[Terrapreta] Debate: "nobody knows for sure what the "best" (or right) kind of charcoal is

[Rob]

Hi all,

RE: "nobody knows for sure what the "best" (or right) kind of charcoal  
is

I have been reading this list for about a month, and am not  
sufficiently expert to make an informed comment
on the technical side.

However, in relation to the debate:

"nobody knows for sure what the "best" (or right) kind of charcoal is

per chance today had a half hour discussion with Prof. Johannes Lehmann  
(Cornell)
http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/lehmann/cvjohannes.htm
in Adelaide, Australia where he is presenting at a soils conference,  
and we discussed exactly that point.

Dr. Lehmann said words to the effect, "nobody knows for sure what the  
"best" (or right) kind of charcoal is.

In particular, he indicated (as far as I understood him to say) as yet  
no-one was really sure:
(1) what were the relative benefits of the different types of feed  
stock and cooking temp;
(2) what was the optimum and most cost-effective application rate,
and he indicated those factors will be influenced by (A) the soil type  
and (B) its pre-existent nutrition content, and further
(3) no-one was yet quite sure what fertilizers will work best with what  
types of bio-char.

He indicated this was all being researched now. So for what it is worth  
my understanding is the current state of research is that those  
questions are yet to be fully answered, and when they are answered,  
those answers will not be generic and will specifically relate to soil  
types which vary from place to place.

The book mentioned in the post due in 2008 might be this:
http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/lehmann/biochar/Book/ 
Biochar_book_publication.htm
of which Dr. Lehmann is a co-editor. Perhaps by 2008 some of those  
questions may be settled or better understood, but I am not sure they
are now.

Anyway that was my understanding of Dr. Lehmann's answer to practically  
the same question I asked just a few hours ago.

Rob Wyly

Message: 4
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2007 02:48:53 +0200 (Közép-európai nyári idõ)
From: "Edward Someus" <edward at terrenum.net>
Subject: [Terrapreta] Terra Preta CHAR QTY
To: "Kevin Chisholm" <kchisholm at ca.inter.net>,	"terrapreta"
	<terrapreta at bioenergylists.org>,	"Sean K. Barry" <sean.barry at juno.com>
Message-ID: <46F85AF5.000014.02492 at TERRA-16190F9E7>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Short notice on char QTY and VM: .............."nobody knows for sure  
what
the "best" (or right) kind of charcoal is".........higher VM content  
.......
.....is better" char to use for a soil amendment to help plants "

.............."nobody knows for sure what the "best" (or right) kind of
charcoal is".........YES WE KNOW IT EXACTLY. This is already evaluated  
and
developed. Scientific + product publication will be made on this in  
2008. 
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