Terra Preta Group and Blog?

[Moontanman]

I am having a BBQ next Sunday Who wants to come? B)

 

Me Me Me! I'll get my air tickets tomorrow!

[Essay]

Hey guys, these posts would be great for the actual blog. ;)

This thread was just to start the blog. Let's throw these great ideas and discussions over to the blog so everything is all in one place and easy to find. :)

 

I've got a comment to make about "innoculation."

 

Could someone take me by the hand and show me how to find this blog? :)

 

:)

[Michaelangelica]

I can help you produce easy tidal tanks and ponds. I've been into Aquaponics for several years and use auto siphons to run ebb and flow systems.

 

The most basic of these designs is a loop siphon. Here's one

 

Siphons - Aquaponicswiki.com MediaWiki

 

The pipe in a pipe is good too, really good for aesthetics. I don't use the u bend at the bottom or the wee piece of hose off the side to assist the siphon to stop, mine stops. The depicted arrangement is different though, my pipe in pipe design has my garden directly above the tanks, The authors garden is to the side.

 

We could take this subject up elsewhere if you wish just start a thread and notify me where it is.

 

Last night the ABC had al ittle segment ("filler") lifted from its usually conservative, "Landline" programme about rural issues.

This segment was about a farming family in WA who are 100K from the coast growing seaweed!

 

It seems that after chopping down all the trees, this area N. of Perth, has a soil salinity problem. Long trenches of salt-water have been built below the drainage? line.

In these and in dams enterprising farmers are growing seaweed.

They have a family picnic & surf at the coast and bring back heaps of seaweed in Eskies that they then seed into their salt water dams and drainage channels.

As the clip was probably from an old show I can't find the segment on the ABC site (which is VAST!)

 

But a little while ago I mused/speculated that agar might hep 'wee beasties' and 'critters' in the soil; as this was what laboratories grew bacteria on in petrie dishes.

The chemists said "Great idea MikeA but it is too expensive"

Well can farmers produce their own agar + charcoal?

 

I did find this one reference on the ABC site

Fed Govt backs mid-west seaweed scheme

 

Posted Wed Dec 20, 2006 11:46am AEDT

 

The Federal Government has thrown its support behind an initiative to breed seaweed in salt affected inland areas of mid-west Western Australia.

 

The Shire of Morowa and the Morowa Farm Improvement Group have obtained $130,000 to fund the pilot program.

 

A 12 month trial to breed the seaweed species gracilaria will be staged in two dams on a farming property.

 

The trial is only the second to be held in Australia, with another project in Victoria about to start phase two of its trial program.

 

Shire chief executive officer Gavin Treasure says the funding will ensure the mid-west trial proceeds next year.

 

"Its' ground breaking in terms of what we're trying to achieve," he said.

 

"It's just great that the Federal Government has seen the means to support us in our proposal.

 

"We're looking forward to having some people on the ground in the new year to start the work off, get the ponds prepared and plant some seaweed and see how we go."

Fed Govt backs mid-west seaweed scheme - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Farmers turn their salinity problems into profit

PRINT FRIENDLY EMAIL STORY

AM - Friday, 4 March , 2005 08:32:00

Reporter: Rachel Carbonell

TONY EASTLEY: Salinity is one of Australia's biggest environmental problems. Each year it costs farmers tens of millions of dollars in lost agricultural production.

 

But a group of farmers in Victoria's north-west have found a new way to harness salinity for the greater good. They're using the salty ground water, which has ruined much of their pasture and wetlands, to grow a product which is in short supply around the world.

 

Rachel Carbonell reports.

 

RACHEL CARBONELL: The township of Donald in north-western Victoria is one of the most salt affected farming regions in the state.

AM - Farmers turn their salinity problems into profit

 

 

WA Wheatbelt tries seaweed as cash crop

 

Posted Thu Jan 11, 2007 2:17pm AEDT

 

Farmers in the Western Australian Wheatbelt town of Morawa could soon be growing seaweed as a new cash crop.

 

It will be grown in drains used to catch hyper-saline water run-off from salt-affected farmland.

 

Project manager Cameron Tubby, who is organising a large scale trial, says the dried plant can fetch up to $1,000 a tonne for use in pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.

 

"The original results we've been getting, is somewhere between six and eight tonnes of dry seaweed per hectare, per year, so at this stage we are putting in half hectare ponds," Mr Tubby said.

 

"We need a target growth rate of 3 per cent per day and a small trial we did a bit over 18 months ago now, in the middle of winter produced a 2.5 per cent growth rate per day, so we're not too far off it now."

WA Wheatbelt tries seaweed as cash crop - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

 

Lots of other interesting links if you are REALLY interested

Seaweed linked to possible cancer treatment

13 Oct 2003 - 234 weeks ago

 

Seaweed-coated insulin offers diabetes treatment hope - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

 

Seaweed spray extends shelf life of apples - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

[Moontanman]

Last night the ABC had al ittle segment ("filler") lifted from its usually conservative, "Landline" programme about rural issues.

This segment was about a farming family in WA who are 100K from the coast growing seaweed!

 

It seems that after chopping down all the trees, this area N. of Perth, has a soil salinity problem. Long trenches of salt-water have been built below the drainage? line.

In these and in dams enterprising farmers are growing seaweed.

They have a family picnic & surf at the coast and bring back heaps of seaweed in Eskies that they then seed into their salt water dams and drainage channels.

As the clip was probably from an old show I can't find the segment on the ABC site (which is VAST!)

 

But a little while ago I mused/speculated that agar might hep 'wee beasties' and 'critters' in the soil; as this was what laboratories grew bacteria on in petrie dishes.

The chemists said "Great idea MikeA but it is too expensive"

Well can farmers produce their own agar + charcoal?

 

I did find this one reference on the ABC site

 

Fed Govt backs mid-west seaweed scheme - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

 

AM - Farmers turn their salinity problems into profit

 

 

 

WA Wheatbelt tries seaweed as cash crop - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

 

Lots of other interesting links if you are REALLY interested

Seaweed linked to possible cancer treatment

13 Oct 2003 - 234 weeks ago

 

Seaweed-coated insulin offers diabetes treatment hope - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

 

Seaweed spray extends shelf life of apples - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

 

I never thought of adding dried seaweed to my soil mix, around here in the last summer onshore winds can blow in tonnes of Sargassum weed onto the shore. I wonder if it will do the same thing?

[Ahmabeliever]

Hmmm Sargassum, it is used for animal feed so must be nutritionally ok...

 

Searching... Protected in some areas as is a habitat for marine life....

 

There t'is! Nutrient content of sargassum is dependant on the environment in which it grew. All good.

 

You know how to do a brew?

[Moontanman]

Hmmm Sargassum, it is used for animal feed so must be nutritionally ok...

 

Searching... Protected in some areas as is a habitat for marine life....

 

There t'is! Nutrient content of sargassum is dependant on the environment in which it grew. All good.

 

You know how to do a brew?

 

Define brew.

[Ahmabeliever]

Harvest seaweed. Then you wash it all to get salt off, shred and dry in sun to kill bacteria, and then put it in a barrel of water to ferment. Use a portion of this liquid in your regular watering schedule.

 

Or... Harvest, shred and dry, crush into powder. Use in compost, or directly as a soil amendment.

 

I don't know how to make a stable liquid concentrate yet, but the info is bound to be out there. I just leave a brew to brew and use as desired, with a lid - it stinks!

[Michaelangelica]

Harvest seaweed. Then you wash it all to get salt off, shred and dry in sun to kill bacteria, and then put it in a barrel of water to ferment. Use a portion of this liquid in your regular watering schedule.

An organic farming friend said not to worry about washing the salt off. She said some plants like brassicas (Cabbage family) liked a little salt and actually became a little "crisper' in texture with seaweed use(?).

She was 100K from coast. I am close to the coast and some of my soil is damaged by salt-water-pool overflow.

(That's a thought I could grow seaweed in the pool!!??)

 

I recently thought I was very clever by transplanting a bit of grass from the edge of the lake (and often covered in sea water) and planting it, where lawn won't grow, near the pool. It seems to be doing fine.

When I first moved to this garden I lost alot of plants. I found some of the soil is registering 9.pH on my CSIRO test kit.

Would the salt do that?

I am growing a lot of plants in pots now until I can, somehow, fix the soil.

 

I often pick up a bag of seaweed from the lake edges (heaps of it sometimes- with stinking SO2) and use it for mulch around the garden. It is long 'ribbony' grass-like stuff which takes a long time to break down, even in compost.

[maikeru]

I never thought of adding dried seaweed to my soil mix, around here in the last summer onshore winds can blow in tonnes of Sargassum weed onto the shore. I wonder if it will do the same thing?

 

It's been one of the staples of my terra preta mixes, and it works very well. Seaweeds are generally rich in major and minor nutrients and minerals. Major nutrients you can expect from seaweeds include nitrogen, potassium, calcium, iron, iodide, etc. Minor things will include selenium and other important trace elements. The agar and other gummy stuff in seaweeds help to glue the soil together into little, loose clumps and makes it more workable and overall porous. I figure having so many nutrients at the disposal of plants, fungi, microbes, and everything else in the soil can only help the diversity and improvement of the soil ecosystem as a whole. Feed the plants and feed the microbes too. :phones: I'd recommend trying to wash off salt if you're adding it to a closed container or system, where watering or rain cannot gradually desalinize the soil.

 

Another addition I've found very useful to terra preta is blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) and small mosses. Cyanobacteria, mosses, etc. provide very fine ground cover and habitat for tiny critters and may help to add more organic material over time. I got mine by poking toothpicks into existing pots with a little green fuzz or scum on top of the soil and poked my terra preta to inoculate them. A couple weeks later the top of the terra preta would be green, and the plants in the pots seemed to grow faster and more vigorous. You can buy specific strains of dried blue-green algae, some for nitrogen fixation for example, if you wanted to have more control over the microbial flora. I wouldn't be surprised if nitrogen fixing, added organic matter (coming from dead bacteria/moss), and nutrients from the cyanobacteria and mosses were being added and recycled in the terra preta more quickly and given to the plants. Or if perhaps they provided more microenvironments and diversity for the soil ecosystem in the long run, and that provided for more productivity. The faster and better nutrients can be recycled and made available, the more productive the entire system.

[Michaelangelica]

I met a nice guy at the IAI Conference from NZ Agriculture.

His name would probably be listed in the IAI Conference participants at Terigal Australia last year.

 

There has also been a post ( in news?) about TP reserch at a NZ University)

[Ahmabeliever]

Yes I saw two NZ grants go through recently, not sure if TP but definately char related.

 

I got the wee moss cover after two days in the first TP pots I made up. I thought it looked really wet and I brushed some back it was dry. Fastest ground cover I ever saw.

[nutronjon]

Excuse me, about the charcol :confused: Can I buy a bag of the charcol used for barbecuing and break it up with a hammer and throw it into my soil mix, or buy the much more expensive activate charcol used in aquariums? Or look for a forest fire?

[freeztar]

Excuse me, about the charcol :confused: Can I buy a bag of the charcol used for barbecuing and break it up with a hammer and throw it into my soil mix, or buy the much more expensive activate charcol used in aquariums? Or look for a forest fire?

 

You can use charcoal briquettes, but they are not pure char as they have to add binders (ie glue) to make the form. Do not waste your money on activated charcoal. It could cost you a fortune! You can scavenge pieces from a fire, but I recommend making it yourself or finding a source for natural wood charcoal. Check with home depot or lowes for a brand called "cowboy charcoal". I also recommend checking Mexican/hispanic grocery stores (if you have a Mexican/hispanic population where you live).

[TerryPradha]

Talking about mixing charcoal in pots made me think about getting soil ready for next winter. I bring in a select set of plants each year and having a char soil mix sounds like a good idea.

 

Would campfire chunks be used as the drainage pieces, instead of stones? Are the mixes mostly charcoal with other stuff mixed in? or Mostly other stuff with some char mixed in?

[Michaelangelica]

Excuse me, about the charcol ;) Can I buy a bag of the charcol used for barbecuing and break it up with a hammer and throw it into my soil mix,

Yes.

but

as freezar said, be careful you don't buy what is sold here as "BBQ fuel" which is full of binders and kerosene? to help it burn.

[Michaelangelica]

Talking about mixing charcoal in pots made me think about getting soil ready for next winter. I bring in a select set of plants each year and having a char soil mix sounds like a good idea.

Would campfire chunks be used as the drainage pieces, instead of stones?

Sounds OK Broken terracotta pots would be cheaper.

Are the mixes mostly charcoal with other stuff mixed in? or Mostly other stuff with some char mixed in?

depends abit on the plant carnations and lime loving plants will take alot Camelias and Gardeneias-acid lovers- etc will take less.

for starters I would go with

Mostly other stuff with some char mixed in?

When the "other stuff" is a good potting mix. Experiment and see.

[Essay]

Are the mixes mostly charcoal with other stuff mixed in? or Mostly other stuff with some char mixed in?

 

...from "1491" by Charles Mann

terra preta contains up to sixty-four times more [charcoal] than surrounding red earth.

...but 64 times nothing is still a pretty small amount. ;)

 

I know there's at least one reference on that "Contents for T.P...." thread.

i.e. post#62:

The percentage of bio-char in Terra Preta varies from 20-40% and comes in two types: black charcoal and brown. The two types are apparently the result of producing the charcoal at relatively low temps. The brown charcoal is much higher in plant resins and these are thought to be used by the microorganism community in binding nutrients.

 

Don't think of T.P. as a special alternative substrate or growing medium; just think rich, organic dirt, with enough char added to improve color, workability, humectancy; and the magic stuff will take care of itself....

:hihi: