permaculture

[lbsaltzman@aol.com]

Have you checked out Carbon Farmers Of America, they are working on 
developing a profitable model for carbon sequestration in the soil. They are 
using keyline design methodology. http://www.carbonfarmersofamerica.com/.

-----Original Message-----
From: Lawrence F. London, Jr. <lfl@intrex.net>
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wed, 30 May 2007 8:30 am
Subject: [permaculture] Glomalin & carbon sequestration in soil



-------- Original Message --------
ubject: Re: [SANET-MG] Growing canola for conversion to biodiesel - how is it 
one?
ate: Wed, 30 May 2007 10:55:28 -0400
rom: STEVE GILMAN <stevegilman@VERIZON.NET>
o: SANET-MG@LISTS.IFAS.UFL.EDU
    If we're going to squander soil resources and further line
gribusiness' pockets to pay for the synthetic inputs to grow energy
rops a la corn ethanol there's another major consideration --the
mpact on climate change.
    Even though Organic is essentially a solar agriculture as opposed to
 petrochemical one, for biodiesel -- canola (a brassica) doesn't
roduce Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, that live on plant roots and
ppear to be the only producers of glomalin, which forms the sticky
lue binding soil aggreates and the miles of tubular walls of the
yphae pipelines that bring water and nutrients to the crop plants.
lomalin accounts for 27 percent of the carbon in soil and is a major
omponent of soil organic matter.  For the complete story see:
ww.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/sep02/soil0902.htm
    In this regard the touted magic bullet aspects of Terra Preta (whose
omplexities still remain a secret of the ages) completely misses the
iological basis of building soil organic matter to sequester carbon.
rocessing, transporting and spreading peanut hull charcoal from
aste materials in GA, for example, may not fulfill the T.P.
equirements at all. Meanwhile, it's an open door for getting rid of
selling) all kinds of charcoal-ed nasty waste in the name of
reventing climate change, while justifying significant processing,
nergy and transportation emissions as "carbon neutral."
    One of these days sustainable and organic soil-building farmers are
oing to qualify for carbon credits. There's also going to be a lot
f agro-technologies staking claims based on incomplete and dubious
ustifications. For example, conventional no- till looks good on
aper until you factor in the nitrous oxide emissions from the
hemical nitrogen fertilizers, not to mention contributions to
ollution and the dead zones. N2O is some 300 times more virulent a
reenhouse gas than CO2.  In terms of finally transforming our
griculture to a sustainable basis -- when the Carbon Credit checks
tart flowing to organic farmers there will be a further (non-
ubsidy) incentive to shift to organic agriculture, particularly if
onventional farmers and petrochemical input corporations have to be
uying credits themselves to offset their greenhouse emissions...

teve Gilman
Ruckytucks Farm

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