[Terrapreta] Soil test and CEC

[Tom Miles]

CEC has been documented by researchers like Julie Major at Cornell. Listing
we have on the Terra Preta Website:

http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/search/node/CEC

 

Soil nutrients have also been tested. See documentation of the Ogawa work in
the Indonesia. See:

http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/search/node/ogawa

 

Results for a search on "nutrient" n the Terra Preta site:

http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/search/node/nutrient

 

As far as I know there is little data for field crops on temperature soils
as recently requested by farmers from Minnesota and Southern Illinois. It
would be useful to see more work like the strip tillage deep banding
technique used with the Oil Mallee charcoal in Western Australia. Does
anyone know the current status of that trial?

http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/taxonomy/term/32/9

 

Thanks

 

Tom Miles

http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org

 

 

From: terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org
[mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Jim Joyner
Sent: Friday, November 02, 2007 8:00 AM
To: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
Subject: [Terrapreta] Soil test and CEC

 

Has anyone here ever done or seen a before-and-after (charcoal) soil test,
particularly with an eye to the cation exchange capacity (CEC)?

Seems to me, that is the issue in a nutshell. If the CEC is increased then
we have a better potential soil, period.  I say potential because a higher
CEC simply indicates greater holding capacity for nutrient. But if the CEC
is higher, we at least know what needs to be done next and what to add to
the soil. The rest is economics.

I read somewhere in the list archives that there was a concern about whether
or not the charcoal was created at high or low temps (I'm speaking of wood
or trees.). That might make a difference but there is no reason to think so.
I mean, wood has little or no nutrient in it to begin with. Maybe a little
potassium, but pyrolysis doesn't change that. Potassium doesn't go away in
any event. High temp, low temp, burn it to ash and the potassium is still
there. And most soils have sufficient potassium, even the sorry stuff I farm
in.

There was some comment about the possibility of "resins" being left in low
temp charcoal. So what? That just means there are still some hydrocarbons
left and that just means there some un-combusted hydrogen. Either way, that
hydrogen is going to go away and carbon is going to be left -- maybe in a
less permanent state than charcoal. 

But going back to my original comment, it's the CEC that counts. Everything
else simply follows. If the CEC is greater and more mutients are available,
of course plants will do better and soil biological life will be enhanced.
How could it not?

Jim


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/terrapreta_bioenergylists.org/attachments/20071103/dfd55a56/attachment.html