The clay shards and pottery in TP What & Why?

[JMJones0424]

NOOO!!!!!!!!

 

Charcoal is not equivalent to coal in composition or structure. Charcoal is woody plant material with nearly everything but carbon driven off through pyrolysis, while coal is plant material that has been compressed, concentrating the non-carbon impurities and resulting in a different structure entirely. (EDIT: Right? After making this post, I started questioning my response. I'm not sure that it would be as bad as I initially thought, assuming the coal is tested and does not contain anything that would be detrimental e.g., excess sodium, sulfur, iron, pH. In fact, we have a thread here on the topic)

 

I like to think of the pottery shards in terra preta as a soil additive that helps to lighten the planting mix and increase drainage. As this thread illustrates, others have argued that pottery shards played more than just a mechanical role in terra preta. I am unconvinced, but I am also stubborn. I have a pretty dense silty clay soil, but instead of pottery shards, I promote the increase of organic matter in the soil and as much as possible prevent the compaction of the soil. If you need to amend your soil to improve structure, please first test in a small area. A neighbor of mine added sand to his clayey soil garden and ended up with a very good facsimile of a driveway.

 

I have seen recycled, crushed brick used as an inorganic mulch, in place of lava rock. I can't think of any reason to avoid crushed brick as a soil amendment, though if your source is construction debris, you may observe a liming effect from old mortar if there is a lot still attached to the brick.

Edited January 11, 2012 by JMJones0424

[Knothead]

I have to agree that coal would not be interchangeable for charcoal. From my experience, coal and charcoal have very different properties. Coal is heavy and dense and sort of oily. I can't imagine that they would have the same beneficial effects as soil additives. But what do I know.

Still, even if it was beneficial, the practice certainly wouldn't do much for the idea of carbon sequestering. You'd just be digging up the coal and sequestering the same amount so there would be no net gain. With biochar, you're actually removing carbon from the system.

At least that's the way it appears to me.

[smolderhead]

I have to agree that coal would not be interchangeable for charcoal. From my experience, coal and charcoal have very different properties. Coal is heavy and dense and sort of oily. I can't imagine that they would have the same beneficial effects as soil additives. But what do I know.

Still, even if it was beneficial, the practice certainly wouldn't do much for the idea of carbon sequestering. You'd just be digging up the coal and sequestering the same amount so there would be no net gain. With biochar, you're actually removing carbon from the system.

At least that's the way it appears to me.

 

 

If fact nomatter if you bury charcoal or coal The effect is thez same.

Charcoal is a very usefull combustible(for cooking as exemple),So if you bury charcoal you have to replace it by another combustible,like coal or a fossil fuel.

 

If you replace it by for exemple solar energie or simply are more efficient,you can

use the charcoal for another usage to replace fossil fuels,reducing the the co2 emmision this way.

 

If you bury the ecomnomised charcoal you don't reduce the co2 emmision because you can as well use it for reducing use of fossil fuels.

Anyway you turn it you can only reduce co2 emmission by burning less combustibles,no matter if you burn organic or fossil fuels.

Buried combustible will be replaced by another combustible if there is no reduced usage of fuels.

I really don't understand this 'save the planet' thing by burying charcoal.

 

On the other hand,I'm kind of fascinated by the terra preta.

They found out that charcoal has a positive effect on fysical properties of soil,soilorganisms and plantgrow.

That's cool

 

But did anyone had succes in making a soil like terra preta from scratch(infertile claysoil+organic matter,carbonised organic matter and whatever)?