[Terrapreta] Charcoal agriculture: not ready for prime time

[rukurt at westnet.com.au]

Sean K. Barry wrote:
> Hi Kurt, and All,
>  
> There has been some mention that charcoal amendments alone or charcoal 
> and fertilizers, even organic fertilizers like chicken manure seem to 
> only increase soil productivity for maybe the first 3 or 4 years after 
> application.  The original Terra Preta soils have and do seem to 
> retain their fertility for perhaps centuries.
> There is a difference.  Some have proposed that the difference is in 
> the size and/or variety of a healthy soil microorganism population.  
> In this vain, then, does anyone think it would be reasonable to say 
> that charcoal could be inoculated with Vesicular-arbuscular 
> mycorrhizal (VAM) fungi or other beneficial soil microorganisms?
> Maybe this is part of "the recipe" for making "Neo Terra Preta"?  
> Maybe a census of the soil microbes in the original Terra Preta could 
> give us some clues about this theory as the possible key ingredient 
> for a working "Neo Terra Preta" soil?
>  
> Regards,
>  
> SKB
This is why I keep saying "Suckit and See'. The microbe population of TP 
in the Amazon works well there, we may need something entirely different 
for the Darling Downs of Queensland or the Mallee in South Australia. 
Different soils have different microbe needs, just as different areas 
have different Fauna and Floras (it's just a matter of scale) and the 
only way to find out is to experiment, using local soils, maybe local 
worm casts and methods like the Bokashi work that was done in the 
Phillipines by Reap Canada, or whoever. Additionally, I saw somewhere 
that forest soil microbes are fungus based while grassland's are 
bacteria based. There is also the matter of those enigmatic pottery 
shards--- what is their function, or are the fish impregnations just 
from red herrings? Is it important to have rock dust in the mix as well, 
and just what rocks are best?

Kurt
you can glean just so much from pre-existing work, then you gotta get 
your hands dirty.