[Terrapreta] char organic?

[Sean K. Barry]

Hi Jim,

I appreciate your contemplations that charcoal in soil is as good for the conventional farmer as is could be for the organic growers.
Somewhere, it was thought that the way to introduce Terra Preta to agriculture was to address the people who though more of the soil that they grew their crops in, organic growers presumed to be this group.  Maybe too, the organic growers have less land and more crop variaties to test with.  Maybe one could include "turf" growers as well in the "specialized" group of agronomists.  But, perhaps more conventional farmers can see some advantages for using charcoal in soil for them and they could also embrace using Terra Preta sooner, reahter than later, after organic farming has adopted it.

I think I'm with you, though, ... if you have any land that you are trying grow crops on, try using charcoal amendments into the soil.  It might help you with more successful farming, and the more of it you can use in the soil, then the more of a service you can provide to the world by cleaning CO2 directly from the atmosphere.

Regards,

SKB
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jim Joyner<mailto:jimstoy at dtccom.net> 
  To: 'Terra Preta'<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
  Sent: Monday, January 14, 2008 7:27 PM
  Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] eprida char - organic?


  All this talk about the benefit to organic growers is good rhetoric but not terribly important to most of the  growers.

  Inputs to organic growing are not that difficult. Sustainable organic growers do not target defiencies in the soil, they just build soil. Rock or colloidal Phosphate (for P, C and trace elements), greensand (for potassium and trace elements) and rotations with legumes (for nitrogen) is about all one needs in a biologically active soil. And none of these are particularly critical, none are likely to harm even if the amounts are not exact. Can't say that about acidulated fertilizers or manufactured nitrogen. And, typically, it's not the elements themselves that are harmful, it is that they are immediately available, too available.

  Even the use of Terra preta should not be viewed as some over looked natural phenomena. It, like all farming, is an attempt to manipulate the environment. All we can say is that some manipulations turn out well and some don't. We can't even say it turned out well for the folks who used TP originally. They apparently are not around any more; certainly didn't last as long as the soil they created..

  Even compost is overrated in terms of economy (unless one can't get these afore mentions amendments and there is nothing else). Compost is not harmful by any means but it may not have the inputs that are needed. It is not magical and is also unnecessary and uneconomical for most organic farmers or gardeners. Ultimately, many of the practices in organic farming survive only because it enjoys an artificially monopoly market created inadvertently by the USDA. I seriously doubt that organically grown, as it is practiced today overall, is sustainable.

  Basically, you can't out-nature nature. But that is exactly what conventional farming attempts. There is no unnatural N, P or K. Elements are elements. There are just the over treatment of them by making the them too available .

  The first chemical fertilizers applied after WWII, as a result of a declining explosives industry, were meant to be applied with animal manures (there was still a surfeit of them then.) by basically sheet composting. They still knew we needed carbon in the soil. That has been forgotten and what we have in conventional farming today is field hydroponics. Little about it is biological.

  Having said all that, the folks who really need charcoal are the conventional farmers. A very large part of what a conventional farmer buys in fertilizer literally evaporates. Plus, acidulated fertilizers create imbalances that end up weakening plants, which ends up attracting insects (keep in mind insects, even the ones we call call pests are just doing the job that they have been designed for by God or evolution to accomplish), which means the farmers has to buy pesticides, which further weakens the biological activity in the soil. And so it goes. And then there is run off, water quality issues . . . 

  Charcoal, I think, can go a long ways toward making the conventional farmers life easier and more profitable, not to mention that they will give us a cleaner environment.

  While, I suspect almost any soil can benefit from charcoal, for organic growers, only a few of us who have special case poor soils need it (like amazon farmers or farmers like me with light silty, sandy soils).

  Best regards

  Jim

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