[Terrapreta] John Cowan's comments

[adkarve]

Dear Sean,
I think that you have misunderstood me. In the mail that I wrote to Juergen, I did not say what you accuse me of saying. I had mentioned silica in one of my earlier messages. But that was just to show that the silica found in many green plant species must come from the soil, as none of our chemical fertilizers contain silica. A crop of wheat or rice removes 250 kg of silica every year from a hectare of soil. I use this example as an indirect proof that soil micro-organisms convert the normally insoluble soil minerals into their component ions. What I have been trying to say all the while is that plants can get all the mineral elements required for their metabolism from soil minerals through the activity of soil microbes. We can help this natural process by feeding non-composted high calorie organic material to the microbes.
Yours
A.D.Karve  
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Sean K. Barry 
  To: Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org ; adkarve 
  Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 12:57 PM
  Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] John Cowan's comments


  Hi A.D.

  Why can't it be that a well fed (by sugars in organic material) soil microbe population will make more ions of plant nutrients (elements N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Fe, etc.) available for uptake by plants (through their roots)?  What makes you think that Silicon or any of the other elements found in soil minerals and as mere trace elements in plants are what microbes are decomposing off of mineral rocks and making available to plants?
  Plants which show increased biomass yield have far greater increases in the numbers of atoms of the plants nutrients (N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Fe), and molecules of CO2 and H2O, than they have in increases of trace elements.  Do you not think so?

  SKB
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: adkarve 
    To: Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org 
    Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 7:41 PM
    Subject: [Terrapreta] John Cowan's comments


    Dear John,
    I am a hundred percent with you. Charcoal is a valuable fuel. A small quantity of charcoal added to the soil as an amendment would be acceptable, but making charcoal and burying it in the soil just as a means of carbon sequestration would not be acceptable. Growing forests is a better way of carbon sequestration. Charcoal is highly porous. It is my hunch that it not only offers extra surface for microbes to settle on, but also a place where they can survive in the dry season. I have also aired my view, that the microbes degraded soil minerals because they needed the mineral ions for their own metabolism. Plants learned the trick of feeding the microbes with organic matter, so that their numbers increased and they thus made more nutrients available to the plants. 
    Yours
    Dr.A.D.Karve, President,
    Appropriate Rural Technology Institute,
    Pune, India.
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