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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Biochar, s it really all that's it's cracked up to be?

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  • From: uriel <uriel@nasalam.org>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Biochar, s it really all that's it's cracked up to be?
  • Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 10:36:02 -0600

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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