[Terrapreta] VM composition

[Richard Haard]

Thank you Tom

This is some confusion for me quite a while now. As I have endeavored  
to create an experiment that at least parallels Steiners plot studies  
here in the PNW feedback on this forum has lead me to believe I  
should be using charcoals that are produced at the low end of the  
temperature spectrum. As we have no way to measure, accurately these  
temperatures hopefully proximate analysis will inform us what I have  
going into my 2 year trials at 4CN.

In any case this entire effort has a very good educational write-off  
for me as I have been working our farm soils pretty much seat-of- 
pants and now after taking an analytical approach have come to  
realize our soil fertility management practices have been pretty  
good. This then takes me back to the original question when I started  
my research on charcoal here that do these effects known in the moist  
tropics apply to our moist temperate climate? The new question  
unfolding for me is : Where there are no particular problems in soil  
fertility and organic matter levels will a positive effect be shown  
by charcoal additions to soil. Coincidentally this is how our local  
Soil Conservation District person was wondering why we should treat  
the soil when there is no apparent problem in contrast to problems in  
farming oxysols in the moist tropics.

The only problem in our sandy loam soil is maintaining available  
nitrogen levels. Hence my studies this year and next I will be  
looking very closely at the differences in nitrogen between my  
treatment sets.

In addition, I have become interested as a line of inquiry whether  
the porous structure of hardwood charcoal is a habitat for free  
living nitrogen fixing bacteria as Ogawa indicated. I have saved half  
of our charcoal we prepared for this purpose and it and charcoal  
donated by John Flotvik is currently aging in a mixed deciduous  
forest under-story.

In my study for next year I would like to look more closely at our  
forest soil here that are mycorrhizial fungus dominated,highly  
leached, and have abundant annual organic matter input from leaf/ 
needle litter and woody debris. What role might charcoal play in such  
a place?

Rich H
On Jun 9, 2007, at 4:55 PM, Tom Miles wrote:

> 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:
>
>