[Terrapreta] volatile matter and char

[Richard Haard]

Microbial ecology makes an interesting study. For my wife's grad  
studies her topic was a nematode trapping fungus named Arthrobotrys.  
In a culture dish as long as you care to keep it going Arthrobotrys  
would never use all of their eelworm food source. Always seemed to  
reach a predator - prey balance. As a technique for biological control  
of plant parasitic nematodes in crop plants such an approach then  
could only at best keep populations in check.

The context of the JP-4 utilizing fungus arose during late 60's when  
planes were falling from the sky with plugged fuel filters and to the  
amazement of microbiologists at the time these fungi were actually  
utilizing this material as  an energy source. A biological water  
treatment system to clean up such organics where a recirculating  
system was used would better clean contaminants rather that the slow  
circulation in an aquifer and generally the absence of microbes as the  
soil itself acts as an effective particulate filter.

In the context of terra preta I listened to a lecture by  Dr Craig  
Ventner on C-Span this afternoon on his work collecting and  
identifying DNA from sea water on a cruise from Atlantic, Canada to  
the Galapagos. On the trip with routine sampling he was able to  
identify many thousands of unique DNA collections that came from  
viruses, bacteria and other organisms. Most of these were unknown to  
science and most significant to terra preta he could actually  
determine where the water was collected by its DNA profile.

In soils, DNA diversity  is equal to or greater than Craig Ventners  
findings in seawater. In a lecture by Dr Elaine Ingham a few years ago  
she spoke of soil DNA profiles indicating millions of species, most of  
which were unidentified by science and diversity increasing to the  
maximum in pristine habitats . The context of this in her talk was of  
natural enrichment in the preparation of  compost teas that she  
advocates. It is a highly aerobic, rapid fermentation process where  
primarily beneficial bacteria are cultivated for plant protection  
purposes.

I think what Larry with his charcoal pretreatment practice is  
accomplishing is a similar selective enrichment for preparing charcoal  
to use in soil. These findings are for sure preliminary and there may  
be many other ways of handling the charcoal but the concept of  
pretreatment  may very well result in a product so to speak that is  
active in the soil immediately rather than waiting for natural  
acclimation of the charcoal to the soil.  Selecting for organisms  
capable of degrading or detoxifying this combustion product my mean  
supplementing the soil with amino acids, (meat juices and boiled  
bones) and urea, (urine) as Larry is doing or Glycine as Deluca in his  
experimental work.

Ventners talk was most impressive

Rich
On Dec 24, 2007, at 8:07 AM, MMBTUPR at aol.com wrote:

>           from          Lewis L Smith
>
> On my parent's  farm, we used to fill the tractors with deisel from  
> an outdoor, stand-alone tank. The entire operation took place on a  
> concrete apron. Nevertheless, some drops of diesel occasionally ran  
> off onto the ground. migrated and eventually made undrinkable water  
> from a well maybe a 50 yards away, by pushing the aromatics ppm  
> barely over the limit. It took many years for the well to purge  
> itself.
>
> Yes those microbes do work but they take their own good time !
>
> Seasons greeting.  ###
>
>
> **************************************
> See AOL's top rated recipes (http://food.aol.com/top-rated-recipes?NCID=aoltop00030000000004 
> )

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