Yeat another article in the popular press.
Good, but not much that is new
Some quotes
http://www.deltafarmpress.com/news/051114-terra-preta/
Lehman is being interviewed by By David Bennettfrom from "The Farm Press"
Among the most important properties are high nutrient concentrations (especially for calcium and phosphorus). Most likely, this is linked to a unique utilization of agricultural and fishery waste products.
"We believe that fish residues are an important portion of the high phosphorus concentrations. Phosphorus is really the number one limiting nutrient in the central Amazon.
What were the Indians growing? Tree crops? Row crops?
"There has been some pollen analysis. It suggests manioc and maize were being grown 2,000 to 3,000 years ago. In the pollen bank, these crops didn�t pop up sporadically but in large numbers.
"But all kinds of crops were grown by the Indians. Palm trees, under-story fruit trees, Brazil nut trees all were very important
On the differences between slash-and-burn and slash-and-char agriculture�
"We have very good indications that the Amerindian populations couldn�t have practiced slash-and-burn and created these soils.
"It�s also highly unlikely that a population relying on stone axes would have practiced slash-and-burn anyway. The normal soils are so poor that with a single slash-and-burn event, you can only crop without fertilizer for two years at most. Then the soil has to be left fallow again.
�Primary forest trees have a diameter of 2 or 3 meters. If all you had was a stone ax in your hand, you�d find a different way to deal with agriculture than felling these huge trees every two years.
�The difference between (the two systems) is the slash-and-char wouldn�t burn in an open fire. Charcoal would be produced under partial exclusion of oxygen. We envision that happening by natives covering up piled up logs with dirt and straw. These charcoal-making systems are still being used around the world
How close are researchers to duplicating terra preta?
�We�re working intensively. We don�t need to take any terra preta anywhere. What we want to do is become knowledgeable about how terra preta was created and then create it elsewhere with local resources.
�Research on this is ongoing in Columbia, in Kenya. I have research colleagues in Japan and Indonesia also working on this. At the moment, there is a lot of excitement but there�s a lot of work to do.�
How terra preta could help industrialized countries�
"We envision systems based on some of the principles of terra preta. And this isn�t just for tropical agriculture. This could be very important for U.S. agriculture.
"Terra Preta could mean a reduction in environmental pollution. What works as a retaining mechanism in Amazonia could work in the United States where there are concerns of phosphates and nitrates entering groundwater and streams. We have only begun to realize the potential of how this could reduce pollution in industrialized countries.
Luckily the principles of creating bio-char soils will be very similar no matter what area of the world you're in. Results obtained in Brazil will be pertinent for the United States.
In terms of widespread adoption, it's still some way away. There are still knowledge gaps. For instance, we know there are important differences in the effects of bio-char on soil fertility depending on what material you use and what temperature and under what conditions the char is produced. That's something we should be able to resolve within a year or two. Once that's done, we can take the systems to Extension Services around the world and make larger scale, on-farm research plots.
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m, me-
I would love to know what the Japanese Soil Scientists are up too.
They may have been using charchol for a very long time in their agriculture.
Know any way we can get Japanese research?
