[Terrapreta] VM composition

[Tom Miles]

Richard,

I reviewed charcoal compositions recording volatile matter for several
studies. I don't yet see a correlation between VM and plant response. The
trials reported by Ogawa and others, and recently by Julie Major at IAI and
the slash and char tests by Christoph Steiner appear to be made with
conventional charcoals that probably vary from 10-30% VM.

The mechanism and impact of condensed tars or pyroligneous acids (wood
vinegar) seems to be different. Char and tar are different products made at
different stages of pyrolysis. Rather than try to make them all in one
package it might be useful to identify how they are used by organisms
individually. A related question is whether processes that purport to
combine char and tars in one products have them in forms useful to plants
and organisms.

Tom              

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Haard [mailto:richrd at nas.com] 
Sent: Friday, June 08, 2007 6:39 AM
To: Tom Miles
Cc: Kevin Chisholm; Michael J. Antal Jr.; terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] VM composition

hi

Still waiting for the results to come in on our tests. It's only  
money and is darned interesting. Will report for your comments.

I'm wondering now what good charcoal is in terms of VM and use in  
soil. My understanding that the slash and char strategy in moist  
tropics was low temperature of formation and that this embedded VM  
could be considered substrate for colonizing organisms? In addition,  
reading articles on the beneficial properties for plants of wood  
vinegar - apparently a water soluble component of smoke that  
smoldering combustion included this material and perhaps we should be  
pretreating our char with this before use.

Rich H
On Jun 7, 2007, at 8:30 PM, Tom Miles wrote: