Science Forums 2

[davidgmills]

Chris Brandow:

I know that terra preta's charcoal is ground to smithereens. But was it done that way by the aboriginals? I have serious doubts about that. That seems like way too much work. It seems to me that most of this charcoal started out in good sized chunks and nature broke it down. How long did that take? I have no idea.

So I just dumped mine on the garden. A shovel will easily break these lumps into small pieces. As I continue to turn the soil, I break up the bigger pieces. Do I get them to dust? No. But I am basically experimenting to see how long it takes nature to do the job and how well this works even without small particles of charcoal. Obviously on large farm, if farmers make their own charcoal, they are going to have a problem turning the charcoal to dust. So I guess I am experiementing. On the epreda website, the eureka moment was when the owner was told large parsnips were growing in a charcoal pile. It seemed to me that there had been no attempt at all to particlize this charcoal. So that tells me the process works even without particlizing it.