[Terrapreta] Sustained Biochar

[Crystal Heshmat]

Can't remember where I saw it or heard it, but I caught some news recently that said all the fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides were actually REDUCING farm yields by about 25%.  If I have time next week, I'll see if I can find it again.
   
  ~ Crystal

David Yarrow <dyarrow at nycap.rr.com> wrote:
        
  st1\:* {   BEHAVIOR: url(#default#ieooui)  }      @font-face {   font-family: Tahoma;  }  @font-face {   font-family: Verdana;  }  @page Section1 {size: 595.3pt 841.9pt; margin: 72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin: 35.4pt; mso-footer-margin: 35.4pt; mso-paper-source: 0; }  P.MsoNormal {   FONT-SIZE: 12pt; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Times New Roman"; mso-style-parent: ""; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"  }  LI.MsoNormal {   FONT-SIZE: 12pt; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Times New Roman"; mso-style-parent: ""; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"  }  DIV.MsoNormal {   FONT-SIZE: 12pt; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Times New Roman"; mso-style-parent: ""; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"  }  A:link {   COLOR: blue; TEXT-DECORATION: underline; text-underline: single  }  SPAN.MsoHyperlink {   COLOR: blue; TEXT-DECORATION: underline;
 text-underline: single  }  A:visited {   COLOR: blue; TEXT-DECORATION: underline; text-underline: single  }  SPAN.MsoHyperlinkFollowed {   COLOR: blue; TEXT-DECORATION: underline; text-underline: single  }  SPAN.EmailStyle17 {   COLOR: navy; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; mso-style-type: personal-reply; mso-style-noshow: yes; mso-ansi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial  }  SPAN.SpellE {   mso-style-name: ""; mso-spl-e: yes  }  SPAN.GramE {   mso-style-name: ""; mso-gram-e: yes  }  DIV.Section1 {   page: Section1  }      thanks, jon, for bringing up the primacy of soil in these discussions about greenhouse gases, global warming and climate change.  most of all charcoal is about nurturing the microbes in soil.  this key fact of geobiological reality consistently is overlooked, ignored, discounted, underrated, and left out of calculations and schemes.
   
  since the beginning of evolution on earth, it is most of all the least of all living things -- the micro-organism in the the thin skin of sea and soil -- that have created, regulated and sustained the composition of the earth's atmosphere.  more recently in evolution, the plants -- especially trees as forests -- have supplemented the effort of microbes to stabilize the earth's atmosphere.
   
  if we want to restore the earth and stabilize climate, we most of all need to not just sequester carbon, but regenerate the living biomass in soil.  when i teach soil fertility, i emphasize it is about feeding the soil, not the plants.  if we create living soil, the micro-organisms that feed the larger, more complex life forms.  the real secret of terra preta isn't the carbon or charcoal, it's the microbes.  carbon is a critical food for microbes, and charcoal is a storehouse for nutrients and housing for their complex communities.
   
  and today, all soils are damaged.  far too much of the once living soil has been abused and reduced to inert dirt.  in debates and discussions about climate change and what to do, i read all this fanatical fixation on emissions from smokestacks and tailpipes -- and forest fires -- which are obvious.  but hardly anyone recognizes and assesses the fumes rising off deforested land, off of a plowed field -- especially after it is drenched in toxic, soluble chemicals.  and every year, millions of acres of farmland are dumping grounds for soluble chemicals, beginning most of all with volatile nitrogen -- all which outgas, mostly as assorted oxides -- all potent greenhouse gases.  but those fumes are invisible, ignored by the average observer, discounted by most scientists, and thus uncounted.
   
  worse than the fumes, the soil life -- the living biomass -- is killed, mutated and decimated.  the land cannot live, breathe, absorb, store nutrients, and feed the plants and all else.
   
  and even worse for our economy, buying and spreading all those chemicals puts farmers into perpetual debt.
   
  but if anyone like jeff who doesn't believe man has affected and is destabilizing the earth's climate takes time to study aerial and satelllite photos, it quickly is obvious that in the last few centuries, vast areas of land -- a tremendous percentage of earth's surface -- has been stripped of ancient, complex forest community ecosystems, and left bare and exposed to sun, wind, rainwater, weather, and other degrading processes.  even land that looks forested is covered by second and third growth trees that are weak, scraggly and struggling.
   
  and all those photos show is the loss of tree cover.  they don't make plain the degradation, destruction and eventual sterilization of soil -- the conversion of living biomass into inert dirt.
   
  here in the finger lakes, the best soil is now on the bottom of the lakes. early settlers clearcut the trees, plowed up and down the slopes, and rain wased the rich forest soils down ravines into the lakes.  seneca and cayuga lakes that were once over 1200 feet deep and 35+ miles long are now charted as only 700-900 feet deep.  the difference is all the rich fertile forest silt now sitting as mud on the lake bottoms.
   
  in parallel processes, estuaries and subsea alluvial outwashes of watersheds -- such as the bottom of the gulf of mexico beyond the mouth of the mississippi -- have become huge dead zones because of these toxic industrial farm chemicals and destructured soils.  and the waters are polluted with red tides, algae blooms and other biological chaos, which -- when they die and decay en masse -- outgas more greenhouse gases such as methyl sulfoxide.  perhaps half of the sulfur in the earth's atmosphere is a consequence of the methyl sulfoxide emitted by decaying algae and organisms in coastal waterways.
   
  so, again, the most critical consequence of the terra preta strategy of adding charcoal (and other currently uncertain ingredients) to soil is to restart and stimulate an explosion of microbial life.  not some chaotic eruption -- but the establishment of stable, complex, fully functional communities of all the wee beasties needed to put in place the soil food web that is the foundation of all else the springs from the soil.
   
  thanks again, jon, for refocusing the discussion.  hopefully soon we will respect just how much we depend on the least of all life forms for our increasingly precarious existence.
   
  David Yarrow
"If yer not forest, yer against us."
Turtle EyeLand Sanctuary
44 Gilligan Road, East Greenbush, NY 12061
dyarrow at nycap.rr.com
www.championtrees.org
www.OnondagaLakePeaceFestival.org
www.citizenre.com/dyarrow/
www.farmandfood.org
www.SeaAgri.com
 
"Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, 
if one only remembers to turn on the light."  
-Albus Dumbledore
    ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jon C. Frank 
  To: Terrapreta 
  Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2007 11:45 AM
  Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Sustained Biochar
  
The main issue is the global degradation of soil.  This is the issue where man has altered the environment with such devastating affects.  Trying to correct atmospheric issues without correcting the underlying causes is like a dog chasing its' tail.
   
  My interest in Terrapreta stems from my interest in soil restoration.  Terrapreta can play an important role in restoring soil.  It is not the only thing needed but it can be a key component.
   
  You mentioned quality of life.  This is very important.  The biggest impact on quality of life comes from eating foods with high nutrient density.  This is a primary end goal for soil restoration.

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