[Terrapreta] Siwmae pawb

[Tom Miles]

See: http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/steiner07

 

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From: terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org
[mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Richard Haard
Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2007 3:06 PM
To: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org; veronica
Cc: Rhisiart Gwilym
Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Siwmae pawb

 

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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