Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[<activism98201@verizon.net>]

I've been having discussions with a proponent of biochar (Tera Preta) for 
some time now and am still struggling with the concept of it, of how it can 
do all the things that is claimed with regards to improving soil conditions.

My biggest concerns are:

1) That the pyrolysis process can be performed without releasing significant 
amounts of greenhouse gases (one of the claims is that we'd be sinking 
carbon);
2) Existing biomass won't be mined (depleted);
3) That there's a way of incorporating this into the soil with minimal 
disruption to soil biota.

The biggest selling point has been the claims of what it did down in the 
Amazon.  But if I'm not mistaken the soils down there suffer from too much 
oxidization, heat and poor moisture retention (please correct me if I'm 
wrong).  I'm up here in the PNW which doesn't suffer these conditions.  As 
such I have tried to discuss how biochar could be beneficial here: it seems 
to require tilling, which, as we know, increases oxidization of the soils; it 
requires gathering up biomass, usually from the forest (mining forest 
nutrients); only positive that I can really see is perhaps with moisture 
retention, but surely one doesn't need all of the mechanics associated with 
biochar to do improve moisture retention.

I'd hate to see this step up into the big leagues, ala biofuels (subsidies 
etc.) only to find that in the end we've made things worse off.

Thoughts?


-Mark Nagel
Everett, WA