochemicals.

I would like to mention here some progress already being made in producing biofuels and platform chemicals from cellulose and hemicellulose precursors.

 

Almost quantitative yields of levulinic acid — an excellent platform chemical that gives rise to fuel additives, polymers and plastics, and numerous essential chemicals — are obtained from these precursors in the Biofine process (the work of Stephen Fitzpatrick of Biofine Renewables LLC in Waltham, Massachusetts). A 300-tonne-a-day Biofine plant is nearing final commissioning at Caserta, Italy. Similarly, commercial yields of fermentable levoglucosan from cellulose, and furfural from the pentoses in hemicelluloses, have been obtained in pilot studies using the Convertech process, led by Ken Scott of Scott Convertech in Christchurch, New Zealand.

 

The biomass to fuel such processes will revolutionize agriculture. It will also give rise to sustainable chemical industries, as oil reserves become depleted and oil prices are pushed up by demand, depletion and political dictates.

The biorefinery waste is a char.

This has a calorific value similar to that of bituminous coal, and our studies indicate that it has, like the Terra Preta de Indio chars, the potential to be an excellent soil ameliorant.

And looking at yet another innovation: the future will be bright if we base it on Carboleum, or 'oil from carbohydrate' — the brainchild of Austin Darragh at the University of Limerick — as we say farewell to petroleum.

 

Have I posted this before?

Interesting research study, these are the last two sentences.

See the article for details

http://crops.confex.com/crops/wc2006/techprogram/P16849.HTM

Overall, the use of biochar results in a net decrease in the integrated Global Warming Potential from the studied soils.

The rediscovered use of biochar increases crop and plant yield on very unfertile soils and constitutes a new tool to mitigate climate change.

O yes

I should mention this too; very important

the use of biochar resulted in a net reduction of net annual emissions of methane and nitrous oxide from soils as well

[Michaelangelica]

QUOTE=davidgmills;151903]Chris Brandow:

 

I know that terra preta's charcoal is ground to smithereens. But was it done that way by the aboriginals?

I imagine it being done as grain is powdered. Have you seen pictures of Native peoples using a long thick tree pole and slamming it up and down into a big high walled container -a little like a huge mortar and pestle?

 

Our government (The Land of Oz) just gave $60M to Chevron Mobil to sequester CO2 gas underground! I read the UK is contemplating a similar scheme

 

I can't understand how anyone can contemplate this technology.

How do you know if the gas will stay there?

How would you know if it left?

Will it stay for a day, a month a year, a 100 years?

Charcoal in soil has been shown to be stable for thousands of years and make soil more fertile and productive.

(O yes, we get rid of waste, make bio-gas and electricty into the bargain).

What is the problem with governments?

Terra preta is the way to go. It is a 'No-brainer'

--

michael

 

PS

can anyone translate this and see if there is anything interesting?

terra preta

SOLOS DE TERRA PRETA PODEM SER SOLUÇÃO PARA A AGRICULTURA NA AMAZÔNIA

 

Pesquisadores de vários países correm contra o tempo para descobrir como se formou um dos solos mais férteis do mundo: a Terra Preta Arqueológica

[malcolmf]

I have read numerous times here to not disturb the soil much or turn it.

 

While that may be a good idea if the charcoal is pulverized, from what I see it would take a lot longer to get lump sized charcoal degraded to particle size if the soil is not frequently tilled.

 

I intentionally did not pulverize my lump charcoal just to see how quickly it would degrade into smaller pieces. What I find is that constantly turning it exposes the charcoal to new soil and it degrades much faster.

 

David

I understand this. But you need to find out whether you are making terra preta or just burying charcoal to little effect on your soil fertility or the atmosphere. Digging could be destroying the soil structures and organisms that increase fertility and protect the carbon from decomposition. If so, what's the point in digging? Glaser writes in Amazonian Dark Earths (p153, without himself giving a reference) that "it is known that ADEs were not tilled by the native population", and this matches Hecht's present-day observations. Her observations and soil analyses suggest that the char they added was not lumpwood charcoal, just the residue from all manner of incomplete burning.

 

Try using crushed char under mulch and let worms do the burying for you. They may be slow but my word are they thorough.

 

M

[Michaelangelica]

:offtopic:Fascinating stuff carbon:interesting:

If it can get down this small wow!

siRNA delivery into human T cells and primary cells with carbon-nanotube transporters

A promising approach to gene therapy involves short DNA fragments (interfering RNA) that bind to specific genes and block their "translation" into the corresponding, disease-related protein.

 

A stumbling block has been the efficient and targeted delivery of RNA into the cells. Researchers led by Hongjie Dai at Stanford University have chosen to use carbon nanotubes as their "means of transport". This has allowed them to successfully introduce RNA fragments that "switch off" the genes for special HIV-specific receptors and co-receptors on the cells' surface into human T-cells and primary blood cells.

 

HMS provides high quality single-walled

carbon nanotubes (SWNT) and a variety of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNT).

Our state-of-the-art proprietary chemical

vapor deposition (CVD) process enables

the production of nanotubes with controlled

Diameter and Length distributions, which can

be tailored for various applications.

Diameter

 

~ 1.3 nm

 

1.2 ~ 1.5 nm

 

~ 4 nm

I wonder if I should buy some for the garden?

Could my plants then have DNA Swapping Parties then? :love:

SEE

Nanoscale materials SWNT MWNT Carbon Nanotubes sales for research and industry markets, Helix Material Solutions

:)

 

Might as well get all the off topics off my chest

On indigenous burning i am discovering many other native peoples used fire other than Australian Aborigines But Yourkshiremen?

:lol:

I am a "Who-dun-it" fan and love quirky detectives. I am currently delighting in Nicholas Rhea's delightful D.I. Montague Pluke He is an expert on horse troughs and local folklore. (Yes I know only in an English/UK book could you get this)

In the first few pages of "Prize Murder' we came across a body in a burnt field.

Just before this we get a little history of Yorkshire Moors. Pluke is talking to his long suffering wife, Millicent.I hope you find this quirky bit of information as interesting as I did.

"'A whole area of heather has been burnt away'

'It's a swidden, sometimes called a swizzen.' Pluke aired his knowledge.

'It's a result of controlled burning. It's done every year, often in march before the grouse start their nesting. The landowner burns off about a sixth of a given area of heather, then the following year it will be the turn of another sixth and so on, so that over a period of years, the entire mooreland is burnt.'

'Goodness! But why?'

'It destroys the old heather, clears and refreshes the ground and encourages new growth. New shoots of heather grow quickly and they're stronger and healthier than the old; the new shoots are needed to feed the grouse too, and in former times local people would remove the turf after the burning and use it for domestic fires.'

'So turf is not the same as peat? I know a lot of mooreland farms had peat fires,' said Millicent.

'That's right but they had turf fires too. turf burns more slowly and gives out a lot of heat with a very pleasant scent. The thick heather stems which survived the flames were collected for kindling to light home fires.Those stubby stalks were called cowls, they were collected in big bundles called boddins, the local way of saying burdens. Boddins o' cowls, as the local people called them.

The whole exercise of controlled burning was, and still is, a necessary, useful and very effective means of maintaining the moors.'"

P 14 -15

[Michaelangelica]

Those Sophisticated Cave Men--Earthmovers of the Amazon: & An Artificial Landscape-Scale Fishery in the Bolivian Amazon --Page 23

 

Those Sophisticated Cave Men--Earthmovers of the Amazon: & An Artificial Landscape-Scale Fishery in the Bolivian Amazon --Page 23

Francisco de Orellana, one of the original Conquistadors, was in charge of the first European expedition down the Amazon river. His story is remarkable not least because it was a completely accidental voyage of discovery.

 

He and 60 men had been separated from another expedition led by Gonzalo Pizarro who had been in search of cinnamon in the jungles of Ecuador. Their boat had been carried downstream by the swift current of the Napo river which turned out to be a major tributary of the Amazon.

 

Seven months later their boat arrived at the Atlantic coast, more than 6,000 kilometres away from where they started out.

 

Orellana and most of his crew managed to make it back to safety and they brought with them fantasic tales of the sights they had seen on this river. Orellana described the Amazon as a busy waterway which had on both sides of the river populous towns with elaborate temples, plazas and fortresses. As his chronicler, Fray Gaspar de Carvajal relates it:

 

...we tarried so long in this land of Machiparo's which is 80 leagues in extent, all speaking one language and densely populated with towns and villages with scarcely more than a crossbow shot between them. Some of the towns extended for five leagues without any separation between the houses, quite a wonderful thing to see [a league is about 5.5 kilometres].

[Michaelangelica]

And here's an interesting co-incidence -- go a third of the way around the world to New Zealand, and archaeologists discover that pre-European Maori also worked charcoal into the soil to improve fertility

 

. . .

Beyond a shadow of doubt -- that's absolutely right. And what's been demonstrated (by the Japanese, primarily) is that the addition of charcoal can reduce the amount of fertilizer that you need to put in for the same fertility effect. And they're quite substantial differences... you're talking 20, 30, 40 per cent.

. . .

Alfred Harris:

 

That's absolutely right. When you put charcoal in the soil, you're fixing carbon. When you put charcoal in the soil, you're [also] increasing the level of mycorrhizal fungi, which themselves fix carbon. So it's one of those wonderful virtuous circles where you actually get a double whammy. You [end up with] fixed carbon from two different sources.

. . .

 

In a country like New Zealand, which grows biomass, it seems to me to be an absolute must if we're going to change from a fossil carbon economy. You know, it [would] really put New Zealand agriculture back on the world stage, and on the front foot. Because biomass is produced so fast here [that] we have an advantage over virtually every other country in the world..

 

Public Address | Southerly

[Michaelangelica]

English Charcoal, environment, history and woodmanship

English Charcoal, its history, information about the environment, production and woodmanship.

English Charcoal, environment, history and woodmanship

[Michaelangelica]

All Fired Up – Working Together: Peter Cooke, Jabiru, NT

.

Peter Cooke, together with fire ecologist Jeremy Russell-Smith and senior traditional owner Bardayal (Lofty) Nadjamerrek, was instrumental in the formation of the West Arnhem Fire Management Agreement (WAFMA).

This is the first major instance of private funding being linked to greenhouse gas emission abatement through better savanna burning practices.

Years of persistence led to this historic ‘carbon trading’ agreement between government, business, local councils and Indigenous partners.

Aboriginal people say ‘healthy country, healthy people’ but Peter Cooke likes to think you can expand that to ‘healthy planet’.

Catalyst: Catalyst Extra: “People Power” - ABC TV Science

[Michaelangelica]

Alfred Harris:

 

In Waimea, for example -- where there's hundreds of acres of what they call 'Maori soils' -- the experimental work was done on that site, and it was very clear that charcoal was mixed far further into the soil than would be expected simply from just the burning of the site.

 

Interviewer:

 

It's fascinating that two cultures so far apart should both discover the effects of charcoal in terms of agriculture. At a scientific level, how the does charcoal actually improve soil fertility?

 

Alfred Harris:

 

Okay, going back to basics: plant growth is absolutely dependent on a number of key elements -- and the major elements are nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Each of those elements are highly soluble. So given a reasonable sort of rainfall, which you need for good plant growth, they'll move through the soil very quickly.

 

So the fertility of the soil is really dependent on the ability of that soil to retain those key elements. The soils where charcoal seems to have a particular effect -- and that's in South America, and in Japan, and here in New Zealand -- are derived from weathered volcanic ashes.

 

Charcoal in the Terra Preta [de Indio] soils in South America increase the fertility and maintain it over very long periods of time. It appears to have more to do with the retention of nitrogen in that situation -- but in Japan, in different types of volcanic soils, it appears the effect is actually to increase the levels of mycorrhizal fungi, which, in turn, makes the phosphate [that is] heavily bound in those soils available to plants.

Southerly: Could the Mysterious Agricultural Techniques of an Ancient Amazonian Civilization Make New Zealand Farming More Competitive? : Public Address | System

[Michaelangelica]

Just caught the last few minutes of "Time Team" on making charcoal

(BBC production

Time Team : Ironbridge/ Leighton

Time: Tuesday, September 11, 6:02 PM

Channel: ABC

Duration: 49 minutes

Rating: G

Type: Arts and Culture

 

A cellar in Leighton could take us back nearly 400 years. Based in a pub, it contains the remains of a blast furnace - used for making iron. What more can be discovered about the story of Leighton's lost furnace?)

 

Might be worth tracking down for those with a fast WWW connection.