[Terrapreta] FW: Charcoal in soil

[Sean K. Barry]

Hi Nikolaus,

Do you think ash content plays into converting carbon-in-soil + microorganisms, into fulvic and humic acids in soils?  How does get microbes to grow in soil?  Is charcoal carbon-in-soil (charSoil) just a structural, hydrology component in the soil environment?  Or, for microbes does it get involved with the chemistry of what the microbes are doing in the soil?  The pH of ash is alkaline, for sure, as well as unwashed char.  Washed char might be pH neutral?  Then hydrolyzed (washed?) charSoil, with mineral rich ash, mixed in, what happens?  Does that perhaps provide the chemical background in the soil for microorganisms to "create" their own "humic and fulvic acid environments", from the combination of mineral and carbon in the soil?

Or, does the biota create the humic and fulvic acids to deal with the alkaline pH in the mineral content in the soil?  I think I remember from organic chemistry that living system like to be able to buffer pH, neutralizing both strong acids up and weak bases? down to pH neutral.  Hence there things like bicarbonates in living tissues and mucus membranes that resist strong acids.

I need to read about humic and fulvic acids and what they are doing in soils, where they came from, and what they might be
useful for.  Maybe humic and fulvic acids could be the preferred inoculents for amending into soil, along with charcoal?  The acids innoculants could make it easier for the biota to use the minerals otherwise alkaline soil mix? ... Because it enhances the cation exchange capacity?  Maybe acids improve an "ash & soil" or "charcoal & soil"  mixture to allow more minerals to be deposited on the site ? 

Somehow it seems creating humic and fulvic acids takes a long time, even if and for microbes.  I think we might pay close attention to the microbial interactions in the soil with their chemical "fertility" management.  Maybe you could find a way to put some humic acid on some of the soil in one of those "burn zones".  Then test if it doesn't help the soil to grow plants?  See if doesn't add to the "soil + char + microbes + organic acid mixture, and give soil the extra thing it needed to fix its "organic chemical balances" and sustain it's "growth promoting" effects.  

Could these be coming, originally from the mass injection of "biome-related" minerals on the local site?  The mineral ash from the fire was, after all, only harvested from once living biomass, with living biomass chemistries.  The carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen are as ubiquitous as water and living matter.

What are microbes doing with carbon-in-soil that works for them to promote plant growth ??!

How can you pile on a dense lay of plant necessary minerals into a soil and not poison it, without putting carbon into that same soil?

Good night.

Regards,

SKB
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Nikolaus Foidl<mailto:nfoidl at desa.com.bo> 
  To: terrapreta-request at bioenergylists.org<mailto:terrapreta-request at bioenergylists.org> ; terrapreta at bioenergylists.org<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
  Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 6:25 AM
  Subject: [Terrapreta] FW: Charcoal in soil



  ------ Forwarded Message
  From: Nikolaus Foidl <nfoidl at desa.com.bo<mailto:nfoidl at desa.com.bo>>
  Date: Wed, 09 Jan 2008 16:28:52 -0400
  To: "terrapreta-request at bioenergylists.org<mailto:terrapreta-request at bioenergylists.org>"
  <terrapreta-request at bioenergylists.org<mailto:terrapreta-request at bioenergylists.org>>
  Conversation: Charcoal in soil
  Subject: Charcoal in soil

  Dear All!

  Looking on the trials done so far with Charcoal in soil and terra preta, the
  most common plant used was corn so far.

  I do trials with charcoal since one year and I have as well soils at hand
  where huge amounts of forests after clearing where piled up in long rows and
  burned down, leaving behind ashes, charcoal and torrefied wood and all the
  condensates from the burning.( as well a good amount of soil burned together
  with the wood because the soil was on the roots and part of the logs and
  branches where covered by soil when they pushed the chained down trees to a
  row with caterpillars.

  In the first 2 years only certain grasses ( brachiaria) would grow on those
  stripes. After some 3 years the planted corn and soy and sunflower show
  pronounced growth in the beginning but after about 60 to 70 days all plants
  in the field reach the same height and have the same state of development.

  Looking at the harvest data there is no significant difference between
  charcoal and non charcoal in fertile well fertilized land not suffering
  drought. 
  If there is drought during the development of the plants then the charcoal
  plot is more sensible and shows earlier drought damage in the plants.

  If you make a mass balance over the amount of forest cut down and dragged
  with a caterpillar from a stripe of 50 meter each side to a small long heap
  of about 15meter width then you accumulate some 5 times the volume of the
  intact forest in the stripe of 15 meter or you concentrate the amount of 5
  ha forest in one ha area and burn it . If we suppose a average dry mass
  yield of total biomass per ha ( including roots) of some 200 to 250 tons
  this would be some 1000 to 1250 tons of dry biomass burning in this ha.

  >From sampling I can estimate that there are some 150 to 180 tons of
  partially or fully charred material per ha in the burning zone. So this
  leaves us with a huge amount of ashes in the same area. As most of the
  material are trees with an average diameter of 15 to 20 cm ( some are more
  then 60 cm, but most are smaller brush like trees) we have a good amount of
  barks with quite a high ash content. Wood without bark is in the range of
  0.3 to 0.8 % ash and barks are in average around 7 to 8 % ash, some more.

  We urgently need to make mineral mass balances about the ashes and we need
  to know as well in which chemical form those ashes are in the soil and to
  what chemical form they convert. From the first look it seems to me that
  potassium and calcium and then magnesium and phosphor would be the mayor
  constituents.( someone has figured out the plant availability of those ashes
  ?)

  Now imagine that the indios additional used these burn and char areas as
  waste disposal and most of there waste where ashes from cooking fire and
  rests from there meals like fish heads and spines or bones or non edible
  parts of the animals beefing there diet ( as well needed a mass balance over
  at least a period of several tens of years to get a grip on quantities and
  content of minerals) then you easy can imagine that the terra preta sites
  are an enormous accumulation of minerals in different chemical forms. The
  adding of biologic material enhances whatever biology is working there and
  for sure will enhance growth of whatever plant you grow there.

  Now the charcoal does not play an important active role in the beginning but
  degradation over the centuries transforms the charcoal into more stable
  chemics like humic acid and fulvic acid etc. which have high interchange
  capacity and high chelating capacity.

  Maize reacts very strongly to high amounts of potassium ( the mayor
  ingredient of ashes)as well does soy and sunflower. Brachiaria as well is
  addict to high potassium. Other grasses do have problems with high potassium
  and do not grow in the first years in those burned areas.( dont think that
  this is a coincidence)

  Conclusion is that we may be get distracted by fast visible effects on corn
  and other potassium and only relate those effects with charcoal but not with
  ashes and other micro minerals accumulated in waste disposal sites.

  I believe in several enhancing effects of charcoal like vigor enhancing from
  the liquids produced during charring but I think there is very low direct
  short time effect from charcoal itself on growth of plants ( first 10 to 50
  years). There is without doubt a indirect sink and source effect by its
  capacity to adsorb micro and macro nutrients.

  Best regards Nikolaus




  ------ End of Forwarded Message



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