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Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] if there were a benefit to deforestation...
  • Date: Wed, 06 Jan 2010 22:59:01 -0500

Tripp Tibbetts wrote:
Lawrence, you are familiar with the terra preta in the Amazon, right?

Here is a book to read about Terra Preta:

Amazonian dark earths: explorations in space and time
By Bruno Glaser, William I. Woods
http://books.google.com/books?id=tH2fWtRevhcC&sitesec=buy&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Book overview
The regenerative qualities identified in prehistoric, anthropogenic Amazonian dark earths suggest that notoriously infertile tropical soils can be greatly improved. Soil enhancement practices by ancient Amerindians allowed them to intensively cultivate the land, without needing to continually clear new fields from forest. As increasing populations place ever greater pressure on tropical forests, this legacy of rich, "living" soils warrants further study in the search for high-yield, land intensive, yet sustainable forms of management. This volume's international group of contributors provides a variety of stances centering on aspects of the origin, distribution, variability, persistence, and use of Amazonian dark earths.

See in particular page 15:

Will have to buy (Amazon.com $115.17 4092 ratings) to see pages 13 and 14, part of which is included below:

"...capacity and thus soil fertility. This again promotes primary plant productivity and so on. This theory is supported by the higher carbon and nitrogen mineralization potential of terra preta soils in comparison with surrounding infertile soils, promoting a continuous nutrient supply
for plant growth (Glaser 1999) if the system is managed in a subsidiary
instead of an exploitative manner.

2.5

Conclusions

The existence of terra preta soils underlined by the above-mentioned results proves that it is possible to convert degraded Oxisols into sustainable fertile soils. Future investigations should focus on the identification of land-use practices of the pre-Colunbian population
and on the implementation of this knowledge in order to produce new
terra preta ("Terra Preta Nova") sites."

It sounds like their farming method led to exponential accumulation of nutrients and carbon in these terra preta, improved Oxisol, soils.
That is something to think about.




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