I am a landscape design/builder in the Shenandoah Valley. I found the Terra Preta work a few months ago and have been posting it around to science forums, local academics, soil science people, local farmers, and authors of relevant news stories.
I was an early adaptor of mycorrhiza inoculants , Hydro-gels , and over the years supported composting operations of local poultry/dairy farmers and of composted bio-solids of the local waste treatment plant.
The old saw of "Feeding the soil and not the plants" is so intrinsic of TP I had to get onboard. Actually it's more like " Feeding , housing, and water & sewage system for the Soil not the plants"
My research focus is now on Bio-Fuel and carbon sequestration issues for sustainable agriculture incorporating carbon-negative, closed-loop pyrolysis systems. However this work has lead to nanomaterial research in energy production.
Both Nano-Solar PV, Solar H2 production, and Bioreactor H2 production. Another area of interest are new quantum tunneling chip designs for direct conversion of heat to electricity.
Man Must Master the Carbon Cycle:
Man has been controlling the carbon cycle , and there for the weather, since the invention of agriculture, all be it was as unintentional, as our current airliner contrails are in affecting global dimming. This unintentional warm stability in climate , has over 10,000 years, allowed us to develop to the point that now we know what we did and that now we are over doing it.
The prehistoric and historic records gives a logical thrust for soil carbon sequestration.
I wonder what the soil biome carbon concentration was REALLY like before the cutting and charcoaling of the virgin east coast forest, my guess is that now we see a severely diminished community, and that only very recent Ag practices like no-till have started helped to rebuild it. It makes implementing Terra Preta soil technology like an act of penitence, returning misplaced carbon.
http://www.computare.org/Support%20docu ... 006_05.htm
This is a prescription from Dr. Danny Day at GIT, for what we can do to promote Terra Preta Soil Technology:
" A global Manhattan project of
climate change.
What can you do? Read up on terra preta (some of the published works
made a part of the above patent application), look at references in
the Eprida website or convince yourself by testing. Grow your favorite
plant in two pots, one with 1/3 wood charcoal (soak this in fertilizer
for several days), 1/3 sand and 1/3 available soil. Plant the other
with your normal method for potting plants. Fertilize and watch them
grow. Watch it for three seasons and note the differences. (Many have
noted their best results in the second year as microbial populations
increase) Alternately, use a microbe/fungi inoculation to speed the
response.
Then tell everyone you know.Even if we can't stop avoid the climate
shift we will begun to build an awareness of a solution. If we broaden
the understanding that we can produce carbon negative fuels, scrub
fossil fuel exhaust of pollutants and C02, reverse the effect of
mining our soil, depleting soil carbon, trace minerals and losing
agricultural productivity then we will effect many generations to
come. In our lifetime, a 2000-year-old secret is being reborn and its
timeliness could never have been more appropriate. It now up to this
generation to embrace a plan to work with nature to restore lost soil
carbon and rebuild the incredible life at work in our soils. Working
together, we can achieve the possible."
Erich J. Knight