[Terrapreta] Request for help for new Nottingham Bio-char Group

[Brian davey]

There is a group in Nottingham(shire) that has become interested in bio-char 
and could do with some  advice and support from the scientists so that we do 
not re-invent the wheel, do what others have already tried. Our aim in the 
coming year is to do some small scale plot and pot trials  with bio-char so 
see for ourselves what the effect on plant growth is. The sowing seasons is 
rapidly approaching but so far our attempts to make contact with academics 
who could give up the cutting edge advice haven't come to much. So this is an 
appeal for help and assistance via the terra preta e mail list - either e 
mail advice or, better still, someone who lives near enough, to get involved.

To say a bit more about our group. We are a number of individuals from a 
variety of backgrounds - particularly gardening. We have also made contact 
with a traditional charcoal maker and the Notts Wildlife Trust, has expressed 
an interest in the issue and they make charcoal in a traditional way too. We 
have also contacts with the Henry Doubleday Research Association who have 
expressed an initial interest and, if they could find funding might be able 
to do research, including with their network of members and supporters. 
Further to that we have an interested contact  with a worker for the 
Federation of Community Gardens and City Farms. Several of us have been 
associated with a project called Ecoworks - which has 20 allotments gardens 
in St Anns in Nottingham and runs organic horticultural training and supplies 
restaurants and a box scheme. Ecoworks has just got a contract to cut hedges 
on the allotments and it had occurred to us that the cuttings could be 
charred. Several of us are also in Transition Nottingham and are linked with 
Transition Bristol where there are gardeners interested in bio-char.

So we are well connected and have potential - what we do not have, is detailed 
scientific advice on how to proceed. We would like to do small scale pot 
trials and also we have identified a small area on the Ecoworks FRESH garden 
for trials. However our latest readings suggest that it may be more 
complicated than crushing up charcoal and putting it in the soil and sowing 
seeds in the mixture. The literature and people we know associated with Danny 
Day are saying we need to use low temperature char. Then there are issues too 
- like what kind of biomass to use to make the char. 

In the terra preta listing I saw the reference to the Scientific American 
article from May of last year which says:

"In addition, scientists are finding it hard to replicate the original terra 
preta soils. "The secret of the terra preta is not only applying charcoal and 
chicken manure—there must be something else," says Bruno Glaser, a soil 
scientist at Bayreuth University in Germany. Field trials in Amazonia using 
charcoal with compost or chicken manure find that crop yields decline after 
the third or fourth harvest. "If you use terra preta you have sustaining 
yields more or less constantly year after year," he says.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=5670236C-E7F2-99DF-3E2163B9FB144E40&page=2

So its obviously more complicated and we need advice - like how much char 
should be use? From what biomass? What plants are best used as a trial - in 
the plot we have in mind using brassicas would be the next plants in the 
rotation....What should we mix the bio-char with? How do we get low 
temperature bio-char? Is it worthwhile doing initial experiments using char 
made in traditional ways or must it be in higher tech pyrolisis equipment? If 
it needs to be then how do we procede?

As I have said - if we can construct some experiments then they might be taken 
up by other organisations like Henry Doubleday and the Federation of City 
Farms and Urban Gardens - we might get some funding to do this and we might 
be able to spread this to many amateur, community and small scale 
horticultural gardeners but can someone point us in the right direction on 
the practicalities please.