Biological Charcoal is a valuable resource for Agriculture
By: Thomas A Ruehr Ph D
Professor, Earth and Soil Sciences Department
Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo, CA
Biological charcoal (called biochar) is the product of incomplete combustion of...
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Biological Charcoal is a valuable resource for Agriculture
By: Thomas A Ruehr Ph D
Professor, Earth and Soil Sciences Department
Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo, CA
Biological charcoal (called biochar) is the product of incomplete combustion of natural
organic materials.
The wide variety of organic chemical components in the original natural
organic material are transformed into new compounds.
Many of these new compounds will
consist of charcoal (elemental carbon) or some intermediate form of carbonized organic
compounds.
What is the value of biological charcoal? Thousands of raised platforms along the
Amazon River in Brazil discovered the terra preta “black land” by explorer Herbert Smith in
1879 (Marris, 2006).
This soil is one to two feet thick and consists of soil intermixed with
charcoal.
Terra preta contains a much higher level of plant available nutrients (especially
carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus) than does the surrounding soils.
These terra preta soils were r
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