hey james when i was in perth(now in queensland) i used mineral rock dust as a fertiliser, it was amazing the difference it made, i didn't have allot of luck with permaculture methods there, i think they need much more water than i was giving them. but my last couple of crops were huge from the rock dust. i was wanting to try the terra prata method of adding char but no one was selling char, but i saw on the abc the other week a story about avacado farmers adding char so you must be able to source it somewhere. it is also carbon negative. i also read if you applied 4 tonnes of rock dust to every arable acre on the plant you would lock up all the carbon we would need to stop climate change.

les

I went to an organic gardening talk last weekend that raised an interesting idea of using charcoal.

The idea was to take the charcoal from a fireplace or such, put it into a bag and bash it up until it was broken into small pieces and dust.  Then to let it soak in a bucket of water with a cup or so of seaweed or other liquid fertaliser (worm farm liquid would be good too) for a few days until it acted like a sponge and absorbed up the water.  They then mixed it in a 1-1-1 ratio with soil and sand, to have made a slow release fertaliser, because the charcoal doesn't break down but has drunk up the nutrients form the water soaking treatment.  This mix was then spread out in the garden, a couple of handfuls when planting a tomato plant etc, mixed into the soil when planting.

The idea came from the studies of why crops in the Amazon were so productive, and traces of charcoal were always found in the soil from the burning used to make clearings there.  Studies in China are reporting 300% increases in crops by use of charcoal in the soil. 

Returning charcoal to the soil is also helping the carbon emission problems - so long as you're using charcoal that is sitting around as waste, and not burning things to make it for your garden! Something to think on and experiment with that's for sure.

In universities and laboratories all over the world, scientists are racing to help find a solution to halt climate change.

And the answer may come from deep in the Amazon. …Not from rainforests or exotic species, but ancient soils left behind by lost civilisations.

In the Amazon basin, huge expanses of dark fertile soil called terra preta are becoming highly prized by farmers and ecologists alike. Full of charcoal, pottery shards and compost, they’re believed to have been created by pre-Colombian civilisations. Even after thousands of years, terra preta stores more than twice the carbon of other soils.

In a NSW shed a giant toaster is making syngas by slowly burning crop residues at low temperatures. The by-product of this renewable energy is a charcoal that retains about half of the original carbon.

US bio-geochemists studying terra preta are getting together with Australian engineers making biofuels. The result is “Agrichar” technology. It uses the charcoal by-product to bury carbon in topsoil where it’s needed for agriculture.

Their early results promise green energy, soil restoration and greenhouse mitigation from an affordable technology that can remove more CO2 from the atmosphere than is released.

Wow, there's a lot of information packed into those 7 posts.

James, I'm on an acre, trying to make a go of the vegan farm thing.. just going by the seat of my pants really, learning as I go.

There has been some interesting stuff done with using sea water as not only a mineral fertiliser, but also for irrigation generally.

I think a Garden Pictorial thread might be in order

Youu need to burn the char in a special environment so as not to release all the carbon thereby defeating the object.. What makes the charcoal different from your BBQ is that it comes from wood burned in ovens with out much oxygen. A process known as pyrolysis.
 So this char, organic matter, in this terra preta is much more efficient in doing what we want all soils to do, to retain nutrients for plants, to reduce the losses of nutrients, to reduce the CO2 that goes out of the soil, to enhance soil productivity, and store more carbon.

composting is natural! the heat acquired by companies is high but this does happen in nature from time to time, they are just replicating the extremes, but usually humus is made at lower heat but the humus is 'the dead and decaying remains of plant and animal matter'. remembered that one from school.

ur right brett water is the answer, the site i just looked at is in denile about the drought and global warming link shame they see it that way, alot of farming practices are about denile. we need to farm where there is water and stop growing so many grain crops, stop growing lawns. stop subsidizing farmers who live in what would be considered permanent drought land. the whole agriculture industry is upside down. needs to refocus or perish.

australians need to wake up to themselves on water use. my water was cut of yesterday and i managed to survive on two litres in the morning including washing, i probably would of used hundreds normally and not even noticed.

I haven't read all the posts, so don't know if this has already been mentioned......I have to run out in a minute so no time to read...lol.....sorry......but is there a natural alternative to herbicides to kill nut grass.  I ordered a load of soil....but obviously it came with a mountain of nut grass bulbs in it and now I can't even see my little seedlings.  I've been told about Sempra, but that a herbicide and if I don't have to use it and find an alternative, that would be FANTABULOUS.  But I'm at my wits' end with trying to dig them out.....yes, it's driven me nuts!!  So I'm a step away from using the Sempra.

Hope someone can help.

Rita