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

[Michael Bailes]

Brian
Have a look at the experiment done by NSW DPI recently with some  funding
from BEST Energies.

HDRA may be able to help too
(I used to be Australian president, someone may remember me)

Have you looked though here
http://forums.hypography.com/terra-preta.html
 and our TP list data base?

Do you know a soil scientist who could help?
RHS must have plenty of retired ones in your area who might love lending a
hand setting up protocols etc.
Michael Bailes

On 24/02/2008, Brian davey <brian.davey at cooptel.net> wrote:
>
> 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.
>
> __
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