[Terrapreta] Press release: limitations on charcoal as a carbon sink

[Michael Bailes]

2008/5/3 Laurens Rademakers <lrademakers at biopact.com>:

>  Here is the press release about the study that appeared in Science:
> http://www.slu.se/?ID=704&Nyheter_id=8497
>
> =========================================================
>
> *Limitations of charcoal as an effective carbon sink*
>
>  charcoal was prepared and mixed with forest soil, and left in the soil in
> each of three contrasting forest stands in northern Sweden for ten years.
> They found that when charcoal was mixed into humus, there was a
> substantial increase in soil microorganisms (bacteria and fungi). These
> microbes carry out decomposition of organic matter (carbon) in the soil, and
> consistent with this, they found that charcoal caused greatly increased
> losses of native soil organic matter, and soil carbon, for each of the three
> forest stands
>
 Yes predictable; was there any increased tree growth, as there has been in
the Japanese tea trees (using 100g of char per sq. M per year.?

> . Much of this lost soil carbon would be released as carbon dioxide, a
> greenhouse gas.
>
A pity this assumption was not tested

> Therefore, while it is true that charcoal represents a long term sink of
> carbon because of its persistence, this effect is at least partially offset
> by the capacity of charcoal to greatly promote the loss of that carbon
> already present in the soil.
>
Just add lots more SOM That is  a part of the TP story surely?

>
> The study finds that the supposed benefits of biochar in increasing
> ecosystem carbon storage may be overstated, at least for boreal forest
> soils.
>
But not farm soils? or where you have access to SOM manures etc?

> The effect of biochar on the loss of carbon already in the soil needs to
> be better understood before it can be effectively applied as a tool to
> mitigate human-induced increases in carbon-based greenhouse gase
>
Pity they didn't control all the variables and so could have tested this

> s.
>
> Professor David Wardle, Department of forest ecology and management, SLU
> (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences) Umea, Sweden, telephone +46 90
> 786 84 71, +46 70 658 92 81.
> E-mail: David.Wardle at svek.slu.se
>
> Professor Marie-Charlotte Nilsson, Department of forest ecology and
> management, SLU (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences) Umea, Sweden,,
> telephone +46 90 786 84 40, +46 70 556 66 04.
> E-mail: Marie-Charlotte.Nilsson at svek.slu.se
>

Is the full article available on line pls?


-- 
Michael the Archangel
"Politicians will never solve The Problem;
because they don't realise they are The Problem.".
-Robert ( Bob ) Parsons 1995
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