Terra Preta - The parent thread which started it all

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by rmark

Dead Zones are areas of the coasts where rivers discharge. Reduction in fertiliser loading of estuaries and deltas could have thus a dramatic effect on these Dead Zones.
Mark

We don't have big enough rivers for this to happen.
I remember being Gob-Smacked by the size of the Mississippi when I visited New Orleans. I had never see a river that big.

Some fertilisers are now being made to mimic natural processes like Osmocote which is released as the soil Temperature rises (when the plants are growing and will need the fertiliser most) and Azulon (Sp?) a German nitrogen fertiliser which breaks down with bacterial action.
Many modern fertilisers are too soluble and end up in water ways.

Of course a combination of organics and Terra preta/charcoal would help - you would think

I have jut read an interesting article in an excellent Australian Science Magazine Cosmos(OCT /NOV 2006) about inventors looking to nature for inspiration (e.g., Velcro).
A guy by the name of Dean Cameron has made a waste-water treatment system , Biolytix, which is designed to replace sewerage connections by mimicking the ecology of a river bank.
He noticed that if you put a pollutant in a river, two miles down river it had disappeared. People thought this was because the river oxygenated the water due to swirling currents, rapids rocks etc., . But he found that on the river banks a collection of beetles, mites, flies, fungi, protozoa and bacteria. These create what he calls the 'architecture of decomposition'. By replicating this natural system Biolytix reduces water consumption in a home by 50%
.
So if you want to stop pollution at the mouth of your river you need to start looking at the ecology of the river-banks all along the riverside! This is the part of the river that keeps it clean of pollutants. !!

[maikeru]

Originally Posted by rmark

Had a thought, another potential strong value of using Terra Preta as a soil amendment method is that it will stop the excessive use of fertilisers, and the oveloading of groundwater systems with nutrients. Possible it might reduce or remove the Dead Zones that occur in the seas near the mouths of rivers like the Mississippi in the Gulf of Mexico.

This is a good point and another strong argument, IMO, for the use of terra preta to minimize many of the problems associated with chemical fertilizer. The mouths of rivers are often rich in wildlife and a diversity of species because of wetlands or estruaries, the abundance of nutrients, etc. Except we have some nutrients at lethal levels at this point in those dead zones and not enough O2 for all...

Also, I think this goes hand in hand with decreased water usage, since terra preta absorbs and retains water very well (I imagine because of the high surface area and hydrophilic interactions from organic acids, etc.). Overuse of fertilizer and water are two major problems associated with with modern, mechanized agriculture.

Plus, it might make the use of biomass sewage treatment plants sensible, they could then harvest the reeds or whatever grass used and harvest it then combust the grass culms and return it to the land to increase fertility and soil quality and structure.

It's that terrific positive feedback loop, which has has financial as well as environmental benefits for all.

[maikeru]

Originally Posted by Michaelangelica

Some fertilisers are now being made to mimic natural processes like Osmocote which is released as the soil Temperature rises (when the plants are growing and will need the fertiliser most) and Azulon (Sp?) a German nitrogen fertiliser which breaks down with bacterial action.
Many modern fertilisers are too soluble and end up in water ways.

I can see a need for both chemical and organic fertilizers. Chemical fertilizers may become more environmentally friendly with terra preta's nutrient holding capacity and the possibly reduced run-off. (The chemical fertilizers + terra preta do seem to show great results, as I've seen and can compare between several of my herbs, such as with my oregano plants. Some growing in terra preta + fertilizer, others in peat moss + potting soil + fertilizer. The terra preta oreganos have the largest and darkest leaves of them all, about 1.5 inches or slightly more, or 4+ cm. The other oreganos have leaves about 1.5 - 3 cm, even with chemical and organic fertilizer additions. The terra-preta oreganoes are also the most bushy and large. All these plants were grown from cuttings from the same parent plant, so they are genetically identical, i.e., clones.) But organic fertilizers also offer several other benefits for the plants and the soil, such as further improving soil structure & humus, encouraging microbial activity, not killing nitrogen-fixing microbes, and adding many micronutrients to the soil in the right amounts.

Of course a combination of organics and Terra preta/charcoal would help - you would think

It seems so, as mentioned above.

I have jut read an interesting article in an excellent Australian Science Magazine Cosmos(OCT /NOV 2006) about inventors looking to nature for inspiration (e.g., Velcro).
A guy by the name of Dean Cameron has made a waste-water treatment system , Biolytix, which is designed to replace sewerage connections by mimicking the ecology of a river bank.
He noticed that if you put a pollutant in a river, two miles down river it had disappeared. People thought this was because the river oxygenated the water due to swirling currents, rapids rocks etc., . But he found that on the river banks a collection of beetles, mites, flies, fungi, protozoa and bacteria. These create what he calls the 'architecture of decomposition'. By replicating this natural system Biolytix reduces water consumption in a home by 50%.

That's cool. Sounds similar to a program I watched on "artificial wetlands" which people can create for their homes to cut back on water usage by recycling "grey" water (wash or dish water, etc.). Wiki does a better job of explaining an artificial wetland than I could:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_wetland

Also, Cameron's right about the living organisms and their role in decomposition. If we had to rely on purely natural processes to clean up things without any decomposers, many compounds, even foods, would not decay for hundreds or thousands of years. Simply because living organisms do what they do--multiply quickly, use enzymes to speed up chemical reactions millions or billions of times more than could happen alone or spontaneously, feed on a wide variety of compounds, etc.--they do us and the rest of the world a great favor.

So if you want to stop pollution at the mouth of your river you need to start looking at the ecology of the river-banks all along the riverside! This is the part of the river that keeps it clean of pollutants. !!

Remember wetlands and estruaries, too! They're industrial-scale biofilters.

[SoilWatcher]

I haven't posted in forever. I will probably make a couple posts.

First a question. Many of you are finding supplies of charcoal. Back in the early part of this whole thread, one of the critical things was that it should be low temperature charcoal, thereby leaving resins which fed the microbes. Does any of this commercially available charcoal fit the bill?

[SoilWatcher]

Ok, for this next post I have to reveal my biases somewhat. Like Turtle, whose posts spurred this response, I tend to view global warming as mostly junk science. Not global warming itself, but global warming as a man caused phenomenon is, IMO, significantly junk science. Or perhaps even more to the point -- the notion that we can fix/affect it is likely junk science. This is a somewhat educated opinion but I do reserve the right to be wrong.

That said, I am very excited about Terra Preta. I do think that improving soil productivity and sustainability is a huge win. I do think there's solid science behind the negative effects of over fertilization -- including reduced nutritional content of food, fertilizer runoff into bodies of water, etc. Anything we can do to make soil more "naturally" productive is a big win, IMO.

But another benefit is that it may tend to get the climate extremists off our backs a bit. If we are, in the long run, doing things that vastly reduce carbon release into the atmosphere then the Al Gores of the world will have to find something new to moan about. They used to tell us we were causing an ice age, now we're causing global warming. Not sure what will be next but I'm sure they will think of something once we actually do reduce carbon emissions. The nice thing about doing it this way -- terra preta production to sequester carbon -- is that it's a net gain all around, rather than doing radical Kyoto type things which would cripple our economy.

My two cents...

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by SoilWatcher

Many of you are finding supplies of charcoal. Back in the early part of this whole thread, one of the critical things was that it should be low temperature charcoal, thereby leaving resins which fed the microbes.
Does any of this commercially available charcoal fit the bill?

Excellent question
How can you tell?

This also fits with the post

Resilient Form of Plant Carbon Gives New Meaning to Term ‘Older than Dirt’
http://www.physorg.com/news83516285.html

I'd like to know how the researchers knew it was carbon was from resinous material 10,000 to 100,000 years old.

I have tried to buy charcoal from farmers making it the traditional way which I hope will be a lower temperature (c400C) than activated charcoal. They also tell me they are using rain forest trees.
So far my search has been in vain; and I have ended up with Commercial BBQ charcoal made (I think) from coconuts.

Charcoal seems to be much more readily available in UK nurseries; where the ancient art of Coppicing still seems to survive.
Who knows if charcoal made from Temperate Climate Trees have the same or similar resins as in the Amazon???
The Japanese may have done some work on this if you can somehow access their research papers

It would be nice to know more about the role of resins in this Terra preta mix.

--
michael

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by rmark

Had a thought, another potential strong value of using Terra Preta as a soil amendment method is that it will stop the excessive use of fertilisers, and the oveloading of groundwater systems with nutrients. Possible it might reduce or remove the Dead Zones that occur in the seas near the mouths of rivers like the Mississippi in the Gulf of Mexico.

We have a 'dead zone' of the coast of Oregon/Washington, and it is not attributed to river discharge, but rather changes in wind patterns.

Originally Posted by SeattleTimes

...The dead zone is caused by coastal upwellings as patterns that normally sustain life in the rich coastal waters become more erratic and destroy some life. The normal patterns are a mix of northerly winds that allow upwellings of cold, nutrient-rich deep water to occur and southerly winds that move about the oxygen-poor water. ...

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...adzone09m.html

[Michaelangelica]

This is along article on energy generally; with some well reseached points to make. I didn't give it the thorough read it deserved. I need to print it out and study it but no ink! Also it is very USA centric.
http://ergosphere.blogspot.com/2006/...dence-and.html
In OZ we get most of our alcohol from sugar cane bagess so it may be a better proposition for us; but the article does make you pause for thought.

On charcoal Engineer-Poet Blogger says the following; which seems incredible

Charcoal is like coal, only more stable.
Charcoal is the product of a high-temperature process, and is missing most of the hydrogen and volatile chemicals of coal.
It can be heaped and stored for weeks to thousands of years; charcoal from ancient forest and camp fires allows prehistoric events to be dated.
It is a valuable addition to soil, creating the fertile "terra preta"4 of the notoriously nutrient-poor Amazon rainforest.
It's perhaps the ultimate answer to irregular supplies of renewable energy. An annual supply of 515 million short tons of charcoal fed to DCFC's would produce roughly 3400 billion kilowatt-hours of energy.
This is more than the total US generation from fossil fuels, and about 84% of the total electric energy consumed in the USA in 2005; together with the generation from the gas, it could conceivably replace every kilowatt-hour we now use, from the trivial amounts made by solar to the entire contribution of coal, with about 25% extra to play with.

It wouldn't be wise to replace everything with biomass energy, of course; throwing away diversity of supply means reducing security. But it shows just how much potential we've got, if we only start using it
. . .
Last, there is the permanent improvement of the soil from the addition of charcoal. The example of terra preta shows that charcoal can create massive improvements in nutrient-holding ability, under the most adverse conditions, lasting at least two thousand years.
Had the ancient Greeks and Romans used such practices, their soils would have been very different—and their modern descendants would still be enjoying the results today. This is literally an investment which can pay for a hundred generations.

What farmer wouldn't jump at that? The problem is to take theory and reduce it to practice.

.
High temp. charcoal is possibly not what we need for Terra preta. We probably need to keep those elusive 'resins' by producing charcoal at a lower temp. (c400C)

[erich]

I spoke with the author of this TP story in Solar Today, , Ron Larson ,

http://www.solartoday.org/2006/nov_d...CornerND06.pdf

Yesterday, he said he spoke with a major National Geographic editor-who is preparing a big article on TP. but Doesn't know when it will be published.

Erich

[erich]

I imagine the yield they get, as a result of plant diversity, is due concurrently with the micro flora and fauna diversity.


I'm going to post them about doing a TP plot.

A Better Biofuel?
A Better Biofuel? -- Whipple 2006 (1207): 5 -- ScienceNOW

"They then compared the biofuel energy yield when the plants were grown alone or in those different combinations. The most diverse plots produced 238 percent more bioenergy yield than the average plot containing a single species, says team leader David Tilman."