From Michael's Posting on the TP Bioenergy List;
"Classifying, naming, describing, all soil micro flora/fauna in all climes is probably beyond anyone's reach. Apart from the difficulty of growing soil micro flora in lab conditions.
Their dynamic interactions with each other and plants are only poorly understood
We would need a NASA type budget even to have a chance of discovering what life lives under our feet on this planet.
SEE
We need a trillion more indoor plants.
for more discussion and posts about this very important aspect of Terra preta
We still don't know if it is a unique suite of Amazonian micro-organisms that make TP work as well as it does there. "
To this end I have been researching Metagenomic work with soils. Way over my head, sending emails to convince these guys to support a Metagenomic Project for Terra Preta Soil Technology.
I sent off my TP post & links to all the contacts on the soils studies on this list ;
http://www.genomesonline.org/gold.cgi?want=Metagenomes
Charles Mann, in the May issue of National Geographic, reminds us of the Columbian Exchange's profound reuniting of life on earth. Earth & Blood worms as invasive species?! ...WOW.
Our agriculture has already stirred the weebeastie pot, and over 10,000 years pumped a majority of GHG
to the atmosphere.
Carbon back to the soils is the only road home.
All of us thrive with good infrastructure, char goes way beyond the old saw of "Feed the soil not the plant" to feeding, clothing, housing, transport, utilities and health care to the soil.
The small steps being taken now by many diverse folks on the list, academia, and private sector to develop protocols should show us if there will be any runaway problems with opportunistic bugs or fungi in building these soil communities.
We have been groping in the microbial dark for a very long time, now with tools like Metagenomics, we will see the light of our symbiotic relationships with weebeasties in our health as well as our soils.
P. S.
Yesterday I was contacted by a journalist for the New York Times, wanting to do a carbon to the soil story. She was crest fallen when I told her that SCIAM did a Terra Preta article in May, she wanted an exclusive. I sent her all my links and she will be pitching the story to her editor for a full assignment. I comforted her by saying that no major paper had done a TP story and that hardly anyone but academics read Nature and SCIAM.
CROSS YOUR FINGERS.........This could start balls rolling.........NYT; Circulation 1,120,420 Daily
1,627,062 Sunday
Erich J. Knight
Shenandoah Gardens
1047 Dave Berry Rd.
McGaheysville, VA. 22840
(540) 289-9750
shengar@aol.com
