Terra Preta - The parent thread which started it all

[Taildragerdriver]

This Terra Preta concept had real potential in three areas. I am new to the Science Forums. I came here due to an interest in several elements related to Terra Preta. I'm interested in getting involved in three ways.

First I work professionally in what is called fire management working with US public land management agencies. We have a great deal of interest in a way to use biomass produced when we try to reduce fuels in projects designed to reduce fire intensity around areas of human developments. If we can get an interest going with agriculture to incorporate large quantities of charcoal a commercial charcoal industry could be developed to use these biomass products produced in fuels reductions projects.

Second I am interested in learning how to produce charcoal in large quantities for incorporation into local farmlands. I have read some descriptions on how to make charcoal and plan to try to develop methods to produce large quantities fairly efficiently for my own use on my pastures. I have access to lots of slash to burn and a safe place to burn it. I would like to find as much information as possible on how to best accomplish this.

Third I have several pastures that have been flood irrigated since some time in the 1870s, My water rites are 1892 so I know the have been irrigated that long. The soils are badly leached out as you might expect. I want to improve the productivity of these pastures by incorporating large quantities of charcoal to bind fertility even in highly saturated soils. I can't run less water through these pastures even if I don't irrigate due to subirrigation when neighbors irrigate.

Interestingly Terra Preta seems like it can play a role in creating a very reasonable solution to a whole host of problems. Related to my work and farming/ranching operations.

I'm interested in further discussion on all these topics.

Thanks

Taildragerdriver

[erich]

Hi Tail,
Since most of the cost of feed stock/ bio-mass is transport, I imagine, each time I pass a logging operation, a large tub type chipper feeding stumps and all to a mobile Eprida pyrolysis system and either selling to local farmers or taking carbon credits from the (voluntary) Chicago Carbon Exchange (CCX), by spreading it on the logged over soils.

[Taildragerdriver]

erich:

That vision is far in the future but the exciting thing about "terra preta" is that if we can make it work we can ameliorate our wildfire problems and potentially improve the production of our farmlands. (One thing we need to keep in mind is we need to be sure not to remove too much from forested sites or we could deplete the soils of the forests) If we do this we need to get the science right.

A great product of science and archiology. It just goes to show we sometimes we need listen to our distant ansestors.

Thanks

Taildragerdriver

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by Taildragerdriver

I'm interested in further discussion on all these topics.

Thanks

Taildragerdriver

Sounds like you can run a number of experiments
Keep us all posted

Here are some gardeners getting excited about TP (Being egged on by erich as usual!)
here:-
Terra preta (dark earth or, more specifically... - Soil Forum - GardenWeb

Anyone going to the confrence at Terrigal(oz) next year?

[davidgmills]

Hello all. I have recently learned about terra preta. I am a lawyer so only marginally good at science although I have a father and brother who are both PhD's in biochemistry. I also have three uncles that are farmers (2 dairy 1 beef). My father was always darn good with a garden.

Terra preta has got me interested in gardening again after about a ten year hiatus. I am an internet nut so once I stumbled upon an article on the net about terra preta I poured over every article I could find. Erich is quite a prolific poster.

Anyway I started my terra preta garden back in early November using store bought charcoal briquettes because I didn't know any better. Soon I found out that making your own produced a much better charcoal. But I must say even the store bought briquettes made an difference in the soil's ability to hold moisture.

Over Thanksgiving I began experimenting making my own. It is actually quite easy. I had a two and a half gallon popcorn can with a lid. So I began experimenting in making charcoal with it using sticks and dead tree limbs from the yard. After a couple of times of trial and error, I discovered that the best and most efficient means of making charcoal was to put about two inches of twigs and leaves in the bottom of the can with paper for a starter. Once the fire got going really good and hot I began to put good sized chunks of wood on top of the fire, smoldering it of course, and slowly filled up the can with fist sized chunks of wood. I put the lid on top leaving about a half inch gap. Presto about two hours later, it all turns to charcoal, approximately 1/4 to 1/3 of the size of wood I started with. Very efficient process. Hardly any wood is wasted as starter fuel.

What they say is true about the smoke. First, off comes a gray smoke burning off the water. Then comes a yellowed smoke as the first gases burn off. Finally a blue smoke as the final gases come off. Then no smoke and its charcoal.

Obviously, a two and a half gallon bucket will not produce enough charcoal for a residential garden. So I am going to move up to a galvanized garbage can.

But even after a few weeks I can see the difference the charcoal makes even without the bacteria and fungal growth. The soil is much damper and it seems to really break up clods of clay. Shoveling a full depth of the shovel blade is now very easy, whereas before, it got difficult about half blade depth. Also threw in broken pottery.

Trying to get the garden ready for spring planting. I hope by charcoaling now maybe I will get some bacterial action before spring.

I live in Memphis where we have good soil, good moisture, and a fairly temperate climate.

In thinking about how to make terra pretta for a farm, based on my experience with the charcoal I have made, I would get a big round horse water trough (10 feet or so in diameter and 3 to 4 feet high) and use it. Use some corrugated tin for a cover and take it to the place where you want to start your terra preta plot and make the charcoal on the spot. It really is very safe and as easy to control the fire as a barbecue pit. Start with a hot fire in the bottom of the horse trough. Once it is going good enough that you won't entirely put it out by putting logs on top, start putting them on. Pile them on until you fill the trough up, making sure that the thing keeps smoldering. This might take a couple of days to turn to charcoal, especially if you are using good sized logs. But I feel pretty sure it would work as this is very similar to how charcoal is made in England.

Glad to be a member of this forum.

[maikeru]

Hi David! Did you do anything else to amend the terra preta outside with organic or chemical fertilizers? I found that terra preta works much better after "loading" it with a soluble source of nitrogen, such as liquid or chemical fertilizer initially (as Danny Day suggests on the Eprida website). Also, don't be freaked out if things decompose a lot faster in the terra preta soil; I think that's a clear sign the microbes and fungi are happy and numerous. With my indoor terra preta pots, leaves, coffee grounds, or other organic fertilizers start to show fungi after 2-3 days and seem to disappear in a week or two, depending on temperature and humidity. Terra preta seems to speed up nutrient cycling, besides using the charcoal to store and release nutrients when needed.

BTW, I want to welcome Tail, too. Your posts on forests and wild fires are interesting. Learn something new every time I check this thread or the other one.

[Charcoal]

The charcoal fertilizer could be used to restore the nutrients in areas around the globe where soil has been depleted, according to Day. He believes charcoal-enhanced soil could increase crop yields by 200 percent to 300 percent.

The ADE?s fertility is most likely linked to an anthropogenic accumulation of phosphorus (P), calcium (Ca) associated with bone apatite (Lima et al. 2002, Zech et al 1990), and black C as charcoal (Glaser et al. 2001a). The influence of charcoal in soil fertility is complex. Most charcoals (dependent on biomass material) is poor in nutrients. Therefore charcoal is more likely a soil conditioner.



So what is a home gardener to do?
When is charchol not charchol?
Today I spent a futile hour tring to buy charchol to mix into my potting mix.
One nursery had a kilo or so for $7
Another had activated chjarcol for fish tanks - imported from Japan -for abou$10 for 500grams
I had purchased a largish 5K? bag of BBQ charchol from the local supermarket, crushed this up and used it (about $7). Now they no longer stock it (It was imported from Malaysia)
Where my efforts in vain given the above comment?
Any thoughts?

Charcoal imported form Malaysia is most likely not from sustainable production. It is difficult to find locally produced charcoal (especially in the USA). We hape that Danny Day will change this and supply the missing product. $7 seems a very lucrative price for a byproduct from energy production.

[Taildragerdriver]

OK this thread is exactly what I wanted to get into.

So let me document the concept of what I'm think I'm going to do.

Making Charcoal: Intially I plan to make a 55 gallon drum charcoal burner to get the hang of making charcoal on a small scale. There are a number of websites that describe how to do this.

Of course for my needs this won't make a dent. So for a larger scale I have access to an old "wigwam burner" left over from the old lumber mill near my pastures. I plan to start with the a traditional mound burn as described in the following site.

Chapter 6 - Making charcoal in earth mounds

These wigwam burners were built because when they burned mill waist the sparks would not get out and start fires nearby if winds start blowing. If I build my mound inside and cover it with soil it will be safe to let burn for the several days required to make charcoal.

I have to be sure there are no issues with the local state laws to use this for making charcoal. I'm pretty sure there are none but want to be sure. The laws on burning for farming are pretty liberal in rural Oregon.

I will start with a small pile of wood and cover it with dirt using my backhoe and learn how to control it to get the proper burn. Then progress to larger burn mounds. (This is the interm design in the long run if sucessful we would probably chip the wood and build a iron kiln out of the wigwam burner.) This probably is not a real efficient and cost effective method but it should give me a method to produce a large enough amount of carcoal to work up an acre or so of pasture and amend it with charcoal.

So now I plan to produce the charcoal and load it into an old manure spreader and spread it on the pasture. Then take a rotivator (a big 5' wide rototiller on a 3point hitch run by the PTO on a tractor) and rotivate it into the top foot of soil. I think that makes for the most efficient and effective method of getting the carcoal incorporated into the soil along with the organic matter of the existing grass cover on the pasture I plan to use.

There is some conflicting information on the websites as to whether this will tie up all the nitrrogen or not. I know putting ash into the soil will but not sure about the carcoal. I would like to know what others have experienced.

Reguardless I then plan to plant grazable alfalfa on the site and keep the cattle out till it gets well established and irrigate just the same along with the rest of the pasture. Alfalfa is a legume and a great nitrogen fixer. So it should build up the nitrogen and hopefully turning in the current grass will get the soil microbes going.

My goal is to try to document the gain in productivity of the charcoal pasture compared to the rest of the pasture both in pictures and in pounds per acre production.

So if I can show big production gains in the pastures and it will last long term the ranchers around here would probably be willing to buy the carcoal. That is my concept any way.

OK enough for now.

I would love get any feed back people might have and what you think about my plans.

Thanks

Taildragerdriver

[davidgmills]

Maikeru: To answer your question, I have been using chemical fertilizers and well chopped leaves to hep kick start the terra preta. I have noticed that after a couple of weeks the leaves are nearly gone.

Questions for all:

I am wondering about worms. We have lots of worms here and I wonder if they will be attracted to TP and also help improve the soil.

My problem at the moment is that I am doubling the size of my vegetable garden and I have to kill off the bermuda to do it. So far not having much success with the new half of the garden.

BBQ charcoal here is fairly cheap. $5-7 for 20 lbs. Have already put 80 lbs on the garden (about 250 sq ft). Lots of flower beds to go after the vegetable garden is in place. Also want to plant blueberries and a couple hazelnut trees. Am wondering how they might do charcoaled.

Taildragerdriver:

I like the idea of the mound method of making charcoal. But my experience with making charcoal in a 2 and 1/2 gallon can has led me to believe that starting a good hot fire first and then pilling on wood chunks or logs works much better than starting with a pile and trying to get some low spot of the pile ignited. I also think you end up with less wood being wasted as a starter fuel (the starter fuel makes ash rather than charcoal) that way. It is also much easier to get the whole process started. And very easy to build up in size of wood used -- from smaller to bigger. The bigger chunks and logs piled on last help keep the process smoldering rather than igniting.

One other thing. I like the idea of the 55 gallon drum. But I don't like the idea of starting a fire outside the drum. It wastes too much wood. The beauty of a tall drum is that heat rises and "roasts" all the wood above. I don't think you can get this effect as easy with a mound. You might be a lot better off with ten drums rather than one mound. Plus you would have it all turned to charcoal in several hours versus days. Plus drums are very easy to handle and rolling them around with the lid on quickly puts out the "fire" and also begins the pulverizing process.

[erich]

David,
Since your in Memphis , you can buy charcoal for $125/ton in Bell Mo. at Dustin Strumph Charcoal yard. They have 22ton loads of dust to 1/2 inch , 4-7% moisture. ( I think I posted this before)