[Terrapreta] Charcoal in Horticulture

[Michael Bailes]

This is a good article on charcoal in Horticulture
You may want to go to the original for the references. I have edited them
out.
it has also some suggestions for other uses of charcoal including in Pet
Food!

Has anyone used charcoal for propagation? or know of any research on the
subject?  It may stop 'damping off" and promote germination of some plants.
Does anyone know anything about this?

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=cache:I0TgdV-gQ_UJ:www.visitthemoors.co.uk/uploads/publication/978.pdf+


 Charcoal is much more widely used and available in the horticulture
industry in the UK than here in Australia. They still coppice some forests.
The English are also taking a new look at charcoal to replace expensive
water holding polymers, perlite and vermiculite.The local nurseryman's
association has researched water holding polymers and have been unimpressed.
Apparently they work well in a lab with distilled water, but mix with soil
and fertiliser it is a differnt story. AND they are so much more
expensivethan charcoal.

    [QUOTE]Horticulture

    Charcoal has been used for horticultural purposes for at least two
thousand years,

    Archaeological research has come up with evidence of charcoal being used
as a soil ameliorator in the Amazon basin around the time of Christ.

    Green keepers of golf and bowling clubs used charcoal extensively as a
top dressing but  in recent years this has been substituted by sharp sand,
the reason may have been that the demise of the British charcoal industry
caused a shortage in supplies of the correct grades. Fine charcoal powder
used on lawns (golf) absorbs and eliminates excess amounts of fertilizer and
chemicals present in the soil


    Charcoal was widely available from horticultural sundries men up until
the late 1960's,

    for use mainly in bulb fibre where the pots do not have drainage holes.
The charcoal was

    said to keep the compost 'sweet'.


    Orchid growing employs the use of charcoal and specialist growers of
carnations and pinks find charcoal to be invaluable.

    It has been reported that charcoal may act as a means of eradicating
moss in lawns.
Trials have been carried out and the results are currently being analyzed

    Research has shown that growing mediums that have charcoal present, are
able to buffer the effects of sporadic watering, by reducing the frequency
of watering whilst helping to prevent 'damping off'

    Charcoal also reduces the leaching of fertiliser in free draining soils
as the charcoal's porous carbon structure enables the nutrients to be held
for slower release to the plants
    .
The inclusion of charcoal in open seedbeds showed that it facilitates the
uptake of nutrients. Calcium uptake almost doubles, with significant
increases in potassium, magnesium and phosphorus, the pH increases slightly
and there is an obvious increase in organic matter.

Charcoal has been recommended as part of the treatment for the eradication
of a fungal disease, Cylindrocladium that infects Box hedges.

    Charcoal has proved to be an ideal renewable substitute for perlite and
vermiculite, compost additives used to increase aeration and aid drainage,
but both finite resources.

    They  reported that the main reason for the decline in the use of
horticultural charcoal was that it is a dirty material to handle. If uses
can be found that have clear horticultural benefits and minimum handling,
then we believe that a considerable market exists. For example, charcoal
would make a good additive to grow bags, where the contents aren't handled
much and there are problems with erratic watering.

    The currently favoured water retaining gels are not liked by all growers
and there are doubts about how well they actually release the water they
have absorbed "Petunias in hanging baskets tested in greenhouses showed no
benefits when water-absorbing polymers were used. And plants grown in media
containing water-absorbing polymers required watering just as often as
plants grown in potting soil containing no water-absorbing polymers.

 Also, their usable life is limited by the amounts of salt or fertilizers in
the soil

    ". Hence, charcoal could be used where watering may be a problem, e.g.
hanging baskets, or where it is hard to change the compost, e.g. in large
tubs.

 Charcoal could be incorporated into locally produced 'green compost'. No
further

    processing, other than simply grading would be required and transport
costs would below. We have had preliminary discussions with Scarborough
Borough Council about adding fines to their Green Compost and they hope to
do some simple trials in hanging baskets.
[/QUOTE]



-- 
Michael Bailes.

"Five years of Guantanamo:
Justice delayed is justice denied"
-Amnesty.International.
:candle:
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/terrapreta_bioenergylists.org/attachments/20070215/20dc187a/attachment-0001.html