Anyone making the black soil from the amazon, and how is it working ?

Question

I found this news article and was wondering how well it works in a drier area than the amazon rain forest ?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080410153658.htm

the news story is from today, but may not have been on other websites,

so I guess I can't expect many people have tried it yet,

but I am really curious how well it works.

Answer 1

That is fascinating. I get the feeling that this is very new to Western science, so it'll be a while until it trickles down.

What surprises me about it is that there's nothing new about slash-and-burn agriculture in the Amazon.  I guess what they're talking about is the burned meat bones and the effect of charcoal, as opposed to just the composting.

Answer 2

This is not an answer, but when I garden, I always throw the plant waste such as grass, tomato/pepper stems back into the garden and i notice the quality of soil improves ands so does my future harvest.

Answer 3

Black colour of amazone soils is due to higher comtent of humus due to digestion of organic matter in natural forest. The soil is very dynamic with all benificial micro flora and founa and when used for planting, it creates wondorful results.

Answer 4

ME!!!!!!!! its going great. ill tell you my secret(s)

what you do is take two trucks, one full of corpses and the other full of sand, and when you crash them together, it makes black soil.

option two: take normal soil and put black dye in it.

option tres: put brownies in a blender.

Answer 5

It's an area of active research

http://www.biochar-international.org/ima...

http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/lehma...

http://cabiblog.typepad.com/hand_picked/...