Terra Preta - The parent thread which started it all

[maikeru]

Had a thought, another potential strong value of using Terra Preta as a soil amendment method is that it will stop the excessive use of fertilisers, and the oveloading of groundwater systems with nutrients. Possible it might reduce or remove the Dead Zones that occur in the seas near the mouths of rivers like the Mississippi in the Gulf of Mexico.

 

This is a good point and another strong argument, IMO, for the use of terra preta to minimize many of the problems associated with chemical fertilizer. The mouths of rivers are often rich in wildlife and a diversity of species because of wetlands or estruaries, the abundance of nutrients, etc. Except we have some nutrients at lethal levels at this point in those dead zones and not enough O2 for all...

 

Also, I think this goes hand in hand with decreased water usage, since terra preta absorbs and retains water very well (I imagine because of the high surface area and hydrophilic interactions from organic acids, etc.). Overuse of fertilizer and water are two major problems associated with with modern, mechanized agriculture.

 

Plus, it might make the use of biomass sewage treatment plants sensible, they could then harvest the reeds or whatever grass used and harvest it then combust the grass culms and return it to the land to increase fertility and soil quality and structure.

 

It's that terrific positive feedback loop, which has has financial as well as environmental benefits for all.

[maikeru]

Some fertilisers are now being made to mimic natural processes like Osmocote which is released as the soil Temperature rises (when the plants are growing and will need the fertiliser most) and Azulon (Sp?) a German nitrogen fertiliser which breaks down with bacterial action.

Many modern fertilisers are too soluble and end up in water ways.

 

I can see a need for both chemical and organic fertilizers. Chemical fertilizers may become more environmentally friendly with terra preta's nutrient holding capacity and the possibly reduced run-off. (The chemical fertilizers + terra preta do seem to show great results, as I've seen and can compare between several of my herbs, such as with my oregano plants. Some growing in terra preta + fertilizer, others in peat moss + potting soil + fertilizer. The terra preta oreganos have the largest and darkest leaves of them all, about 1.5 inches or slightly more, or 4+ cm. The other oreganos have leaves about 1.5 - 3 cm, even with chemical and organic fertilizer additions. The terra-preta oreganoes are also the most bushy and large. All these plants were grown from cuttings from the same parent plant, so they are genetically identical, i.e., clones.) But organic fertilizers also offer several other benefits for the plants and the soil, such as further improving soil structure & humus, encouraging microbial activity, not killing nitrogen-fixing microbes, and adding many micronutrients to the soil in the right amounts.

 

Of course a combination of organics and Terra preta/charcoal would help - you would think

 

It seems so, as mentioned above.

 

I have jut read an interesting article in an excellent Australian Science Magazine Cosmos(OCT /NOV 2006) about inventors looking to nature for inspiration (e.g., Velcro).

A guy by the name of Dean Cameron has made a waste-water treatment system , Biolytix, which is designed to replace sewerage connections by mimicking the ecology of a river bank.

He noticed that if you put a pollutant in a river, two miles down river it had disappeared. People thought this was because the river oxygenated the water due to swirling currents, rapids rocks etc., . But he found that on the river banks a collection of beetles, mites, flies, fungi, protozoa and bacteria. These create what he calls the 'architecture of decomposition'. By replicating this natural system Biolytix reduces water consumption in a home by 50%.

 

That's cool. Sounds similar to a program I watched on "artificial wetlands" which people can create for their homes to cut back on water usage by recycling "grey" water (wash or dish water, etc.). Wiki does a better job of explaining an artificial wetland than I could:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_wetland

 

Also, Cameron's right about the living organisms and their role in decomposition. If we had to rely on purely natural processes to clean up things without any decomposers, many compounds, even foods, would not decay for hundreds or thousands of years. Simply because living organisms do what they do--multiply quickly, use enzymes to speed up chemical reactions millions or billions of times more than could happen alone or spontaneously, feed on a wide variety of compounds, etc.--they do us and the rest of the world a great favor.

 

So if you want to stop pollution at the mouth of your river you need to start looking at the ecology of the river-banks all along the riverside! This is the part of the river that keeps it clean of pollutants. !!

 

Remember wetlands and estruaries, too! They're industrial-scale biofilters.

[SoilWatcher]

I haven't posted in forever. I will probably make a couple posts.

 

First a question. Many of you are finding supplies of charcoal. Back in the early part of this whole thread, one of the critical things was that it should be low temperature charcoal, thereby leaving resins which fed the microbes. Does any of this commercially available charcoal fit the bill?

[SoilWatcher]

Ok, for this next post I have to reveal my biases somewhat. Like Turtle, whose posts spurred this response, I tend to view global warming as mostly junk science. Not global warming itself, but global warming as a man caused phenomenon is, IMO, significantly junk science. Or perhaps even more to the point -- the notion that we can fix/affect it is likely junk science. This is a somewhat educated opinion but I do reserve the right to be wrong.

 

That said, I am very excited about Terra Preta. I do think that improving soil productivity and sustainability is a huge win. I do think there's solid science behind the negative effects of over fertilization -- including reduced nutritional content of food, fertilizer runoff into bodies of water, etc. Anything we can do to make soil more "naturally" productive is a big win, IMO.

 

But another benefit is that it may tend to get the climate extremists off our backs a bit. If we are, in the long run, doing things that vastly reduce carbon release into the atmosphere then the Al Gores of the world will have to find something new to moan about. They used to tell us we were causing an ice age, now we're causing global warming. Not sure what will be next but I'm sure they will think of something once we actually do reduce carbon emissions. The nice thing about doing it this way -- terra preta production to sequester carbon -- is that it's a net gain all around, rather than doing radical Kyoto type things which would cripple our economy.

 

My two cents...

[Michaelangelica]

Many of you are finding supplies of charcoal. Back in the early part of this whole thread, one of the critical things was that it should be low temperature charcoal, thereby leaving resins which fed the microbes.

Does any of this commercially available charcoal fit the bill?

Excellent question

How can you tell?

 

This also fits with the post

Resilient Form of Plant Carbon Gives New Meaning to Term ‘Older than Dirt’

http://www.physorg.com/news83516285.html

I'd like to know how the researchers knew it was carbon was from resinous material 10,000 to 100,000 years old.:)

 

I have tried to buy charcoal from farmers making it the traditional way which I hope will be a lower temperature (c400C) than activated charcoal. They also tell me they are using rain forest trees.

So far my search has been in vain; and I have ended up with Commercial BBQ charcoal made (I think) from coconuts.

 

Charcoal seems to be much more readily available in UK nurseries; where the ancient art of Coppicing still seems to survive.

Who knows if charcoal made from Temperate Climate Trees have the same or similar resins as in the Amazon???

The Japanese may have done some work on this if you can somehow access their research papers

 

It would be nice to know more about the role of resins in this Terra preta mix.

 

--

michael

[Turtle]

Had a thought, another potential strong value of using Terra Preta as a soil amendment method is that it will stop the excessive use of fertilisers, and the oveloading of groundwater systems with nutrients. Possible it might reduce or remove the Dead Zones that occur in the seas near the mouths of rivers like the Mississippi in the Gulf of Mexico.

 

We have a 'dead zone' of the coast of Oregon/Washington, and it is not attributed to river discharge, but rather changes in wind patterns.

 

...The dead zone is caused by coastal upwellings as patterns that normally sustain life in the rich coastal waters become more erratic and destroy some life. The normal patterns are a mix of northerly winds that allow upwellings of cold, nutrient-rich deep water to occur and southerly winds that move about the oxygen-poor water. ...

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003185060_deadzone09m.html :D

[Michaelangelica]

This is along article on energy generally; with some well reseached points to make. I didn't give it the thorough read it deserved. I need to print it out and study it but no ink! Also it is very USA centric.

http://ergosphere.blogspot.com/2006/11/sustainability-energy-independence-and.html

In OZ we get most of our alcohol from sugar cane bagess so it may be a better proposition for us; but the article does make you pause for thought.

 

On charcoal Engineer-Poet Blogger says the following; which seems incredible

Charcoal is like coal, only more stable.

Charcoal is the product of a high-temperature process, and is missing most of the hydrogen and volatile chemicals of coal.

It can be heaped and stored for weeks to thousands of years; charcoal from ancient forest and camp fires allows prehistoric events to be dated.

It is a valuable addition to soil, creating the fertile "terra preta"4 of the notoriously nutrient-poor Amazon rainforest.

It's perhaps the ultimate answer to irregular supplies of renewable energy. An annual supply of 515 million short tons of charcoal fed to DCFC's would produce roughly 3400 billion kilowatt-hours of energy.

This is more than the total US generation from fossil fuels, and about 84% of the total electric energy consumed in the USA in 2005; together with the generation from the gas, it could conceivably replace every kilowatt-hour we now use, from the trivial amounts made by solar to the entire contribution of coal, with about 25% extra to play with.

 

It wouldn't be wise to replace everything with biomass energy, of course; throwing away diversity of supply means reducing security. But it shows just how much potential we've got, if we only start using it

. . .

Last, there is the permanent improvement of the soil from the addition of charcoal. The example of terra preta shows that charcoal can create massive improvements in nutrient-holding ability, under the most adverse conditions, lasting at least two thousand years.

Had the ancient Greeks and Romans used such practices, their soils would have been very different—and their modern descendants would still be enjoying the results today. This is literally an investment which can pay for a hundred generations.

 

What farmer wouldn't jump at that? The problem is to take theory and reduce it to practice.

.

High temp. charcoal is possibly not what we need for Terra preta. We probably need to keep those elusive 'resins' by producing charcoal at a lower temp. (c400C)

[erich]

I spoke with the author of this TP story in Solar Today, , Ron Larson ,

 

http://www.solartoday.org/2006/nov_dec06/Chairs_CornerND06.pdf

 

Yesterday, he said he spoke with a major National Geographic editor-who is preparing a big article on TP. but Doesn't know when it will be published.

 

Erich

[erich]

I imagine the yield they get, as a result of plant diversity, is due concurrently with the micro flora and fauna diversity.

 

 

I'm going to post them about doing a TP plot.

 

A Better Biofuel?

A Better Biofuel? -- Whipple 2006 (1207): 5 -- ScienceNOW

 

"They then compared the biofuel energy yield when the plants were grown alone or in those different combinations. The most diverse plots produced 238 percent more bioenergy yield than the average plot containing a single species, says team leader David Tilman."

[Taildragerdriver]

This Terra Preta concept had real potential in three areas. I am new to the Science Forums. I came here due to an interest in several elements related to Terra Preta. I'm interested in getting involved in three ways.

 

First I work professionally in what is called fire management working with US public land management agencies. We have a great deal of interest in a way to use biomass produced when we try to reduce fuels in projects designed to reduce fire intensity around areas of human developments. If we can get an interest going with agriculture to incorporate large quantities of charcoal a commercial charcoal industry could be developed to use these biomass products produced in fuels reductions projects.

 

Second I am interested in learning how to produce charcoal in large quantities for incorporation into local farmlands. I have read some descriptions on how to make charcoal and plan to try to develop methods to produce large quantities fairly efficiently for my own use on my pastures. I have access to lots of slash to burn and a safe place to burn it. I would like to find as much information as possible on how to best accomplish this.

 

Third I have several pastures that have been flood irrigated since some time in the 1870s, My water rites are 1892 so I know the have been irrigated that long. The soils are badly leached out as you might expect. I want to improve the productivity of these pastures by incorporating large quantities of charcoal to bind fertility even in highly saturated soils. I can't run less water through these pastures even if I don't irrigate due to subirrigation when neighbors irrigate.

 

Interestingly Terra Preta seems like it can play a role in creating a very reasonable solution to a whole host of problems. Related to my work and farming/ranching operations.

 

I'm interested in further discussion on all these topics.

 

Thanks

 

Taildragerdriver

[erich]

Hi Tail,

Since most of the cost of feed stock/ bio-mass is transport, I imagine, each time I pass a logging operation, a large tub type chipper feeding stumps and all to a mobile Eprida pyrolysis system and either selling to local farmers or taking carbon credits from the (voluntary) Chicago Carbon Exchange (CCX), by spreading it on the logged over soils.

[Taildragerdriver]

erich:

 

That vision is far in the future but the exciting thing about "terra preta" is that if we can make it work we can ameliorate our wildfire problems and potentially improve the production of our farmlands. (One thing we need to keep in mind is we need to be sure not to remove too much from forested sites or we could deplete the soils of the forests) If we do this we need to get the science right.

 

A great product of science and archiology. It just goes to show we sometimes we need listen to our distant ansestors.

 

Thanks

 

Taildragerdriver

[Michaelangelica]

 

I'm interested in further discussion on all these topics.

 

Thanks

 

Taildragerdriver

Sounds like you can run a number of experiments

Keep us all posted

 

Here are some gardeners getting excited about TP (Being egged on by erich as usual!)

here:-

Terra preta (dark earth or, more specifically... - Soil Forum - GardenWeb

 

Anyone going to the confrence at Terrigal(oz) next year?

[davidgmills]

Hello all. I have recently learned about terra preta. I am a lawyer so only marginally good at science although I have a father and brother who are both PhD's in biochemistry. I also have three uncles that are farmers (2 dairy 1 beef). My father was always darn good with a garden.

 

Terra preta has got me interested in gardening again after about a ten year hiatus. I am an internet nut so once I stumbled upon an article on the net about terra preta I poured over every article I could find. Erich is quite a prolific poster.

 

Anyway I started my terra preta garden back in early November using store bought charcoal briquettes because I didn't know any better. Soon I found out that making your own produced a much better charcoal. But I must say even the store bought briquettes made an difference in the soil's ability to hold moisture.

 

Over Thanksgiving I began experimenting making my own. It is actually quite easy. I had a two and a half gallon popcorn can with a lid. So I began experimenting in making charcoal with it using sticks and dead tree limbs from the yard. After a couple of times of trial and error, I discovered that the best and most efficient means of making charcoal was to put about two inches of twigs and leaves in the bottom of the can with paper for a starter. Once the fire got going really good and hot I began to put good sized chunks of wood on top of the fire, smoldering it of course, and slowly filled up the can with fist sized chunks of wood. I put the lid on top leaving about a half inch gap. Presto about two hours later, it all turns to charcoal, approximately 1/4 to 1/3 of the size of wood I started with. Very efficient process. Hardly any wood is wasted as starter fuel.

 

What they say is true about the smoke. First, off comes a gray smoke burning off the water. Then comes a yellowed smoke as the first gases burn off. Finally a blue smoke as the final gases come off. Then no smoke and its charcoal.

 

Obviously, a two and a half gallon bucket will not produce enough charcoal for a residential garden. So I am going to move up to a galvanized garbage can.

 

But even after a few weeks I can see the difference the charcoal makes even without the bacteria and fungal growth. The soil is much damper and it seems to really break up clods of clay. Shoveling a full depth of the shovel blade is now very easy, whereas before, it got difficult about half blade depth. Also threw in broken pottery.

 

Trying to get the garden ready for spring planting. I hope by charcoaling now maybe I will get some bacterial action before spring.

 

I live in Memphis where we have good soil, good moisture, and a fairly temperate climate.

 

In thinking about how to make terra pretta for a farm, based on my experience with the charcoal I have made, I would get a big round horse water trough (10 feet or so in diameter and 3 to 4 feet high) and use it. Use some corrugated tin for a cover and take it to the place where you want to start your terra preta plot and make the charcoal on the spot. It really is very safe and as easy to control the fire as a barbecue pit. Start with a hot fire in the bottom of the horse trough. Once it is going good enough that you won't entirely put it out by putting logs on top, start putting them on. Pile them on until you fill the trough up, making sure that the thing keeps smoldering. This might take a couple of days to turn to charcoal, especially if you are using good sized logs. But I feel pretty sure it would work as this is very similar to how charcoal is made in England.

 

Glad to be a member of this forum.

[maikeru]

Hi David! Did you do anything else to amend the terra preta outside with organic or chemical fertilizers? I found that terra preta works much better after "loading" it with a soluble source of nitrogen, such as liquid or chemical fertilizer initially (as Danny Day suggests on the Eprida website). Also, don't be freaked out if things decompose a lot faster in the terra preta soil; I think that's a clear sign the microbes and fungi are happy and numerous. With my indoor terra preta pots, leaves, coffee grounds, or other organic fertilizers start to show fungi after 2-3 days and seem to disappear in a week or two, depending on temperature and humidity. Terra preta seems to speed up nutrient cycling, besides using the charcoal to store and release nutrients when needed.

 

BTW, I want to welcome Tail, too. Your posts on forests and wild fires are interesting. Learn something new every time I check this thread or the other one.

[Charcoal]

The charcoal fertilizer could be used to restore the nutrients in areas around the globe where soil has been depleted, according to Day. He believes charcoal-enhanced soil could increase crop yields by 200 percent to 300 percent.

 

The ADE?s fertility is most likely linked to an anthropogenic accumulation of phosphorus (P), calcium (Ca) associated with bone apatite (Lima et al. 2002, Zech et al 1990), and black C as charcoal (Glaser et al. 2001a). The influence of charcoal in soil fertility is complex. Most charcoals (dependent on biomass material) is poor in nutrients. Therefore charcoal is more likely a soil conditioner.

 

 

 

So what is a home gardener to do?

When is charchol not charchol?

Today I spent a futile hour tring to buy charchol to mix into my potting mix.

One nursery had a kilo or so for $7

Another had activated chjarcol for fish tanks - imported from Japan -for abou$10 for 500grams

I had purchased a largish 5K? bag of BBQ charchol from the local supermarket, crushed this up and used it (about $7). Now they no longer stock it (It was imported from Malaysia)

Where my efforts in vain given the above comment?

Any thoughts?

 

Charcoal imported form Malaysia is most likely not from sustainable production. It is difficult to find locally produced charcoal (especially in the USA). We hape that Danny Day will change this and supply the missing product. $7 seems a very lucrative price for a byproduct from energy production.

[Taildragerdriver]

OK this thread is exactly what I wanted to get into.

 

So let me document the concept of what I'm think I'm going to do.

 

Making Charcoal: Intially I plan to make a 55 gallon drum charcoal burner to get the hang of making charcoal on a small scale. There are a number of websites that describe how to do this.

 

Of course for my needs this won't make a dent. So for a larger scale I have access to an old "wigwam burner" left over from the old lumber mill near my pastures. I plan to start with the a traditional mound burn as described in the following site.

 

Chapter 6 - Making charcoal in earth mounds

 

These wigwam burners were built because when they burned mill waist the sparks would not get out and start fires nearby if winds start blowing. If I build my mound inside and cover it with soil it will be safe to let burn for the several days required to make charcoal.

 

I have to be sure there are no issues with the local state laws to use this for making charcoal. I'm pretty sure there are none but want to be sure. The laws on burning for farming are pretty liberal in rural Oregon.

 

I will start with a small pile of wood and cover it with dirt using my backhoe and learn how to control it to get the proper burn. Then progress to larger burn mounds. (This is the interm design in the long run if sucessful we would probably chip the wood and build a iron kiln out of the wigwam burner.) This probably is not a real efficient and cost effective method but it should give me a method to produce a large enough amount of carcoal to work up an acre or so of pasture and amend it with charcoal.

 

So now I plan to produce the charcoal and load it into an old manure spreader and spread it on the pasture. Then take a rotivator (a big 5' wide rototiller on a 3point hitch run by the PTO on a tractor) and rotivate it into the top foot of soil. I think that makes for the most efficient and effective method of getting the carcoal incorporated into the soil along with the organic matter of the existing grass cover on the pasture I plan to use.

 

There is some conflicting information on the websites as to whether this will tie up all the nitrrogen or not. I know putting ash into the soil will but not sure about the carcoal. I would like to know what others have experienced.

 

Reguardless I then plan to plant grazable alfalfa on the site and keep the cattle out till it gets well established and irrigate just the same along with the rest of the pasture. Alfalfa is a legume and a great nitrogen fixer. So it should build up the nitrogen and hopefully turning in the current grass will get the soil microbes going.

 

My goal is to try to document the gain in productivity of the charcoal pasture compared to the rest of the pasture both in pictures and in pounds per acre production.

 

So if I can show big production gains in the pastures and it will last long term the ranchers around here would probably be willing to buy the carcoal. That is my concept any way.

 

OK enough for now.

 

I would love get any feed back people might have and what you think about my plans.

 

Thanks

 

Taildragerdriver