[Terrapreta] Permaculture and Biochar Development - Qld Australia

[Tom Miles]

Barry,

 

This is very helpful. Thanks.  If you are adding about 10% by volume then
that is probably 3-5% by weight which seem to be in the range that  we've
heard discussed. 

 

Combination with compost just makes a lot of sense. I hope others will try
that. 

 

Was the idea of networking within countries discussed at the IAI conference?
That might be a way of finding people to do the analysis and evaluation. 

 

Regards,

 

Tom

 

From: terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org
[mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Barry at Biochar
Sent: Saturday, December 08, 2007 4:44 PM
To: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Permaculture and Biochar Development - Qld
Australia

 

Hi Tom

 

At this stage I'm adding roughly 45 litres per 400 litre batch, this is
added in between fine carbon and coarse nitrogen layers, I follow a set
pattern when building composts, starting with carbon layer coarse, nitrogen
layer coarse, carbon layer fine, nitrogen layer fine then back to coarse, I
also add activators like herbs, molasses, liquid kelp, soaked horse manure
etc..

 

My composts depend on what's around at the time, in the dry season's carbon
is in excess and as we are now in our wet season nitrogen is most abundant.
I like to raid next doors dam for floating weeds as they make great nitrogen
rich compost in my dry season, they think I'm nuts but like the fact I clean
out the dam for them.

 

Grinding the biochar, Most of the dry wood that I char is quite fine already
so I'm not to bothered with getting the char into a fine uniformed size, I
like the idea of chunks and differing sizes (0.1 - 10mm), the worms in both
compost and soil seem to like areas of chuncky (5-10mm) high char areas and
I have now seen this quite a few times when digging holes or harvesting
compost.

 

I have also added some smashed up clay pots to a couple of compost batches
out of interest, I have read that these pot's in the Amazon might have been
for cooking, what about if they used them for soaking the char in bacteria
rich liquid's like most Biodynamic and Organic gardeners use in their
gardening systems? I think it's a fast way to add bacteria to biochar before
spreading. These compost's are yet to be harvested.

 

I'm now also trialling an idea of adding edge effect soils to my Biochar
composts and worm farm systems, these soils are taken from the banks of
water holes and swamps in my local area, I was reading about this earlier
this year, An Australian human waste system (Biocycle) that uses bacteria
from the edges of water systems as the break down of organic matter is many
times faster than bacteria taken from the bottom of the swamps or creeks. So
my thinking is if this bacteria can survive in the damp composts a month
after they have gone through the early heat up and break down stages they
might be of benefit in turning my composts into a higher percentage of
quality stable humus. All the maps I have seen of ADE soils are close to
water, maybe this is something they added to the char in the Amazon farms?

 

Anyone know of researcher's in Queensland Australia who might be able to
help check sample's of any positive results I get? I have been talking to
Alfred Harris in New Zealand since the IAI conference and he spend some time
here digging around my compost on his way to see Paul Blackall's work in WA
earlier this year. But I cannot send him any samples, only photo's and
descriptions. 

 

Regards

 

Barry Batchelor

----- Original Message ----- 

From: Tom Miles <mailto:tmiles at trmiles.com>  

To: 'Barry <mailto:barry.batchelor at biochar.net>  at Biochar' ;
terrapreta at bioenergylists.org 

Sent: Friday, December 07, 2007 4:09 AM

Subject: RE: [Terrapreta] Permaculture and Biochar Development - Qld
Australia

 

Barry,

 

Biochar compost - how much biochar do you  adding to a liter of compost?
Does this vary with the compost or the intended use of the compost? Is the
biochar ground up? If so how do you grind it and how fine do you grind it?

 

Thanks

 

Tom

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