Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com>]

Marc,

 

I share your feelings about biochar, even though I haven't really studied the

question in detail.  What I have never understood is why it should be better

to partially burn biomass (making charcoal) rather than to somehow incorporate

the stuff directly.

 

In my case, I shred branches for mulching in the garden and cover wooden

logs, that I don't use for heating, with a little soil to decompose.  I realize this

isn't for everyone.  But on the other hand, I haven't seen any long-term studies

showing the effects of biochar either.  Surely, the terra preta research belongs

to the field of archaeology and not agriculture.

 

Depletion of soil humus is worst in the tropics, but it doesn't hurt to improve

soil organic levels in other regions either, if there is a clever way of doing it.

>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.

 

That all too often seems to be the case with plans to save the planet.

 

Dieter Brand

Portugal

activism98201@verizon.net wrote:

> 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
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