[Terrapreta] Krasil'nikov, Soil & Health Agriculture Library

[F. Marc de Piolenc]

First post, so a brief introduction: I am an American/French dual 
national living in northern Mindanao since 1998. My background is in 
mechanical and aeronautical engineering. I got interested in 
agriculture and silviculture after moving here.

I was introduced to the terra preta do indio by the book 1491 and 
have since dug up as much relevant information as I could find. There 
doesn't seem to be much scientific study of t.p. going on - at least 
not judging by the hits on Internet search engines. I was delighted 
when this list was mentioned on a biofuels list that I monitor - at 
last, a group dedicated to learning more about t.p! I was a little 
disappointed at first by the volume of advocacy and other 
non-technical posts, but there seems to be stuff that is relevant to 
my search as well.

I had assumed when I signed on that the membership of this list was 
familiar with the Soil and Health library, considering the large and 
growing body of resources relevant to sustainable agriculture that 
they offer. In particular, they have in HTML form the complete 
Israeli translation of Krasil'nikov's Soil Microorganisms and Higher 
Plants (USSR Academy of Sciences, 1958):
http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/010112Krasil/010112krasil.toc.html
For years now I've been trying to find the time to completely 
re-publish this book, which deserves to be more widely known.

I mention this because it was Krasil'nikov that I first ran to first 
for an explanation of the significance of char in soil - and it was 
there. I notice, though, that questions are asked on the list that 
could be answered by Krasil'nikov or some other book on S&H, so I 
thought I would share the link.

Regards to all,
Marc de Piolenc
Iligan City, Philippines