[Terrapreta] Terra Preta discussion topics

[Kevin Chisholm]

Dear Terra Preta List

I am in the process of writing a text that will be titled something 
along the lines of "Growing with Terra Preta."

Obviously, there are a number of important questions for which 
definitive and absolute answers may not be available. However, the 
longest journey must begin with the first step.

If anyone has any questions relevant to "Growing with Terra Preta", 
please send them to me off-list, at kchisholm at ca.inter.net , and if I 
incorporate them into the work, I will send you a copy of the complete 
manuscript as soon as it is finished.

Thanks very much.

Kevin Chisholm

code suidae wrote:
> Hi Sean,
> 
> I agree, this list of basic questions would make a great FAQ for
> people such as myself who would like to get some char into the ground
> without making any really dumb mistakes. IMO, this should be one of
> the first things someone coming to the website should find.
> 
> I know a lot of the members here have a wealth of deep knowledge on
> various related subjects, and while I enjoy reading their opinions,
> I'm afraid much of it, while valuable, is not directly useful for what
> I'm trying to do, which is to learn to make really gnarly garden soil
> using locally sourced, renewable products.
> 
> The list of topics quoted below goes directly to answering most of the
> relevant questions. From my perspective the most useful format for
> answers would be direct and pragmatic, with a short discussion of
> factors that would related to large-scale production, or optimal
> results.
> 
> Just my 2 cents,
> Dave K
> 
> On 9/24/07, Sean wrote:
>> Hi 'terrpreta' list,
>>
>> I meant to acknowledge this, Kevin Chisholm and Edward Someus, but I forgot
>> to do it at the time.  Kevin posted a very pragmatic list of questions (or
>> discussion topics for Terra Preta) and Edwrd added to it a bit ...
>>
>> Where to get the right charcoal
>> What qualities to look for
>> What are reasonable costs
>> How much per acre
>> How to incorporate it into soil
>> How to modify conventional fertilizer practices
>> How to manage for the long-term
>> How to assure effective microbial inoculation
>> What are the national permit and legislation aspects
>> What are the application follow up control practices
>> What are the comprehensive environmental and human health safety aspects
>> (life cycle analyses)I thought this was just a fantastic idea you had.  We
>> can use this as a guide to confine and focus our discussions.  I would like
>> to propose that we have some new threads started, one for each question and
>> we discuss these things only.  Nat Tuivavalagi wanted us to to do something
>> like this, too.  We can't make any headway when we keep beating on one
>> another about disagreements.  Lets all try to ignore disagreements, listen
>> more, and quit being defensive about our positions.  I will admit to wasting
>> the bandwidth here, doing some of this myself.  I think a topic thread list
>> will help confine the discussions.
>>
>> I think we should just do it.  No more topics for now.  Just this list and
>> see how it goes. Okay?
>>
>> What would you all think about this ?
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> SKB
>>
>> P.S. Shall we start with my next post Subject: "Where to get the right
>> charcoal?"
>