<Charlie> wrote in message
>I posted this this in r.g and r.g.e and then wondered if any of you on
> your side of the planet have done this or have experience with this, as
> you seem to be ahead of the curve. The more I read, the more excited I
> become about it. I'm particularly enthused about the long term and
> persistent aspects of this.
>
>>After reading Bill's posts about Rodale's compost work with leonardite
>>dust and the essay by Rebecca Lines-Kelly that mentioned terra pretta,
>>I started looking into the use of charcoal, crushed or dust, as a
>>compost and soil amendment. Has anyone used charcoal dust or have any
>>thoughts or results?
>>
>>http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/
>>
>>http://www.eprida.com/hydro/ecoss/background/charbenefits.htm
>>
>>Charlie
>
> These FUs added some info..seems there is a ****-ton of info and study
> being done. Benefits seem to go beyond soil fertility.
>
>>There are some interesting articles on this site. It's a Canadian
>>company working in conversion of biomass into energy.
>>
>>http://www.dynamotive.com/en/news/media.html
>>
>>Dora
>
> ------------
>
>>Funny you should mention this... I was just reading news headlines at
>>sciencedaily and found this:
>>http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080410153658.htm
>>
>>I think I should read up on this a bit more and maybe try some in may
>>little
>>plot. Thanks for the links.
>>Chas
Good Lord! Here I am having been using something called bio-char and
never,
ever knew it. I just called it ashes.
Terre preta isn't a term that means anything to me and I thought that
charcoal was made under heaps of earth and that took several days of
specialist burning to produce.
But having said that, I do use the ash in the ash pans which come from
burnings wod in winter in our fires (both our heater and our slow
combustion
stove (range)). I sieve the fine ash from the large black chunks and the
ash is used like lime and the black chunks (which are sort of a bit like
real charcoal) are used in the base of pot plants to keep the soil 'sweet'
and any I don't ned for pots gets thrown somewhere on a bed and eventually
mixed into the soil when it gets dug. I work in the theory that anything
that has once lived is recyclable back to the soil.
Can't say that I've ever noticed anything out of the ordinary about it,
but
it also does no harm either.
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