[Terrapreta] Terrapreta Digest, Vol 13, Issue 14

[Nikolaus Foidl]

Dear Richard!

When forming the polymer with formalin , there should not be left free
formalin without polymerization, so do an analysis first determine the
stöchiometric amount of formalin needed to polymerizes and then there is no
sterilizing effect left on Bacteria or other active or passive livings.
In contrary the bacteria in braking up the polymer use urease and by doing
so use up the formalin part as a C source.( same happens when you apply a
Methanol water mixture as a foliar spray which concentrated would act as a
sterilizing or " disinfecting substance but up to 25% in water the bacteria
use it as a rich C source) So no contradiction using polymerized nitrogen
with charcoal. The overall positive effect is that you can lower the
Nitrogen input in soil at least some 70% because the Urease degrading needs
very much time (several 10 of days) so the nitrogen is released slowly as a
plant available Nitrogen.As a polymer ist not soluble in water so there is
no danger of leaching out. As the polymer is in a water unsoluble form ist
not recognized by rhizobium or azotobacter as an active available nitrogen
source so they dont stop fixing nitrogen.
Best regards Nikolaus


 
 

> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 6
> Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 17:43:19 -0800
> From: Richard Haard <richrd at nas.com>
> Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Charcoal in soil
> To: Nikolaus Foidl <nfoidl at desa.com.bo>
> Cc: Terrapreta <terrapreta at bioenergylists.org>
> Message-ID: <9E24855C-F1C9-4D20-A054-1AA35B392C16 at nas.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> 
> Hello Nikolaus - I was wondering how you were polymerizing your urea
> additive.
> 
> 
> On Feb 9, 2008, at 12:10 PM, Nikolaus Foidl wrote:
> 
>> 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 wonder if formalin use to extract organic nitrogen from waste and
> terra preta are not cross compatible concepts. We need to encourage
> biological activity yet with formalin, a commonly used biocide,
> denatures  proteins into forms that cannot be utilized by microbes.
> 
>  From Wikipedia  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formaldehyde>
> 
> Formaldehyde preserves or fixes tissue or cells by irreversibly cross-
> linking primary amino groups in proteins with other nearby nitrogen
> atoms in protein or DNA through a -CH2- linkage.
> 
> Perhaps this is an issue to consider when interpreting your results of
> charcoal additives in soils.
> 
> Also corn yields
> 
> 200 bu of corn @ 56 lb/bu = 11200 lbs , average yields in Iowa 2006 is
> 166 bu/acre = 9,296 lb = 22,961 lb/ha = 10,436 kg/ ha .
> 
> Agreed then yield of 2000 kg per ha is considerably less in Steiners
> research than intensive farming with maximum fertilizer input.
> Comparing Steiners research to intensive agriculture yields may not be
> comparing apples to apples. His work was on a randomized block study
> where additives were used only once in the entire experiment duration
> and comparision to other treatments not all corn farming is the
> purpose of this experiment.
> 
> Rich H
> 
>