[Terrapreta] manure biochar N-P-K question

[Nat Tuivavalagi]

Thanks for the correction.  Yes, you are right - sawdust is considered
“poor” or “low quality” because it has a HIGH C/N (carbon to nitrogen)
ratio.

 

Regards

Nat

 

  _____  

From: Sean K. Barry [mailto:sean.barry at juno.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 11:58 AM
To: bhans at earthmimic.com; 'Gerald Van Koeverden'; Nat Tuivavalagi
Cc: Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] manure biochar N-P-K question

 

Hi Nat,

 

How about that?  So they do compete for a time and they both win out (for a
time)?  Low C/N?  Does C/N mean carbon to nitrogen ratio?  Do you mean
sawdust has high C/N (low nitrogen)?

 

SKB

 

 

----- Original Message ----- 

From: Nat Tuivavalagi <mailto:ntuivavalagi at cmi.edu>  

To: 'Sean K. Barry' <mailto:sean.barry at juno.com>  ; bhans at earthmimic.com ;
'Gerald Van <mailto:vnkvrdn at yahoo.ca>  Koeverden' 

Cc: Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org 

Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2007 6:55 PM

Subject: RE: [Terrapreta] manure biochar N-P-K question

 

Hi SKB,

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

I agree that competition between microorganism and plants is not usually
obvious.  However, this competition could be readily seen when we add "poor"
(actually low C/N) organic matter (eg sawdust) to our soil/crop.  Instead of
becoming green and healthy, the crop actually becomes yellowish and sickly -
as amount of N in soil/organic-matter is not adequate for both microorganism
and crop.  Yes the microorganisms win (at least at the beginning).  However,
the microorganisms will die out and the crop will benefit from these dead
and decaying materials - hence the yellowish-ness is only temporary.

 

Cheers

Nat

 

 

 

 

 

 


  _____  


From: terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org
[mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Sean K. Barry
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 11:13 AM
To: bhans at earthmimic.com; Gerald Van Koeverden
Cc: Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] manure biochar N-P-K question

 

Hi Gerrit,

 

Both soil microorganisms and plants grow better in "fertile" soil.  It does
not appear that they "compete" for the same things in the soil, though.  How
could they?  Microorganisms would always win out (I would think, being
closer to the feast) and plants would not survive in the soil (starvation
brought on by 200,000,000 "wee beasties" per centimeter gobbling all the
eats).

 

It has been mentioned several times in these past few posts and I think it
was well known before any of us said this, that microorganisms thrive on
carbohydrates (which plants can provide).  Also, the microorganisms deliver
to the roots of the plants, those nutrients that the plants need to survive.

 

It has been mentioned by others on this list before, too, that there are
"symbiotic" relationships between plants growing in soil and soil
microorganisms in that soil, where soil microorganisms provide nutrients for
plants in exchange for a little sugar (e.g. Vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhizal
(VAM) fungi).  Dr. Karve, again, has also mentioned these symbiotic
relationships; plants that exude sugar from their roots and leaf tips, to
"feed" the soil microbes in the soil below them.

 

Brian Hans said "it's dark down there".  Well, he's right.  Soil microbes do
not photosynthesize carbohydrates because they are not bathed in sunlight.
They cannot make their own nutrition from plant nutrients (C HOPKINS CaFé
Mgr).  Likewise, terrestrial plants do not decompose soil organic matter
themselves and make the nutrients in the soil available to themselves.
Plants use sunlight to make sugars and cellulose from carbondioxide and
water.  Soil microbes decompose SOM and they do this the entire time they
live in soil.  

 

Soil is an ECOSYSTEM.  No single type of organism can survive alone for any
length of time, without there being others there, too, to help.

 

Industrial Agriculture has ignored this graceful, well-developed, symbiosis
between soil and plants.  All we have ever done with industrial fertilizers
is feed the nutrients to the plants and ignore the soil's living parts.
This has to stop!  We are killing the organisms living in and on
agricultural soil around the planet from the ground up.  We continue to
ignore soil at our greatest peril.

 

 

Regards,

 

SKB

 

 

----- Original Message ----- 

From: Gerald <mailto:vnkvrdn at yahoo.ca>  Van Koeverden 

To: bhans at earthmimic.com 

Cc: Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org 

Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2007 5:11 PM

Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] manure biochar N-P-K question

 

Short-term perhaps, but if those sugars provide the initial impetus for such
mircoflora to throughly colonize those charcoal particles, then very good
things could result...??  All soil scientists know that 200,000,000
organisms live in a cubic centimeter of fertile soil, but none of them
really understand the dynamics of their nutrient relationships...its way too
complicated and thus rather unpredictable. 

 

gerald

 

 

On 11-Sep-07, at 6:00 PM, Brian Hans wrote:






Sugar is the energy currency of soil flora. This makes sense because
autotrophs utilize the sun and ofc...its dark down there so its not like
they can fix their own energy from the sun. I would also suspect what PurNrg
is implying...that residual sugars increase soil flora but only as a temp.
shot in the arm. This is only a short term shot and not a long term affect. 

 

Brian Hans 

PurNrg at aol.com wrote:


In a message dated 9/11/07 5:07:24 PM, jon.frank at aglabs.com writes:






The only thing he spread was charcoal that had syrup filtered through it.



This would lead me to wonder whether there was not a lot of residual sugar
in the charcoal from said syrup, which would definitely be a different thing
than JUST charcoal. As we've read earlier in this discussion, the sugar
promotes a massive, temporary bloom all all sorts of soil critters. This
bloom and it's associated activities could well be responsible for using up
easily available soil nutrients, making them less available to plants in an
immediate sense. Then, when the sugar has been consumed, there is the die
off of many of the extra critters and their decomposition releases all those
nutrients again in a form readily available to the plants.

Peter :-)>


**************************************
See what's new at http://www.aol.com
_______________________________________________
Terrapreta mailing list
Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biochar/
http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org
http://info.bioenergylists.org

 

_______________________________________________

Terrapreta mailing list

Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biochar/

http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org

http://info.bioenergylists.org

 

_______________________________________________
Terrapreta mailing list
Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biochar/
http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org
http://info.bioenergylists.org

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/terrapreta_bioenergylists.org/attachments/20070912/2be375de/attachment.html