[Terrapreta] Agrichar trialled in field at Wollongbar

[Michael Bailes]

On 24/04/07, Sean K. Barry <sean.barry at juno.com> wrote:
>
>  Hi Michael,
>
> Interesting article.
>
> Tom Miles was asking earlier this evening about other ways to measure
> charcoal.  That article had a few reasonably good suggestions I thought ...
>
> "We will also measure the nutrient content of the agrichar, particularly
> calcium and magnesium, its cation exchange capacity, pH and changes to
> microbial activity and microbial biomass."
>
> I would also suggest a "pH buffer" capacity measurement.
>
BEST Energies have nutrient analysis of all the chars they have made.
 I posted some of Dr Joseph's on Chicken Char made at different
temperatures..

pH
The chars effects on pH sometimes seem a bit bizarre and unexplainable I
have seen all sorts of contradictory research.
Perhaps as the herbalists say about Ginseng it "normalises" the system. Of
Course this would be too good to be true.

I have recently been using rice hull char pH 9 in pots with good results in
a neutral potting mix, trouble is I might need to wait months to see what
the final pH is going to be.
pH and TP  is something that has to be sorted out; and sorted out fairly
quickly. BEST is hoping to involve nurserymen in trials with char and the
first thing the nurserymen will ask is "What will it do to the pH of my
potting mix".  I don't have any answers to that. Someone else might.

I know Dr Stephen Joseph has an experiment running now on this very thing.
I will send your post on to Dr. Joseph to see if he can answer you but I
know he is very busy organising the Terrigal Conference which starts next
week.

> This quote -> *"Char itself has a high fertiliser value, depending on its
> source."*, I would like to discuss.  It seems to me, even if charcoal has
> some nutrient content when it is made (and it may well have, since charcoal
> is made from biomass), that when and if these nutrients become available for
> uptake by plants, then they would soon be depleted, perhaps in a few seasons
> of plant growth and harvesting.  But, "Terra Preta" soils are centuries old
> and had been there
>

Yes I agree with all you say.
Theoretically it cannot be happening especially in the tropics.
But it is happening and has happened. Why?

I think terra preta research is leading us into new paradigms of soil
fertility and make us re-look at what we think we "know" about soil and
plants.
 It challenges some fairy basic  foundations of traditional soil science;
without really coming up with a complete answer to  "why?"
Perhaps it is like physics looking for the "God particle" in Switzerland .
Perhaps we need to find the God particle (s?) in TP ?

I think I have repeated this list, (N, P, K, S, Ca, Fe, Mg), like 100 times
since I have been making posts to this site.  A "Plant Propagation"
professor I had a few years back told use to remember all the "required"
plant nutrients

I think your old professor may have some problems with Terra preta.
It refuses to be put into any traditional model of agriculture or even
new-age "organic" agriculture/farming/gardening.

Remember we originally got most of that list of "nutrients" from burning
plants and analyzing the ash. No one, at that time, looked too hard at the
soil.

TP is chalenging us to see the soil in a totally different, more biological
less chemical way or perhaps a "chemical-biological-ecological-even quantum"
way
It is creating it's own paradigm

And if TP wasn't enough to bugger up all the soil science we all learnt it
is going to save the planet from Global Warming as well.
No wonder the Spaniards killed all the Amazonian Indians in the 1590's,
troublesome buggers.  :)
Happy burning
Michal Bailes

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