Science Forums 2

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by coldhead

A while ago I saw on tv a show about the above.

It is patches of extremelly fertile soils in areas in south america, around the amazon, that where cultivated for ages before any european apperance. As the locals died off rather quickly after exposure to the europeans, not much scientific/real knowledege exists about this 'soil'.

The tv show had a local that stated that he and his family had been selling this black soil for ages and it just kept on growing.

The blurb from the show mentioned there was charcole added to the mix.

Any hypographers heard of this stuff?
Would adding chrcole to the mix of my mulch help me?
Should I be commerciallizing this new breakthrough?

I just watched this show on the Science Channel. 2005 date on it. The title & first half of the hour long show focussed on a 1542 Spanish explorer's account of wide spred populations on the Amazon & tributaries, and the second half focussed on terra preta.
Fishteacher mentioned slash & burn as unsustainable, but the show explained that the current practice reduces all to ash, wheras controlled burning to charcoal leaves...well, charcoal. The charcoal is thought to hold the nutrients (by adsorption) from washing away.
More than just a charcoal rich soil, the show closed with the ongoing catalogueing of the thousands of different micro-organisms in the soil in the search for what is responsible for the stuff apparently 'regrowing'.
At the least, add activated charcoal to your garden ay? At's wut it's all aboot.