[Terrapreta] FIeld and Nursery Trials

[Kevin Chisholm]

Dear Tom

Given that the Growing Season is complete in the Northern Hemisphere, 
would anyone know of any meaningful "growth tests" that could be 
conducted inside, under Grow Lamps, using char additions to the soil?

If so, this might bring us 1 season closer to testing results.

Thanks!

Kevin
Tom Miles wrote:
>
> Jim,
>
> You may not have received Richard’s reply to you before you replied. 
> He said, “Our charcoal dosage was to bring total carbon (OM + added 
> charcoal ) to something less than 10%. We determined this to be a 
> maximum dose and not a dose for large scale application.” He’ll 
> provide the first year report to the list when it is complete. The 
> plots have been replanted with no additional charcoal and the test is 
> ongoing for the next 1-3 years.
>
> If you go back through the field trials by the various Cornell and U 
> Beyreuth researchers you’ll find that most applications land in the 
> 1-10 mt/ha range. U Beyreuth found that most of the Amazonian soils 
> were 3C% or less. 10% is considered a maximum. See Julie Majors poster 
> on arid soils in Columbia etc. Most of these are linked on the TP 
> site. They are all listed and linked on the Cornell and EPRIDA sites.
>
> The question remains of how much charcoal is required in a particular 
> soil in combination with other nutrients for a marginal gain of a 
> specific agronomic value such as yield, fertilizer reduction, 
> inoculation/healthy, etc. General formulas may apply as a baseline but 
> if there is value in terra preta agronomists will test the variations 
> for centuries to come.
>
> We look forward to seeing what you finally decide to put in the ground.
>
> Tom
>
> *From:* terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org 
> [mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org] *On Behalf Of *Jim Joyner
> *Sent:* Saturday, November 24, 2007 10:04 AM
> *To:* terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
> *Subject:* Re: [Terrapreta] FIeld and Nursery Trials
>
> Tom, Let's see, 30 gallons (assuming 231 cu inches per gallon) is 
> about 4 cu ft or 52 pounds for 85 sq feet, which is about 13 tons an 
> acre. Be interesting to know how they arrived at that rate. It still 
> looks like there response was positive.
>
> Sean, I guess I don't understand why (Cornell) aimed at yield on 
> nitrogen fixing beans. They didn't explain. Maybe if one doesn't have 
> a history of soil responses, that is the best one can do. I too would 
> start with legumes just to try to build up nitrogen, to see what 
> effect there would be on nitrogen or how much net nitrogen I could 
> generate. But I think it is the following crops that really count.
>
> If we can get agriculture to the point we only have to replace the 
> nutrients in the food we've taken out, that is a _very_ efficient 
> agriculture. The delusion we live with in modern agriculture is that 
> NPK is all it takes to grow food, that we are not mining other things 
> out of the soil.
>
> In my experience I've applied as much as 200 tons of compost per acre, 
> not so much for nutrient but to try to get the carbon and CEC up so it 
> would hold the nutrient. And, it will, for a while. But then over the 
> years (even with no-till) the carbon in the soil will literally burns 
> off so that no matter how much nutrient I put in the soil, it is 
> wasted because the soil can't hold it. It just washes away. This has 
> been the bane of the organic farmer particularly in the south.
>
> If, due to charcoal's crystalline structure (or some other magical 
> quality), it persists, the whole game of agriculture has changed. I'm 
> guessing, of course, but it might well be something like the paradigm 
> shift as occurred after WWII with chemical farming.
>
> But I digress.
>
> I suspect, with proper amount of nutrients, one could grow in pure 
> charcoal -- don't know why anyone would want to, but it could be done. 
> My guess is that the /maximum/ quantity per acre has more to do with 
> economics than the soil or even the crop.
>
> I find it interesting that terra preta can be meters deep. Plants do 
> move elements around in the soil. By having a loosed subsoil without 
> pans, roots will take carbon down year after year, but I doubt that 
> accounts for the pictures of the black soil so deep. (It's just hard 
> to think about a 2 thousand year time horizon.)
>
> Meters deep charcoal clearly would not be economical. It would not be 
> harmful, and even though there would be some benefits in having 
> biochar so deep, those benefits could be accomplished better and 
> cheaper in other ways. For example, in Guam, after a super typhoon, we 
> buried palm trees in land that was replanted with fruit trees. In 
> Missouri we buried saw dust up to a depth of 6 feet (in the sub soil) 
> before planting grapes. Both worked great for giving the plants a 
> store of moisture and showed clear benefits over planting without. And 
> the biomass can take decades or longer to go away.
>
> I think, generally, it would be better to put charcoal in the soil in 
> one shot rather many. First, the expense of doing it, not including 
> the charcoal, is significant. Second, often such tillage or plowing is 
> two steps forward and one back as there can be a loss of erosion 
> control and the loss of soil structure itself.
>
> BTW, has anyone considered the SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research 
> and Education) program? They give out completive grants every year for 
> both research and education. Their grants can be in the hundreds of 
> thousands $ and for multi-year projects. They even have up to $10,000 
> grower and graduate student grants for demonstrations and just good 
> ideas.
>
> The thing about terra preta research, it wouldn't seem that any one 
> would be threatened. Until they became trendy we had a terrible time 
> getting funding for anything "organic" because some private university 
> funders (read chemical companies) did everything they could to stop 
> them. But , it seems TP has something for everyone. I mean, even if it 
> lowered the per acre use of chemicals for conventional farmers, it 
> would still probably make agriculture as a whole, grow. It might even 
> make up for the loss of the obscene subsidies large American farmers 
> get (at least I hope they lose them).
>
> Jim
>
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