[Terrapreta] Fwd: Charcoal--- what sort?

[Sean K. Barry]

Hi Kurt,

I read something Edward Someus or Gehardt Becktold said about there existing Terra Preta" on land in Africa, which was dominated by Savanna.  It is in one of the two posting by those two recently.

SKB


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: code suidae<mailto:codesuidae at gmail.com> 
  To: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
  Sent: Monday, June 04, 2007 5:41 PM
  Subject: [Terrapreta] Fwd: Charcoal--- what sort?


  On 6/3/07, rukurt at westnet.com.au<mailto:rukurt at westnet.com.au> < rukurt at westnet.com.au<mailto:rukurt at westnet.com.au>> wrote: 
    From what I've read, the charcoal in TP is hardwood charcoal.
    Micrographs of even the finely divided lumps shows the typical hardwood 
    structure maintained in the charcoal. We believe that this structure is
    responsible for the porosity of the charcoal and it's special properties.
    Will softwood charcoal have a similar structure? Not necessarily. 


  Just speculating here. If it is the particular micro-structure of the wood used to produced the char for TP it does not necessarily follow that the structure of hardwood char is the only or the optimal structure for biochar soil amendments. Nor is it necessarily true that the biomass used to produce the charcoal irrevocably sets the final micro-structure of the charcoal. Further processing of the charcoal could alter the structure to improve it's suitability for soil amendments. It might even be necessary to customize the structure to optimize it for the particular microflora that works best in a given region. The wee beasties that make TP so successful in the Amazon probably won't like North Dakota, for example, and the beasties that like North Dakota may prefer different charcoal from the beasties that live in Amazonian TP. 

  DOK
  -- 
  "Our ignorance is not so vast as our failure to use what we know." - M. King Hubbert 

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