[Terrapreta] Praire is natures way of making terra preta.

[lou gold]

Yep, there's lots of evidence about the way both nature and indigenous
peoples use fire. In the case of people, they also used fire to prevent the
forest from reclaiming land where they were cultivating food. For example,
it is thought that the Indians of California created the great oak savannas
that are now the vineyard country north of San Francisco. Evidently they
burned to kill young conifer seedlings which would grow tall and drive out
the oaks which were the source of their staple -- acorns.

I'm not questioning the role of fire in the complex organic process of
creating soils. I was wondering if soils in the Midwest "grew" to great
depths as did terra preta in the Amazon?


On 9/1/07, Sean K. Barry <sean.barry at juno.com> wrote:
>
>  Hi Lou,
>
> I agree with Gerrit on this.  An when Brian says prairie is addicted to
> fire, I think that is right , too.  It has been clear for 30+ years now that
> the prairie/the steppes had contained the most fertile soil, because they
> contained the highest levels of soil organic carbon.
> Sustained agriculture and permi-culture have been pushing for as many
> years for "no-till' and "low-till' (chisel plow vs mold board plow)
> agriculture.  There has already been an attempt made to educate agriculture
> that not disturbing the carbon in the soil made it so the fertility of that
> soil maintained or even grew, rather than declined.
>
> The clinker in that plan is that it takes patience and the kind of waste
> management stewardship that industrial agriculture won't do.  Productivity
> demands "juicing up" the soils faster, getting more yield out of them right
> now, not 30 years down the road.  It demands the least handling of wastes as
> is economically possible.  Just push it aside enough to exploit the soil
> more.  Waste is viewed all over the world as troublesome to deal with, so
> deal with it the least amount possible.
>
> The sick part of all this is that government subsidies pay for
> productivity and productivity increases.  The government reduces payments
> when productivity falls off or stops for a while.  If you are a struggling
> farmer, what would you do?
>
> Regards,
>
> SKB
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Gerald Van Koeverden <vnkvrdn at yahoo.ca>
> *To:* lou gold <lou.gold at gmail.com>
> *Cc:* Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org ; bhans at earthmimic.com
> *Sent:* Saturday, September 01, 2007 9:33 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [Terrapreta] Praire is natures way of making terra preta.
>
> lou,
> Glacial deposits are not soil...they are piles of ground up rock and
> gravel.  Soils are what develop on them over time, and how nature does that
> is what we are interested in.
>
> gerrit
>
>  On 1-Sep-07, at 9:56 AM, lou gold wrote:
>
> Yes, very interesting suggestion. I also have been wondering about the
> role of fire (natural and managed) in building soils in both forest and
> grassland ecologies.
>
> I not sure where you are located but,  if you are speaking about the deep
> soils of the US Midwest, they were mostly deposited by glacial scraping of
> the lands to the north. Unlike, the Amazonian dark earths they did not grow
> on site.
>
> lou
>
> On 9/1/07, Brian Hans <bhans at earthmimic.com> wrote:
> >
> > I have been musing about this statement for a while now. As far as I
> > know, Ive coined it.
> >
> > I think the hypothesis speaks for itself. After doing native
> > restorations, mostly prairies for over 10 years, bio-char in small dose y/y
> > seems quite likely to aid in the production of the luscious prairie soils
> > 6ft+ deep. Infact, the prairie ecosystem is literally addicted to fire so
> > bio-char is inevitable. I am going to bring this topic up to some of
> > my prairie academics this fall but I was curious as to what the group
> > thought?
> >
> > Brian Hans
> >
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> >
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