[Terrapreta] Terra preta postings on arclein blog

[Sean K. Barry]

Does corn grow well under a canopy of tropical rainforest trees?

----- Original Message ----- 
  From: David Yarrow<mailto:dyarrow at nycap.rr.com> 
  To: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
  Sent: Friday, September 21, 2007 11:19 PM
  Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Terra preta postings on arclein blog


  excellent video, robert.  thanks very much for showing what can be done with simple equipment.  any still photos you can share of the stove and corn-into-charcoal pyrolysis i can include in my powerpoiint illustrations for my talks?  it helps greatly to show people such pictures of simple equipment and processes so they can visual and understand what all our words are about.  gotta make it real.

  and yes, the amazon tribal folks pyrolyzed whatever biomass they had lying around handy and easy to handle.  why waste trees when there is everything from manure to weeds to stuff in the stove?  trees are far better for shade than heat in any tropical environment.

  David Yarrow
  "If yer not forest, yer against us."
  Turtle EyeLand Sanctuary
  44 Gilligan Road, East Greenbush, NY 12061
  dyarrow at nycap.rr.com<mailto:dyarrow at nycap.rr.com>
  www.championtrees.org<http://www.championtrees.org/>
  www.OnondagaLakePeaceFestival.org<http://www.onondagalakepeacefestival.org/>
  www.citizenre.com/dyarrow/<http://www.citizenre.com/dyarrow/>
  www.farmandfood.org<http://www.farmandfood.org/>
  www.SeaAgri.com<http://www.seaagri.com/>
   
  "Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, 
  if one only remembers to turn on the light."  
  -Albus Dumbledore
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Robert Flanagan<mailto:saffechina at gmail.com> 
    To: Robert Klein<mailto:arclein at yahoo.com> ; Sean K. Barry<mailto:sean.barry at juno.com> 
    Cc: terrapreta<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
    Sent: Friday, September 21, 2007 10:52 PM
    Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Terra preta postings on arclein blog


    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<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<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<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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