Quote:
Originally Posted by davidgmills
I have read numerous times here to not disturb the soil much or turn it.
While that may be a good idea if the charcoal is pulverized, from what I see it would take a lot longer to get lump sized charcoal degraded to particle size if the soil is not frequently tilled.
I intentionally did not pulverize my lump charcoal just to see how quickly it would degrade into smaller pieces. What I find is that constantly turning it exposes the charcoal to new soil and it degrades much faster.
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David
I understand this. But you need to find out whether you are making terra preta or just burying charcoal to little effect on your soil fertility or the atmosphere. Digging could be destroying the soil structures and organisms that increase fertility and protect the carbon from decomposition. If so, what's the point in digging? Glaser writes in
Amazonian Dark Earths (p153, without himself giving a reference) that
"it is known that ADEs were not tilled by the native population", and this matches Hecht's present-day observations. Her observations and soil analyses suggest that the char they added was not lumpwood charcoal, just the residue from all manner of incomplete burning.
Try using crushed char under mulch and let worms do the burying for you. They may be slow but my word are they thorough.
M
