[Terrapreta] Pottery Shards and Terra Preta

[lou gold]

Gerrit,

Cool movies, thanks.

I guess the "protection-from-predator" theory plays well with the "reef"
metaphor which is very attractive to my intuitive and narrative
sensibilities.
I like it.

hugs,  lou


On Dec 11, 2007 11:30 AM, Gerald Van Koeverden <vnkvrdn at yahoo.ca> wrote:

> There already are solid aspects of any soil medium to which bacteria can
> adhere to.   I lean more towards the "protection-from-predator" theory.  Go
> to the link below and watch 16 short movies describing various soil
> organisms:
>
> http://www.agron.iastate.edu/~loynachan/mov/<http://www.agron.iastate.edu/%7Eloynachan/mov/>
>
> Gerit
>
> On 11-Dec-07, at 6:54 AM, MMBTUPR at aol.com wrote:
>
>           from          Lewis L Smith
>
> This thread, especially the pictures of fungi and microbes on and within
> charcoal, which Tom unearthed a while back,  reminds me of a development
> which took place here in Puerto Rico some time ago and which may be relevant
> for the understanding of how terra preta works.
>
> Many years ago, our largest rum distillery, that of the Bacardí
> Corporation in Cataño, used to dump its distillery slops into the Atlantic
> Ocean through a long outfall. At some point, the US Environmental Protection
> Agency staid "stop". So with the aid of a university from the state of
> Florida, Bacardí scientists developed an anaerobic digester to convert the
> slops into a biogas and other useful products. This digester eventually
> came to supply the heat necessary to produce all of the low-pressure process
> steam used by the distillery.
>
> Now anaerobic digestion is typically a process in which three different
> kinds of microbes inhabiting a slurry, in succession "snip" big molecules
> into small ones. At some point, the chief scientist [ whose name escapes me
> at the moment ] figured out that the microbes would do a better job if they
> had more surface on which to "sit" while they "snipped". So he and his
> associates devised a honeycomb type structure and inserted it in the
> digester. Digester productivity improved substantially.
>
> Although the chief scientist has retired, the improved process continues
> in use today. In fact, use of the related patents is available under
> license. And I believe that one may even still visit the digester control
> room, as I did years ago.
>
> The point of interest here is the concept that microbes do their work
> better when attached to surfaces than when they are floating around in a
> liquid or semi-liquid. This may help to explain the increase in soil
> productivity obtained by creating terra preta and perhaps even the use of
> shards, which of course adds to the surface area available to microbes
> within the terra preta.
>
> What does the List think ?
>
> Cordially. ###
>
>
>
>
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-- 
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