[Michaelangelica]

For those that have mastered the basics, here is the forum to discuss more "fuuzy' or new issues and new research

TP covers a lot of concepts.

Here are a few I can think of at the top of my head.
If you think one of these areas deserve a thread of its own then start one.


1. "Wee beasties" or critters in TP
2. Home made TP recipies and results
3 Making and grinding charcoal (solar, backyard, coppicing)
4. Native people's use of fire and charcoal
5 Pyrolysis- the future of TP?- Engineering, firms contacts
6. Academic and members articles on TP or related to TP
7 Environmental impacts of TP
8. Charcoal types varieties What is it?
9. Websites (already there now)
10 History and archeology of TP and native use of charcoal in Agriculture
11 Making better plants-Garden and horticultural use of Charcoal and Tp
12 Farming use of Charcoal and TP
13. Carbon credits How they work Will they work for TP
14 Global warming (One of the two reasons to have TP)
15 The politics of TP /( how to get governments on board,? TP verses other sequestration methods favored by BIG OIL ; Winning Branson's prize
16 Terra preta in German (already here)
17 TP in Brazillian (Spanish?) This would be GREAT if we could get translations- along with the Japanese- they are doing most of the research
189 Heavy Soil Science Issues eg Glomalin is going to be contentious; but it could go in with wee beasties or its own "wee mushrooms" thread ???
19 Miscellaneous
20. Photos

[erich]

Hi all,

Here are a series of post that clarify the critcal roll of Glomalin for TP
formation

At hypography Glomalin Posts;
http://hypography.com/forums/search.php?searchid=140110

Philip Small's Blog; _http://transectpoints.blogspot.com/_
(transect points)


Also, here is the Blog which I first read of Glomalin; Search Results






Glomalin and Terra Preta - 02-11-2007, 03:35 AM


____________________________________


Fellow blogger, Back40, and I have been tossing out the potential glomalin
link to TP function for awhile. I even emailed Dr. Lehman enthusiastically
about glomalin a few weeks ago, thinking to pull my thoughts together on it for
a blog post. He was not unaware of the rationale. His entirely neutral
response reined me in a bit.

Since then my soil fungi:bacteria thinking has been highly stimulated by
reading Jeff Lowenfels' "Teaming with Microbes" and it has hit me: it's got to
be more complicated than just AMF kicking up their glomalin production. Maybe
glomalin can account for the initial stages of transformation to TP, but there
are pitfalls to fungi as an explanation for TP's self-replication once it
has reached its full expression. By then the pH has come up, not so great for
the fungi. By then the phosphorus levels have come up, not so great for
mycorhhyzal mutualism.

The soils I see in the pictures of TP remind me of the types more conducive
to high bacterial populations than fungal populations. If it is fungi, it
would seem to be from a highly adapted fungal species. Perhaps, but could TP be
an other-than-fungi/glomalin phenomenon? If so, we may be looking for a new
recalcitrant organic carbon based substance in TP and an undiscovered pathway
for its formation.

I think TP formation is driven by plant root exudates being delivered to
grow microbial biomass, sequestering carbon pulled from the air. The fungi-like
bacteria, actinomycetes, seems a candidate. Next I would consider the
archeae. And because it is soil, the reality here has the potential to be
deliciously nonlinear, multi-staged, complex and inter-connected.

[RBlack]

Erich,

I very much agree with your post above and feel that formation of humus, humin, glomalin, and other stable soil organic material may be what makes Terra Preta. What drives Terra Preta is the adsorption properties of charcoal/carbon and the physical structure that charcoal gives to the soil for microbes, and soil structure and texture. The adsorption properties act as a "bank" that keeps most everything that goes into the soil and everything that happens in the soil around for use and reuse. If you have enough positive conditions (air, water, SOM, microbes, nutrients, CEC, good parent minerals), then you get formation of stable SOM. Once you have a good amount of stable SOM then this drives the system even more by being both a catalyst for creating positive soil conditions and a repository for nutrients and minerals. At some point you get the right mix of charcoal, stable SOM, and microbial life that creates the self sustaining system we call Terra Preta. That may be why Amazonian farmers say that Terra Preta grows back and why in the hot and high rain environment of the Amazon that Terra Preta has persisted.

RB

[erich]

WOW.....RB,
You said it all in one paragraph!............I'll be cutting and pasteing this wildly.



Field Studies!

These recent posts between Rich Haard and Sean are pure music to my ears! I can't wait, my mouth is dripping for the next update!;


"Hi Sean

Might as well forward this to the list


On Mar 9, 2007, at 10:20 AM, Sean K. Barry wrote:


Hi Richard,

"This looking for differences in growth and size of leaves and root nodulation has not worked for me." Maybe the charcoal used in that test does not have the properties to make it useful as AgChar? You'll more tests of charcoal produced under different conditions. You will need controls in un-amended soil that a right next to the test plots, just like Steiner did.


My latest round of experiments last summer and the previous season were well controlled. Between circumstances that happened and most likely poor design i did not get the effect I was looking for.


Steiner and Lehmann are my present model for experimental method. This will involve close monitoring of the soil organic matter and soil chemistry as well as foliage analysis. I am putting my plan together now and am today talking with a lab to see if i can get analysis I need without breaking the bank.


Steiners randomized field study involved a very large tract of land that I do not have at our little farm. However a paper published by Dr Lehmann - Lehmann, J, et al Nutrient availability and leaching in an archaeological Anthrosol and a Ferralsol of the Central Amazon basin: fertilizer, manure and charcoal amendments, Plant and soil 249:343-357, 2003

This paper seems to be a precursor of the field study done by Steiner. It may give some ideas on how to set up our own controlled study using containers as a method to study.


If I can get through this next summer to develop an experimental test to evaluate our farming practices this will be a big step for us. I would like to use about 225 large containers and a drip system with timer. I'm mycologist for sure but not expert in mycorrhizial fungi as I am 40 years out of graduate school. We have purchased stains and fixatives to do root examination and we will be learning this as we go along. Our crop is around 500 species of native plants and we are thinking about doing a set of experiments with a native aster and a local shrub known as thimbleberry. Both make prolific growth in one season and we have lots of small starts from our seedbeds.


It's a pretty big project and until now I have been fiddling around with charcoal as supplement myself. Now there are 3 of us to work on this during the season and am excited to be doing this. I am thinking about 10 treatments with permutations and controls on two species. Hope to launch about mid May and I will keep the list informed about my planning.

Best Rich Haard



So you are a mycologist? Well, maybe you could do some tests on reproduction of vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhizal (VAM) fungi in soil containing charcoal? As I understand the function of VAM in soil, it has a symbiotic relationship with plants growing in the soil. It delivers soluble minerals to the roots of plants, through its "vascular" system of hyphae, which it grows into the soil, in exchange for sugar from the plants. Some theorize that charcoal's porous nature provides a habitat for the growth of VAM in soil amended with it. I hope you have some insights about VAM which you might share with our group.

Regards,


Sean K. Barry
Principal Engineer/Owner
Troposphere Energy, LLC
sean.barry At juno.com
----- Original Message -----
From: Richard Haard
To: Sean K. Barry
Sent: Friday, March 09, 2007 1:35 AM
Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] some thoughts on charcoal production and transportation


Sean

Thank you very much for this feed back. This is a topic I have wondered much about as you can probably tell. I enjoy trying to grasp the big picture on this and am personal friend of a pyrolyser developer just north of here (John Flottvik). This aspect of charcoal is a topic of conversation with him to explore just how decentralized biochar production might help to mitigate global warming.


This Terrapreta reading list has been very helpful to me so far. I really have nothing personal invested in this other than intellectual pursuit and getting comments such as yours are just great. I got a special kick out of the willy-nilly comment that came out after I described my multi-sourcing of char in my farmer testing. Soon after Michael sent me a pdf of his char characterization paper.


John will be supplying my charcoal for my next round of research from both conifer and hardwood sources. i am excited now that i will have it characterized and will have good information on pyrolysing conditions. All of the papers i have poured over the last month offer very little information about conditions of its creation, I do understand though that this is good information to have.


I really did enjoy meeting Dr. Ogawa at the UGA conference in 2004. He is a fellow mycologist and I appreciate his view of charcoal as habitat, a point that has directed my research efforts. My last round of field research at our production intensive nursery has convinced me i need to develop a more analytical approach as expressed by Steiner and Lehmann. This looking for differences in growth and size of leaves and root nodulation has not worked for me.

Best Wishes

Rich Haard

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[Michaelangelica]

Interesting post on naturally occurring cgar on Permaculture Forums
View topic - charcoal agriculture - Biochar - Amazonian Dark Earth | Permaculture discussion forum
Not sure what to make of it.