Terra Preta Nova

Terra Preta Nova is the 21st century renewed use of charcoal investments into soil.  We do this for the agricultural benefits that charcoal can impart to soil (Classical TP) and to mitigate a new and very pressing problem that we have created for ourselves.  The formation of Terra Preta soils anew (Terra Preta Nova) can remove troublesome CO2 from the atmosphere.

 

Classical Terra Preta was made by indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest as a means to improve soil fertility.  How they discovered this?, how they did this?, and the true "fertility" enhancing properties of carbon rich and anthropogenic Terra Preta de Indio soil are largely unknown, but this is being fairly widely researched.  Today, large swathes of these soils still exist in the Amazon.  This is a testament to the resilience of the soil and the carbon that is in the charcoal that was put into it.

 

Beyond charcoal amendments into the soil there were perhaps many other waste management, composting, terracing, flood control, and irrigation, practices done to soil by the Amazon native people.  There has been and still is natural fall-in of dying flora onto the TPdI soil (this might be the answer to the regenerative properties of TP).  The populations of soil microbial life are very different than the surrounding native soils (in size and diversity of microorganisms vs paucity), along with the nutrient holding and delivering capacities of the soil that the charcoal is in.  This appears to be an "interaction" of the charcoal in the soil with microorganisms, rather than an "action" of the charcoal alone.

 

The world needs better and more food production in an environment where fertilizers are getting more expensive and arable land is disappearing at an ever advancing rate, falling to desertification.  The world needs to rebalance Carbon in our environment.  We must reduce the load of CO2 in the atmosphere.  We must stop adding to the increase in atmospheric CO2 with GIGTAONS of CO2 emissions every year.

 

The renewed formation of Terra Preta soils (TPN) can help us achieve solutions to both of these problems simultaneously.  The biochar.climatechange@yahoogroups.com list is dedicated to the advancement of the formation of Terra Preta soils.  This work may take some time in order to rediscover the soil recipe that has all of the qualities of the original TP soils.  The agricultural benefits may only be observable when charcoal is amended to very poor soils.  However,  soil organic carbon losses are occurring in soils all over the world, in tropical and in temperate zones.

 

The study of charcoal use in soil is just beginning, the possibilities are numerous, and the research work yet to be done is enormous.  All discussions of the intentional use of charcoal-in-soil for whatever reason are welcome here.