[Terrapreta] Charcoal Injector
teelws at jmu.edu
teelws at jmu.edu
Wed Apr 11 05:06:10 CDT 2007
All,
Getting charcoal into a perennial agricultural system is a
fascinating problem, but maybe one where we don't have to do
much work. Generally perennial systems, especially those
with some plant diversity, promote a high population of
worms that move organic material throughout the upper soil
profile, and sometimes even into the B-horizon. If you were
to spread finely crushed char, not just dust, but the
largest particles about 2mm in diameter, mixed with compost
or mulching materials, worms would surface to feed from the
bottom carrying the char into the profile. In this way you
would not have to use fossil fuels to do the work. If you
can rely on nature, why not? It does call for some
experimental work in a switchgrass or other perennial system
to test, but the result could be telling for a broad swath
of the landscape.
Wayne Teel - JMU
---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2007 00:00:06 -0500
>From: "Sean K. Barry" <sean.barry at juno.com>
>Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Fw: Charcoal Injector
>To: <adkarve at pn2.vsnl.net.ini>
>Cc: terrapreta <terrapreta at bioenergylists.org>
>
> Hi A.D.
>
> Guttation fluids coming out of the leaf tips of some
> plants (e.g. strawberry). I do not know how
> prevalent it is in plants in general. Guttation
> fluids also contain sugars, minerals, amino acids,
> and vitamins, etc. Would you know what the effect
> of putting these solutions onto soil amended with
> charcoal would be? Can these "guttation fluid"
> solution dissolve more soil nutrients? Perhaps
> these solutions might well feed the soil
> microorganisms like "vesicular-arbuscular
> mycorrhizal (VAM) fungi" and these, in turn, then
> help provide more nutrients to the plants growing in
> the soil?
>
> Some work which Christoph Steiner has done describes
> how soil microorganism growth "blooms" when sugar
> water is added to the soil. Could this be the
> benefit of "guttation fluids" too? Maybe you could
> find some experiments about "guttation fluids" that
> would describe how they would be beneficial in the
> top 10 cm of soil, which has had 5 tons/acre of
> charcoal incorporated into it? Maybe you might
> design and conduct such an experiment?
>
> SKB
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Sean K. Barry
> To: adkarve at pn2.vsnl.net.ini
> Cc: terrapreta
> Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2007 11:18 PM
> Subject: [Terrapreta] Fw: Charcoal Injector
> Hi A.D.
>
> Thank you for that information. You sound
> somewhat knowledgeable about plant physiology. I
> think that will be a great benefit to our
> discussions in this group. Please remember to put
> the terrapreta at bioenergylists.org E-MAIL address
> on your posts, so that everyone else can see what
> you are saying.
>
> SKB
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: adkarve
> To: Sean K. Barry
> Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2007 10:41 PM
> Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Charcoal Injector
> Most soil micro-organisms live in the top 10 cm of
> the soil. The top soil is well aerated and the
> microbes also get their nutrition in this layer
> through leaves and flower petals dropped by the
> plants on the soil surface. This makes the top
> soil more fertile than the deeper layers of soil.
> Plants have to send their roots deep into the soil
> because that is where the water is. But they also
> have a network of roots that penetrates the top
> soil, because that is where the mineral elements
> are. In fact many species of plants wet the top
> soil in the night through a process called
> guttation and re-absorb the water through the
> network of roots present in the top soil. This
> mechanism makes it possible for them to obtain the
> necessary mineral elements, which are generally
> absent in the water that they get from the deeper
> layers of the soil. If charcoal were to offer a
> porous substrate for the micro-organisms in the
> soil, then applying charcoal to the top 10 cm
> would make better sense than applying it to the
> deeper layers of soil.
> Yours
> A.D.Karve
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Sean K. Barry
> To: Jeff Davis
> Cc: terrapreta
> Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2007 8:00 AM
> Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Charcoal Injector
> Hi Jeff,
>
> I can't say that I know anything about this. I
> would think, though, that one could find a way
> to inject charcoal into the slot provided by a
> chisel plow, behind it for instance (if you even
> use this form of "low till" practice).
> Anhydrous ammonia injection is of a liquid.
> Possibly, you could pulverize charcoal into very
> fine dust, mix it with water, and inject it also
> as a liquid with the same or similar equipment?
> Barring that, I would say that the charcoal
> needs to be "tilled"/"cultivated" into the
> soil. Most, I think, consider incorporation to
> the depth of the root zone is ideal and
> sufficient (scary when you consider that alfalfa
> can root 15 feet deep?!). Is it possible that
> the switch grass can survive being "tilled" with
> charcoal into the soil? Maybe you could wait to
> let it go to seed, till the charcoal in
> then, water the shit out of it, and when the
> sprouts pop, put a little fertilizer on it?
>
> The "SPIKE" or the "NO TILL" injectors from NUHN
> look like the ticket for doing what you want to
> do. I think you just need to make the charcoal
> into a liquid "slurry" maybe to use it in those
> equipment.
>
> Just some ideas.
>
> SKB
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Jeff Davis
> To: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
> Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2007 8:51 PM
> Subject: [Terrapreta] Charcoal Injector
> Dear List,
>
> Being a switchgrass grower I would not want to
> plow up the grass in order
> to add charcoal to the soil. I do not think
> that adding it to the top of
> the grass would do much.
>
> I do not know anything about these injectors
> so does anybody know if the
> below machines would inject charcoal into the
> soil but not damage the
> grass:
>
> http://www.nuhn.ca/prod_injector.html
>
> Jeff
>
> --
> Jeff Davis
>
> Some where 20 miles south of Lake Erie, USA
>
> _______________________________________________
> Terrapreta mailing list
> Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
>
http://bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/terrapreta_bioener
gylists.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Terrapreta mailing list
> Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
>
http://bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/terrapreta_bioener
gylists.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> Terrapreta mailing list
> Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
>
http://bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/terrapreta_bioener
gylists.org
>________________
>_______________________________________________
>Terrapreta mailing list
>Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
>http://bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/terrapreta_bioene
rgylists.org
Wayne S. Teel
MSC 4102 ISAT
James Madison University
Harrisonburg, VA 22807
Tel: 540-568-2798
Fax: 540-568-2761
More information about the Terrapreta
mailing list