Last year we began an experiment in making terra preta. In today’s video, we’ll see what happened.
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Today we dig into our terra preta test bed and see what we can see. For the first season, everything grew very well. But later this year, the good growth stopped. My theory is that the trees are sucking up the fertility, but it could also be that the area we charged is running out of fertility. In this bed we buried bones, charcoal, manure, biochar and pottery shards to make terra preta. But it doesn’t look like it’s as amazing as it should be. What do you think? Leave a comment below!
27 Comments
Would've been cool to see how it compared to the original soil nearby! Maybe in the next video?
Can you link one of my videos on a post 🍇
You can always use a microscope to check for bacteria and fungi.
waited for the result for a long time…thanks
Thanks for the update David, my sand in Eustis is waiting with baited breath.⛱️
The self perpetuation is what I'm looking for.
There are trees in the amazons too I've heard.
We had tree root competition this year, too, because of the prolonged drought. It's the first year that's ever happened, since I have been gardening on this particular property.. which has been a little over 10 years now. We actually had our neighbor's trees sending roots 50-75 feet away into our main garden and soaking up the water and nutrients. I didn't realize that's what was happening until I started poking around in the soil like you did.. and I found a ton of tree roots. I cut them out of the beds as much as I could.. praying we get decent rainfall next year 🙏🏽
Can you do like, 10 more videos on terra preta? I’m going through a phase… been going through a phase for about 10 years and can’t get enough about biochar and terra preta.
Something I recently found was nitrogen fixing bacteria that isn’t dependent on roots to fix nitrogen in terra preta
A recent article on the possible genesis of Terra preta: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7782733/
And the key part of the abstract that applies here: "Under experimental application, however, biochar alone (or in combination with fertilisers) has proved inadequate to replicate basic characteristics of indigenous ADEs, such as their long-lasting mineral fertility. This reveals a lack of understanding that warrants further investigation into the genesis of ADEs."
Overall, a very enlightening paper.
Data is better than no data🤷🏼♂️😂 hopefully the next will provide more results, good job though I liked the “experiment” I did the same in my 2nd garden bed and zucs & Arrow peas love it! Pot ash has my Yukon Gold and Sweet potatoes doing well but this cold has hurt the seeet potato leaves something bad!!! Poor things were great the next afternoon the purple leaves were shriveling and falling off… they don’t like the cold.
Woohoo another experiment to perform ! Ye who is not easily discouraged will get to the bottom of this mystery ! We'll stay tuned 🙏🤔
Same here in Navarre….
First year everything was giant- I was stoked.
This year not so much….
1) DROUGHT- I dry land my scene and this year was absolutely brutal with over three months of no significant rainfall.
I'm going to pick up some bacteria from Faust Bio Ag and inoculate with a heavy rain.
My feelings are drought reduces everything….
I was just thinking about this today during lunch.
I have watched numerous videos on Terra Preta but for the life of me can't figure out when you put the fire out and how you get charcoal rather than ash.
Pesky trees!
Well, the trees enjoyed your fertilizer.
My guess is that it takes years to decades to really get to that point… But that doesn't mean you don't do what you need to now to get the process started.
I have seen where trees across th yard, putting roots out, seem to focus on a new water source as well as a newly discovered nutrient bed. So yeh, them trees, very silently, sub planted u and ur efforts.
Another tid-bit to add to ur thinking, & culture of growing an ongoing excellently organic garden David, is to always dump th grass clippings from mowing ur lawn, into th garden all year long. This does several things. 1st, it shades th ground keeping th root ground around them cooler. #2 it's chemically hot, this will prevent weed seeds from popping up for most of th year,#3, it will keep ur feet from tracking mud from a wet garden into th house,#4, as u continue to add it onto th whole garden, it dries up, & breaks down all through the year, so it also fertilizes, as it naturally breaks down.
So I have a question 🤔 I lost my big white oak in Hurricane Ian. I just had it removed. There are some roots left. Would you say this is a very good thing? The oak won't tap out the nutrients and the roots will rot and add to the soil. I was SAS about the oak, but sounds like it might have been a win-win for me after all. I also now have a good plot behind the house to prep for spring planting!
One of our mango tree likes to send roots up in our raised beds that are near by. I have to cut out the roots at least twice a year
Have the soil analyzed by a professional. Your state college may do this like ours does.
What's the pH of the soil. In there and near by.
You need a few hundred truck loads of juiced orange remains.
yessssssssss, experiment DO OVER! Woo hoo, I loved the first video. This failure was educational and enjoyable
It always occured to me how deep your layers were originally. I feel like most of the bulk of the stuff was waaaaayyyyy deeper than you dug just now.
David surfing that JRE Graham Hancock wave.
The tribe has spoken, we need to rebrand Amazonian Green Bean Tree. People no like this, tribe googled and Icecream is more popular world wide.
We need rebranding, Icreambean Tree it is.