[Terrapreta] Soil Care Expo report+ Pyrograms

[geoff moxham]

Soil Care Expo report+ Pyrograms
Hi folks,
This is a full report on the Soil Care Expo, at the NSW DPI research
station at Wollongbar, NSW, Australia, on 5th March 2008.
There were 28 display stalls, but I was there for the keynote Agrichar
speakers, DPI's Lukas van Swieten, and BEST Energy's Adriana Downie.
The white marquee was packed to overflowing...120+ folk watched their
beautiful PowerPoint presentation; if only we could have seen it...it
was washed out by the sun on the white tent roof.
The point was made and reiterated, that composting rather than
charring condemned a very large part of labile carbon to be lost to
the atmosphere...95% in less than 10 years, and faster, <3yrs, for
more labile forms in soft biomass.
A PowerPoint page was devoted to hazards for home char makers. First
item was a question...is it legal?
The most disturbing hazard for me was amorphous silica. The extreme
case cited was rice husk char imported from Thailand. In this fiasco,
a container in Queensland had a C content of 4% and Am. Si of? 24%!
DPI's advice was to not open the container and send it back. Also a
challenge to Home Pyrolisers to get the temps right and the residence
times right to ensure all VOCs are burned off, citing the Antal
trials, using smelly, undercharred macadamia husks, that gave lettuce
retardation over 2 years. If it smells it won't be good agrichar.

However most of the presentation was of the details of the trials on
corn, rapeseed and I think a collaboration trial with a cover crop of
Vietnamese peanut clover? (Sorry if that's not quite right)
All in all I'd have to say the day was a typical product of a public
service "be safe, go slow culture", which I applaud as good cautious
science, and makes sure the farmer gets a result first time. However
it's a little frustrating considering we already have a few 1500 year
old living proofs in terra preta, that say let's just get on with
it... the energy is running out to make this switch easily...

Adrianna Downie is an extremely capable engineer, as well as powerful
speaker, and had a handle on the real figures during questions.
Her presentation was excellent, as an introduction to BEST's history,
and current plans, including a pyrolysis plant at Ballina, to take the
greenwaste currently transported across the border to SE Qld. (by
truck!) It will also use feedstock from local timber thinnings, and to
the delight of several of the attendees, the camphor laurel (local
pest) was recommended.
 Afterwards I quickly asked if the talk would be available online, or
when results would be made public. It seemed to be soon, and
contingent on DPI release dates for research papers.
A 10 minute walk took us to the test plots and we eyed off the most
luscious corn, 3 to a stalk...I was starving...might ask for some work
on harvest day.

The trials were committed to 6 x replications of each variation of
soil amendment, in each crop.  Lots of subplots! The amendments were
Lismore tip's triton greenwaste compost, compost with lime, compost
with lime and char, char only, control (no amendments)
The corn had 2 x un-amended rows as buffers along the outside edge,
and between each of the double rows devoted to each soil variation.
Application rates also varied, usually at 10 and some at? 40t/ha, and
was deposited in the top 150mm, it seems. It was sourced from BEST's
papermill waste char, and green waste chars, samples of which were
distributed. These were charred at 500deg C.
Addition of fine char at 10 t/ha, made it hard to see any colour
change in a random handful of topsoil, but individual particles around
1mm were easily seen.

I tried to grab Lukas several times but the ABC, and the local papers
and farmers and tea brewers, and all kinds of folks were keeping him
pretty busy, and all I could do was wait. Finally, noticing my
terrier-like persistent presence, he invited me to the  " family lunch
table", and we talked, between mouthfuls of (GAS barbequed) hot dogs,
about my two tins of char samples, that were circulating the table. I
felt very privileged, being there with his lovely wife and their two
kids, (2 and 6, I guess), her friend, Adriana, and a couple of locals.
So when I bought up the terrapreta list's discussion, the feedlot
methane reduction plan using 5% char in feed, and then the
smell-reducing, self-sequestering bio-nappies!… there was a delighted
and impressed silence.

Adriana said some goat and pig farmers were already trialing it, but
hadn't heard of ideas to add char to dairy and feedlot feeds. She
suggested approaching the Federal Ag department for research
money...so I may have a referee...

I also broached the subject of connection between BEST and Union
Carbide, and thence Dow. Adriana said this came about from the fact
that in the region where BEST set up in the US, Dow/UC had closed
plants, and ex-workers with the required skills were attracted. No
drama.

Lukas explained that the DPI centre has just developed a process they
are calling a Pyrogram, which takes the char samples, presumably after
the second last stage of Proximate Analysis, and then reduces it to
ash, venting this into a gas chromatograph. This gives a signature of
each char sample, and is apparently one of two in the S Hemisphere.
They are hoping it will be an industry standard. I felt tiny, looking
at my char treasures, but he graciously suggested I bring over samples
 (60km) and they would test them for signatures. His co-worker on the
site, Josh Rust, lives across the road, so I can also give him samples
in the morning and get the results in the evening. I have to say that
I think these are truly good folks, and I feel delighted to have
linked up. Things are looking up.

Congrats to all those on the TP-list behind all this, and I have to
say I went to the expo so well informed in just six months from this
list and the net, that I really learned only a few new things, like
the startling speed of labile carbon's return to the atmosphere, and
high temperature production of cristobalite.
Also thanks to Sean Barry for the "one ton initiative" idea to get us
thinking in real terms about carbon, and also that if all 6 billion of
us work together, anything's possible. I would like to use it as a
debating start point. How far towards that can we skew the social
paradigm, as taught by the media? What is the middle path between
preparing life rafts for a post-catabolic collapse, and
business-as-usual, but with a "no regrets" wise policy to sequester
not only C, but increasingly fertile soil for our children's
children's children? Perhaps 3kgs a day is easier to visualise?

In a fascinating and relevant aside to this, last night we went to
Djanbung Gardens Permaculture Centre's welcome to Roberto Perez, who
is doing an exchange tour of Oz over the next few weeks on the topic
of how he and Cuba survived their own "peak oil". He said that because
88% of the farms are government owned/run, and there is no media
power, there is the possibility to implement large-scale change
quickly, and they currently co-generate 30% of their power from
bagass. There is the obvious possibility that they could co-generate
power from pyrolisers, and sequester char in those Amazon-like soils.
They are already exemplary, and this could fit with their needs well.

Roberto said that they sit on 27% of the worlds nickel and it's under
the last remnant of Amazon-species rainforest left... after the
various historical pillages. During the height of the embargo,
300-year-old mango trees were cut for charcoal.
At that point I had to ask if anyone was using char agriculturally.
No, though he said he thought there might be one or two researchers,
but that if a farmer sees his neighbour doing it and getting
results...he does it too, and quickly.

Like Sean says... let's roll up our sleeves and just get on with
demonstrating it. No Regrets. One tonne this year? OK...where are
those scales?

Anticopyright  15/3/08
Geoff Moxham

sorry for length ...had to be... that took hours...{:o)