[Terrapreta] Pottery Shards

[Barry at Biochar]

Hi All

My personal thinking is they used the large pots to mix up the biochar into bacterial brew's before adding it to the soil or compost pits. It might be one of the reasons why they would have had so many pots out in the food growing areas? The pots could have also been used to hold the fresh char which was bashed into finer amounts then soaked. It's just an idea.

I'm also wondering if the pottery shards were added to keep the soil in place during the Amazon wet season, I'm sure they didn't want their new top soil washed away. 

One question on Terra Petra, Was the original light coloured Amazon top soil found to be mixed through the black Terra Petra? 

Regards

Barry Batchelor
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Sean K. Barry 
  To: lou gold ; Kevin Chisholm 
  Cc: Terrapreta preta 
  Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 1:27 AM
  Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Pottery Shards and CEC


  Hi Kevin,

  I don't believe that charcoal amendments to soil alone can increase CEC, but I am not positive.  I think the increase in CEC in charcoal amended soils is attributed to the ability of the charcoal to foster improved growth of the microorganism populations in the soil, which increases the organic matter content of the soil, which then increases the CEC.

  You are right about clays, though.  They can increase the CEC of soil, too, but by varying degrees, depending upon the type of clay.  The clay does not need to be "fired" to do this, either.

  Regards,

  SKB
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Kevin Chisholm 
    To: lou gold 
    Cc: Terrapreta preta 
    Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 2:13 AM
    Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Pottery Shards and Terra Preta


    OK... Zeolites are known for their ability to enhance CEC, as is also 
    clay. Is it possible that the clay shards were acting as a CEC material 
    also? For example, firing of the clay for pottery could indeed have 
    activated it, so that it had the properties we attribute to char also... 
    high internal surface area, microporosity, and CEC capacity.



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