Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["John D'hondt" <dhondt@eircom.net>]

Sorry but am unable to delete part of the message below.

I read most articles about terra preta I think. There does not seem to be anything magical about it as it is still made by the Yanomani in the Amazon today. And I think it very well possible that the charcoal is an unintended by product of what is basically a slash and burn agriculture. What is special is that the ground is further prepared by using it as a midden for all left-overs from hunting, fishing and gathering.

 

I would bet you anything you like that better results would be achieved if it were possible to cover the chopped up living timbers with earth as in hugel cultur instead of burning it. The reason this is not happening imo is that it would be enormously more labor intensive and that these tribes are not exactly over populated. Burning in contrast is easy and low energy. One can have a bier while watching from a distance.

But burn enough and you end up with a new Sahara.

Anyway, after 10-15 years the indians move to do the same thing somewhere else.

john

----- Original Message -----

From: Pego Rice

To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2010 7:12 PM

Subject: [Livingontheland] Bio-Char learning curve

I think Rick already mentioned that he had bee using that fertilizer already.  Rick and I must be reading the same articles, concluding that traditional practices included "activating" the charcoal with a starter load of fertilizers. I thing that those people may have used urine and fish emulsion amongst other things.   That makes the char a sort of slow-release reservoir, continually self-reloading.  The region that those people, in South America were dealing with had little topsoils and rain that tended to slush any nutrients away. 

 

Put into soil w/out that 1st step will cause a couple of years of draw-down of nutrients as the charcoal sucks it in.  That would be unforgivable for those communities trying to raise their families in the new regions.  They would be starving their crops and subsequently their families.  Bio-char is plainly not needed in most circumstance, but there is a real niche for it, or those people would not have troubled.

 

Yours, Pego

 

<<  This being a liquid fertilizer I commonly use. I am now into the last month of the third year and the yields thus far have exceeded my wildest expectations. I am growing the garden I had wished for. Simply put the ground/sand has come alive. Inoculate the charcoal prior to amendment to the soil.>Rick>>

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