Terra Preta

[Alan]

Dec 16, 2010 18:03:17 GMT -5 spacecase0 said:

I thought the trick was to biochar some of what you mix in to the dirt, and leave some to compost the regular way
that way the bugs have a better environment and something to eat,
just using one direction or the other seems less than ideal

This has been my thought from the begining and in my limited experiment it has been my approach. They are complimentary forms of soil building, not to be viewed individually as a whole.

[nuts]

Erich,

Thanks for the links,specially the japanese are very interesting.
About the woodstoves,indeed efficient woodstoves is very usefull in every situation where wood is burnt for cooking or heating.
I don't think it must be necessrally gasifier stoves that are more complicated to build(more expensif) and more complicated to operate.In situations where wood is scarce and expensive it's more logical to diminuish pressure on the resource then burning more to make charcoal.

I went quickly through somme chapters of Yeomans book.I approve most of what he says in chapter 5.Modern agricultural practices are very bad for both soil quality and co2 emmission.
However,going through some other chapters I encountered many statements that I totally disagree with.This man is without doubt a good grassland specialist,but his point of view on many other subjects is strange.

" Try talking to these people. It is amazing but
so many of them never seem motivated by any
logical, intelligent or scientific principles. They
simply mouth platitudes. “Protecting biodiversity”
is a pet one. Of cause “protecting biodiversity” is
so vague and indeterminate a concept that it can be
used in almost any situation, any time, anywhere."


" Some self-styled green movements claim
that it is their imperative and their exclusive
responsibility to “protect trees”, all trees, any trees.
It is as if trees have some godlike virtue not shared
by grasses or grains, vegetables or roses. I’m sure
the often used quote “only God can make a tree”
was not originally written to imply that God is
unable to make any other plants, or alternatively
not particularly interested in them. These tree
worshippers preach that trees prevent erosion.
All plants do. But trees to a much more limited
extent. The grasses are much more effective."

It's clear that this man hates trees and anyone who protect them.

The reallity about woodland just like grassland,is that productivity depends on how it is managed.
As pointed out in this thread,for agronomical benefit (just like in forestry) biocharring has some limits and can only be part of recycling organic matter for soilbuilding.

imo it's a bad thing to focus only on the biochar approach,without understanding the complete interactions in agriculture and forestry.

I don't blame you for having business engagements,but better be aware of the colored view that it can result into.

[steev]

It may seem that "It's clear that this man hates trees and anyone who protect(s) them.", but not to me from the quotations provided. Has the train to Touchy left the station?

[nuts]

Dec 24, 2010 13:25:36 GMT -5 steev said:

It may seem that "It's clear that this man hates trees and anyone who protect(s) them.", but not to me from the quotations provided. Has the train to Touchy left the station?

so read the f.. book yourself and give your f.... opinion yourself.

What, 'to touchy'
You take me for a treehugger or pandakisser or what ?

;D

[ottawagardener]

Redirecting the train...

Management is an interesting issue in that all land we touch, we alter. Sometimes those alterations are incredibly dramatic and detrimental to the normal self-regulation of the natural system. I would argue that there is a huge difference between an old growth forest and a managed woodlot. I would also argue that many regions had evolved with huge forests on it which we have greatly altered. All animal/plant/fungi/etc... interactions produce dynamic somewhat self replicating systems. In an area where forests once dominated the floral landscape, it is easy to argue that there must be some value to the small islands that are left in a sea of agricultural monoculture and concrete deserts. However, that said, I do not prize the tree above all other plants just like I don't prize the tiger. They are apex organisms though that say something about the wider ecosystem that they evolved within.

I suspect that the rule of thumb for what should be used as biochar in a given area has to do with local availablility.

[steev]

The land on which I garden was cleared/stripped of the native chapparral in the 40's to be used as wheat-land; there have been some efforts to raise alfalfa, but mostly it has been rangeland for sheep, cattle, or horses. Without prejudice toward any of these regimes, there has been no put-back, only extraction. The silty soil is utterly mineralized, devoid of any useful organic matter. Denuded Amazonian soils come to mind. The long-term challenge is to enrich not just the soil, but the ecosystem, since an ecosystem of limited diversity is unstable in inverse proportion to the paucity of its range of species. My personal challenge is to expand the variety of the ecosystem with species that benefit me more than they compete with me, and to expand my understanding of the ecosystem to better weigh the cost/benefit ratio of the species present. Before I discard something I can't call back, I want to know as much as I can about that something, bearing in mind my profound non-omniscience.

[ottawagardener]

Paucity is a widely faced challenge I suspect as in much agriculture, there is movement of resources, often out of the local system.

As far as TP goes, I am interested in the idea of incorporating carbon substrate into the soil in order to improve / maintain soil productivity but that is as far as I have thought-ventured into this. Mostly I have focused on encouraging useful and diverse ecosystems in my surroundings.

I worry about the proposed panacea of TP, especially from industry though I watch any and all progresses in research with interest.

[mnjrutherford]

Dec 27, 2010 11:43:31 GMT -5 ottawagardener said:

I worry about the proposed panacea of TP, especially from industry though I watch any and all progresses in research with interest.

I think you've made a good point here. I think TP should be part of a lifestyle system. As such, I would really like to get one of those stoves. I like cooking over flame because it's so much more controllable than electricity. In addition, conventional gas fuel and electricity are quickly being priced beyond my ability to pay for them.

We have much of the advised fuel sources available on the property and being able to add the residual char to our pit system would be awesome. Regrettably, they don't seem to be available to us here.

[nuts]

I'm going on on the woodland management thing,maybe slightly off topic,but not completely.

In canada,the west coast I think,they have the most amazing 'old'temperate forest on earth.

It's not only the non-deciduous forest with highest biodiversity, but probably the most productive too.When I learned how they 'manage' these forests it just made me cry(way of speaking,of course

They cut everything on hundreds square kilometers at once,so that there no tree left.
Then,to be sure that nothing survives,they put fire on the debris that's left in place.
Then of course the space is invaded by grasses.You should know that grasses are enemy of trees so these spaces take decades to become productive again,even planted with 'productive' trees.I saw a reportage where they showed a man of the big corporations showing a wild seedling of a tree that by miracle survived the massacre.'This is a gift of god' he dared to say.

I know in poor countries people badly manage woodland.they are poor and just need wood for cooking.Although canada is a rich country, they are much worse then the poor countries.Maybe we should give them carboncredits to help them to manage their forests correctly ;D

Well there are other ways to take wood from these forests.
You can just take out the trees before they fall down naturally and leave the ecosystem mostly intact and allways keep in mind to respect conditions for natural regeneration.
This other filosophy is put in practice in smaller areas and is proven to be more productive.And at the same time biodiversity is greatly respected,although the composition of the ecosystem will be somewhat modified compared to 'untouched' forest.

Off course this method is somewhat more labour-intensive,and will provide more jobs.

But,unfortunely it won't generate big profits for the big companies so fast and there is the problem.And they can easily clean their conscience by giving some credits to help those poor people that so badly manage their forests.

can't stop crying.

[ottawagardener]

I was born on the west coast and remember well the look of a bald mountain that once had on it a magnificent forest. It still makes me cry. Maybe we should create a woodlot management thread?

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Dec 27, 2010 11:43:31 GMT -5 ottawagardener said:

Paucity is a widely faced challenge I suspect as in much agriculture, there is movement of resources, often out of the local system.

I think I became a better farmer when I started thinking of my garden as an economy...

I export things: fruits, seeds, vegetables, stalks, pollen, honey, oxygen.

I import things: sunlight, fertilizer, fuel, water, pee, leaves, seeds, carbon dioxide, irrigation pipe.

I barter things: for example I agree to refrain from using poisons and to freely give away all available pollen and nectar in exchange for pollination services. I grant the bumble bees and praying mantis a bit of habitat in exchange for their services. I offer the wrens housing and they eat as many bugs as they can find. I plant crops which are of no economic value to me, but that bring immense good-will to me because they are highly favored by members of the insect kingdom.

I have industries and infrastructure that are only used internally: Cover crops, soil, nitrogen fixing bacteria, beneficial nematodes, Nosema locustae, worms, insect populations, bee boards, etc... Even weeds are a valuable method of capturing sunlight and storing it in the soil, as long as I stop their development before they produce seeds.

I worry about the productivity of labor and infrastructure. If the labor is not paying for itself then should it be done?

One of my biggest concerns is getting a proper return on investment for anything that I export... For example. I am very hesitant to export corn stalks because people want them for free, but they represent most of the sunlight and carbon dioxide that was imported into the corn patch. And since a corn stalk ready for export is mostly dry matter, it represents a lot more sunlight on a per pound basis than a squash does which is mostly water when exported.

Perhaps this will finally be the year when I build the infrastructure necessary to import wood and convert it to charcoal. There is a lot of wood that is freely available for importing into my garden but none of it is currently being captured for useful purposes. I am expending labor and gasoline to haul it away. I believe that building the device to capture the wood waste would offer an abundant return on investment.

[steev]

That's an excellent way of looking at the garden! I see sweat-equity as far better for both me and my property than buying improvements with money I have to work elsewhere to get.
The county requires that I install propane heat in the cottage I plan to build, so I will, but I intend to heat with a wood stove fueled with seasoned oak, which I am amassing. I do love that ash for the garden, and can cook on the stove, besides. If the economy improves a bit, I might pop for a real wood cook-stove. Too hot in warm weather? That's when the solar oven and barbie get their work-out, anyway. I see no reason not to play with these things, since my goal is to make what I do to live daily what I want to be doing, not what I do to earn what I need to buy what I want to be doing.

[ottawagardener]

One of things I realized about gardeing/farming/living on Earth is the importance of flow.

Holding onto corn stalks is something I completely get.

[mnjrutherford]

Our corn stalks went straight to the TP. As I understand it, there is a great deal of "ebb" and "flow" particularly in smaller forest systems. Meadow becomes over grown and turns into "median". Median eventually becomes forest. Forest eventually dies and becomes meadow (unless it covers a really huge number of acres). Of course we are talking 1,000 year cycles here.

It would be pure wisdom, in my opinion, to function with this flow. I think that Joel Salatin writes on a similar theory in some of his books.

[silverseeds]

Dec 28, 2010 15:51:53 GMT -5 mnjrutherford said:

Our corn stalks went straight to the TP. As I understand it, there is a great deal of "ebb" and "flow" particularly in smaller forest systems. Meadow becomes over grown and turns into "median". Median eventually becomes forest. Forest eventually dies and becomes meadow (unless it covers a really huge number of acres). Of course we are talking 1,000 year cycles here.

It would be pure wisdom, in my opinion, to function with this flow. I think that Joel Salatin writes on a similar theory in some of his books.

Those same cycles would be much slower in a dry area, OR not happen at all. what I mean is if you leveled a forest here, where its dry, it might not come back. Many areas here like this. where the forests were cleared 80 plus years ago and they didnt come back, or even start to. Hard for trees to start here, without other aspects of a forest functioning around it.

which brings me to my point, more then just functioning with this flow we can direct it. Even in more direct ways then we may often think of. For my dry area this means setting up berms and ditches to direct water to plants, or catch winter snow, helping trees grow better. setting things up to collect the organic matter in ideal spots to build the webs of life to better foster the growth of fertility.... and on and on. In a wetter more fertile area the extra steps might not be n issue, but in a bit more extreme area, guiding those flows becomes the ideal imo. It can get amazingly intricate.