[Terrapreta] Terrapreta Digest, Vol 15, Issue 14

[Sean K. Barry]

Hi Nikolaus,

This is a truly interesting comment from a man possibly on or very near a site containing TP soil.

It is possible to let the original formation of Terra Preta spoil formation have been an accident, a result of some waste management practices.
Then still, we can wonder how Terra Preta soils work.  You report nutrient and organic matter imports onto "dumpster" sites.  Where does the concentrations and amounts of BC charcoal come into play.  Is there a dumpster the size of France in Amazonia that has black carbon and had organic matter from Pre-Columbian peoples garbage leavings?  What is the ratio of charcoal to organic matter and pottery that was found in those "dumpsters" of infantile Terra Preta soils?

We cannot make Terra Preta without trying to at least figure out what it is doing.  And, you might be right to assert that the origin of Terra Preta sites was corn-cob ass wipes and broken pottery in "dumpster" sites.  Whether that is the true origin of TP or not may or may not dictate how we might go about trying to make Terra Preta soils.  But the premise has some clues.  It suggests concentration, and compounding the effects of many soil amendment types; different nutrient inputs from organics, bones, pottery shards, charcoal, manures, plant wastes, and etc.

Perhaps the different inputs in the "dumpsters" came to play different roles in the formation and inter-workings of the Terra Preta soils?
Can we make another dumpster the size of France in Amazonia that eventually becomes highly productive Terra Preta soils?

Regards,

SKB
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Nikolaus Foidl<mailto:nfoidl at desa.com.bo> 
  To: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
  Sent: Sunday, April 06, 2008 8:33 PM
  Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Terrapreta Digest, Vol 15, Issue 14



  Dear All¨

  I live in Bolivia on a farm and next to our farm are several small
  indigenous villages or house gatherings where the original people still live
  as they did hundreds of years ago. They have, as we have a certain need to
  clean the houses from trash and the main place and the surroundings of the
  houses. Everything starting with rests of fruits and gardening as well rests
  of food and cooking is thrown into a pit in the backyard. Nowadays some have
  chicken and pigs so part of those thrown away organic materials are still
  taken as food from those animals what did not happen before the Spanish
  arrived because they had no chicken and pigs before. The fires which burn
  all day and long into the night to spook the mosquitoes away produce huge
  amounts of badly burned rests and ashes. The simple pottery they use are a
  short life pottery, they fall down, the dogs or pigs or children brake it,
  the pottery is not very heat resistant so brake easily when put into fire
  with something cooking in it etc. so there is a good amount of broken
  pottery a day in the village which as well is thrown into the trash pit in
  the backyard. The defecation as well is done next to the pit and thrown into
  it, to clean their ass, leaves and corncobs are the most used items which as
  well end up in the pit. So if you have a closer look at the content of the
  pit then you see that's an accumulation of a lot of minerals like potassium,
  phosphorus, nitrogen, magnesium ,calcium etc. If you do a mass balance over
  100 years or more its a simple mineral dump because with all that rain the
  organics after 3 to 6 weeks are all eaten up by bacteria and fungi and what
  is left is slower degrading bones from animals, lignin and some cellulose.
  After 500 years in such high water and high temperature environments even
  the bones and lignin etc . Are irecognizeable mineralized .
  So there is no meaningful wise man or ethnic which studied how to rise the
  fertility of the soils , no complicated thinking about cationic exchange
  capacity or nitrogen influence in crop production etc. it is as simple as it
  can get it is a series of dumpsters with over time interconnected. Those
  people had and still have several village like compounds which they visit
  regularly what means when the population of eat able animals is down due to
  over hunting they simply move on some kilometers and stay in the next place
  one or two seasons and after several years they come back to always the same
  places and erect again some very primitive housings and the cycle starts
  over again.
  You have to have in mind that under these conditions where you spend 95% of
  your time for surviving and where everybody has the same workload just to
  survive there is not much room for experiments and development. That's the
  reason why they are still 5000 years back in there social and human
  developement.Untill they develope a social network with different functions
  for different social groups in the village they wont have people freed from
  the dally workload of surviving so they can dedicate time for development of
  the same group.
  If somebody will have a look at our dumpsters in some 2000 years from now
  the same esoteric discussion about the deeper meaning of accumulating things
  in the dumpster will happen. What do you think why did the accumulate flat
  glass peaces and half round glass peaces so evenly distributed in the
  surrounding soil? Is it possible that they had a growing system where they
  avoided humidity loss from the soil covering the soil around the plants with
  different types of glasses, did they filter out different damaging light
  waves with different colors? And reality is : its a dumpster where we throw
  our waste in without thinking very much about the consequences.

  That's it , don't interpret things in terra preta which never where there,
  its a dumpster.

  Best regards Nikolaus





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