[Terrapreta] O tillage

[Frank Teuton]

Zero tillage in the soils I am familiar with is kind of like veganism, seems plausible on the surface, but when you get out the electron microscope and look at all those cute little horrible mites and such, there are no vegans...just folks with illusions.

See: http://www.abe.psu.edu/fac/Richard/Praxis.htm from whence this marvelous quote :

"We didn't bother to till the compost in. Over time it is being incorporated the old fashioned way, as described by Charles Darwin, one of the first scientists to appreciate the importance of organic matter recycling: 

     "The plow is one of the most ancient and most valuable of man's inventions; 
     but long before he existed the land was in fact regularly plowed, and still continues to be thus 
     plowed by earthworms. It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have 
     played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organized 
     creatures." 

     Darwin, C.R. 1881. The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms, with 
     Observations on their Habits (Chapter 7). Murray, London. 
     Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882). "



I tend to agree that raw charcoal is not likely to be processed preferentially by worms until it has attractive materials associated with it, although worms, like birds and some reptiles, do ingest grit for their gizards. But once imbued with goodies from the composting process, charcoal should be as attractive to worms as rich organic soil is.

No till does not have to imply the use of herbicides. A growing body of organic no till methods are being developed:

http://www.newfarm.org/features/0104/no-till/index.shtml

http://www.newfarm.org/depts/notill/index.shtml



Again, it is probably best to understand this not as zero tillage, but as biotillage....materials are incorporated biologically into the soil.



Obviously, pastures and hayfields are zero tillage entities, and have been for millennia...or rather, they are biotillage entities, with a host of organisms including earthworms, dung beetles, and numerous others working hard to bioincorporate organic matter, much of which is in the form of exudate pumped into the root systems by plants eager to create beneficial microbial communities around their roots.

One way to simply apply charcoal (without addition to compost) would be to put it into pasture and hayfields after grazing or cutting; the stubble of the residue would hold it against blowing, and the shaded highly biologicially active soil right at the crowns of the pasture/hay plants would be a likely place for the charcoal to get sandwiched between twoor more layers of organic detritus and thus made more susceptible to further bioincorporation.

It would be interesting to study the relative distribution of applied carbon to bare soil, both directly and through compost and compost tea (or just nutrient materials like manure, sugar water, etc), and to compare it to the distribution patterns occuring in covered soils, eg, pastures, hayfields, forests, etc.

Of course, for people already tilling, applying manures, composts, banding fertilizers, etc, it makes a great deal of sense especially during the experimental stages of agrichar studies to simply piggyback agrichar into the existing methodologies and see what the results are.



There's something a bit 1984ish about charring up all the rotten logs in all the forests for agrichar, or in devising brave new monster rototillers to deeply incorporate it in one go, when with a bit of patience and wisdom we can see it worked in without all the heavy metal diesel beast activity, and without wiping out necessary habitat for forest floor fauna...



My two cents,



Frank Teuton


----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jim Joyner 
  To: Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org 
  Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2007 8:32 PM
  Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] O tillage


  Nikolaus, thanks for your thoughtful words. 

  I'm anything but an expert. Also, I'm not a large scale farmer so I'm not sure my pronouncements apply to them. However, most of the no-till I do, I learned from a large scale farmer in South Georgia. He switched, primarily, because he got tired of watching his soil run off down the creek every year. But he has also lowered his costs.

  He is a conventional farmer -- mostly cotton and peanuts. But the last I spoke with him, he had not used any herbicides for 3 years and had not applied any chemical fertilizer in 5 years. I asked him why he didn't just go organic. He said his hair was gone so couldn't become a hippy.  He is, however, a poster child for NRCS and they do soil tests for him 3 times a year.

  I don't know for certain, but what I think is that a lot of no-till from which the stats come from is being run by farmers or bureaucrats who want to use conventional themes, crops and rotations. One just needs to be more creative and be intent on not using chemicals.. 

  I use no herbicides, no chemical fertilizer and no pesticides, none for about 8 years. I have no weed or pest problems to speak of, although my fields are not especially pretty -- and my costs are a good 30% less than what they used to be. It's easier physical work but a lot more planing and management. 

  This is intuitive and I can't prove it, but my philosophy on microorganisms is, if I make a proper home for them, they will come (my post to Richard will tell you more). 

  Also, you have to understand, I have some of the poorest native soil on the planet -- a wind blown silt with nothing in it to mine. If I can raise my CEC to 44, I will see improvements, period. More importantly, if can raise the CEC to half that and it holds without applying or growing tons of organic matter, I will not only see results, I will cut my imput costs considerably. I agree that charcoal is not a silver bullet but I'm doing everything else right (I think), I just need to be able to hold onto what I've got in the soil longer.

  Thanks again,

  Jim


  ----- Original Message ----
  From: Nikolaus Foidl <nfoidl at desa.com.bo>

  Dear Jim!

  I do not fully agree with the o tillage onset. If you do a real search in
  all the literature available and if you grow yourself in the neighborhood of
  tillage farmers you will find out that o-tillage is same or slightly less
  productive then tillage systems.

  For sure 0 tillage is much lower in energy need and so far cheaper( smaller
  tractors etc) then tillage. On the other hand 0-tillage cant live without
  herbicides and its kind of pervert to promote a 0 tillage system to protect
  soil life and on the other hand kill the soil life thoroughly by applying
  herbicides. If you apply herbicides ( and it does not matter much which one
  or which combo) the first you kill is the chlorophyll bearing bacteria (
  cyano bacter and algae) which are the the first in a huge food chain of
  bacteria, fungi and yeasts and mycorrhizae etc. If you kill now the first in
  the chain the whole chain starves to dead, that's why even very " fertile
  soil have poor response when it comes to productivity". As long as 0 tillage
  implies usage of herbicides we are fighting the devil with Beelzebub.( what
  does not make sense to me).

  I myself am working on a 24.000 ha Farm with culture rotation ( 3 plantings
  a year), 0 tillage etc. We as well are doing since 2 years trials with
  charcoal on top, buried in chunks, milled and buried, charged with micro and
  macronutrients etc. but so far significant differences are seen only with
  the adding or charging of micro and macronutrients and the adding of bio
  life boosters ( melazza,lemonjuice,and trichoderma, mycorrhizae etc)
  Charcoal alone up to 40 tons per ha did not get significant results in maize
  , Soya or sunflower ( first year, we will see in the following years if
  there are measurable changes in the same area).

  All results point us to restore as quick as possible soil life and if
  possible in its multitude of different bacteria, fungi, mycorrhizae and
  yeasts and not only some few special strains of trichoderma or mycorrhizae,
  Tell us as well that the lost or suppressed fertility is not a mineral
  dependent issue its a availability issue and that's where bio life comes in
  to action again. 

  All those microbes move and liberate and take out of un soluble mineral
  complexes huge amount of ions and render them available for plants as well
  they produce tons of proteins ( enzymes) and growth promoting hormones and
  protecting complex organic molecules ( different acids like salicylic acid
  etc) protecting the rhizospere  being sequestered by malicious fungi or
  bacteria. They form aggregates using organic molecules with electric charges
  allowing water to penetrate and air to penetrate etc.

  So saying all this we have to stop to look for one golden bullet which
  solves all, its much , much more complex what's going on below the surface.
  We grow still today some grains or fruits despite our very clumsy and not
  very intelligent approach to agriculture and not because we now how to grow.
  ( nature still is strong and forgiving towards all the horror we bring about
  the existing live on earth)

  Please dont expect too much from charcoal in soil it is just one small part
  of bigger set of possible improvements and start to think more critical
  about all the holy cows we have in agriculture ( 0 tillage, etc)

  Best regards Nikolaus 



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