[Stoves] re Charcoal in Ganbia

[Anand Karve]

,Dear stovers,
there has been a lot of talk about burying charcoal into the soil to
improve its fertility. I have been doing it off an on for the last 10
years, without any positive results. I have, on the other hand, had
excellent results with application of very small quantities of high
calorie, non composted organic matter to the soil. Just two days ago I
gave a talk on this theme at the Department of Biotechnology in a
local college in my city (Pune, India). One of the students sent me an
E-mail, suggesting (perhaps sarcastically) if he could start a
business of making fertilizers from ordinary soil. I reproduce below
the reply given by me, which shows that it is quite possible.:

Dear Aditya,
the idea postulated by you of extracting agriculturally useful
minerals from soil by making
use of microbes was actually developed almost 60 years ago by a
Gandhian worker in Sevagram Ashram, Wardha. His name was
N.D.Pandharipande.  At that
time, he could not give a scientific explanation to his method, but
because it produced fertilizer, it was popularised by the authorities
of the Sevagram Ashram in Wardha. Using the initial letters in the
name of Mr. Pandharipande, the method was popularised as the NADEP
method of composting. You can read about it in most books on organic
farming published in India. Mr. Pandharipande built an above-ground
tank, using bricks and mud, Its dimensions were about 120 cm wide, 200
cm long and 120cm high. The walls of the tank had air holes in it at
regular intervals. This tank is filled with a mixture of soil
and agricultural waste. The contents of the tank are kept moist, by
keeping on top of the tank an earthenware pot containing water. The
pot had a small hole at the bottom, so that water dripped from it into
the mixture in the tank. The pot was
always kept filled with water. After about 6 months, after the organic
matter has decomposed, the soil is removed from the tank
and spread into a field. At that time, the agricultural scientists
thought that the NADEP method was just another way of making compost,
but now, in view of the hypothesis postulated by me, we can explain
why plain soil, incubated for 6 months in the presence of organic
matter got converted into mineral rich fertilizer. The explanation of this
phenomenon is that the microbes in the soil proliferate by consuming
the organic matter as food. In this process, they absorb minerals
from the soil. The minerals normally have very low solubility and they
are therefore normally not available
to plants. But in the microbial cells they get converted into
organic molecules like proteins, enzymes and co-enzymes. After the
organic matter is completely consumed, the microbes die of
starvation, releasing into the soil, the minerals sequestered in their
cells. These minerals are now in a water soluble form, so that they
are readily absorbed by plants.
Yours
A.D.Karve
On Sat, Aug 13, 2011 at 5:29 AM, Richard Stanley
<rstanley at legacyfound.org> wrote:
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
> On Aug 12, 2011, at 2:07 AM, "Paal wendelbo" <paaw at online.no> wrote:
>
> Georg and stovers
>
> Biochar has come to be, no doubt about that, and what happen in Cambia is
> what will happen allover as long as you have charcoal fans like Crispin and
> others. People are desperate for money. The low prices of charcoal will lead
> to more use of forest, probably short time cheaper household energy, but
> also competition about the resources for production of charcoal. The women
> of Richards will loose their material for making briquettes with the
> enormous quantities char needed for soil improvement.
>
>              Taken into consideration the fact, the losses of combustible
> gases lost by production of charcoal,  could nearby cover the need of
> household energy for people using charcoal for cooking. By changing to
> charcoal-producing TLUD stoves, whatever Crispin will try to tell us, you
> will utilize this gases for cooking and in addition have about 20% char
> left, which could go back to soil improvement.
>
>             You would have a win/win situation. By changing from charcoal to
> TLUD, you will have more energy, better health, higher agriculture yields,
> forest conservation , more jobs, better household economy. What more do you
> ned?
>
> With regrds Paal W
>
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-- 
***
Dr. A.D. Karve
President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)

*Please change my email address in your records to: adkarve at gmail.com *