Terra Preta - The parent thread which started it all

[Michaelangelica]

Find those in all the threads we have going on global warming; my assessment is that global warming is a natural cycle of the planetary mechanics kind. It is the height of arrogance to claim you can effect a positive change in a system you can't even fully explain.:hyper:

Yes I now understand where you are comming from and have some sympathy for the Planetary Mechanics theory too. Although what I have read says that we are in for another ice age in the LONG term (hundreds, if not thousands of years). In the meantime we could still be heading for a warming phase that could be catastrophic.

You could be right.

You could also be wrong

But I agree we "know nothing " (Manuel, Faulty Towers).

It would be nice to know more before playing god; but this has never stopped us in the past:)

 

This is not the case as presented in the program that prompted this discussion. Post #9

The early Spanish explorers boated up the Amazon & recorded the villages and when later explorers came decades later to kill off and rob the natives they were already gone.

There was very early Spanish contact, then no contact for a period of 10-20 years. In that time the population seen by the early Spanish explorers had disappeared. I don't think charcoal poisoning did it!

Even today there are many archaeological and semantic remnants of a very much bigger, wealthier society.

[Turtle]

There was very early Spanish contact, then no contact for a period of 10-20 years. In that time the population seen by the early Spanish explorers had disappeared. I don't think charcoal poisoning did it!

Even today there are many archaeological and semantic remnants of a very much bigger, wealthier society.

 

I certainly did not to intend to imply charcoal is a poison, only that it is no panacea. Moreover, and the 'knowing nothing' aside, the plan you all suggest to sequester huge amounts of charcoal world-wide has as much chance of happening as any other world-wide plan humankind tries to implement. :hyper:

[Michaelangelica]

the plan you all suggest to sequester huge amounts of charcoal world-wide has as much chance of happening as any other world-wide plan humankind tries to implement. :hyper:

I am a pessimist about getting humans to act in a concerted, co-operative way too.

BUT

Terra preta has a few advantages

1. It saves you $ by using up to 17% less water

2. It saves you $ by using much less fertiliser (This may be really significant, over time, % numbers are not in, to my knowledge)

3 It saves you $ (selling your carbon credits)

 

Saving money has always been a good motivator for Homo sapiens.

[maikeru]

"Biodynamic agriculture" appears something more like alchemy.

Yes,

I have read about this. You stuff a old cow horn with manure and bury it for a time.

Then dig it up, mix it with water, and sprinkle it over your garden/fields.

 

Perhaps they are helping microbial life in the soil????

 

I would think so. Manure is chockfull of microbes. In fact, I think it might be something like 1/4 to 1/2 of the weight of manure might be dead and living microbes. And also the horn is made out of protein and add that to the clay which can help encourage microbial life by its water retention, minerals, and high surface area, and voila! you have some sweet poop!

 

BUT

Stranger things have happened!!

Old Organic Gardeners used to collect sick, half-dead or dead caterpillars (that look like black, small, empty, collapsed condoms -Well they do!!) then stick the caterpillars in warm water with sugar and let them ferment for a week or two. Can you imagine it!! No wonder they were ridiculed!

They then spread this gungy stuff around the garden.!

It turns out the Old Organic Gardeners where making a bacterial culture of Bacillus thungerensis a bacteria that kills caterpillars.

You can buy it commercially here under the trade name "Dipel"

 

What the Dipel manufactures don't tell you is that once you have used Dipel in your garden you can then make it in the above way and never have to buy Dipel again.

 

Ah, that's where they found out about BT. Killing or mashing up dead insects and then leaving them around or spraying them on splants has some precedence as well. Some dead insects release chemicals which warn others of their kind that the place is deadly, and so they stay away, and leave your plants alone. :shrug:

[maikeru]

Find those in all the threads we have going on global warming; my assessment is that global warming is a natural cycle of the planetary mechanics kind. It is the height of arrogance to claim you can effect a positive change in a system you can't even fully explain.:shrug:

 

So far global warming has matched up closely to computer models that predict the rate and extent of global warming, including our human input.

 

This is not the case as presented in the program that prompted this discussion. Post #9

The early Spanish explorers boated up the Amazon & recorded the villages and when later explorers came decades later to kill off and rob the natives they were already gone.

 

Good soil, unfortunately, doesn't give immunity to diseases you've never seen. A case of apples and oranges, I'm afraid. When the Puritans arrived in the New World (northeastern US), they found forests and vast lands desolate of any people. Little did they know that most of the natives in the area had died a few years before from European diseases. It is a story that has been repeated many times in many places.

[maikeru]

I am a pessimist about getting humans to act in a concerted, co-operative way too.

BUT

Terra preta has a few advantages

1. It saves you $ by using up to 17% less water

2. It saves you $ by using much less fertiliser (This may be really significant, over time, % numbers are not in, to my knowledge)

3 It saves you $ (selling your carbon credits)

 

Saving money has always been a good motivator for Homo sapiens.

 

All really good points. Not only that, charcoal is a cheap and renewable commodity, which, in this case, can expand in production and application. As the Nature article suggests, terra preta begets more terra preta. It can become a self-sustaining cycle in which both the environment and people benefit. Not many "solutions" to global warming can say that.

[Turtle]

So far global warming has matched up closely to computer models that predict the rate and extent of global warming, including our human input.

 

The only reason this is even remotely the case is that modelers continually tweek the models to accomodate the new discoveries.

For example, this article I posted:

http://americandaily.com/article/16013

Found in this thread, post #74:

http://hypography.com/forums/community-polls/7477-global-warming-cause-people-planetary-mechanics.html

Your statement is overreaching...in my humble opinion.:shrug: :eek2:

[maikeru]

The only reason this is even remotely the case is that modelers continually tweek the models to accomodate the new discoveries.

For example, this article I posted:

http://americandaily.com/article/16013

Found in this thread, post #74:

http://hypography.com/forums/community-polls/7477-global-warming-cause-people-planetary-mechanics.html

Your statement is overreaching...in my humble opinion.:shrug: ;)

 

We tweak models, much as we tweak the rest of our knowledge, to better fit what we know and observe in the world. That has always been one of the tenets of modern science. :eek2: Even with terra preta, if you've read some of the articles linked to, it has been a continual process of discovery, understanding, and refining models and theories to better explain what is observed.

 

BTW, this article deals with atmospheric warming as predicted by models & scientists, dealing with 3 articles published in Science in August:

http://www.livescience.com/environment/050811_global_warming.html

 

While there's still much we don't know, I think we've reached the point where accumulating evidence, such as more frequent and powerful hurricanes, warming poles, melting ice sheets, increasing ocean temperatures, dying coral reefs, and knowledge about how greenhouse gases work, are produced, and in what quantities, that we can make a guess at what's going on, IMHO.

[Michaelangelica]

. Killing or mashing up dead insects and then leaving them around or spraying them on splants has some precedence as well. Some dead insects release chemicals which warn others of their kind that the place is deadly, and so they stay away, and leave your plants alone. :)

Yes used to have a friend who used to blend grasshoppers and spread this around the garden. His theory was that it discouraged other grasshoppers by them finding their mashed friends around.:eek:

Unfortunately his wife was not so happy about her kitchen blender being used in this way!:phones::)

[Michaelangelica]

this is a bit of a re-cap of the thread so far.

But the interview is well worth a read this is only a small part of it focusing on Tera preta

The few last sentences are interesting

http://news.mongabay.com/2006/1023-interview_fearnside.html+

Mongabay:

Recent discoveries of so-called "black earth" (terra preta do índio) in Brazil lend support to the theory that the Amazon rainforest was once home to advanced cultures and large sedentary populations of people. What are the conservation implications of these findings?

Is there a way that carbon could be sequestered in a similar form and used to make the Amazon more productive for agriculture?

Would making the Amazon more fertile for crops be detrimental to the forest in the long run by opening it up for development?

 

DEFORESTATION IN BRAZIL: 60-70 percent of deforestation in the Amazon results from cattle ranches while the rest mostly results from small-scale subsistence agriculture.

Logging results in forest degradation but rarely direct deforestation. However, studies have showed a close correlation between logging and future clearing for settlement and farming. Graphic by R. Butler.

 

Fearnside: Black earth isn’t exactly a “recent discovery.”

The fact that indigenous peoples of the past have influenced the forests we see in Amazonia today is important to understanding those forests.

The soil at black-earth sites is more fertile and productive for agriculture than are any other soils in Amazonia.

Their extent is limited and they are dispersed in small patches, making them more important for small farmers than they are for large landholders.

 

The possible importance of black earths in mitigating global warming lies in efforts to replicate the soil formation process to create “terra preta nova” (new black earth).

This would both increase the sustainability of whatever is planted and store more carbon in the soil. Finely powdered charcoal is an important ingredient of black earth and is being tested separately as a soil amendment that increases the absorption by plants of any nutrients that are added to the soil.

At least theoretically, the plan is to use these techniques in recuperating areas that are already deforested.

The already-cleared area is sufficiently vast that any programs to recover their soils by creating new black earth could be kept busy for a long time.

Of course, if these techniques proved to be a great success capable of removing soil limitations over vast areas at low cost, then more effort would be needed to keep it from becoming a new driver for deforestation.

The proper way of handling such a possibility is to strengthen the controls and influences over land use, rather than to neglect or even actively hinder developing the technology for creating terra preta nova.

[chrisbrandow]

for those of you looking for cheap charcoal to mess around with, I have found at our local grocery store 40 lb bags of mesquite charcoal for $12. This is pure charcoal and much cheaper than most stores.

[Turtle]

for those of you looking for cheap charcoal to mess around with, I have found at our local grocery store 40 lb bags of mesquite charcoal for $12. This is pure charcoal and much cheaper than most stores.

 

:Waldo:

 

Ingredients from MSDS/Label

Chemical CAS No / Unique ID Percent

Sawdust 000000-39-2 < 12

Calcium carbonate (Limestone) 001317-65-3 <15

Charcoal, activated 016291-96-6

 

http://hpd.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/household/brands?tbl=brands&id=3027116

[Terra Preta Nova]

:hihi:

 

So you are claiming that lump charcoal is not 'the same' and contains

 

Ingredients from MSDS/Label

Chemical CAS No / Unique ID Percent

Sawdust 000000-39-2 < 12

Calcium carbonate (Limestone) 001317-65-3 <15

Charcoal, activated 016291-96-6

 

Is that your claim? Interesting.

 

Because the bag of charcoal *I* have says that it doesn't. The bag I have is from the cowboy charcoal company.

 

The original poster you say 'no' to doesn't say what product they have, but simple observation at the store shows you to be wrong.

[Terra Preta Nova]

While the 'dark soils' idea has some merit for improving the garden,

 

If by improve you ment to say better plant growth and health - yes.

 

this idea that it is a means to change climate is without foundation.

 

Interesting claim. Yet no one here is claiming 'a means of climate change' but instead is claiming that you can take atmospheric Carbon and place it into the soil for years.

 

"carbon dating has shown them to date back to between 1780 and 2260 years."Source: Wim Sombroek (pers. comm.); Bechtold, 2001

 

 

Moreover, it didn't keep the Amazonian people who employed it from disappearing. :hihi:

 

So are you claiming that the terra preta soil somehow failed the people?

 

By all means, produce that evidence!

 

Otherwise, the main theories of lying documentation to the sights seen or death via diesease vectors from the old world have nothing to do with your claim of the soil failing the people.

[erich]

Hi All:

There are about 1/2 doz gourmet natural charcoal distributors( Google charcoal wholesale). Cowboy is one, most import from South America or even China. The only U.S. charcoal makers I have found are in Missouri.

 

I just started checking on the availability of Agricultural grade charcoal, dust to 1/2 inch,

high lignin feed stock, 4%- 7% moisture, and the lower the cook temperature the better.

 

I can only find it in Missouri, a 22 ton trailer , delivered to me in Harrisonburg, Virginia, @ $225/ton.

 

I have contacted Kingford (Clorox), hopping that occasionally their retorts in West VA may over produce for their use in making brickets, and I might get a load.

 

I also sent them the TP links,and my thoughts that the company would have interest in the over all carbon-negative aspects of the pyrolysis processes at Georgia Inst of Technology.

 

Their reply:

 

 

"Thanks for the reply and thanks for the links.

I've given your name to Clorox' Procurement Manager, who will be in touch.

Interesting propositions."

 

 

 

So keep your fingers crossed, this could be big

 

 

 

Also:

 

I sent TP post to the author of this new book, Teaming with Microbes: A Gardeners Guide to the Soil Food Web :

 

http://www.timberpress.com/authors/id.cfm/1262

 

"Dear Mr. Lowenfels,

After reading reviews of your book, I thought you may be interested in Terra Preta Soils and the roll they could play in establishing a sustainable agricultural technology in our climates. TP goes way beyond the old saw of "Feed the Soil, Not the plants" to "Feed, House, and provide water& waste infrastructure to the Soil! "

 

 

Erich

[Turtle]

this idea that it is a means to change climate is without foundation.

 

Interesting claim. Yet no one here is claiming 'a means of climate change' but instead is claiming that you can take atmospheric Carbon and place it into the soil for years.

I have read a number of posts here to the contrary. :hihi:

 

Moreover, it didn't keep the Amazonian people who employed it from disappearing.

So are you claiming that the terra preta soil somehow failed the people?

In relation to the sentiment that sequestering carbon is going to reduce global warming and so save humankind, terra preta did not serve that function for the Amazonian folks who employed its use. :D

 

I have contacted Kingford (Clorox), hopping that occasionally their retorts in West VA may over produce for their use in making brickets, and I might get a load.

What kind of wood are they using and where does it come from? Will increase in production equate to an increase in deforestation?:D

[erich]

Europe's Product Oriented Environmental Management System -- "Poems" for short

 

If only the US would share these TRUE costs with the public than we could discern their True value or determent.

 

http://energypriorities.com/entries/2006/10/product_oriented_environmental.php