[Terrapreta] Terra Preta and Ants

[Saibhaskar Nakka]

<http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=5764069465159656348&postID=553197572469186478>

Dear All,

After the successful field trials in Alkaline soils
http://e-alkalinesoilsterrapreta.blogspot.com/ , I have just started second
season TP experiments on a small scale on our Roof top in small pots
http://e-terrapretarooftopexp.blogspot.com/. The charcoal is exclusively
from use of Magh-1 woodgas or smoke burner stove
http://e-smokeburnerstove.blogspot.com/ designed by me. I would like to
share some of my immediate observations.

One day after establishing pots and the seed with soil and charcoal and only
soil. I have sowed brinjal seeds in the 6 with charcoal + soil and 6 only
soil. To my surprise I saw that in the three control pots the seeds were
eaten away by small red ants. The six pots with a mix of about 30%
charcoal were untouched by ants. In TP practice the chances of germination
of the seed with out any loss to creatures like ants is minimized. I thought
this is the first direct benefit of using charcoal. On day two I saw that
all the pots without charcoal are with small red ants. There is not a single
ant in the pot with charcoal addition.

Although I love ants, to avoid ants eating away the seeds sown, we could
always add some charcoal along with the seeds. Second important application
is that in the Vermicompost pits some ants eat away the earthworms to avoid
such problem and for value addition to the compost to create a habitat for
microbes, we could as well add charcoal.

>From web I learnt that those you want to avoid toxic chemicals are using
charcoal and diatomous earth as a repellant for ants. For photographs please
see the blog below.
http://e-terrapretarooftopexp.blogspot.com/

I would like to know from your experiences what could be the other impacts
in using Charcoal to the living things existing in soil.


Dr. N. Sai Bhaskar Reddy
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