[Terrapreta] Charcoal in soil

[William Carr]

On Feb 9, 2008, at 8:43 PM, Richard Haard wrote:

> 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.


OMG !   They are using Formaldehyde ???

One of the worst poisons known, in Agriculture ?    That blows my  
mind.   Fertilizing with poison.    Why not try fertilizing with  
Depleted Uranium instead ??    >:

I know they used to use Formaldehyde in making plywood.    Supposedly  
to keep bugs from chewing on it.

I had asthma as a kid, and later when I visited my older Sister's new  
house as a teenager I kept having these severe asthma attacks although  
I'd had none for years -- and I had no inhaler as I hadn't needed one.

Almost killed me.

It turned out to be formaldehyde in the plywood of her new home.    
Using this poison in agriculture is just insane.   No wonder  
respiratory diseases are on the rise.

Fertilize the crops with formaldehyde, and poison all the beneficial  
insect life, kill all the worms that surface to breed....  um, no.     
I'll pass.



************


As for Terra Preta, nobody yet knows why it works, but it's pretty  
safe to say it does.

One theory, that I find intriguing, is that it might be a three-way  
interaction between the char, as a bio-catalyst for soil bacteria, and  
somehow also support populations of soil fungi.

Productive soil is a balance between soil bacteria and soil fungi:   
the more you work the soil the less fungi you have in the soil,  
because tilling breaks up the network of fungi and thus retards it,  
without harming the bacteria at all.

The bacteria take the edge in the competition and the soil balance  
goes off.    Dumping nitrogen runoff on the top doesn't help matters  
return to normal, really.

So next year the soil fertility diminishes, and you have to use MORE  
nitrogen to compensate, especially with growing corn.


Even though most of the N goes to waste because corn can't absorb it  
properly and the soil won't hold it for long.


*********


Here's a thought experiment:



Burn a big pile of wood to char, harvest the large pieces, and spread  
the little bits of it on the ground.

The ash will kill off some of the millions of species of fungi, and  
some of the soil bacteria will be affected too.   Different species of  
both will crowd in to fill the vacuum.

But do nothing else, and the soil will try to return to normal.    
Maybe you'll get a short-term boost in phosphorous until the crops  
absorb and concentrate the nutrients, and they get hauled off to market.


However, re-inoculate the char/soil patch with fresh bacteria from  
manure, and possibly beneficial fungi like the species that grows on  
corn, and you might get something very different.

An atypical soil, colonized with forms of bacteria and fungi that  
specialize in using the char as a bio-catalyst.


Forms of both fungi and bacteria that might not thrive too well in  
open competition, but that do rather well within the char's  
microscopic haven.

Perhaps by using the char's adsorption capability to store and release  
nutrients that the fungi absorb from deep in the soil, and transport  
to the surface where the fungi can use it.

I'm not a mycologist, and unless Paul Stamets is on this list I  
wouldn't even know who to ask if this is correct.



But I think that the char itself doesn't DO anything.

I only have one season experimenting with Terra Preta so far, and the  
only things I added to that test patch was the char, a little OM, and  
some shredded newspaper.


Result?   Nothing much, yet.    So I intend to proceed on my theory  
and add soil fungi from FungiPerfecti, and see a man I know who keeps  
Rabbits for the other "ingredient".



BTW, raising corn production from 10kg/Hectare to 2,000kg/Ha  WITHOUT  
adding any nitrogen AT ALL doesn't sound like a failure to ME.

It sounds like an experiment done only half-way.