[Terrapreta] Charcoal in soil

[Nikolaus Foidl]

Gerrit, the animals ( cows) are day and night in the field, they are moved
some every 3 hours some every 12 hours and some every 3 days until one plot
is completely eaten up. So if you dont move in the back of every cow
collecting by hand there shit ,now way to get a good economically sound use
of it. The pigs are in stables where the liquid and solid waste is collected
in channels and then by filtrating all solids out of the liquid adding
formalin you can reduce the volume of the fertilizer ( nitrogen polymer) by
some 99% . You don't have to transport water over 70 km instead you
transport 1% of the whole as a water insoluble solid ( polymer crystals with
a high N content). I asked Christoph Steiner the other day about there
productivity adding charcoal and fertilizer to the amazon soil and he told
me the productivity was between 1500 to 2000 kg grains of Corn per ha
compared with no application where they got something like 10 kg per ha. Yes
in this direct comparison you see a huge increase in productivity but for a
normal average soil all over the world without any additions , not charcoal
not anything, 2000 kg of corn per ha would be a complete failure for the
farmer, he would not even earn the harvest costs with this miserable
productivity. So ³ terra preta so fertile² is very relative, comparing that
fertility with a 10cm thick concrete slab the fertility of terra preta is
much better, comparing it with and stink normal  badly treated soil this
³ fertility² is a mess, miserable and not mentionable. We have to go back to
the roots and see first more about ³fertility claims with ancient terra
preta soils² if there are proven and conclusive data that const. that terra
preta produces more or better then a normal soil where you grow 12.000 kg
corn, then we can go ahead and find out why. Before we do that ,everything
is just esoteric- Amazonian schaman- indian- bull.. and crab.

I for myself try to find out now if charcoal stripped of all its minerals
has some effect on plant growth, if so, how big, which nature of effect and
then after a cost-benefit analysis I will redraw the experiments or trials.
As well I will pick up your idea on adding Urine liquid to the charcoal.

A complete other book is that we get lets say 50 US$ per ton CO2, see what
amount of charcoal you can burry without harming your farmland in the worst
case or having neutral or inconclusive effects as I have until now( can
change, I leave this option open) and earn money burring some 50 tons per ha
( 3 tonCO2/ ton Charcoal x 50tons charcoal x 50US$/ ton Ch.=7500 US$ income
versus 50Tons x 50 US$ cost= 2500 US$ costs) in a range of 5000 US$ net per
ha and lifetime. ( dont believe you can overburden the soil adding every
year this amount and where do you get this amount of raw material without
huge transport costs). From those 5000 US$ you maybe can keep 500 after all
the sharks have gone over it.( like taxes,CO2 broker fees, local government
fees, save the world ­UNO ­propaganda fees, Bank transfer fees, carbonizing
fees, you name it fees etc.etc.)

I am still positive towards Charcoal.
Best regards Nikolaus








On 2/9/08 11:25 AM, "Gerald Van Koeverden" <vnkvrdn at yahoo.ca> wrote:

>  Nikolaus,
> 
> If you can't afford to spread your manure on the field, then the method of
> incorporating the charcoal into manure, is definitely not realistic for you.
>   But I'm confused.  What do you do with your animal manure?  It sounds like
> you extract the nitrogen from it, and then what do you do with the rest?  Here
> in Canada, all manure is spread back on the fields, whether by small or
> large-scale farmers.
> 
> What I'm trying to understand is why the terra preta soils are so fertile.  It
> doesn't seem to be from fresh charcoal alone.  So I'm supposing that the
> charcoal used there has changed chemically because of how the natives treated
> it with urine.  If ammonia has a chemical effect on the charges within the
> charcoal particles, maybe the charcoal then becomes a suitable microhabit for
> microorganisms, has a higher CEC, etc....But if the charcoal is not
> transformed (as it seems not to be in your fields), then it will just be an
> inert medium filling space in the soil.  Do you understand what I mean?  I'm
> thinking that charcoal has to prepared or "activated" in some way to be so
> effective.
> 
> I see a short term effect on yield with straight charcoal, purely from its
> mineral and micronutrient content.  But it can only have a long term effect if
> it is first transformed (for example by the action of ammonia and/or water)
>  into a site where more nutrients will collect.  In fact changing the charges
> on the charcoal particles can also effect the ability of micro-organisms such
> as bacteria to attach themselves to it.  Bacteria are electrically charged
> organisms.
> 
> Does that make any sense?
> 
> Gerrit
> 
> 
> On 7-Feb-08, at 5:42 PM, Nikolaus Foidl wrote:
> 
>>  Gerrit, 
>>  I can do that in a small holder operation with maybe 50 ha size but not in a
>> 14.000 ha operation 3 times a year. I thought that I can get the ammonia
>> stripped out with formalin and then I have a concentrate with  same or better
>> N content as UREA, this would be easy to transport, I can dry it and mill it
>> very fine ( 3 to4 micron) and remix it with the applications i regularly have
>> to do. Applied as foliar spray the bacteria on the leave surface degrade the
>> polymer ( Amonia + formalin is a polymer) with urease so I have a slow
>> release nitrogen foliar fertilizer with virtually no losses.( the polymer is
>> not water soluble)
>>  Now reading again your post, my interpretation is that you as well see a
>> short time effect and then nothing, applying charcoal to the soil. But you
>> hope that in some years there will be an additional effect showing up. Am I
>> right? Well we have the charcoal 16 years now in the soil and we are still
>> waiting, if it takes so long you think somebody will add charcoal? We are
>> living in an instant world if you dont have an measurable effect in hours
>> people get crazy, imagine what they show you telling them that it might take
>> 20 or more years until some effect starts to show up. Not very realistic if
>> this is the case.
>>  Best regards Nikolaus
>>  
>>  
>>  On 2/7/08 2:58 PM, "Gerald Van Koeverden" <vnkvrdn at yahoo.ca> wrote:
>>  
>>  
>>>  
>>>  Nikolaus,
>>>  
>>>  If this ammonia + water combination has some beneficial transformational
>>> effect on charcoal, as opposed to simply making charcoal a carrier of
>>> nitrogen, then the best way for a farmer to use it would be to spread it on
>>> the stable floor and let the cows pulverize it and mix it in with their
>>> fresh feces and urine, or dump it into pig manure holding tanks.
>>>  
>>>  Have you ever thought of trying this in your livestock operation, and then
>>> testing the product in the soil?  
>>>  
>>>  Gerrit
>>>  
>>>  Begin forwarded message:
>>>  
>>>  
>>>> From: Gerald Van Koeverden <vnkvrdn at yahoo.ca>
>>>>  Date: February 7, 2008 11:53:56 AM EST (CA)
>>>>  To: Nikolaus Foidl <nfoidl at desa.com.bo>
>>>>  Cc: Richard Haard <richrd at nas.com>, Tom Miles <tmiles at trmiles.com>, Edward
>>>> Someus <edward at terrenum.net>
>>>>  Subject: Re: Charcoal in soil
>>>>  
>>>>   
>>>>  Nikolaus,
>>>>  
>>>>  It might be more correct to re-name those green "charcoal stripes" as "ash
>>>> stripes."  The healthy growth probably doesn't have anything to do with
>>>> charcoal.  It is most likely the result of the remineralization of the soil
>>>> from the wood ashes. I've seen the same occur here in Canada.  When you
>>>> have a burn pile from bush clearing, the plants growing there are usually
>>>> much more productive for the next three or four years.
>>>>  
>>>>  Of course, there is some charcoal produced in those bush windrows too. 
>>>> But I suspect it is only a very small fraction of the initial biomass. 
>>>> Either we can't see its long-term effect from the airplane, or since
>>>> charcoal is initially an inert hydrophilic medium, it still hasn't been
>>>> able to develop into a suitable microhabitat for soil organisms.
>>>>  
>>>>  Is it possible that charcoal mixed with human waste like urine would
>>>> transform it into something much more effective in promoting fertility??
>>>>  
>>>>  It is only in the last year that scientists discovered that substances
>>>> like urine - a combination of ammonia and water - have a very powerful
>>>> chemical effect on changing the chemical properties of carbon.
>>>>  
>>>>  http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/01/29/nanotech-carbon.html
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>>  Gerrit
>>>>  
>>>>  On 7-Feb-08, at 8:02 AM, Nikolaus Foidl wrote:
>>>>  
>>>>   
>>>>  
>>>>> Dear All!
>>>>>  
>>>>>  In those photos you can see 3 to 5 year old charcoal stripes left over
>>>>> from
>>>>>  the forest burnings, in some fotos as dark green stripes and in some as
>>>>>  white stripes where nothing is growing. The growth in the beginning
>>>>> depends
>>>>>  on the type of grass you are planting, some cannot grow with this high
>>>>> level
>>>>>  of potassium others love this high level of potassium and thrive
>>>>>  extraordinarily well on it. In the next set of photos you see as well a
>>>>>  actual forest being chained down, after chaining down the wood is lined
>>>>> up
>>>>>  with caterpillars into 4 parallel rows partially covered with loose soil
>>>>> and
>>>>>  then burned up in 24 hours. The piles of wood get up to 10 meters high
>>>>> and
>>>>>  the pile on the base is some 12 to 15 meters wide and as long as the
>>>>> fields
>>>>>  are. Afterwards with a plow with 60" diameter disks the whole field is
>>>>>  turned over to get the remaining roots out. Those are burned as well in
>>>>> the
>>>>>  same rows where the stems where burned or charred.
>>>>>  
>>>>>  One photo shows the fields after 15 years and there is no visible
>>>>> evidence
>>>>>  anymore of the existence of those high volume charcoal stripes all though
>>>>>  the charcoal is still in the soil. So the "growth enhancing effect" is
>>>>>  fading away. The only thing I could try from the plain is to use a
>>>>> spectral
>>>>>  reflectance camera to see if different nutrient uptake gives us an image
>>>>> in
>>>>>  spectral reflectance.
>>>>>  Best regards Nikolaus
>>>>>  
>>>>>  <P1130556.jpg><DSC00975.jpg><DSC00982.jpg><DSC00987.jpg><P1130553.jpg>
>>>>>   
>>>>>  
>>>> 
>>>>   
>>>>  
>>> 
>>>  
>>>  
>> 
>>     
> 
> 


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