Terra Preta - Dark Soil - Experiment

[h.h.]

We'll have to agree to disagree on that point.

No big deal.

CC

You are one of the posters here that I pay attention to. I do think you know your stuff. However, I have a yard full of Joshua tree (yucca) as well as access to other varieties of yucca. I live in Yucca Valley. I have experience with charred yucca. I won't agree to disagree. At least not in this case. Actual experience trumps anything you may have read.

 

[Clackamas Coot]

You are one of the posters here that I pay attention to. I do think you know your stuff. However, I have a yard full of Joshua tree (yucca) as well as access to other varieties of yucca. I live in Yucca Valley. I have experience with charred yucca. I won't agree to disagree. At least not in this case. Actual experience trumps anything you may have read.

I lived in Hesperia for a couple of years way back when - Yucca Valley is a beautiful area.

What I'm talking about is the 'foaming capacity' for a saponin source.

Take aloe vera for example - it contains 20,000 ppm of saponins whereas the liquid Yucca extract (from the leaves, bark and branches) comes in at 40,000 ppm.

Meaning that if I add the exact same amount to a specific volume of water and agitate it, I can expect to see 2x the amount of foam if all other factors are the same, i.e. ambient temperatures, water source, etc.

Take some yucca charcoal and put it into water and let it soak for a couple of weeks and then agitate the water and see what levels of foam you're seeing. That should give you a handle on the viability of the saponins that remain after the charring process(es).

Might be helpful or not.

CC

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

Aha so aloe vera has the same substance... that is good. I can get aloe juice here at loads of places but have only seen yucca extract on the net. Seems bit pricey too.

I can use twice the amount of aloe and get the good juju for foliar spraying?

 

[h.h.]

I'm not really charring the yucca for the saponin anyway. I was using it in tea first, then charring. I was surprised it had any foaming capability at all left.Charring the heart enabled me to break it down into the soil easier.Where usually it is quite stringy, it broke down to millimeter size pieces.
Saponins can be found in a lot of plants. Oats, alfalfa, and aloe. Basically it makes your foliar sticky. It also serves as a wetting agent for the soil. Helps it absorb water.
It is also a steroid, to what affect, I don't know.
That is really only a side benefit to it. The yucca itself is the foliar. It has what plants crave. The minerals, the biology... npk, that can be manipulated. It's the core of life here in the desert.
Back to char...

 

[norichips]

hey guys this is my first ever post so hello!

im slowly making my way thru this thread, what a great bunch of info! I'm only on about pg 12 atm, but i see you guys are adding pottery and bones etc to the soil mix with the TP, and i also saw MrFista's comparisons.

Neways, i just thought id throw my 2 cents in, i did a lot of reading on TP awhile back when i was reading up on organic gardening for my vegetables, and one thing that i remember them saying was that the ancient amazonians would add the bones/pottery in the charring pits, and the wood/food/pottery/bones etc would ALL be charred... so i duno if adding non charred bones/pottery would be of any real use?

it was a few years back so my memory might be a bit scratchy, but whats a girl to do eh? neways i hope it helped a little! Time to get back to reading, keep up the great work boys!

also for any other aussies here is a place where u can buy TP
https://www.blackearthproducts.com.au

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

Gday norichips

Good to have a female gardner on board.

You are right the bones need to be charred but i am not sure if there would be much benefit with pottery as it has already been fired... i did use some terracotta pots that i smashed up and added to one of my batched. Adds a pretty orange speckiness to the mix

I guess charring it wouldnt hurt at all and might make it easier to grind up.

Nice website. First time i have seen a chemical anylsis of biochar...

 

[norichips]

Thanks for the warm welcome silversurfer! Its FANTASTIC to be back and growing again, i tried my hand at it like 10 years ago when OG was still up and running... ahh those were the days! got 1 dodgy dwc grow under the belt and haven't grown since.

today i added some biochar from the website to my vegetable garden, soil bins and compost bins, i also transplanted my brand new 4 day old LR2 seedlings into some 20%biochar soil mix, duno if that was a great idea or not, but hey i guess ill find out in 2 months (or less if they die from shock )

I'll try and keep a tab on the growth of the garden and keep it posted

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

I am sure you will see some benefits.

Does the char come pre buffered or anything like that?

If not give it plenty of nitrogen or it will suck it out of your plants and soil.

Happy gardening!

 

[onegreenday]

that's chicken litter biochar at

https://www.blackearthproducts.com.au

 

[norichips]

no it def isnt buffered, i was told to by the lovely lady i picked it up from to add blood & bone and other organic goodies otherwise it will suck nutes out of the soil, which is exactly as you said! i only added EM1 and maxicrop to the seedling biochar for fear of burning, but for the rest of the bins i preloaded the char with plenty of charlie carp fish ferts and blood and bone as well as EM1 and maxicrop, so hopefully its loaded with goodies!

on a completely topic, do you know if you can get blood and bone seperate here in aus? ie blood meal and bone meal? i have never seen it...

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

Yeah cool.

I hear what you saying about the seedlings but if their char doesnt get the N it needs could starve your babies. Anyhoo a nice dose of carp or urine should fix that up.

I have looked and asked around for bone meal but never seen it down under. Think its a bit daft but no-one does it. Havta get grinding

 

[h.h.]

...or don't treat it and use it to flush out nitrogen.

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

Thats an interesting idea... but to what end?

I have heard good things about fish meal norichips. Might be available somewhere. The bovine bone meal isnt around due to CJD i think.

 

[h.h.]

I used black( fine char) water at the end of my nitrogen cycle, poking a skewer 8 or 10 times into the soil to help it penetrate. To what end? I'm not sure. Seemed like a good way to help buffer any excess nitrogen while adding some potassium at the same time. At the least, it seemingly did no harm. Some of the finer particles settled on the top and needed to be loosened up a bit as to not block the pores of the soil. As I still tend to overdue my nitrogen a tiny bit, through observation, I feel it did help, bringing a change to the leaf color. Something that may have happened anyway, I don't know, but a practice I'll probably continue.

 

[norichips]

i managed to find some bone meal on ebay in australia, but it was a supplement for dogs, duno if its the same thing or not. Thanks for the tip on fish meal ill have to read up a bit more on it!

the seedlings seem to be doing ok, i added a bit of fish emulsion for a bit of extra N but for the time being they look green and happy. The vegetable pots i added the biochar to seem to be doing fantastic (it was preloaded with fish emulsion, seaweed, EM1, blood&bone) the corriander has shot up almost 10cms in the last 2 days and is going nuts, and the chilli and tomato seem to be fattening up a bit too, so far so good.

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

Fair do's h.h.

That sounds good. It is easy to overdo the N when using coco based mediums because it really needs constant feeding. I might give that a go.

Thats real good norichips! Whats your climate like? My chillies are just getting going. But then i am relatively close to Antarctica.

 

[h.h.]

Something you may have...

The official California report of 18759 quoted Baron Ferdinand von Mueller, the 19th century's recognized world-expert on the eucalyptus,10 as saying that his tests showed that the ashes of these trees "con*tained a larger proportion of potash than the elm or maple, which are the trees most esteemed for the purpose in America. The yield from the latter trees is estimated at ten per cent of the ashes, while that from the eucalyptus is twenty-one per cent."

I've used mostly euc for my char. Just cause I have a bunch. Didn't know it had so much potash in it.

 

[canniption]

I have recently aqcuired a good ph testing kit for soil samples. Turns out all of my char and my compost with char (and also few buckets of ash from wood-fire) is quite strongly alkaline.

I would put it around the 9 mark.

This could cause problems. However it could also be useful in balancing out an acid medium.

I will no longer be adding as much dolomite to my mixes as a result and anyone using bio-char with lime should be careful. Especially as our favourite plant thrives in a slight acid medium...

If the pyrolisation is not done correctly then the char will be alkaline seems to be the bottom line here.

hello ss,i couldn't help notice you said you added a couple of buckets full of wood ash to your char.i'm sure you're aware ashes are very alkaline,could this be the reason for the high reading?i soaked my char in fish emulsion and humic acid and mixed it 50/50 with compost and the ph was 6.0 or so.just a thought,great thread.

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

Gday cannipton.

Yeah i have been adding ash to my compost heap as well as dolomite lime. I figured it would eventully balance itself out as i was adding heaps more horse poo and also some coffee grounds. Taking months.

I didnt directly add any ash to my char mix. I didnt rinse it either. Next time i will take h.h's advice and soak it overnight in water before i marinate.

I have some guerilla spots that are very acid so it will be great for those.

I am surrounded by eucalpyts h.h so that great news!

 

[canniption]

Gday cannipton.

Yeah i have been adding ash to my compost heap as well as dolomite lime. I figured it would eventully balance itself out as i was adding heaps more horse poo and also some coffee grounds. Taking months.

I didnt directly add any ash to my char mix. I didnt rinse it either. Next time i will take h.h's advice and soak it overnight in water before i marinate.

I have some guerilla spots that are very acid so it will be great for those.

I am surrounded by eucalpyts h.h so that great news!

.

hello ss,yea i figured you knew what you were doing.with me sometime something is staring me in the face and i dont see it until someone points it out to me.peace.