Coal as a soil amendment?!

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by Rev

i cant give refernces but i have often read of lignite in potting media and as a source of humic acids

however its still a fossil fuel. ok for local use but lets not entertain broadscale use
once its up it will degrade and release more co2

Humates

These materials are usually produced by liquefaction of Brown Coal, although solid and soluble products have also appeared recently. These materials have never been regarded as fertilisers, but rather as “Soil conditioners”, with effects on soil structure, presumed to be due to their high Carbon content. However, many criticisms about the use of Humates have pointed to the small amount of Carbon actually applied, compared with the increases in Soil Organic Carbon that manufacturers claim. Others dismiss these criticisms, saying that humates act as catalysts for biological processes which lead to accumulation of organic matter in the soil.

Research by SWEP may actually support this latter contention, as it showed humates produce a similar change in microbial profile to Kelp extracts, but with a strong suppression of Lactic acid bacteria and stimulation of Cellulose utilisers. In a sense, these materials appear to work as if they were some kind of ‘hybrid’ between kelp extracts and fish emulsions, but generally at higher application rates. This finding also appears to support the general feeling among both manufacturers and users that combination products between two or more of these three materials can be more effective that each alone.

Due to the wide range of product formulations, there is probably no single effective application rate, but again the lower application rates appeared to be the more effective.

http://www.swep.com.au/pages/best/biological.html

or,
said slighly differently

HUMATES
These materials are usually
produced by liquefaction of
brown coal, although solid and
soluble products have also appeared recently. They have never
been regarded as fertilisers, but rather as soil conditioners,
with effects on soil structure, presumed to be due to their high
carbon content.
However, many criticisms about the use of humates have pointed to the small amount of carbon actually applied, compared with the increases in soil organic carbon that manufacturers claim.
Others dismiss these criticisms, saying that humates act as catalysts for biological processes which lead to accumulation of organic matter in the soil, rather than simply adding carbon to the soil.
Research by SWEP may actually support this latter contention, as it showed humates produce a similar change in
microbial profile to kelp extracts, but with a strong suppres-
sion of lactic acid bacteria and an additional stimulation of
cellulose utilisers. In a sense, these materials appear to work as
if they were some kind of hybrid between kelp extracts and
fish emulsions, but generally at higher application rates. This
finding also appears to support the general feeling among
both manufacturers and users that combination products
between two or more of these three materials can be more
effective than each alone.
Due to the wide range of product formulations, there is
probably no single effective application rate, but again the
lower application rates appeared to be the more effective.

Bioactive materials for sustainable soil management

Interesting article on humates
Humates & Humic Substances

Include humate and molasses with the micro-organism package.

Humate contains humic and fulvic acid, is high in trace minerals, and may be found in both a liquid and a dry powder form. Humate increases water aggregates, infiltration, and percolating; benefits soil structure, enhances root growth, and reduces leaching, runoff and erosion. Humate can be used as a foliar to aid stress.

Molasses acts as a soil amendment and is an excellent chelating agent plus providing trace nutrients.

Welcome to the Holistic Horse Magazine

On the TP List-server a while ago there was some discussion of sugar as a fertiliser/soil amendment.

I just read this

"Molasses contains powerful chelating agents. . These. .envelop metal atoms. . . cyclic hydroxamic acids. . .The plants from which molasses is made presumably use these chelating agents to extract minerals from the soil

page148
'How to Fossilise your Hamster' and other amazing experiments M O'Hare

[Folke Günther]

No, probably not. As you saw in the picture of lignite forming, it is strongly compressed. The fine thing with ading charcoal is that you add a tremendous lot of surface to the soil. (One bag of charcoal, 2.5 kg, has an internal surface area of one square kilometre!). The surface works as a habitat for microorganisms and an adsorption surface for minerals and nutrients.
When you compress it, as in coal formation, you loose the surface. So, adding lignite or anthracite to he soil is nothing better than adding stones. In principle is a way to sequester carbon, but even better would it be if you never had taken it up.

[Moontanman]

I grew up in "Coal Country" the hills of West Virginia (USA) the amount of ecological damage done by coal is difficult to quantify. Coal is full of very acidic sulfates and leaching of this and other chemicals from coal has killed entire water sheds of lakes, streams, and rivers. Almost nothing grows in theses areas. Anywhere coal is stored or processed suffers from the same effects. Coal contains lots of radio-nucleotides. Spreading coal around also spreads these elements around and coal releases radon gas as well. I have no desire to spread coal in any form in my garden or even my neighborhood. Even if you can somehow neutralize the damage of the chemicals in coal the damage done by the process of mining the coal makes it not worth the effort.

[Michaelangelica]

Another interesting blog on humates

SOURCES OF HUMIC SUBSTANCES AND THEIR VALUE AS FERTILIZER INGREDIENTS

Humic substances commonly occur within soils, waters, peat, and in carbon containing minerals such as brown coals, low grade lignites, and leonardites.

"carbon containing minerals"= charcoal ??

Humic acids (HAs) and fulvic acids (FAs) are excellent foliar fertilizer carriers and activators. Application of humic acids (HAs) or fulvic acids (FAs) in combination with trace elements and other plant nutrients, as foliar sprays, can improve the growth of plant foliage, roots, and fruits. By increasing plant growth processes within the leaves an increase in carbohydrates content of leaves and stems occurs.

Most small molecules of non-humic substances are rapidly degraded by microorganisms within the soil. In contrast soil humus is slow to decompose (Degrade) under natural soil conditions. When in combination with soil minerals soil humus can persist in the soil for several hundred years.

The Wonderful World of Humus and Carbon

From a site that sell humates from Victorian Brown Coal.
Don't these sound like the benefits claimed by chatcoal in soil?

# Nutri-Mate has a very high Cation Exchange Capacity (250), with an associated ability for nutrient and moisture retention.
# Nutri-Mate contains the highest organic carbon levels of any input. Organic carbon is the principle limiting factor in many soils.
# Organic carbon is the home base for beneficial micro-organisms.
# Nutri-Mate Organic Humates deliver slow-release humic acid, at a price that equates to a few cents per litre.
# Nutri-Mate is a highly effective soil conditioner, largely due to its stimulation of fungi which generate desirable crumb structure in the soil.

Ylad Living Soils - Products - Nutri - Nutri-Mate Organic Humates™

[Michaelangelica]

This seems a strike aginst coal as a soil amendment?
or again does it depend on the coal, or pehaps the avilability of local, agriculture-friendly wee beasties?

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are a natural component of coal and petroleum. Because of their longevity and toxicity, sixteen of these substances were classed as particularly hazardous environmental pollutants as far back as the 1980s by the American environmental agency EPA. Adhesives containing coal tar were thus prohibited, as a health hazard. Some PAHs are unambiguously carcinogenic – as long as they are metabolised by the organism. Their bioavailability thus determines their toxicity. They are generally only bioavailable if the substances are water-soluble.
. . .
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the oil only decompose slowly due to the low Arctic temperatures.

Bioavailable Contaminants Come From Exxon Valdez Oil Catastrophe; Natural Coal Deposits Not Source Of Environmental Pollution, Study Finds

[maikeru]

PAHs are nasty. Increasing evidence of their contribution to air, water, and soil pollution. Read an article several months back where scientists concluded that coal tar and asphalt might need scrutiny and regulation because of the PAHs in them, which raise the risk of cancers, asthma, and other diseases.

Pavement Sealcoat A Source Of Toxins In Stormwater Runoff
Pavement Sealcoat Linked To Urban Lake Contamination In The Central And Eastern United States
Coal Tar-based Pavement Sealers Implicated As A Source Of Urban Water Pollution

Not only do asphalt/tar-paved roads cut up and occupy valuable land, they also pollute everything around them!

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by maikeru

PAHs are nasty. Increasing evidence of their contribution to air, water, and soil pollution. Read an article several months back where scientists concluded that coal tar and asphalt might need scrutiny and regulation because of the PAHs in them, which raise the risk of cancers, asthma, and other diseases.

Pavement Sealcoat A Source Of Toxins In Stormwater Runoff
Pavement Sealcoat Linked To Urban Lake Contamination In The Central And Eastern United States
Coal Tar-based Pavement Sealers Implicated As A Source Of Urban Water Pollution

Not only do asphalt/tar-paved roads cut up and occupy valuable land, they also pollute everything around them!

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

O god! that is all we need. What a mess we are making of the planet!

Most roads here are asphalt some/many with coal ash!
Surely white concrete that reflects heat-therefore reducing GWming?-- would be better?

An interesting and sobering TV program on 'clean' coal
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/

[Michaelangelica]

Use of brown coal in agriculture Excerpt from Science Show ABC
Alternative uses of coal - Science Show - 31 October 2009

Another use of brown coal could offer the exciting prospect of improving soil conditions and agricultural yield while at the same time actually helping to sequester carbon. John White works with LawrieCo on a system called BioLogic, which uses Victorian brown coal mixed with soil beneficial bacteria and fungi. He explains the scale of the problem and how this new system could help.

John White: It's been estimated by a number of soil scientists that across the whole 500 million hectares of Australia's agricultural lands, which is about two-thirds of the Australian continent, the average soil carbon content since European settlement has been reduced from around 3% or 4% down to probably around 1%.
That is the equivalent of losing between 150 and 200 billion tonnes of CO₂ equivalent from the soils as soil carbon.
Not all of that has been oxidised into the atmosphere, much of it has simply been washed down the rivers and into the lakes and the oceans, but it has been lost to the soil.
And so, for example, in Australia, if we rebuilt over the next 100 years soil carbon by catalysing grasses and the plants and the crops to suck the CO₂ down and deposit it in the soil through the root structures, we could offset the entirety of Australia's current fossil fuel greenhouse gas emissions for the next 50 to 100 years.

Sarah Castor-Perry: That's equivalent to over a billion tonnes of CO₂ being taken out of the atmosphere into the soil every year.
But Dr Michael Crawford from the Department of Primary Industries in Victoria believes caution is needed with the use of brown coal in agriculture and that we need a better understanding of whether there is truly a net benefit.
He makes the point that it does seem counterintuitive to dig up carbon as coal in one place, then spread it over fields in another and call it carbon sequestration.
But John White argues that the main motivation for the farmers already involved in the project was to improve their soils and their yields whilst reducing their costs.
Many had found the recent droughts combined with years of intensive farming has stripped their soils and made their businesses unviable.
The brown coal mixtures, combined with a change in farming techniques, such as not burning crop stubble and not deep ploughing the soil, have improved water retention, decreased salinity and the need for fungicides and pesticides.
He says the increase in soil carbon, and so the carbon sequestering benefits, was many welcome side effects.

John White, along with others, wants to see the soil carbon credits included in the government's carbon pollution reduction scheme, or CPRS. He argues that there's a huge potential using the brown coal system to provide cheap carbon credits and what he calls a carbon bridge to help reduce Australia's overall CO₂ emissions while new renewable energy sources are developed.
Both the Obama government in the US and the UN are calling for soil carbon to be included in the upcoming Copenhagen negotiations.
The UN's food and agriculture organisation has expressed concern that falling global carbon soil levels will pose problems for food production.
. . ..

A bit of a scatty and confused report but the message is slowly seeping though.

Here is a bit more about Dr John White & LawrieCo

Biological Farming Systems
Soil Carbon Tour (BFSSCT)
11‐12 May 2009
Tour Booklet
Revised Version 25 May 2009
The tour was hosted by
Ignite Energy Resources Director, Dr John White & LawrieCo Managing Director, Adrian Lawrie.
. . .
The BFSSCT highlighted the potential contribution of agriculture, using biological farming systems (BFS), to reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide into soil organic carbon (SOC), providing the
option to offset Australia’s emissions over the next 40 years.
Estimates are that a 1% increase in soil carbon in just 10% of Australia’s farmland could remove 10 years’ worth of Australia’s carbon emissions while a 4% increase in soil carbon could remove 40 years’ worth.
In addition, increasing soil carbon levels has economic benefits ‐ the potential to increase productivity, improve drought and salinity resistance, and to reduce the need for costly inputs (chemical fertilisers, insecticides/ pesticides and animal
drenches, et al – which will yield healthier food and fibre).
Currently there are over 300,000 hectares in Australia using BFS, indicating the additional benefits to agricultural
production over and above building SOC and CO2 sequestration.
These benefits reduce the cost of the carbon offsets, thus providing Australia with a low cost, environmentally beneficial
pathway to a low carbon economy – a ‘Carbon Bridge’

Key Points from BFS Properties Visited*

• 1. Reduced fertiliser use
• ‐ Up to 85% reduction in use of Nitrogenous fertiliser, reducing relative Nitrous Oxide (GHG)emissions
• ‐ Over 70% reduction in use of chemically treated phosphate fertiliser
• 2. Reduced incidence of pest and disease and subsequent use of insecticide/ fungicide sprays
• 3. Soil Organic Carbon increases up to 1.2% over 3 years and maintained with continuous cropping
• 4. Healthier stock (requiring less veterinary attention and mineral supplementation)
• 5. Pasture quality improvements, including species mix and resistance to dry periods
• 6. Soil water infiltration and holding capacity improved ‐ drought proofing in dry years
• 7. Building soil fertility index – mineral balance, biological activity and physical structure and friability
• 8. Return of natural soil biota – dung beetles, earthworms, beneficial bacteria and fungi et al
• 9. Higher quality produce with maintained or greater production levels

Biological Farming Systems Soil Carbon Tour (BFSSCT) Tour Booklet

Welcome to LawrieCo
LawrieCo has developed the most advanced BioLogic Farming Systems (BFS) for Australian Agriculture. The LawrieCo BFS delivers practical solutions to raise profits in farming, reduce chemical and synthetic fertiliser use and build soil chemical, biological and physical fertility (including carbon). LawrieCo offer specialist advice, inputs, on-farm consultation and networking with BioLogic Discussion Groups.

Established in 1998 LawrieCo has been built on a passion for improved farming techniques and commitment to working closely with farmers to enhance soil and crop output and reduce chemical usage.
The passion and the mission for LawrieCo BFS continues!

http://www.lawrieco.com.au/


ISTM that part of the resitance to this new concept of soil fertility comes from the simplistic thinking of chemists.
All seem just to want to play with reactions; Urea in = bread out.
When in fact soil, plant, biological systems are for more complex than what Chemists want to believe. It is like a kind of fundamentalism.

Chemist Justus von Liebig contributed greatly to the advancement in the understanding of plant nutrition. His influential works first denounced the vitalist theory of humus, arguing first the importance of ammonia, and later the importance of inorganic minerals. Primarily his work succeeded in setting out questions for agricultural science to address over the next 50 years. In England he attempted to implement his theories commercially through a fertilizer created by treating phosphate of lime in bone meal with sulphuric acid. Although it was much less expensive than the guano that was used at the time, it failed because it was not able to be properly absorbed by crops.

At that time in England Sir John Bennet Lawes was experimenting with crops and manures at his farm at Harpenden and was able to produce a practical superphosphate in 1842 from the phosphates in rock and coprolites, which are the fossilized excrement of dinosaurs. Encouraged, he employed Sir Joseph Henry Gilbert, who had studied under Liebig at the University of Giessen, as director of research. To this day, the Rothamsted research station that they founded still investigates the impact of inorganic and organic fertilizers on crop yields.

In France, Jean Baptiste Boussingault pointed out that the amount of nitrogen in various kinds of fertilizers is important.

Metallurgists Percy Gilchrist and Sidney Gilchrist Thomas invented the Thomas-Gilchrist converter, which enabled the use of high phosphorus acidic Continental ores on steelmaking. The dolomite lime lining of the converter turned in time into calcium phosphate, which could be used as fertilizer known as Thomas-phosphate.

In the early decades of the twentieth century the Nobel prize-winning chemists Carl Bosch of IG Farben and Fritz Haber developed the process[1] that enabled nitrogen to be cheaply synthesised into ammonia, for subsequent oxidization into nitrates and nitrites.

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/...ilizer#History
NPK in = Food out = BS (pure and unadulterated).

[maikeru]

If I follow their line of thinking correctly from what you've posted Michaelangelica, by applying lignite to farmland, essentially we are spreading million-year-old humus or something very similar? And by adding mass amounts of humus, we can quickly and cheaply rehabilitate and enhance farmland? Are there any worries about contamination with heavy metals or radioactivity from lignite use, as with other grades of coal? What is the stability of lignite in agricultural soils, though? Or compared to other forms of soil carbon?

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by maikeru

If I follow their line of thinking correctly from what you've posted Michaelangelica, by applying lignite to farmland, essentially we are spreading million-year-old humus or something very similar? And by adding mass amounts of humus, we can quickly and cheaply rehabilitate and enhance farmland?

Yes, I guess so

Are there any worries about contamination with heavy metals or radioactivity from lignite use, as with other grades of coal?
What is the stability of lignite in agricultural soils, though?
Or compared to other forms of soil carbon?

I don;t know.
I don't know enough about Victorian Brown Coal, or Coal chemistry stat.
I do know it is VBC is full of water, and therefore possibly(?) not the best coal to burn.