[Terrapreta] Black soil

[Stephen Hayden]

To all,
  I don't know the history or nature of this soil, but in the S.F. Bay Area, the black soils are due to their high manganese content.  Perhaps in these Midwest soils there is manganese deposited from the bark of fallen conifers?
  Steve Hayden
  Solid Ground 

Richard Haard <richrd at nas.com> wrote:
  Not all black soil soil is Terra Preta   

  On a recent trip to NW Iowa for my wife's class reunion we visited this virgin prairie to look at wildflowers. A mole had pushed up the native soil showing this beautiful organic rich loam. Imagine settling in this place 150 years ago in tall grass prairie and tacking the job of draining this wet land for the plow. Today these lands still show soils with this dark color, the rains come in moderation when needed and soil  nutrition stays in place. At road cuts this black soil profile shown no bottom. 
  

  There are not many places in the world with this kind of soil/ climate combination. Russia, where else?
  

  This image, this image and this image show farming in the grain belt of Iowa a mere 50 to 70 years ago. How this has changed has been a consolidation of farms, depopulation of the small towns and their decentralized business infrastructure is gone. I have a feeling the cycle of resource depletion will take us back to this style of life eventually. 
  

  I had opportunity to talk with some farmer / ex classmates of Karen's and they told me the boon in corn prices have farmers abandoning the corn/soybean rotation and using more fertilizer for equal production.  
  

  Interviewing further I was told at least 4 agrobuiz farmers in the NW corner of Iowa were operating large corn / soybean farms in Brazil. Moving this technology of agriculture for economic benefit may be sustainable with continued heavy fertilization in the corn belt but is it  a disaster about to unfold in the tropics where climate leaches the soil and organic matter is transient. 
  

  Is terra preta nova a solution for agrobuiz intensive of agriculture in either place?
  

  Rich
_______________________________________________
Terrapreta mailing list
Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biochar/
http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org
http://info.bioenergylists.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /attachments/20080603/17c6feae/attachment.html