[Terrapreta] Day59 on a typical 90day corn seed.

[Sean K. Barry]

Hi Rob,

The corn shown in the middle in the pictures (in charcoal amended soil?) is visibly different than the immediately surrounding stalks.  The irrigation looks different, too, than what I have seen for row corn, and I wonder where the water travels from?  I think surface waters potentially have more or different nutrients than well water.  Is it hard water?  What is the soil type?  Is it alkaline or acidic?
Dr. A.D. Karve mentioned the importance of micronutrients.  It would be interesting to find out how closely your fertility management practices in China are to those in India.  There was a Dr. Reddy, also in India, on the list too, who was growing crops with micronutrients and an alkaline resistant tree, he was making charcoal from.  He would be very interesting for you to talk to.

Richard mentioned testing the soil in the out years (2+) and Christoph Steiner tested to see what fertility the soil had maintained, then, after discontinued fertilization, but continued plantings.  The microbial activity in the charcoal amended soil Richard noted as well, which Christoph also mentioned.  This is an exciting repeat of an experimental observation with Terra Preta, when it was formed in a different soil type!

Do you intend to test the soil for microbe populations, nutrients, and proximate analysis, etc?  Will you do this to amended soil without fertilization?  Will you weigh or otherwise test the biomass produced on the test plots?      

Your sound enhanced germination of bamboo seedlings looks very interesting.  That fast growing bamboo feedstock could be your greatest feedstock for wood vinegar and charcoal, heh?

Row on.

SKB


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Robert Flanagan<mailto:saffechina at gmail.com> 
  To: Richard Haard<mailto:richrd at nas.com> ; Sean K. Barry<mailto:sean.barry at juno.com> 
  Sent: Saturday, August 25, 2007 6:31 PM
  Subject: Day59 on a typical 90day corn seed.


  Hey Richard,

  Thought you might be interested in seeing the update of my corn trial. As you can see we've already got corn ready to eat and at day59 this appears to be quite early. I've requested that Dr Zhong sends his student out to collect data to give us a better understanding of what's going on. So the biggest question I have is where did all the nutrients come from? I'm only spraying a supplement of mostly micro nutrients to the leafs but have used no soil fertility program (organic or mineral). Dr Zhongs student also processed some of the data from our sound experiment and it clearly shows again that sound has  a major impact on seed germination (mosa bamboo has a typical germination rate of about 20% and takes about 1mt to grow to 10cm) a publication will follow. 

  Keep up the great work,

  Rob.


  -- 
  Robert Flanagan
  Chairman & President
  Hangzhou Sustainable Agricultural Food & Fuel Enterprise Co., Ltd.

  Skype "saffechina"
  Tel:   86-571-881-850-67
  Cell:  86-130-189-959-57 



  -- 
  Robert Flanagan
  Chairman & President
  Hangzhou Sustainable Agricultural Food & Fuel Enterprise Co., Ltd.

  Skype "saffechina"
  Tel:   86-571-881-850-67 
  Cell:  86-130-189-959-57 
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