[Terrapreta] Terra preta postings on arclein blog

[Robert Flanagan]

Hey Guys,

This will show you what charcoal from corn looks like and also show you how
to make it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpozW9039_o. We really need to get
off the topic of exactly what one charcoal feedstock went into the original
"Terra Preta" as it was very lightly a mix of what ever biomass was
available. Christoph Steiner, one of the few guys in the world that went to
Brazil to work with and try to reproduce terra preta told me direct that
they found a *MIX* of chicken litter+fish bone+charcoal worked *ON THAT
SOIL!*
**
The only thing we need to work on is what feedstock's *do we have*, then
what is the most sustainable and scalable way to carbonize this material and
get it into the ground!!! Then what else can we do to enhance the charcoal
effect?

I've been using sound (YES SOUND! around 70dB at the plant and wave between
4-6kHz), foliar fed nutrients and charcoal. Now the reason I used 500C rice
hull char is because its the most commercially available. 500C is a good
trade off for most typical charcoal production where your trying to balance
time "V" yield. With sound I've just got a report (Mostly in Chinese) from a
key lab is Beijing that proves on the micro level exactly how sound
stimulates plant growth. Their extremely complex study found the vibration
on the cell wall stimulate growth. The Chinese government spent 10Million
Yuan just to setup this lab to get a clear answer to this question. Next
year Dr Zhong will have a piece of equipment that can measure
photosynthesis, respiration and determine the angle of plant stomata opening
so we will rapidly expand this research. My hope is 12mths from now we'll
have hard data showing if any the true interaction between soil, char and
sound exists. Now a very important point to mention here is that if your
land has trees and hedges as boarders then chances are you have enough birds
to emit the exact same sound so no need to artificially recreate it!

In the coming months we also hope we have many reports back from our school
trials to give us a better understating of the charcoal effect in different
soil types http://www.bionecho.org/charcoalab/project.php
Yesterday I shipped charcoal, nutrient and sound units to Naomi and
Christelle so all going well in just over a month we'll have some clear
pictures to show you. First off we'll just do the charcoal "V" no charcoal
trial so three pots each. In NZ we'll have ten schools all using the same
charcoal in the same amount on their local soil. Then the kids can learn
about influencing germination rate using sound and then see the effects of
nutrient + sound to boost seed germination and initial growth as I've
demonstrated here this year.

Biochar training manual should be some thing we all are part of even it that
means starting from the very bottom in simple flowerpot trials, all you need
to get your hands on is a few hundred grams of char
http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/charcoalabpottrials

Regards,

Rob.
Robert Flanagan
Chairman & President
Hangzhou Sustainable Agricultural Food & Fuel Enterprise Co., Ltd.

Skype "saffechina"
Tel:   86-571-881-850-67
Cell:  86-130-189-959-57
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