Beware: biochar is not terra preta

Dear JanforGore,
Now even Elain Engham has agreed on the efficacy of char additions to the soil. Both she and Dr. Vandana Shiva contributed to Albert Bates new book . I have reviewed this Book
It is a BLOCK BUSTER
New Genetic / demographic data, Archeological / Paleoclimate data that leaves your jaw on the floor.
The missing pieces of Anthropogenic Climate Change fall into perfect order.
Albert puts you in the canoes, fearing the next woman warrior attack or wondrous visions
of plenty.
Cutting edge Satellite research
Big, medium & small scale, here there and everywhere.
The Mantria Story; Inside out and Outside In

Want more?, it is There, I've just tipped this Iceberg.
I Can't say enough,

The Biochar Solution: Carbon Farming and Climate Change
Albert Bates
Civilization as we know it is at a crossroads. For the past 10,000 years, we have turned a growing understanding of physics, chemistry and biology to our advantage in producing more energy and more food and as a consequence have produced exponential population surges, resource depletion, ocean acidification, desertification and climate change.

The path we are following began with long-ago discoveries in agriculture, but it divided into two branches, about 8,000 years ago. The branch we have been following for the most part is conventional farming - irrigation, tilling the soil, and removing weeds and pests. That branch has degraded soil carbon levels by as much as 80 percent in most of the world's breadbaskets, sending all that carbon skyward with each pass of the plow.

The other branch disappeared from our view some 500 years ago, although archaeologists are starting to pick up its trail now. At one time it achieved success as great as the agriculture that we know, producing exponential population surges and great cities, but all that was lost in a fluke historical event borne of a single genetic quirk.

It vanished when European and Asian diseases arrived in the Americas.

From excavations on the banks of the Amazon river, clearings of the savanna/gallery forests in the Upper Xingu, and ethnographic studies of Mesoamerican milpas, science has now re-traced the path of the second great agriculture, and, to its astonishment, found it more sustainable and productive that what we are currently pursuing.
While conventional agriculture leads to deserts, blowing parched dirt across the globe and melting ice caps, this other, older style, brings fertile soils, plant and animal diversity and birdsong. While the agriculture we use has been shifting Earth's carbon balance from soil and living vegetation to atmosphere and ocean, the agriculture that was nearly lost moves carbon from sky to soil and crops. The needed shift, once embarked upon, can be profound and immediate. We could once more become a garden planet, with deep black earths and forests of fruit and nuts where deserts now stand. We can heal our atmosphere and oceans.

Come along on this journey of rediscovery with The Biochar Solution: Carbon Farming and Climate Change.

Albert Bates teaches permaculture and appropriate technology and has written several books on energy and the environment including The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook.

6x9"/208 pp
Technology & Engineering /
Agriculture/Sustainable Agriculture
PB ISBN:978-0-86571-677-3
Price: US/Can $17.95

ALSO;
Here are two reviews of Dr. Taylor's book below;

The Biochar Revolution
http://biochar-books...char_Revolution

Review: The Biochar Revolution: Transforming Agriculture and Environment, ed. Paul Taylor

The General rule covering emerging technology, that the "Latest book is the best book" is obfuscated by both the near simultaneous publication of The Biochar Revolution with The Biochar Solution and the complementary content of each work.

The Biochar Revolution reads like a encyclopedic companion and testimonial.
Dr. Taylor has the best people in academia & industry, as well as the grassroots, hands-on journeymen, as authors. Their personal travails and triumphs in development and applications of biochar soil technologies are inspiring. In the collaborative traditions of Astrophysics, Dr. Taylor's day job, these authoritative innovators allow you to view this cohesive whole system of sustainable carbon management.

The Australians are years ahead in broad field trials with many crops and in addition, have conservative political support of soil carbon sequestration. Paul opens a window on their consistent findings of increased yields, nutrient efficiency and major reductions in soil green house gas emissions.

Dr. Taylor has focused his cosmic perspective to the crisis our carbon based life has created with the mis-allocation of carbon. He lays out a path for carbon's re-allocation that garners high agricultural yields, biofuels, and generous climate dividends.

For the backyard shade tree mechanic to the sustainable energy entrepreneur, important lessons can be learned here. Simple to complex testing of biochars and soils, biological conditioning and formulations of chars are explained along with small scale home made pyrolitic cook stoves. The attention to the menagerie of clean biomass cook stoves for the developing world is prescient of the recent state department, CDC & DOE support of the UN Global Clean Stove Initiative for 100 million stoves.

Since carbon is the center of life , this work holds interest for everyone.

Erich J. Knight
Chairman; Markets and Business Committee
2010 US BiocharConference, at Iowa State University

The Biochar Revolution
http://biochar-books...char_Revolution

Review: The Biochar Revolution: Transforming Agriculture and Environment, ed. Paul Taylor
I want to call this book: “Biochar, the Missing Manual.”
This compendium of practical how-to articles on the art and science of biochar bridges the current gap between research and implementation of biochar systems. While basic research on the mechanisms of biochar-soil interactions proceeds at research institutions around the globe, farmers, blacksmiths, colliers and crafty inventors of all sorts have jumped into the business of biochar production and utilization. The Biochar Revolution collects the results and best practical advice that these entrepreneurs have to offer to the biochar community.
In the book you will read about the challenges of designing low-emissions biochar production systems from small-scale stoves to farm-scale pyrolyzers. Another section of the book is devoted to explaining simple tests to characterize biochar and methods for conducting valid field trials. Biochar producers show how they add minerals and nutrients to maximize the effectiveness of biochar, and seasoned biochar business operators share the rudiments of their business plans including information on feedstocks, flow rates and financing.
Because biochar is rooted in an ancient, proven practice, farmers feel empowered to experiment and are beginning to accumulate and document their results. But because biochar is new to science, it is not always possible to account for these results in a predictable fashion. We are fortunate to have a vibrant, grassroots movement of biochar practitioners who are so generous in sharing their results with us. When practice and theory advance to the point where they meet in the middle, then we will truly see a biochar revolution.

-Kelpie Wilson, author, journalist and IBI Communications Editor

Excerpt from link above:

Proposals for ‘climate change mitigation’ through large-scale adoption of ‘biochar’ are a dangerous form of geo-engineering based on unfounded claims.
A lobby group (the International Biochar Initiative) made up largely of startup ‘biochar’ and agrofuel companies and academics, many of them with related commercial interests, are behind the push for ‘biochar’. Their extremely bold claims are not founded in scientific understanding.

+ It is not yet known whether charcoal in soil represents a ‘carbon sink’ at all. Industrial charcoal is very different from Terra Preta, the highly fertile and carbon-rich soils found in Central Amazonia which were created by indigenous peoples hundreds and even thousands of years ago. ‘Biochar’ companies and researchers have not been able to recreate Terra Preta.

+ ‘Biochar’ advocates are promoting ‘targets’ which would require the use of 500 million hectares or more of land to be used for producing charcoal plus energy. Industrial monocultures of fast growing trees and other feedstocks for the pulp and paper industry and for agrofuels are already creating severe social and environmental impacts which worsen climate change. This very large new demand for ‘biochar’ would greatly exacerbate these problems.

+ There is a risk that ‘biochar’ could in future be used to promote the development of genetically engineered (GE) tree varieties specifically engineered for ‘biochar’ production or to try and extend the range of fast-growing trees, both of which could have very serious ecological impacts.

+ There is no consistent evidence that charcoal can be relied upon to make soil more fertile. Industrial charcoal production at the expense of organic matter needed for making humus could have the opposite results.

+ Combinations of charcoal with fossil fuel-based fertilisers made from scrubbing coal power plant flue gases are being promoted as ‘biochar’, and those will help to perpetuate fossil fuel burning as well as emissions of nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas.

+ The process for making charcoal and energy (pyrolysis) can result in dangerous soil and air pollution.

Turning soils into a commodity is profitable to industry but disastrous for the poor.

Several patent applications have been made for charcoal use in soil and for pyrolysis with charcoal production. If granted, those will ensure that any future profits from the technology will go to companies, not communities. Given that successful strategies for combining charcoal with diverse biomass in soils were developed by indigenous peoples, ‘biochar’ patenting raises serious concerns over biopiracy. The inclusion of soils in carbon markets, just like the inclusion forests in carbon trading will increase corporate control over vital resources and the exclusion of smallholder farmers, rural communities and indigenous peoples.

Hmm, the only thread you have responded in here. What company do you work for that fills your pockets? And I like children just fine. That's why I don't lie to them.

The Baby now is being cradled, by all but one of the leading soil food web scientist; Paul Stamets, Dr. Mike Amaranthus, Dr. Jeff Nardi, and as the field studies, (some now in their fourth year in the US) roll in, I believe ,Elaine Ingham will join them.

Dr. Paul Hepperly , the head agronomist at the Rodale Institute is nursing this baby in cow-pea field trials. Rodale is the most cited, second oldest , Organic / sustainable agriculture research station on earth.

Organic Poultry growers in Japan use char in feed ration producing premium orderless eggs and resistance in their flocks to disease.

The Japanese work in soils , if you have not read it, is a symphony of char's affinity with mycorrhizal fungi, and the resultant yield data jumps right off the page , showing a synergy of 1+1= 3.

Maybe you don't like children....?

Cheers,
Erich

Dr. Vandana Shiva on biochar:

Soils need living carbon as humus
Vandana Shiva

Burning trees and biomass has ironically emerged as a “solution” to climate change.

Following the false solution of industrial bio fuels we now have the waste left from production of bio fuels as the next magic bullet. The process used is pyrolysis – incineration that chemically decomposes organic materials by heat in the absence of oxygen. Through pyrolysis organic matter is transformed into gases and small quantities of liquid, used as bio fuels. The waste is a solid residue containing carbon and ash. This waste has now been given the elegant name “biochar”. It is being wrongly treated as the same as “Terra Preta de Indio” — the black soils created by the indigenous people of the Amazon by burying charcoal over hundreds of years. Charcoal in every soil and every ecosystem can prove to be an ecological disaster.

“Biochar” is basically the next new trick of global investors to make money on the global market of carbon trading. As the biochar website www.biochar.org clearly states “A prerequisite for the above mentioned management practices is access to the global carbon trade.” The global carbon market which has a potential to grow to $ 1 trillion by 2020, and this is what is driving “biochar” — not love for the soil, nor the wisdom of indigenous people.

The collapse of Wall Street in 2008 should be enough reason for governments and people to be cautious about the charcoal solution. We cannot afford to have an economics of greed and fraud drive false solutions to climate change.

But there are many other reasons for not falling into the biochar trap. It is based on a scientific fraud.

The central argument for promoting the burning of biomass to make charcoal to put into soil is based on totally false assumptions such as only “2% of carbon from plant biomass enter the soil as carbon through humus” and “30% of soil carbon from humus escapes in the first year and 80-90% in the second year in organic practices which return soil carbon through recycling of biomass.”

These assumptions go against all scientific evidence that shows that organic farming increases soil carbon, and the carbon stays in the soil.

Data from the Rodale Institute and from Navdanya indicate that regenerative and organic practices can increase soil carbon, dramatically and stable carbon compounds remain in the soil for years.

The Rodale long term farm trial research shows a 30% increase in soil carbon over 27 years in organically farmed soils. Chemically formed soils did not increase soil carbon; in fact in certain cases they loose it.

Navdanya’s research carried out across arid, semi arid, sub humid and humid ecosystems shows that compared to chemical farming organic practices increase soil carbon up to 102% and increase soil microbial activity up to 63%.

It is this microbial activity which stabilises soil carbon.

Sir Albert Howard had recognised that humus is at the heart of soil fertility. According to Howard, “Humus is an essential material for the soil if the first phase of the life cycle is to function.

There is another reason why humus is important. Its presence in the soil is an essential condition for the proper functioning of the second contact between plant and soil — the mycorrhizal relationship.”

In total ignorance of the living soil and its complex ecological processes, the “biochar” proponents are proposing a solution based on killing and burning trees and turning living carbon into dead carbon.

On the basis of their blindness and false assumptions they state that “The drawback of carbon enrichment with conventional (referring to organic) methods is that carbon levels drop rapidly again as soon as a required careful management is not sustained.”

This is a ridiculous argument. Good organic farming is a way of life, not a one time fad.

continued at the link.

There is no baby. As the title explains, the "biochar" being mass produced thus taking land from farmers is not terra preta (which of course you didn't address) and to market it as such is disingenuous. It has a different makeup chemically and a different reaction to the soil and air. There are much better and natural ways to sequester soil carbon and preserve soil nutrients, but then that won't make any companies money. And also, as an environmentalist, I am cautious of new schemes conveniently presenting themselves at certain moments. And oh yes, I am sure we will see more on this as governments and businesses are schmoozed into accepting it. This is nothing more to me than another form of biopiracy. Companies will use this to control farmers just like they do with GMO seeds. And I do believe sustainable agriculture will save us, not those looking to take advantage of the climate crisis as they also will use this as part of their corporate carbon offset schemes.

I think your mind will change as the reports come in from subsistence farmers , like the 1500 from Cameroon who are petitioning for UN recognition for biochar to be a CDM

I can't believe, given your environmental concerns for the earth, that you would throw this baby out with the bath water.

I agree with Dr. Lovelock.........this is mankind's only hope to rectify what we have done.

Agriculture allowed our cultural accent and Agriculture will now prevent our descent.

Wise Land management; Organic farming and afforestation can build back our soil carbon,

Biochar allows the soil food web to build much more recalcitrant organic carbon, ( living biomass & Glomalins) in addition to the carbon in the biochar.

Biochar viewed as soil Infrastructure; The old saw;
"Feed the Soil Not the Plants" becomes;
"Feed, Cloth and House the Soil, utilities included !".
Free Carbon Condominiums with carboxyl group fats in the pantry and hydroxyl alcohol in the mini bar.
Build it and the Wee-Beasties will come.
Microbes like to sit down when they eat.
By setting this table we expand husbandry to whole new orders & Kingdoms of life.

This is what I try to get across to Farmers, as to how I feel about the act of returning carbon to the soil. An act of penitence and thankfulness for the civilization we have created. Farmers are the Soil Sink Bankers, once carbon has a price, they will be laughing all the way to it.

Dr. Scherr's report includes biochar. http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6124

I think we will be seeing much greater media attention for land management & biochar as reports like her's come out linking the roll of agriculture and climate.

No thanks. Been through this before here. Biochar is a profit making scheme as far as I am concerned. And you won't change my mind.

http://current.com/items/90419949_caution-urged-regarding-using-biochar-for-soil...

Please look at the vast literature showing just the opposite of this author's concerns;

There are dozens soil researchers on the subject now at USDA-ARS.
and many studies at The up coming ASA-CSSA-SSSA joint meeting;
http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/2009am/webprogram/Session5675.html

Reports:
This new Congressional Research Service report (by analyst Kelsi Bracmort) is the best short summary I have seen so far - both technical and policy oriented.
http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/R40186_20090203.pdf .

This is the single most comprehensive report to date, covering more of the Asian and Australian work;
http://www.csiro.au/files/files/poei.pdf

There is real magic coming out of the Asian Biochar conference.
15 ear per stalk corn with 250% yield increase,
Sacred Trees and chickens raised from near death
Multiple confirmations of 80% - 90% reduction of soil GHG emissions

The abstracts of the conference are at
http://www.anzbiochar.org/AP%20BioChar%20Conference-may09.pdf

Another significant aspect of bichar and aerosols are the low cost ($3) Biomass cook stoves that produce char but no respiratory disease. http://terrapretapot.org/ and village level systems http://biocharfund.org/ with the Congo Basin Forest
Fund (CBFF). The Biochar Fund recently won $300K for these systems citing these priorities;
(1) Hunger amongst the world's poorest people, the subsistence farmers of Sub-Saharan Africa,
(2) Deforestation resulting from a reliance on slash-and-burn farming,
(3) Energy poverty and a lack of access to clean, renewable energy, and
(4) Climate change.

Commercializing this on a mass scale could cause oxygen depletion critical for all life. This must be looked at very carefully. It would seem companies are looking to make proift even off the very soil we use to plant seeds in.