Bio Organic Fertilizer

[Bob Morriss]

I received a very good article named "Dark Earth Trial". How do I join with you and or a group involved with these composting, organic fertilizer and dark soil issues. Bob Morriss

[Jacky Foo]

On 02/08/07, Bob Morriss <rbmor...@att.net> wrote:

I received a very good article named "Dark Earth Trial". How do I join with you and or a group involved with these composting, organic fertilizer and dark soil issues. Bob Morriss

Hi Bob M

You have just written into the email group for the e-seminar. Via this Google Group, you will be receiving the discussion messages by email. To send comments, address it to :
iobb-dark...@googlegroups.com

The primary venue will be at http://www.iobbnet.org/drupal/forum/153 and the webforum runs on a software called DRUPAL. To be able to write into the webforum, a request should be made to me (jack...@gmail.com).
P.S: you have a user account in www.iobbnet.org already under your name "Bob Morriss". If you have forgotten your password (or if it does not work), just make an online request for a new one.

Mel and I are still to decide on the date for the e-seminar. As soon as I hear from him, we can start.

regards
jacky

+++++
Aug 2007: E-seminar in "Dark Earth Soils used by the tribes of the Amazon"
Venue: http://www.iobbnet.org/drupal/forum/153
or subscribe for discussion messages by email
(send a blank email to iobb-darkearth...@googlegroups.com)
++++++

[Jacky Foo]

-----forwarded message-----
from Mel Landers <agr...@yahoo.com>
to Jacky Foo <jack...@gmail.com>
date 04-Aug-2007 04:59
subject Re: Dark Earth Sequestration Power Point

The 13th through the 31st sounds great.
I will be returning from a trip to Costa Rica on the afternoon of the
13th and can get started responding to participants.

mel

[Jacky Foo]

Source: http://www.iobbnet.org/drupal/node/view/978#comment-3380
click on link to see image

++++++
Welcome: starting the discussion
Submitted by Jacky Foo on Mon, 13/08/2007 - 06:27.

This Internet seminar "officially" starts today and I welcome Mr Mel
Landers (Nicaragua) on behalf of the IOBB Working Group on Integrated
Biosystems as well as all the participants who may be joining us in
the discussion via the webforum at www.iobbnet.org or by email via
iobb-dark...@googlegroups.com.

During this e-seminar, we will have the unique opportunity to learn
and discuss with Mel who is helping people in Central America on
improving their soils. Though he describes himself as a person who is
"more comfortable with a shovel than with a mouse and keyboard", we
are most grateful to him for sharing his experience in the next 2
weeks and for going to the Internet Cafe to communicate with us. I am
sure we will all find his experience interesting and the e-seminar
(13-31 Aug) useful.

regards
Jacky Foo
http://www.iobbnet.org

[Jacky Foo]

Hi Everyone

We are 4 days before the closing of this e-seminar which has excited
some of us to read and share info from the web.

Please feel free to use of last few days to interact with Mel Landers
who is demonstrating how to make raised mulched beds that has charcoal
in them.

I have also started to prepare for my compost pit-bed that will
receive about 2 m3 of plant biomass (see attached image) when the
autumn sets in a month in Stockholm. I do a major compost pit every
year and this time I will have a bottom layer of charcoal.

regards
jacky

[Mel Landers]

Hi Jacky,

 

You have some great looking plants around your house. Are those fruit trees?

I am definitely available for questions. I do not plan to go very far until the first of September. I have a couple long trips planned. Both were supposed to take place this month. But, One was to a part of the country where there is no internet. The other required that I have mushroom spawn prepared, for classes, ahead of time and I could not find a good specimen when I needed it. Now that the rains are back in earnest, that should not be a problem. 

 

I had hoped to receive blue or pink oyster spawn when a team came down from ECHO, but they had none. That is just as well though, as I should probably teach the production of the native beige oyster mushrooms instead. I produced some blue oyster hydroponically a few years ago. That was fun. That is when I produced the mushrooms in the clay filters.

 

I really like the comment you made a few days ago about flat pieces of clay. If clay is avaiable, it would be a good idea to fire while producing biochar. I recently read Nadher Khalili´s book about ceramic homes. He relates how he turned the houses in an Iranian village into kilns, to dtrengthen the walls. He fired them with other clay items inside. The clay walls became hard and durable. It would be interesting to cover corn roots or other biomass with with a layer of clay for firing and see what transpires.

 

mel

 

Jacky Foo <jack...@gmail.com> wrote:

---

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[Jacky Foo]

On 28/08/07, Mel Landers <agr...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> You have some great looking plants around your house.
>Are those fruit trees?

There is an apple tree (grafted with 3 varieties that ripen at
different months) and a plum tree.

> I am definitely available for questions. I do not plan to go very far until
> the first of September. I have a couple long trips planned. Both were
> supposed to take place this month.

We all appreciates your scheduling to enable us to interact with you. THANKS

> The other required that I have mushroom spawn prepared, for

>classes, ........(cut)...
>I had hoped to receive blue or pink oyster spawn .....(cut)

>probably teach the production of the native beige oyster mushrooms instead.

The blue and pink ones that I know are for "a la carte" menus. I have
seen them commercially grown in Hawaii.

Do you use charred materials in the substrate for mushroom production ?

> I really like the comment you made a few days ago about flat pieces of clay.
> If clay is avaiable, it would be a good idea to fire while producing
> biochar.

Another idea I have for using charred materials is to use with with
soil for bucket toilets. In children's home in Kenya, pit toilets and
flush toilets are sometimes both used. Pit toilets have smell problems
while flush ones sometimes are not flushed because there is no water
in the system. I have built and used a bucket toilet in Cambodia and
dosed them with soil after each visit. It worked well with little
smell. In the future project in Kenya, I will mix charred materials
with soil which I think would absorb both nutirents and smell.

Dry toilets in rural areas usually use wood ash as an alkaline
treatment of the possible presence of pathogens and bacteria.

However all applications will depend on the availability of charred
materials and this will need the technology to make charcoal or
charred materials.
Ideally charred materials should be a by-product from a system for
gasification of biomass and the use of emissions as an energy source
(electricity, cooking, heating, etc).

This will be the technology I need to look for and to see how a
development cooperation with an organization so that the funding and
expertise are is available.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

regards
jacky

regards
jacky

[Mel Landers]

Hello again,

 

Jacky asked for suggestions in getting charred material in kenya.

 

I would find a charcoal vendor, if they exist there, and ask for contact information for the producer. During the crude production of charcoal, there is a significant amount of waste in the form of powder and tiny, unmarketable pieces. Then you just need to hire a truck.

 

Jacky asked:

 

Actually, I have only used charcoal in my two attempts to recreate the dark earth soils. Sunstrate for the production of mushrooms needs to be composed of two types of material. Some course material with plenty of air spaces and some fine material that has a high concentration of nutrients in a small space. Normally, both materials contain nutrients. An example would be sawdust broken up with some wood chips or coffee grounds with the hulls from around the coffee beans to provide the air spaces.

 

Using charcoal might be an interesting experiment. I might try that with coffee grounds when I find some spawn. Thanks for the idea.

 

mel

 

 

Jacky Foo <jack...@gmail.com> wrote:

---

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[Jacky Foo]

On 29/08/2007, Mel Landers <agr...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Jacky asked for suggestions in getting charred material in kenya.
> I would find a charcoal vendor, if they exist there, and ask for contact
> information for the producer. During the crude production of charcoal, there
> is a significant amount of waste in the form of powder and tiny,
> unmarketable pieces. Then you just need to hire a truck.

yes.....excellent suggestion and the families that make charcoal would
be happy to have their girls and boys to make some extra pocket money
by putting the powder (+soil) into sacks.

thanks
regards
jacky

[Bob Morriss]

I don't think the ash or remainder of burning coal would do. Right? We have
been working in S. Africa to encapsulate Chromium 6 in one of our processes.
Have seen a lot of ash from power plants. I don't believe it will work. Bob
Morriss

[Mel Landers]

Hello everyone,

 

It is good that Bob asked this question:

I don't think the ash or remainder of burning coal would do. Right?

You are correct that Caol Ash is not suitable. Besides the risk from Chromium IV, there is also a great risk from the leaching of Arsenic, Boron and yet other heavy metals. Arsenic poisoning of the ground water in Baggladesh and elsewhere is a severe problem for large numbers of the world's poor. The resultant agony, dissability and slow death are not anything we want to expose others to.

 

Besides the high risk of toxicity, Coal ash and charred biomass are vastly different substances, despite coal's once having been biomass also. Coal ash is a porous substance similar to tiny glass beads. It does not have the same capacity to hold nutrients, like charcoal.

 

Thank you for asking, or rather commenting, on this. It is important that no one try to use coal ash in the soil.

 

mel

 

Bob Morriss <rbmor...@att.net> wrote:

---

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