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

[William Carr]

On May 4, 2008, at 5:59 PM, Kevin Chisholm wrote:

> Why do you feel that the present bacteria are not beneficial, and  
> that you would benefit from killing them off? Do you have any  
> bacteria that you know to be harmful?


I didn't mention that?    The tomato plants in my garden always die.

I've narrowed the causal agent down to Clavibacter Michiganensis spp.  
Michiganensis.

(Not surprising, as I live in SW Michigan.)

  C.M.M kills by infecting the plant, then depositing plasmids in the  
plant's vascular system.

The plasmids build up until the leaves can't get nutrients.   So the  
lowest branches die off first, the leaves developing brown dead spots.

The tomato vine doesn't wilt, so it's not Fusarium or Verticulum  
Wilt.   The vine will be just fine, although eventually with no  
branches.


Growing inside a greenhouse helps a lot, since there's no rain to  
splash mud up on the leaves.

I built a greenhouse tunnel, but I'd need to build four more to  
fulfill the space requirements for tomatoes.

My latest idea was to copy the strawberry producers:   plant the  
tomatoes, run soaker hoses, and cover with plastic, then straw.




Another possibility might be using a leaf sealant.   I've tried  
diluted egg white, as it contains lysozyme, an enzyme that kills these  
bacteria.


That saved one of the two infected seedlings I tried it on and it's  
still thriving on my windowsill two years later.   Each use makes the  
leaves shiny and hard, but they survive long enough for new foliage to  
emerge.   I had my first Red Robin cherry tomato of the season last  
night.   Delicious !



I've also heard of a study where researchers used Turtle oil as a  
preventative.   The biochemical process was unclear, but it was  
suggested that the Omega-3 acids in the oil had a beneficial effect.    
Therefore I intend to try diluted Cod Liver Oil, as Codfish seem to be  
less endangered than Sea Turtles.



But the only approach that I KNOW works is to use solarization to  
pasteurize the soil.

But that wastes both of the months of June and July, so it would only  
work if I had enough space to crop rotate, which I really don't.


Something I read after my original post suggests that burning the soil  
will transform soil N and K into bio-available forms.   Interesting  
plus.



**************


Oh, and as regards the fertility of Forest soils:   I was taught in  
school that it takes a deciduous forest 1,000 years of falling leaves  
to build up a single inch of topsoil.

But this is Michigan... so.....

Ten Thousand years of that, and the  *******  glaciers come along and  
scrape all the good topsoil to Northern Indiana !

And then the cycle repeats.

I'm sure pine forests have completely different chemistry -- that may  
explain the variance in soils.