Terra Preta - The parent thread which started it all

[RBlack]

Another thought (and post). If you havn't accessed the 18th World Conference of Soil Science do!! Once you get on this site and get to the search listing just type in Terra Preta, Amazonian Dark Earth, Indian Dark Earth, Biochar, black carbon or any other word dealing with Terra Preta and you get the abstracts of 40 or more paper presentations with the best up to date scientific information on TP.

R(almost to ten)B

[erich]

Terra Preta Discussion , central data base, and Mail list at REPP-CREST:

Organizations | Terra Preta

 

A most comprehensive Soil science data base by Dr. Danny Day at GIT : Welcome To Carbon Negative

[RBlack]

Erich, thanks for the information I have registered on the Epidra/Carbon Negative website and await confermation. So far this looks like a great site.

RB

[SoilWatcher]

I have posted probably two or three times on this thread since it started. I am very interested in Terra Preta for many reasons -- soil sustainability and productivity, fertilizer runoff reduction, and just for my own interest in gardening. One thing I am not interested in solving is global warming because I don't believe in it as a man caused phenomenon. But if that gets research money into Terra Preta I guess that's ok too. Nevertheless, I do feel compelled to post this image.

 

Not sure if I can post images or just links. I'll give it a shot...

 

(ok, as it turns out i'm not allowed to post links yet due to my low post count. do it yourselves i guess.)

 

wwwDOTplacergopDOTorg/_content/gwDOTjpg

[erich]

http://www.placergop.org/_content/gw.jpg

 

I believe Human activity started with agriculture 10,000 yrs ago . The point on the graph where the red turns solid.

 

 

William F. Ruddiman1

 

(1) Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 22904, U.S.A.

 

 

Abstract The anthropogenic era is generally thought to have begun 150 to 200 years ago, when the industrial revolution began producing CO2 andCH4 at rates sufficient to alter their compositions in the atmosphere. A different hypothesis is posed here: anthropogenic emissions of these gases first altered atmospheric concentrations thousands of years ago. This hypothesis is based on three arguments. (1) Cyclic variations in CO2 andCH4 driven by Earth-orbital changes during the last 350,000 years predict decreases throughout the Holocene, but the CO2 trend began ananomalous increase 8000 years ago, and the CH4 trend did so 5000 years ago.(2) Published explanations for these mid- to late-Holocene gas increases basedon natural forcing can be rejected based on paleoclimatic evidence. (3) A wide array of archeological, cultural, historical and geologic evidence points to viable explanations tied to anthropogenic changes resulting from early agriculture in Eurasia, including the start of forest clearance by 8000 years ago and of rice irrigation by 5000 years ago. In recent millennia, the estimated warming caused by these early gas emissions reached a global-mean value of 0.8 °C and roughly 2 °C at high latitudes, large enough to have stopped a glaciation of northeastern Canada predicted by two kinds of climatic models. CO2 oscillations of 10 ppm in the last 1000 years are toolarge to be explained by external (solar-volcanic) forcing, but they can be explained by outbreaks of bubonic plague that caused historically documented farm abandonment in western Eurasia. Forest regrowth on abandoned farms sequestered enough carbon to account for the observed CO2decreases. Plague-driven CO2 changes were also a significant causal factor in temperature changes during the Little Ice Age (1300–1900 AD).

 

SpringerLink - Journal Article

 

 

And I also feel compelled to post this paper ,But You are Right SoilWatcher, this contention is for another thread.

 

If any field of endeavor Deserved a BIG TENT it is TP. The bigger the tent the better, it is the ultimate of a conservative cause and a tree hugging earth mother cause. Let every group political or scientific express their interest in TP the way they can. The local garden club to organic farmers to show off the horticultural gains, the environmental engineers and the fossil fuel chemical engineers............this list just goes on and on..........even the "fringe" or "new age" can play their part.

 

Erich

[redgreenblue]

Tomorrow there will be an interesting TP presentation at Wageningen University... also available online.

 

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus : With a special reference to the Terra Preta

 

Place: LA13

Time: 19.30 , January 31th

 

Presentation by Charles Mann, Amherst MA , U.S.A. ,

 

Gertjan Becx, Joep van den Broek and Guido van Hofwegen (Resilience Foundation, Wageningen)

 

This lecture is available in real-time/online on INTERNET via link WUR Video Archive

 

What was the Western Hemisphere like before Europeans arrived? Most of us have a few impressions from school long ago, or from movies and the popular culture: Columbus, the conquistadores, and the first Thanksgiving. Most of those ideas are wrong, says author Charles Mann in his book: 1491 - New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus . The bestseller book combines research of the past decades on the pre-Columbian Americas .

 

Mann argues that the Americas had a far larger population than was previously assumed. The Americas inhabited multiple cultures, languages and large cities. Mann claims that the idea of a pristine, natural environment in the Americas before 1491 is untrue. The ecological conditions there were shaped by human activity far before European colonization.

 

One of the greatest achievements of the native population of the Amazon, and main topic of the presentation, is the creation of Terra Preta. Terra Preta is a very stable soil type with a very high fertility. Researchers conclude that this soil type is able to produce 4-10 times as much food as other tropical soils. The creation of this soil was crucial for sustaining large populations.

 

Terra Preta are probably a product of indigenous soil management involving a labor intensive technique of slash-and-char. In addition, the presence of fish bones and special bacteria and fungi play a role. Until now some of the questions on the miraculous fertility of Terra Preta have been answered, but many questions with respect to the origin, distribution, and properties remain. Currently, Wageningen researchers attempt to unravel some of the remaining mysteries surrounding Terra Preta and they even attempt to recreate Terra Preta. After the presentation of Charles Mann some of the Terra Preta research conducted at Wageningen University will be discussed.

 

The 1491 book introduced Terra Preta to a broader audience. It received very positive reviews, was on several bestseller lists, and was on a number lists for best book of the year.

[RBlack]

To All,

 

I would like to know what critics are saying about Terra Preta, why it doesn't work, why its not good excettra. I have heared about "nitrogen shock" and in Chapter 6 of Amazonian Dark Earths they also mention some negative.

 

http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/lehmann/terra_preta/Book/12Lehmann.pdf

 

Any body have others?

Thanks RB

[Michaelangelica]

I have used Mycorrhizal fungus inoculation in planting custom ornamental gardens for about ten years.

I think in your case erich dealing with an area that is degraded or creating anew space/garden adding soil "life" is the way to go.

 

I wonder about where I live; where houses were first built about 100 years ago. Prior to that the aborigines had it for 60,000 years. There are still many remnants of original bush

Perhaps there is still some remnant interesting "soil buggies" still surviving here? If I start mucking about with the soil what will I change? So little is known about what we have here now. I believe it is very hard to grow many bacteria/fungi on agar plates in a lab.

Is there such a thing as micro-bio-histeo-archeoologist? It would be nice to do a survey of the soil in new housing areas before the houses go up. Surveys are done of the plants, but not of the soil "zoo".

The Japanese just found a bug that makes the recalcitrant phosphorus in their soil bio-available (Lots of phosphorus there because of volcanic soils)

 

I remember I once had a problem with root knot nematode and got rid of it with lots of mulch and sugar. Apparently i was tipping the soil balance to favor the yeast like predator of the RN nematode. I wonder what else iI did? My roses grew 1,000 times better- that's all I cared about.

 

Rblack

I would like to know what critics are saying about Terra Preta, why it doesn't work,

two questions here

1. As far as sequestering carbon

2. As far as improving soil fertility

 

As far as the first is concerned I have heard no criticism. Mostly the idea has not hit public consciousness yet.

In my opinion it is the best way to go rather than putting the CO2 gas down a hole (Which the big Oil Companies want)

 

As for the second some plants don't respond as well as others to char

( I would have to go searching for the list).

 

Some people see burning anything as a problem. But when char is produced in a well designed pyrolysis plant there should not be a problem.

 

I will read the link you gave and get back to you

What criticisms have you heard?

 

PS THAN YOU GOD/TORMOND I LOOOVE the new spell checker!:cup: :lol: :) ;) ;)

[redgreenblue]

I would like to know what critics are saying about Terra Preta, why it doesn't work, why its not good excettra.

 

I haven't seen much outright criticism, but there are some concerns that need to be researched to see if they have any merit.

 

A few examples are in this presentation by Wageningen researchers:

http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/lehmann/biochar/WCSS2006/van%20Hofwegen%20presentation.pdf

 

(slide 5)

* Nitrate concentrations increases(?)

* What will happen with P? (Dutch sandy soils are P saturated, increased availability might lead to leaching)

* Increased bacterial activity might increase gaseous losses (N2O).

 

(slide 10)

* Will it be cost effective?

* Is it possible to char ‘wet’ wastes?

* Will the charcoal be usable (heavy metal content /P content etcetera)?

 

Some info on the effect of a high C:N ratio is found in Lehmann et al. in their 2006 paper on "Bio-char Sequestration in Terrestrial Ecosystems"

 

The combination of returning bio-chars with high C/N ratios and abiotic buffering of mineralNmay in some situations lead to low N availability to crops (Lehmann and Rondon 2005). In experiments in northern Sweden, however, increased nitrification and decreased ammonification was found after the addition of activated C to a pine forest (Berglund et al. 2004). It appears that the effects of bio-char on N dynamics in soils is not entirely understood. In a greenhouse study in Colombia, leguminous plants were able to compensate for low N availability with increased biological N2 fixation which is actually stimulated by bio-char additions (Rondon et al. 2004). Non-legumes, however, may require additional N fertilization to compensate for the immobilization. This is an undesirable effect as more N applications require more production of N fertilizers which is very energy-demanding (West and Marland 2002). Three solutions are possible which are not mutually exclusive: (i) bio-chars are only applied to leguminous plants until sufficient N has built up to allow economically satisfactory production of non-legumes without a net increase of N fertilization; (ii) bio-chars are fortified with N for example in a composting step or during the production of bio-char in an energy production process (Lee and Li 2003); (iii) the amounts of applied bio-char are adjusted at a sufficiently low level to allow for N to accumulate and plant productivity to optimize.

 

Also in the "Black is the New Green" Nature article there were some concerns about how to integrate this with no-till agriculture, since the char may have a consistency similar to ash & could blow away.

[malcolmf]

Hi

 

I'm a newbie here, but I've been researching soil carbon sequestration for a while, and terra preta is my favourite way to save this planet. Global warming, drought and soil depletion attacked in one stroke.

 

However... OK, you found mycorrhizal fungi ages ago, but then no mention of glomalin in this thread, or any other for that matter. Glomalin is a carbon-rich protein exuded by the fungi that literally sticks around in the soil, giving it tilth. If there is one structural property of TP it is tilth, but I'm still looking for someone who has actually proven the link with glomalin. Glomalin's carbon is provided by the parasitised plant (which took it from the air of course) in return for nutrients from way beyond the plant root system.

 

Try this seminal article (google it because I cannot post links here yet) and any follow up.

 

Glomalin: Hiding Place for a Third of the World's Stored Soil Carbon

 

Then say how many of the puzzles about TP you think it might solve.

 

Thank the lord for Sara Wright.

[malcolmf]

Also in the "Black is the New Green" Nature article there were some concerns about how to integrate this with no-till agriculture, since the char may have a consistency similar to ash & could blow away.

 

True. But isn't no-till a bit more sophisticated than that? Liquid manure, top dressings of fertiliser and compost, worm activity, etc., some of which could hang onto ground-up carbon and take it under the surface.

 

And in the end, even if some is lost to the intended terra preta, it still exists and it is still sequestering carbon for quite a while. No charcoal is bad charcoal.:)

[Michaelangelica]

* Increased bacterial activity might increase gaseous losses (N2O).

Can't see how this would happen. Can you explain? Bacteria are mainly carbon too. Are they excreting gas?

 

(slide 10)

* Will it be cost effective?

* Is it possible to char ‘wet’ wastes?

Yes, very cost effective, but the wetter the waste the less energy efficient the pyrolysis system will be. Best Energies Pyrolysis Machine can handle up to 70% water.(!)

* Will the charcoal be usable (heavy metal content /P content etcetera)?

Depends on what you use. Mostly no, but you do have a heavy metal problem with some sewage sludges. There is a lot of other organic waste out there before we tackle sewage.

 

Some info on the effect of a high C:N ratio is found in Lehmann et al. in their 2006 paper on "Bio-char Sequestration in Terrestrial Ecosystems"

Again it depends on what you use to make char. Best Energies are experimenting with many organic manures.

 

 

since the char may have a consistency similar to ash & could blow away.

No, that's just silly

They obviously haven't used charcoal; they have used wood ash two VERY different things. The Japanese are using charcoal up to 5mm diameter (Continuing a 10 year research programme with Tea trees). The size of your charcoal can be adjusted and will depend on what you start with.

 

A "no-till" or 'little'-till system seems to give best results on building up soil microbiological life.

Remember that Terra preta is not just a simple matter of adding charcoal to the soil.

It is more complex than that and will obviously depend on local soil conditions.

 

On the chemistry side of things I can't help. I will leave that to the soil scientists and chemists

[RBlack]

To Michaelangelica;

In this study http://www.soils.wisc.edu/soils/courses/875/14Exemplary(A).pdf

The Amazonian farmers say the Terra Preta is good for vegetables and cereal crops but not so much for some fruit trees and root crops. Most likly this results from too much available nitrogen that creates good leaf growth but little product yield. It is possible that some crops need to exhaust a certain amunt of the available nitrogen from the soil to trigger the switch over from leaf growth to fruit or tuber development.

 

I would like to see your list of plants tha don't respond well to Terra Preta (charcoal/biochar), and see if fruit trees and some types or root crops are on there.

 

In the L. German study the farmers also mention that a drawback to Terra Preta soils are that they grow too many weeds.

 

It maybe that Terra Preta soils might be too fertile for some crops. Also almost all the TP studies are done on tropical, acidic, highly leached/weatherd soils and I wonder what the difference may be when we apply them to temperate, alkaline, non-leached soils?

 

You also asked redbluegreen about gaseous losses. One paper I read by Lehmann (don't know which one but will try and find out), mentiond that TP soils reduce outgassing but I don't remember if N2O was mentioned.

 

I firmly believe that once we start getting data on Terra Preta soil creation and use in temperate climates we will find lots of good exciting things happen, some negative things, and quite a bit of unexpected things!! The whole nature of Terra Preta soil, as one article put it, is that it's a "super-organism" with all the nutrients, microbial life, and chemical and physical properties that charcoal would give it. I think that in many ways we will find that Terra Preta has a life of its own and will sometimes behave unpredictably!!

 

RB

[Michaelangelica]

tilth. If there is one structural property of TP it is tilth, but I'm still looking for someone who has actually proven the link with glomalin..

This article might help. It has only been discovered for about 10 years but many articles are now popping up about it especially as it may store a 1/3 of the soils/worlds? carbon

Glomalin hiding place for a third of the world's stored soil carbon

Agricultural Research, Sept, 2002 by Don Comis

Glomalin hiding place for a third of the world's stored soil carbon Agricultural Research - Find Articles

[malcolmf]

This article might help.

Agricultural Research, Sept, 2002 by Don Comis

 

Thanks, but that is a derivative of the article I referred you to above. You can find a prettier original and much else besides at the USDA website. (I can't post links until I've done 10 messages). Take a look in particular at the measured glomalin content of soils in Hawaii & Japan and work out how much could be stored per hectare if those conditions could be reproduced.:)

 

What I'd really like to read is an article that explicitly examines the role of glomalin production in the formation and claimed (but fabled?) powers of regeneration of terra preta. Maybe they are still looking. Maybe no-one has put 2 + 2 together.

 

M

[malcolmf]

I would like to see your list of plants tha don't respond well to Terra Preta (charcoal/biochar), and see if fruit trees and some types or root crops are on there.

 

Can I second that please? I'd be particularly interested in how well brassicas do, because they are implicated in suppressing arbuscular mycorrhizae.

 

M

[malcolmf]

... about gaseous losses. One paper I read by Lehmann (don't know which one but will try and find out), mentiond that TP soils reduce outgassing but I don't remember if N2O was mentioned.

 

Again, sorry for not being able to give you links yet, which is also why I'm sending annoyingly separate replies.:) There is huge 23Mb Powerpoint from Marco A. Rondón, Juan A. Ramirez & Johannes Lehmann from a USDA Symposium on C sequestration. Baltimore, March 24, 2005. You could google it; I could mail the relevant slides; or you could just take the headlines:

 

"Net fluxes of methane and nitrous oxide decrease with additions of charcoal to soils

Even small amounts of charcoal added to soils can offset net emissions of CH4 and N2O"

 

N20 emissions reduced by 40% in test trenches of beans + charcoal.

CH4 emissions reduced by 100 mg per sq m per crop cycle in field conditions + charcoal, in one case going negative (absorption).

 

If these could be verified, I guess they would be creditable under Kyoto, unlike the far more effective sequestration of char.

 

M