Char Volumes

[Spike Silverback]

Dear Folks,

 

New to the group and wanted to introduce myself. Am interested to know if there is presently any recommended volumes per acre of application of char with given parameters.

 

Thanks for the opportunity. Been scanning all the back posts and find y'all

an informative group.

 

I am presently in my third year of soil prep for a 5 acre wine grape vineyard in NW Arkansas, USA. I have a good working knowledge of biodynamics, composting, biological sprays, covercrops and a cursury knowledge of earthworm cultivation.

 

In addition, I have had an avid interest in terra preta going back a couple of years and have a fairly huge resource of char (by my standards) locally that I am working to exploit for my soil building efforts.

 

Hope that I can add something to the group and that my offerings will be met with kind offerings in return.

 

Also wanted to thank Mr. Knightly (sp) for helping me source char in the central U.S. and invite Bernie of Green Waste to dialogue here.

 

Thanks and best wishes.

 

Spike

[erich]

Hi Spike,

As I recall the highest % of char in TP soils was 30%,

 

BestEnergy talked about rates of 250 tons per Ha, but they were proposing mixing it to 3 feet depth. (don't ask me how)

 

Here is my current "Rule of Thumb" thinking on application rate:

 

Char weighs about 15 Lb/ Cubic Ft

For a 20% by volume / Cu Ft of soil that equals 3 Lbs per square Ft, tilled in to 1 ft depth.

 

The Japanese found major reductions in N2O soil emmision and other benifits with top dressing even small amounts on Tea

 

Erich

[Spike Silverback]

Hi Spike,

As I recall the highest % of char in TP soils was 30%,

 

BestEnergy talked about rates of 250 tons per Ha, but they were proposing mixing it to 3 feet depth. (don't ask me how)

 

Here is my current "Rule of Thumb" thinking on application rate:

 

Char weighs about 15 Lb/ Cubic Ft

For a 20% by volume / Cu Ft of soil that equals 3 Lbs per square Ft, tilled in to 1 ft depth.

 

The Japanese found major reductions in N2O soil emmision and other benifits with top dressing even small amounts on Tea

 

Erich

 

Thanks Erich. Much appreciated.

 

Those are some pretty serious numbers. Even with your calculations that would mean that even at 3# cf/sq ft you are looking at 3 x 43,560 sq ft =

130,680 lbs or 65.34 T acre. Even at the going rate of $140 T that equals

$9147 an acre B4 delivery. Even if it were free (and no one is going to give away 65 T free) the experience in my neighborhood (25 mile radius) on delivered minerals is $300 for 20 T delivered, not spread. So now we are at over $1K just for delivery and application. I can see this already at $12,000 a ton, for an experiment. One can readily see that this is not a doable for any serious farmer or even one with throw away bucks. I don't even see the universities playing this route.

 

There may be some alternatives though, as you cited in the Japanese tea

scenario. (BTW ripping three feet may work in some areas. I've already

ripped 5 acres @ 2 feet and I can tell you it ain't pretty. I did it on the cheap and it still cost $1K acre and from my perspective it probably killed

whatever mychorrizal fungi and earthworms there were).

 

It would seem that if the object of the addition of the char were to bind nutrients and fungi to the char, then one would want to crush the char to as fine a particle as possible to increase the surface area of the char, no? Thus reducing the overall weight needed. (This, I surmise would also allow the earthworms to take it to lower depths, if taking it to lower depths is even necessary. It is my belief that feeder roots work on the top, so why take the char down? The nutrients that are in or applied to the soil are in the top

6 inches, no?

 

Another area that I have not seen explored or even talked about is applying char homeopathically (sp). I know it is in the thought processes of some, but no one is talking. Dead silence. It is going to happen and all the weight and volume talk will go away and you'll be able to spray char and the soil will benefit.

 

Best.

 

Frank

[diazotrophicus]

Thanks Erich. Much appreciated.

 

Those are some pretty serious numbers.....

 

...It would seem that if the object of the addition of the char were to bind nutrients and fungi to the char, then one would want to crush the char to as fine a particle as possible to increase the surface area of the char, no? Thus reducing the overall weight needed. (This, I surmise would also allow the earthworms to take it to lower depths, if taking it to lower depths is even necessary. It is my belief that feeder roots work on the top, so why take the char down? The nutrients that are in or applied to the soil are in the top 6 inches, no?

 

Another area that I have not seen explored or even talked about is applying char homeopathically (sp). I know it is in the thought processes of some, but no one is talking. Dead silence. It is going to happen and all the weight and volume talk will go away and you'll be able to spray char and the soil will benefit.

 

Best.

 

Frank

 

Hi,

your idea of saving on charcoal is very good, and myself being tight fisted and lazy, I experimented with sweet char for terra preta.

 

Required volume of char is about one banana sized vertical shaft every 50 cm or two feet.

 

I described this in my introductory note:

 

 

Sweet char with hammer and chisel - 10-25-2007, 02:44 PM

Hi,

black earth or Schwarzerde in German has been used for millenia.

 

My theory especially about the Amazon variety is that charcoal was made in earth pits and after the regular inundations by the Amazon river mud crept into the char left in those pits, together with all sorts of bacteria and fungi from upstream the river, like the famous Nile mud in Egypt.

 

So the char captured the "magic" of the fertile várzea of the Amazon river. Our ancestors were keen observers, lacking books.

 

One crafty way of getting fungi and bacteria into the char is to offer them something sweet to eat: sugar!

 

Because a green plant will feed about half or more of the sugars it produces through photosynthesis to the little beasties in the soil, they will like that.

 

So the sugar only kick starts the processes in the soil "as if" the thriving plant supplied enough food to the soil life already, and the beasties and fungi in turn will supply the mineral salts and digestion products to the sugar supply factory, which a green plant actually is, seen from below.

 

Reports from Brazil state that a depth of at least 20 cm (8 inches) is required for terra preta to grow further.

 

I take from that that different levels of oxygen (lower partial pressure deeper down) are required for good performance.

 

Practical experiment with hammer and chisel:

 

Prepare sugar water in a bucket and soak charcoal in there for a day or two, until all water is inside the char.

 

Take a hammer and chisel (ten inches long) and drive a little hole 8 inches deep into the ground in the root zone of a plant you wish to foster.

 

Insert sweet char with a funnel or by hand.

 

Do this in spring time.

 

Wait and see. Compare with untreated plants nearby.

 

diazotrophicus (my (almost) first post)

...

Have to copy and paste, as posting links requires a few more posts by me to make up ten or so.

Use one or two "chisel holes" per plant filled with sweet char. It worked here in Germany (in a wine growing area).

diazotrophicus

[Rev]

The flooding hypothesis sounds plausible

 

except teh terra preat sites ive read about are on terra firme

not the flooded areas

 

raised areas above rivers that are naturally infertile, but where char, fish bones and human excrement combine to make terra pretta

 

The rates ive read of here in Australia are 1kg/metre square

 

10 tonnes to the hectare of char

so 4 tonnes to the acre

 

of course you dont have to do it all in one go

and if its vines you want to grow then think of the disposal benefits of all those prunings, chipped and charred, in a prolysis unit or in a low cost earth mound

[diazotrophicus]

The flooding hypothesis sounds plausible

 

except teh terra preat sites ive read about are on terra firme

not the flooded areas

 

raised areas above rivers that are naturally infertile, but where char, fish bones and human excrement combine to make terra pretta

 

The rates ive read of here in Australia are 1kg/metre square

 

10 tonnes to the hectare of char

so 4 tonnes to the acre

 

of course you dont have to do it all in one go

and if its vines you want to grow then think of the disposal benefits of all those prunings, chipped and charred, in a prolysis unit or in a low cost earth mound

 

Hi,

of course the terra preta sites are on terra firme.

 

What I meant was possibly the discovery that charcoal pits in the várzea (flooded area) produced better plant growth at low water levels, so taking the mud plus charcoal to terra firme for use year round seems logical. If the mountain does not come to...

Anyway, a multitude of plants and inoculants might be the next best thing to build up something similar to the bounty of the Amazon microlife.

diazotrophicus

[Rev]

love to read what youve read

 

can you supply docs or references to the above so i can read

 

its a good field to be an amateur in

as its clear already , of the many Dark earth sites over the amazon, there are man many ways to make a functional dark earth, not just one formula

 

which makes it easier for us to make terra preta nova as well

[diazotrophicus]

love to read what youve read

 

can you supply docs or references to the above so i can read

 

its a good field to be an amateur in

as its clear already , of the many Dark earth sites over the amazon, there are man many ways to make a functional dark earth, not just one formula

 

which makes it easier for us to make terra preta nova as well

 

Hi,

did some surfing on the google Brazil site, found a few rather new items.

 

One guy even supports my theory of the voluntary inoculation with wee bugs from other successful sites of terra preta.

Oil, be Seeing You: Origins of Amazonia's Terra Preta Soils

 

And some new findings

eCommons@Cornell: Item 1813/3465

 

For videos (slooow)

Fluxos - A Civilização da Terra Preta

and

 

Gerhard Bechtold: Terra Preta

Terra preta de índio « Folha Verde

TERRA: Living Soil

 

this last link to Eprida in the US. They are doing something, which is better than just talk.

 

The centre pivot in Brasil is the Museu Goeldi right in Pará State, wit Dr. Dirse Kern up front

tpaindex

 

Hope you can read it all, but they are just trying, just like us.

 

But inoculants (from river silt) and a compost swap from neighbors a few miles away might be a good idea.

diazotrophicus

[diazotrophicus]

love to read what youve read

 

can you supply docs or references to the above so i can read

 

its a good field to be an amateur in

as its clear already , of the many Dark earth sites over the amazon, there are man many ways to make a functional dark earth, not just one formula

 

which makes it easier for us to make terra preta nova as well

 

Hi,

the web begins to knit itself. Just followed the link by Erich and there I found this

Microbial Fertilizers in Japan

about the effect of char on soil life, especially nitrogen fixation. In the references the name "Huruno" probably means Furuno, for Takao Furuno and his one duck revolution:

The Last Big Paddy - Rice Bowl Tales: Street Stories (ABC Radio National)

One Bird--Ten Thousand Treasures--How the Duck in the Paddy Fields Can Feed the World

WorldChanging: Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future: Duck-Rice

diazotrophicus