Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[uriel <uriel@nasalam.org>]

In my reading it's been my understanding that the primary advantage of 
biochar is that the charcoal binds to minerals, thus helping preserve 
the viability of the soil. A page with lots of interesting links on the 
subject is http://www.bidstrup.com/carbon.htm .

Uriel Andros

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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