[Terrapreta] Charcoal costs

[Greg and April]

Look I'm going out on a limb here but stay with me for a moment.

Why can't it be both ways?

We still don't know how TP does what it does, but we do know that different types of char has different properties, so why can't it react differently with different soils and fertilizer / composts?

A very interesting book just finished reading called Eco-Farm, talks about how different materials/minerals can tie up the CEC, and to some extent, that can also be controlled by the current ph.    So who is to say that this might not also be an issue?

You might be right, and for all I know I could be spitting into the wind - but - can we take a second and speculate on * What if? * just to see where it might lead us?

Greg H.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jim Joyner 
  To: Kevin Chisholm 
  Cc: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org ; 'Nikolaus Foidl' 
  Sent: Sunday, December 09, 2007 8:42
  Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Charcoal costs


  There is something missing here. I suspect it is tools.

  In Richard's tests the CEC does not increase with the application charcoal. It does increase the OM but that is probably not a true reading but a deficiency in our soil analysis.i.e., the test is reading the carbon in charcoal as organic when it is not.

  The CEC increases with compost and charcoal (in Brazil)  . . . well, of course it does. The compost yields a type of carbon that is acted upon through biological processes . . . but not the charcoal. The benefit of charcoal is that it pesists, but that is because it is not a part of the chemical (electrical, ionic). 

  There is no reason to believe charcoal directly raises CEC. CEC is essentially an electrical measurement of the capacity to hold nutrients in a suspension from plants can draw them. Charcoal does not seem to be a part of the electrical  or chemical equation.

  We can't have it both ways.

  It may me that charcoal yields a type of mechanical (if you will) structure that will hold nutrients in place while the biological processes proceed -- without them be washed away by rain or oxidized by the presence heat and humidity. 

  I don't think we have the measurement tools (or maybe just a good theory) yet to determine what is going on in the soil with charcoal or to what extent. Empirically, we may see better growth (or more worms), but that gives us no universal set of principles to apply what we know to other soils and climes. This empirical view, when compost is applied, just distorts what we see.

  And, most of what we have been saying about charcoal's benefit in the soil is still speculative. The tools we have just don't tell the whole story.

  Jim

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/terrapreta_bioenergylists.org/attachments/20071209/9fa92eb0/attachment.html