[Terrapreta] Biochar and Fungi

[Rebecca Oglesby]

Hi List,

I recently had someone contact me with a concern about biochar. I wanted to
post it here to get some of your well informed opinions/ideas/knowledge on
the subject. Here is the letter:


<------------While I respect Time Flannery greatly, he is not a fungal
expert any more than I am.

However my husband John was a member of Perth Urban Bushland Fungi group. He
did their website and a great deal of their computing for them. I attended
quite a few of their functions and picked up the basics.

Facts I am well aware of is that there is almost nothing known about
Australian fungi. New species are being discovered all the time and while
fungi are not nearly as unique to this continent as is the flora and fauna,
there is still a fairly high degree of endemism (restricted to Australia).
Introduction of weed species of fungi is being reported but unless we invest
more money time and effort we may just lose huge amounts of our biodiversity
:- plants whose existence depends on specific mycorrhizal fungi and
marsupial animals such as Gilberts Potoroo for whom particular soil fungi
are a major food source.

I am not knocking Agrichar. I am just pointing out to you the risk of
promoting an overseas based solution in the one continent on this planet
that is very different to all others. Australia has a host of differences
resulting from effectively missing out on the huge glaciation that other
continents experienced in the last ice age. The low fertility of our very
leached soils has resulted in plants and thus also animals very specialized
to adapt to this rather unique environment. WA is particularly
cursed/blessed in this regard. A lot of the problems we face today result
from European settlers treating this land as if it was Europe and I don't
find our more recent multicultural settlers differ in their approach.

I would want to be sure that the Agrichar approach did not encourage or
introduce 'weed fungi' before I became a fervent advocate. Fair enough to
suggest it as a possible solution but I would want to see very carefully
controlled trials before I pushed for widespread use. (If you want to know
about weed fungi he can probably tell you more than I can or you can have a
look at the on line fieldbook for identifying the Perth fungi which I seen
to remember included at least a couple of the weeds.
< http://www.fungiperth.org.au/ >

Filamentous fungi spread for many kilometres in the soil. Even ground used
for crops for many years still retain some native fungi as the rather
infamous story of Sterile Red fungus discovered in WA by an Indian
Australian establishes. This was the most exciting organism I have ever
worked with. It protected plants against infection by other fungi, reduced
their nutrient requirements and increase the growth of every plant we tested
with it. The University of WA with its great commercial wisdom, sold the
rights to this fungus to a Japanese company alert to the potential of
mycorrhizal fungi. Research is now restricted to this company. It protected
wheat crops from the devastating Take -all disease, which is why and how
Siva first discovered it.

One of our WA members used to quote repeatedly that the worst problems we
face today are earlier solutions to problems. To this I would add my own
stricture, as one who taught biotechnology at UWA.

Understand and trust Biology before using Technology.

None of us want to add further solutions that turn into problems and "the
way to Hell is paved with good intentions."----------->

Please share your thoughts.

~Rebecca

-- 
Eprida, Inc
1151 E. Whitehall Rd.
Athens, GA 30605
(706) 316 - 1765 ext 645
http://www.eprida.com
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