Terra Preta - The parent thread which started it all

[davidgmills]

Erich:

Question about the bacteria in terra preta.

I presume that the bacteria is anaerobic due to the fact it is underground and would be oxygen starved. Do the bacteria live off of CO2 themselves or some other carbon source that when they die also means sequestration of carbon in the soil?

I am curious about this because of the reports that terra preta will regenerate itself if enough of it is left after it is mined. It seems like it would need to come up with a new carbon source and I wonder if this source of carbon is from the bacteria itself.

Obviously if the bacteria will sequester carbon as well, it could be a huge additional bonus to the atmosphere.

[erich]

David,
I'm not a soil scientist, juat a landscaper, It's my understanding there are both anaerobic & arobic bugs, depending on soil horizon , soil condition, moisture and available gases etc.

TP seems to provide greater opportunity for them all, greater gas and moisture movment, cation exchange, and thus a continued benifit on up the soil food chain.

I guess regeneration results from the deeper horizons being exposed to more O2 and moisture. Even without addition of more char because this is an active system, worms and bugs will move more char up from lower horizons

Either dead or alive more bugs and microbes means more carbon. however only temporary juat as compost only locks up carbon for a few months until liberated by soil activity as CO2. The char is the way more perminant sequestration.


Erich

[Michaelangelica]

Good link
paleorthid / terra_preta

1. Copy this CiteULike: Ameliorating physical and chemical properties of highly weathered soils in the tropics with charcoal – a review
Rapid turnover of organic matter leads to a low efficiency of organic fertilizers applied to increase and sequester C in soils of the humid tropics.
Charcoal was reported to be responsible for high soil organic matter contents and soil fertility of anthropogenic soils (Terra Preta) found in central Amazonia.
Therefore, we reviewed the available information about the physical and chemical properties of charcoal as affected by different combustion procedures, and the effects of its application in agricultural fields on nutrient retention and crop production.
Higher nutrient retention and nutrient availability were found after charcoal additions to soil, related to higher exchange capacity, surface area and direct nutrient additions.
Higher charring temperatures generally improved exchange properties and surface area of the charcoal. Additionally, charcoal is relatively recalcitrant and can therefore be used as a long-term sink for atmospheric CO2.
Several aspects of a charcoal management system remain unclear, such as the role of microorganisms in oxidizing charcoal surfaces and releasing nutrients and the possibilities to improve charcoal properties during production under field conditions.
Several research needs were identified, such as field testing of charcoal production in tropical agroecosystems, the investigation of surface properties of the carbonized materials in the soil environment, and the evaluation of the agronomic and economic effectiveness of soil management with charcoal.
by paleorthid 2006-02-25

simpy
Search All Users' Link

I don't quite understand how it works?
erich?
Who is comming to Oz for the Terrigal Confrence?

[erich]

Just hit the Terra_preta link, and a list comes up, but nothing there newer than september , most articles are from febuary. but I had not seen most of them.

Here's a conference I had not heard about:

Weekly newsletter from Innovation Alberta

Georgia Conference on Sustainable Agriculture

Organizers of the Energy with Agricultural Carbon Utilization Symposium Sustainable Alternatives to Sequestration, to be held on the campus of The University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia on June 10th and 11th, have issued a "Preliminary Call for Papers ". This symposium is a global event co-hosted by Eprida and The University of Georgia and is timed to coincide with the G8 Summit.

Share your work and experiences in soil carbon, carbon utilization, sequestration and related fields with the world-wide energy, forestry, biomass and carbon utilization communities. Over thousands of years of agricultural cultivation, our soils have lost up to 50% of their stored carbon. The use of biomass to produce energy and the use of the residual carbon charcoal as a soil amendment, fertilizer and other agricultural co-products offers a significant value-added use for this very stable carbon and returns the carbon to the soil.

Abstracts are invited in the following topic areas:
1. Historical Usage of Charcoal including Terra Preta.
2. Benefits, limits and performance of charcoal soil applications.
3. Stability of charcoal or black carbon in the soil as a sink.
4. Methods and results of agricultural charcoal and/ or other large applications.
5. Integrated energy and agricultural charcoal production techniques.
6. Large scale use of charcoal for other non-fuel applications.

[Michaelangelica]

[PDF]
GROWTH PROMOTION OF TEA TREES BY PUTTING BAMBOO CHARCOAL IN SOIL
ファイルタイプ: PDF/Adobe Acrobat
... Japanese with English summary). T. Hoshi, and T. Kaneko (2001): A practical study on bamboo charcoal use to tea trees, Report on research ... plants in tea field soil. Tea Research Journal, 88, 31-38 (in Japanese with English summary).
www.fb.u-tokai.ac.jp/WWW/hoshi/cha/paper.pdf - 関連ページ

http://www.fb.u-tokai.ac.jp/WWW/hoshi/cha/paper.pdf
Very little (100g per M, per year) bamboo charcoal added to soil over a ten year period reduced fertiliser costs
Growth of trees was 20 to 40% greater
Ph dropped 1 to 1.5 points

[davidgmills]

RE: Nature Article -- several posters keep citing the Nature article and the link given will not allow access without being a subscriber to Nature.

Before Nature started requiring a subscribing membership, I had somehow run across a link to the original pdf version. The pdf version is still accessible without a membership.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...df/442624a.pdf

For those of you who are, or have been posting elsewhere, using the Nature article as an authority, it might be advisable to update to this pdf link which was actually in a much better format than the article, and had better photos.

[davidgmills]

Terra Preta and Worms:

So far my TP garden has few worms. Is this to be expected? Should I be concerned? Of course I didn't start it until six weeks ago and maybe it has been too cold for worm population increases.

[InfiniteNow]

Depends on what type of worms, but, as a general rule, earth worms tend to be indicative of very healthy soil.

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by davidgmills

Terra Preta and Worms:

So far my TP garden has few worms. Is this to be expected?
Should I be concerned? Of course I didn't start it until six weeks ago and maybe it has been too cold for worm population increases.

Worms need lots of organic matter to thrive.

Winter does not seem to be the best time for worms.

Charcoal is not on their diet as far as I know.

Buy some compost, manure or throw kitchen peelings, vacuume bag contents,,shreded newspaer, etc onto the garden

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by davidgmills

Erich:

Question about the bacteria in terra preta.

I presume that the bacteria is anaerobic due to the fact it is underground and

I don't know whether you can assume this.
There is a lot of air in most soils except perhaps the heaviest of compacted clays.
Worms, bacteria, fungi, nematodes, green manures termites etc all help aerate soil.
The clay potshards would also help .

Sir Albert noticed an effect near Jais in Oudh which led to an explanation of the aerating effects of using potsherds or brick to dress the land
. . .
That this organic matter produces such excellent results is, in all probability, a consequence of the copious aeration of the soil produced by the great number of potsherds present.
. . .
The potsherd enables us permanently to aerate the soil; and thus make the best use of organic matter including green-manures. The potsherd by itself has only a limited value, but with the help of small quantities of organic matter extraordinary results are possible
. . .
But if lack of aeration is the real cause of the degeneration of soils into the alkali condition, then not the washing out of the salts, which in any case is usually impossible in practice, but the opening up of the surface and the subsoil to the air by any and every means will be the only efficient remedy.

Thus in a curious and unexpected way drainage, irrigation, alkali lands, were found to be nothing but illustrations of the aeration problem. The results of surface drainage alone at Pusa had been staggering.

. Sir Albert Howard in India - Chapter 3

Charcoal would probably also help aeration, especially bigger bits?