SuperDirtt for Hawaii?

[JWFITZ]

You may note a relation between this post and rocket stoves.

http://sanityandsimplicity.blogspot.com/

I think this may well be a important solution for a number of problems.

[DickWilson]

Jay; the only trouble I see with biochar is the anerobic oven to cook it, otherwise it looks great. Its been shown to hold minerals for up to several hundred years.

dick wilson

[mella l]

Thanks Jay. Interesting reading, and so glad to see all those universities studying this! Go earthworms. Must have a jungle compost pile!! Essential!

mella l

"Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant with the weak and wrong....because sometime in your life you will have been all of these."

[JWFITZ]

Ah, but the anaerobic oven is what I make electricity with. . .

[JWFITZ]

Working on the terra preta, grinding it into the garden.

First obvious observation is that the soil warms up a heck of a lot faster and stays there due to the dark color, which is obvious now but should have been earlier. I imagine that's good.

[Guest]

Anyone heard of the "Topsy Turvy"?

Never mind who I learned about them from[^]

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My Blog

[Devany]

Damon,

Yes, I saw this guy's posts, maybe from your blog. I have used these things in IL for growing tomatoes. I was really not impressed. Compared to the plants that were in my raised beds they only produced 1/2 as much. Raised beds are really superior, especially if you add "perfect" soil for the crops you are growing. One thing is that you have to add support, but that is really easy.

Aloha au i Hawai`i,
devany

Devany Vickery-Davidson
East Bay Potters
www.eastbaypotters.com

[JWFITZ]

Just updated the terra preta info on the blog, if anyone is interested.

[AlohaSteven]

Devany, could you please describe how you are doing your raised beds? What are their dimensions, what sort of soil mix are you using, inside a greenhouse or not, and what sorts of plants do well or have problems (and what sorts of problems?) -Thanks!


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"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

Pres. John Adams, Scholar and Statesman


"There's a scientific reason to be concerned and there's a scientific reason to push for action. But there's no scientific reason to despair."

NASA climate analyst Gavin Schmidt

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[MarkP]

JWFITZ:

With regard to terra preta there is so little hard fact that science has definitively nailed down and so much web based hype and bull****. I have seen it implied that char produced at low temperature is better for terra preta. This is certainly the way ancient people would have produced it since the only economical way for them would have been to get it started burning then bury it. How ever, as you have already pointed out, that releases CO and methane into the atmosphere. For the uninitiated, both of those could be burned as fuel and methane at least is a potent greenhouse gas. Anyway I know you have spoken of combining the production of woodgas with the production of char. Just wondered why you didn't do that this time and if you think the char comes out better for agriculture if you smolder soggy stuff.

Random thoughts
- Doesn't a smoldering fire produce creosote and isn't that essentially poisonous?
- Does charring biomass produce more or less greenhouse gas than composting (rotting) it?
- Are there any naturally occurring deposits of biochar or charcoal? I would think that after a major forest fire, runoff from rain is common. Mineral based soil and ash would sink while charcoal would tend to float. Funny I never thought of this before, but wouldn't there be large deposits of charcoal from events that may have happened eons ago, swept up on ancient shorelines like fishkills on a grand scale? Perhaps not since I have never heard of it. Just a thought. If so however how has stuff grown in that?