Terra Preta and Biochar

 


I know very few people who have any knowledge of this subject.   I feel
that it
is important and offer it as something to discuss on this
forum.            
The Government food agency has been going on lately
about there being no
nutritional difference between organically grown
food and the rest of the  stuff
we tend to eat obtained from the
supermakets etc.   It may be true but the
difference is usually in the
taste, and it hasn't been weeks travelling all 0ver
the world.   The
large Bio-companies are now using this as an excuse to
introduce
Genetically modified foods, and that the GM foods will be better able
to larger crops to feed the worlds growing population.   They have had
a long
time to prove it and they haven't succeeded yet - have they???
Side stepping a little,   the country have  been charged to develop
green energy
- hence the large electricity generating wind mills
springing up all over the
place.
A lot of research is being carried out all over the world into Terra
Preta
(Google it for more information).   It is a fertile soil found in
the Amazon
valley in Brazil and is reckoned to be 9 time more fertile
than ordinary soil.  
It was developed by the Mayan indians more that
1500 years ago and although they
vanished when the Spanish and
Portugese invaded South America, it is stall as
fertile to this day.  
The development was through the use of charcoal which is
the burning of
wood without oxygen (for those who don't know). In fact charcoal
can be
made from any biological material and is currently being made from
chicken manure to sawdust.
Biochar is a good name for it.  (Google it) Looking at it purely from
the point
of view of growing food, it has been shown that by adding it
to the soil crops
can increase by up to 50%.  Still experimental, but
showing very positive signs.
In the production of biochar burnable gasses are given off, i.e
Hydrogen,
methane, carbon monoxide, to the extent that they are in
excess of what is
needed to make the biochar and can be used to produce
electricity etc.
Production of Biochar can be by large machines capable of burning most
of the
refuse collected by local authorities , down to large clay pots
used if Africa
which is also used for cooking.   Make your own in your
garden and turn your
weeds into biochar.   If most biological waste was
turned into biochar we might
be able to do away with the windmills and
the articficial fertilizers currently
polluting our rivers.

Bigal




--
Bigal