Posted on 05/26/2022 7:57:51 PM PDT by Jonty30
It might seem counterintuitive, but tropical forest soils are, almost universally, terrible for farming. That’s due primarily to the insanely dense amount of life in these environments: In less alive forests, dead plant and animal matter has time to decompose and leach its nutrients into the soil. But in the tropical forest, huge numbers of insects, fungi, and bacteria devour any decomposing matter before it has a chance to enrich the soil.
But people around the world live in tropical forests, and have had to figure out some way to make the soil actually productive. (The effects of the destruction of these forests on the eco-system notwithstanding.) One of the oldest techniques, long documented in the Amazon rainforest, is what’s known as “black earths” or “terra preta.” For hundreds of years, rainforest farmers have figured out that you can enrich soil with biochar: charcoal, basically. Wet vegetation is burned, producing little bits of charcoal, which are ground into the soil. Eventually, this creates an incredibly rich, fertile soil.
(Excerpt) Read more at modernfarmer.com ...
ping
Dirty Dirt is good dirt.
Alternate layers of char and non-barbeque charcoal with dirt.
The deeper the better.
Deep filling of the land adds oxygen to the soil to aid proper decomposition of organic matter.
*Stupid spell check.
I’ve read quite a bit about it. Works good in sandy tropical soils, not so much in temperate heavy soils.
I did use a little biochar for my homemade potting soil this year. It holds water like perlite and in my case, was mixed with leaf mold and very aged goat & chicken manure.
I wouldn’t try to load my heavy soil with it though.
I get biochar aka charcoal(not chemical laden briquettes) from my wood stove. When I dump the ashes outside, sometimes there’s charcoal left from me shutting down the stove when a warm front comes in.
Nice.
I wish I had learned more about gardening from my grandfather.
He was the only farmer in his area, during the Depression, that did lose his top soil because he knew how to plant trees around his property.
He also grew the biggest vegetables in his area.
The technique used in Florida to turn sand into fertile soil is to spread bone meal and blood meal then cover it with mulch. Repeat over several years if necessary, but eventually creates rich dark earth without the need to till.
Heavy organic matter is anaerobic soil conditions rob the soil of nitrogen.
I’m pretty sure my county allows for the slash, not so sure about the burn, though.
I’ll give it a try!
My grandmother was a classic southern lady. Her garden was amazing. Weed free, lush with minimal water, productive and delicious. In her starched bonnet, apron and long sleeve blouse she tended it early morning and made it look easy.
An old black man with a wagon drawn by the same mule that tilled the garden would arrive with single plow, little disc , harrow and hiller. In not long the garden was ready for planting.
In her family years she and my grandfather fed a family of 12 children and others on a 20 acre farm. 1000 quarts a year was common for the brush arbor outdoor kitchen. All done in the 20s thru the 40s. They always had food and were clean, decent, hard working and Godly.
Ashes from the stove sweeten the soil.
Potash?
My grandparents lived near the power plant and the coal dust from the trucks was everywhere.
The dirt was literally black and you could plant anything and it would grow like mad.
Best tomatoes you ever tasted.
https://skillcult.com/ has a lot of information on biochar. Including research published back in the 1800’s, which took place in temperate climates. I found it fascinating.
Two of the articles, “The Farmers’ cabinet, and American herd-book, Volume 11 1847” and “The farmer’s magazine 1850”, convinced me it was worth the effort. My property doesn’t produce much firewood, so I’ve been experimenting with char made from crop waste. Mostly bean pods, because dry beans are one of my main crops.
I haven’t made enough to tell if it’s having any effect on the soil. But it has had a HUGE effect on odor control! By mixing it in with the bedding in my chicken coop, I was able to pretty much eliminate odors from their manure.
It worked so well that I’ve also started adding food-grade charcoal to my cats’ food. My family has 2 cats, and they tend to do what I refer to as “competitive pooping”. It doesn’t matter how often the litter gets changed. The moment the competition starts, the whole house fills with an eye-watering stench, forcing us to open windows in order to breathe. But, a tiny pinch of charcoal, mixed into their squishy food once a day, took care of the problem completely! They still hold pooping contests, but they no longer fumigate the house when doing so.
I hope all the research I’ve seen about the benefits of biochar hold true for my farm. But even if it doesn’t, the odor-control properties are worth the effort of making it, in my opinion.
We used to save all the ashes and coals from the three wood stoves in the house to spread on the garden every spring. Our soil is the heavy red clay type. Along with the ashes we added cow manure every year, always had great gardens.
plant some peanuts- nitrogen.
Legumes add nitrogen to depleted tilled soils with out the aid of fertilizer.
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