My life is being slowly taken over by terra preta (like the cre ep ing socialism in USA
)
I am having troubles understanding some abbreviations in the book, "Amazonian Dark Earths" Can any one help? (No I don't have a copy of the book)
Talking about organic and inorganic carbon in soil ; they use this abbreviation "Mg C ha-1 m-1"
The "-1"s are above the line.
So ADE, Soil Organic Carbon stocks are estimated at " 147-506 Mg C ha-1 m-1 "(p127). What does that mean?
In other research articles I am sure I read people talk about 10-20% charcoal content in ADE. So far I have not found an accurate estimate of charcoal (apart from organic carbon) in ADEs In the book
Another problem
Many of the articles I have read (especially Japanese ones ) talk about Charcoal stopping the leaching of nutients, even though ADEs are more friable. This seems to be true but I was surprised by this comment:-
"When inorganic nutrients were applied to amazonian Dark Earths as a fertiliser, however, leaching proved very high and exceeded that found in the Ferralsol" (p115)
So what gives? Are only organic nutrients saved?
It also seems some crops do better than others because of the nutrients most persistent in ADEs P, N and Ca seem high
