[Terrapreta] Siwmae pawb

[Richard Haard]

Hello Rhisiart

It is nice to see your perspective. One my local friends is our  
charcoal/gardening discussion applied a fairly large quantity of  
ground mesquite charcoal to a plot on his sheep pasture. I have not  
heard from him this year yet. Presently, I am completely adsorbed in  
reading the Christoph Steiner, et al paper which Tom has posted to  
the files section. 'Long Term effects of manure, charcoal and mineral  
fertilization on crop production and fertility on a highly weathered  
Central Amazonian upland soil'

My farming is traditional dirt type and when we tried using a tufted  
type Festuca between rows of a shrub seed orchard we had very poor  
growth. In addition, in our seed beds for our bare root native plant  
nursery root competition from clover severely limits plant growth.  
Our summer drought may be a factor here in PNW , USA.

We had some discussion earlier of the use of containers to test  
charcoal amendments.  I went over my  June 2004 image files of a  
demonstration at the University of Georgia conference. This was after  
Christoph Steiner had presented his research at the conference and  
during a field trip to the Epidra test site. I though these might be  
interesting to look at.

close-up of corn plants viewed during UGA field trip
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/rchaard/405067746/in/ 
set-72157594444994347/>

Dr. C. Steiner on left demonstrating a container experiment of  
charcoal/ soil in corn. Presented only to demonstrate the potential  
for experimentation with containers.
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/rchaard/405067746/in/ 
set-72157594444994347/>

This image has been put here earlier but i present it again to point  
out there might be reason to precondition our charcoal (in a compost  
pile?, or spend a season under a forest canopy? before using in a  
direct test.  As i stated earlier this specimen is from Larry's  
garden, Swiss Chard with charcoal he made in his barbeque. Plant  
roots and fungi very happily inhabiting the surface of these large  
charcoal chunks. I am thinking about this approach and to convert a  
1/2 cord of  dry alder into char to make a  - sort of - uniform batch  
of  angiosperm char to work with.

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/rchaard/336553821/in/ 
set-72157594444994347/>

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