[Terrapreta] Assaying carbon levels in soil

[Sean K. Barry]

Hi Rick,

It seems to me that carbon content before would not be necessary to measure, just the amount of carbon which was being put into the soil.  Charcoal is 90-95% carbon.  So, if you make 100 kg of charcoal, then that would be putting about 90 kg of carbon into sequestration in the soil.  The charcoal should be weighed as dry.  An actual "proximate analysis" test of the charcoal could be made, but if it is fresh, then the moisture content would be very low.  If it is verified as only put in the soil and never removed manually, then this could be the sequestered amount.  It would, in fact, be a fairly conservative number too, since the amendment of the charcoal will presumably enhance the growth of plants on that land and they will "fix" more carbon into their stems, leaves, roots, and etc.

Regards,

SKB
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Rick Davies<mailto:rick.davies at gmail.com> 
  To: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
  Sent: Friday, November 30, 2007 2:35 PM
  Subject: [Terrapreta] Assaying carbon levels in soil


  If a poor rural community wanted to get paid for sequestering carbon in their farm soils, how would they or any independent third party be able to measure the carbon of their soils content before and after putting biochar in the soil? 

  Would it be rocket science, or are there any methods that are reasonably low tech, whose costs would not exceed potential income gains from selling carbon offsets / carbon credits?

  (Putting aside all the questions of how they would access these markets via intermediaries / demand aggregators) 

  regards, rick davies

  -- 
  Rick Davies (Dr),
  Monitoring and Evaluation Consultant, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
  Phone: (44) 01223 841367, Mobile:  (44) 07855 766 354, Skype: rickjdavies,
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