[Terrapreta] Terrapreta Digest, Vol 3, Issue 55

[Michael Bailes]

Silica and Coppicing

I have been looking at the new (expensive) silica "kitty litter' type
products at the supermarket and wondering if there is any point addding a
spoonfull or two to my potting mix?
Any ideas, suggestions, comments?

Coppicing
There are a number of excellent links on Coppicing on the Hypography "Terra
preta the thread that started it all" just use the "search this thread"
option
There are some beaut how -too photos etc.

The only logging I really strongly object to is that of Old Growth Forests.
Tasmanians are having a real battle trying to get their government to leave
these amazing, pristine forests, full of Giant Old Trees alone.

Most of our forests are clear-felled and used to send "woodchips" to Japan
to make origami (or charcoal?)
It would be far more profitable to pyrolise the chips for energy and give
the char away to farmers.

In a tremendous Irony our Dopey Old  Prime Minister "Bonsai  " today
promised to give Indonesia 200mil to stop logging Borneo West Papua etc.
Year right that's really going to happen. I can hear the sSwiss bank
accounts opening from here.
Meanwhile we lay waste our own country.
"Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers"
-some poet?



A couple of other points: I believe silicates are a common ingredient
> in all grasses, not just bamboo, which is why so many grazing
> creatures need continually growing teeth, to combat the abrasive
> quality of the silicate content. So clearly its a big part of the
> natural systems, and probably not a worrisome stuff.  And, regarding
> coppicing and pollarding: The traditional form in Britain has been
> what's called 'coppice with standards', where about four big trees
> per acre are left standing tall, for a long-term timber-harvesting
> cycle, whilst the rest of the trees are cut to coppice stools, and
> cropped for regrowth shoots on anything up from a four year cycle,
> depending on speed of regrowth of the species, and purpose of the
> harvest. If I were a tree, I might quite approve of being coppiced, I
> think, since the stools live for very much longer than trees left to
> run through their natural life-cycles, and if the coppicing ever
> stops, they then regrow to make big trees again: arboreal
> hyperlongevity! This kind of forestry never died out completely in
> Britain, and is making a modest comeback now. And as for the green
> lobbies: well, here at least we rather like the idea, I think.
> Cofion,   Rhisiart.
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