[Gasification] Charcoal Gasifiers

Anand Karve adkarve at gmail.com
Wed May 11 20:44:41 CDT 2011


Thanks, Doug, for your comments. We used char made from sugarcane
leaves in all our biochar experiments. It is a very light and flakey
material, because the parenchyma of leaves is very porous. As a
result, it has a very high water holding capacity. Our local soil,
technically called vertisol, counts as one of the most fertile soil
types in the world. I was told, that if the field had 1 meter soil
cover and if all minerals in this soil were to become available to
plants, one could grow crops on it continuously for 25,000 years,
without adding any fertilizer to it. In fact, farmers who depend
solely on rainfall as their source of water, do not apply any chemical
fertilizers to their fields, because if the rains were to fail, they
lose the money paid for the fertilizers. We got soil from such a field
analysed consecutively for three years, and found that there was no
reduction in the content of any of the major mineral nutrients.
Yours
A.D.Karve

On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 2:43 PM, doug.williams
<Doug.Williams at orcon.net.nz> wrote:
> Hi Dr Karve,
>
> As this particular line of discussion is relevant to work of my associates,
> I would like to offer some comments that may be of interest to yourself and
> others who use the term biochars for soils enhancement. I also have personal
> interest as a organic citrus grower (in past years), and there is some
> relevance to put reason behind certain failures.
>
>>we have tested wood vinegar as a pesticide on plants. It works in the
>>case of moderate infestation, but if the infestation is severe,
>>especially with sucking pests such as mealy bugs and woolly aphids,
>>one has to use a conventional organo-phosphatic systemic insecticide.
>
> As an acid, wood vinegar cannot penetrate the waxy type coating of "some"
> pests. From experience (not with wood vinegar), you need to add a
> surfacicant, which wets the infestation through it's protective coating.
> This is a simple as adding a liquid detergent to the spray mix. I have no
> recommended ratio, but you can see it work when the spray wets the insect.
> Most phenolic compounds will kill or upset the insect to detach and leave
> the feeding surfaces.
>
>>Biochar has never worked in our local soils, which have pH higher
>>than 8.5. Wood vinegar has a number of organic acids in it, which may
>>be used by the soil micro-organisms as their carbon source, so that
>>they multiply their numbers. That the population density of soil
>>micro-organisms is positively correlated with soil fertility, is a
>>known and accepted fact.
>
> If the soils are already containing high levels of carbon or
> micro-organisms, what you say has relevance, but key here in this type of
> discussion, is the type of char being used. Most char readily available as a
> waste stream and dumped as soil enhancement, is of the wrong type to provide
> a habitat for soil micro-organisms, being made to maximize the carbon
> content and density for smokeless cooking. This is the type needed for
> carbon sequestrian to maximize the reduction of atmospheric carbon. Soil
> bacteria on the other hand, need safe habitats, and this type of carbon is
> of the activated type, with huge internal surface porosities. Other than
> providing a habitat, the carbon also provide the means of holding nutrients
> in soils that might not retain them if applied just to the soils.
>
> Therefore, any treatment, which causes the
> soil microbe population to rise, would automatically result in higher
> soil fertility.
>
> I am 100% behind your conclusion, and hope the work that many are devoting
> their soil research work, can add to their knowledge from the flow on
> effect, of gasification technology.
>
> Hope this might be of interest.
>
> Doug Williams,
> Fluidyne Gasification.
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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 *




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