[Terrapreta] Sustained Biochar

[Gerald Van Koeverden]

Jon.

Though I disagree with the first part of your posting, as far as your  
comment on remineralization, your comments hit home.

A University of Guelph soil scientist - Peter Van Straaten - has done  
a lot of work on this issue, including bringing the benefits of re- 
mineralization to 900,000 farmers in Aftrica.  Remineralization and  
charcoal together have the poetential to make an enormous difference  
in the sustainability of soil fertility.

"http://www.oceanarks.org/annals/articles/world%20soils/index.php"

On 29-Aug-07, at 5:46 PM, Jon C. Frank wrote:

> The big fear over unburnt methane is overdone.  If it was so bad  
> then the creation of all the original terra preta soil in Latin  
> America would have doomed the earth to destruction.  Obviously that  
> didn't happen--nature coped and we are all here today.  Nature  
> makes unburnt methane all the time (so do you and I). So what.   
> Believe me creation was designed in such a way to cope.  This is  
> one of those "The sky is falling" fears.
>
> The creators of terra preta did not have all our advanced chemical  
> industry to utilize the gases the way we can now.  If we can  
> utilize these gases for energy great--lets use the industrial model  
> and make charcoal available for soil improvement.
>
> On the other hand many people, especially in developing countries,  
> do not have access to expensive pyrolysis units but still wish to  
> improve their soil by making charcoal without capturing the gases.   
> This is also great.  Lets also encourage the primitive model to  
> improve the soil.  After all that's what the natives did in Latin  
> America with great success.
>
> In whatever way people can, we should be increasing the carbon  
> content of soil.  The other aspect that needs to be done at the  
> same time is soil remineralization with rock powders.  The concept  
> is more fully explained at:
>
> http://www.highbrixgardens.com/restore/remineralization.html
>
> and
>
> http://www.remineralize.org/about/context.html
>
> When the soil is carbonized with charcoal/biochar and remineralized  
> with rock powders the soil biology greatly increases and the amount  
> of carbons retained in the soil dramatically increases.  In other  
> words carbon sequestration significantly enhanced.
>
> The main goal with making charcoal by either process (industrial or  
> primitive) is soil restoration on a large scale.  When that happens  
> the soil and plants will automatically clean up the air.  The best  
> response will come from people getting much more nutrition in their  
> foods and the increase in health that results from this.
>
> Jon  C. Frank
> www.aglabs.com

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