permaculture

[Cory Brennan <cory8570@yahoo.com>]

Biochar is not indicated for every climate and soil and is not a cure all.  I 
don't see any need for it in clay soils, personally.  It works in the Amazon 
and it can work in places like Florida, with sandy soils almost devoid of 
organic material (because it washes right thru the soils, or bakes off in the 
sun, etc). Note that "terra preta" is a combination of organic materials, 
minerals and biochar, and they all work together to create the end 
results.The jury is still out, research is still being done, but biochar 
could end up being very useful for stabilizing soils in Florida. One can 
argue that we could just plant plants that grow well in sand, and that is 
true, we could, and some people do. Understand that in much of Florida, 
especially near the coasts, the "soil" is actually beach sand, with almost 
nothing else there where it has been disturbed at all.   We are having good 
results with gardens by adding copious amounts of organic material that is
 well protected from run off and sunburn.  But if biochar can be sustainably 
produced (which it can, from fast growing woody plants rather than trees, and 
proper pyrolysis), it very well could be an important aspect to soil 
building.  

Cory


________________________________
From: John D'hondt <dhondt@eircom.net>
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, November 18, 2011 2:51 PM
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Biochar


Hear, hear,
john

> My objection is that we can use a given biomass only once: we either 
> return it to the soil to maintain humus and feed the microbes and other 
> soil organism or we turn it into charcoal.
>
> Humus is capable of providing both the living environment and the food for 
> microbes.  There is no reason to assume that the microbes and other soil 
> organisms in my soil would suddenly want prefabricated charcoal “apartment 
> buildings” after having evolved without them for billions of years.
>
> I live in a semi-arid climate on heavy clay soil.  The positive effect on 
> fertility of adding biomass to the soil is immediately visible.  According 
> to a figure I came across recently, there can be 10 tons or more of soil 
> organisms in 1 hectare of rich soil.  These organisms need to be fed!  I 
> return every ounce of biomass available in my place to the soil.  To turn 
> biomass into charcoal would reduce the food I can provide to the soil 
> organisms.
>
> The last 100 years have seen an unprecedented destruction of biomass. 
> Many of our environmental, health and other problems can be directly or 
> indirectly traced back to this destruction of biomass.  Not aware of the 
> importance of biomass for maintaining humus and soil fertility, the public 
> is likely to favor any plan to destroy even more biomass - considered a 
> waste by most – that, like biochar or biofuel, promises a quick fix to our 
> environmental problems and allows us to continue the wasteful lifestyle 
> made possible by industrial methods.
>
> On a global scale it doesn’t matter if someone wants to try out charcoal 
> in his backyard.  However, to have the effect on global warming that is 
> claimed by biochar advocates, we need to turn biomass into charcoal on a 
> large scale.  Added to the destruction that is already ongoing and the 
> devastation caused by biofuel production, this will greatly reduce the 
> future prospects for organic farming, which relies on feeding the soil 
> with biomass.
>
> Dieter
>
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Not really Dieter on three occasions today water started lapping at the base
of our back door which is 24 cm of the ground and we live of a fairly steep
slope so the water subsided as soon as it stopped raining hard. This means
it is slashing down at a rate of several inches per hour. Expect to see a
lake of several square miles near Skibbereen (30 some km away) tomorrow when
we get light enough to see. Earthworms drown too and that is their main
problem here except for pesticides and maybe some New Zealand flatworm.

It immediately gives you a good reason to stop tilling soil for if you do
that you can kiss that soil goodbye. At these times Bantry bay looks brown.
I expect whole roads to wash away. And this is not unusual here. To
counteract all that violent leaching rain seawater is useful. But it would
be wasted effort right now. In between downpours we have 130 km an hour
winds and it has been like this for a week. There are still cattle outside
in places and you can be sure that some of them will wash away as some cars
with their passengers will. I have known two families that happened to. In
one case a man sat for two days in his car up to his neck in water. If he
had gotten out of the car he would have been swept away immediately in the
raging torrent. Not only the worms need to be tough.
john

>> Ah the differences in farming, I regularly (well, once or
>> twice per year)
>> water my vegetables with pure seawater and they thrive.
>
> Well John, you must have a particularly tough breed of earthworms if they
> can stand that sort of treatment.
>
> Dieter
>
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