[Stoves] [biochar] Re: Report on APBC - first two days

[Anand Karve]

Dear Crispin,
If one excludes soils formed by silt carried by rivers, or the soils
formed by windborne dust, the rest of the soils are generally formed
from the rock underneath the soil cover. There are large tracts of
land which have only limestone as the bedrock, and yet the fields and
forests in these regions are quite productive. So even limestone must
be having the rest of the minerals needed by plants.
Yours
A.D.Karve

2011/9/21 Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at gmail.com>:
> Dear Christa
>
>
>
> That is what I heard at the time. Is there not a different application that
> continues? I am thinking of something reported on
>
> http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech/permaculture/mailarchives/permaculture-links/msg00175.html
>
> where it says
>
> “For Forests:
>
> The results of long term experiments released in 1986 showed that in a
> forest where pine seedlings were remineralized, after 24 years the wood
> volume was four (4) times higher than in the untreated area.”
>
> This is quite a different approach to the SO2 (SO3, actually) killing trees
> issue (which was well covered at the same time).
>
>
>
> “For Agriculture:
>
> The best source of soil minerals is simple crushed gravel dust. In 1976 John
> Hamaker spread gravel crusher screenings on part of his ten acres in
> Michigan. The following year, in an area of sparse rainfall and dry summers,
> and with no irrigation, his corn produced 65 bushels per acre, compared to
> yields of under 25 from other local farms.
>
> Moreover, when independent analyses were done, Hamaker's corn was found to
> contain 28% more protein, 47% more calcium, 57% more phosphorous, 60% more
> magnesium and 90% more potassium than the same type of corn grown with
> chemical fertilizers nearby.
>
> Twenty years ago the USDA published studies which showed that cement kiln
> dust (a less-satisfactory source of minerals) also produced better crops,
> but they couldn't understand "what element" in the dust was responsible and
> dropped the matter.
>
> Don Weaver grew 18-foot pole beans on remineralized soil (Jack and the
> Beanstalk?) and got two to four times the normal organically grown yield.
> Alan LePage of Vermont grew a crop of carrots averaging 1-1/2 feet long. And
> there was no insect damage to any of these crops. Hamaker estimates that on
> fully remineralized soil, American agriculture could grow four times as much
> food as it is capable of now -- or the same amount of food at about
> one-fourth the cost -- and with no pesticides or chemical fertilizers.
>
> So this is more like what Dr AD was talking about: making minerals
> available. Is it not true that if SO3 were acidifying the soils, it would
> make more minerals available through accelerated decomposition? Buffering
> with lime would tend to reduce the acidity and limit the availability of
> minerals, correct? I think it just killed the trees directly.
>
>
>
> It is interesting that the permaculture site also points out that the
> minerals are not there to be available to plants directly, but to
> micro-organisms:
>
>
>
> “Remineralization causes a phenomenal growth of the microorganisms in the
> soil. It increases the nutrient intake of plants. It counters the effects of
> soil acidity, prevents soil erosion (just for that reason it would be worth
> applying rock dust), increases the storage capacity of the soil, contributes
> to the building of precious humus complexes, has anti-fungal properties, and
> when you spray it on plants it repels insects as well. The plants and trees
> become highly resistant to insects, disease, frosts, and drought.
> Remineralization also enhances and speeds up the process of composting, so
> if you're composting for your garden, consider putting on some rock dust. It
> can be even more effective than just directly applying it to the land.”
>
>
>
> As very little of the forest in Europe was ‘dusted’ and it all recovered
> there is a case for arguing that the SO2 was responsible. The action of SO3
> (not SO2 as I read it) is directly on the leaves so I wonder if putting
> ground limestone on the soil would make any difference? I am pretty sure
> that what I was reading did not involve limestone but was for minerals to be
> replenished, not a change in the pH of soil.
>
>
>
> In the early 90’s a paper Rock Dusts in Agriculture: Insights on
> Remineralization and Paramagnetism By Steve Diver
>
> http://www.paramountgrowth.com/images/rockdust_sdiver01.pdf talks about
> remineralising soils in order to promote healthy soil in order to prevent
> the return of the next ice age, which he and others quoted saw as being
> caused in part by humans (the coming anthropogenic global ice age).
>
>
>
> “Composters who amend their windrows with rock dust say the trace elements
> contained in the rock
>
> Minerals function as biocatalysts in microbially-driven enzyme reactions
> critical to the breadkdown and buildup process”
>
>
>
> Yeah. That is what I was referring to. Some people were doing that in the
> forests in Europe.
>
>
>
> Adding ground rock to forests or anything else seems to have started to be
> popularised by the book “Bread From Stones” by Julius Hensel in the 1880’s.
>
>
>
> I looked around and did not find a single reference to ground limestone
> being applied but that only means I didn’t perhaps look enough.
>
>
>
> It would be really interesting to see a knowledgeable combination of Dr AD’s
> sugar treatment, powdered granite and biochar applied to farming. They all
> seem to be centred on changing the bacterial environment.
>
>
>
> Regards
>
> Crispin
>
>
>
> +++++++
>
>
>
> Crispin, if you refer to the activities in the 80s to combat the effects of
> 'the Waldsterben' due to acid rain, that rock was limestone to mitigate the
> acidity... and it did help on a short-term basis. the long-term mitigation
> though came when they cleaned up the sulfuric emissions from the high
> chimneys that caused the acid rain in the first place.
>
>
>
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-- 
***
Dr. A.D. Karve
Trustee & Founder President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)