Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Uniqueness of corn culture

Reading through the posts on the Terra Preta site reinforces one important reality. That is that the knowledge needed to work with plant waste and char has been with us for thousands of years. However using char to cover a field had to wait for the emergence of corn culture. It is the only crop that could be worked this way in sufficient volume to have made a difference.

Wood waste was a non starter, simply because the tools did not exist. Even today we will need to use a chipper to achieve the necessary density in a productive manner.

Crop waste with few exceptions, degrades far too fast and are of such low volume as to be fairly insignificant.

Garden waste is usually combined with household waste on a small fertile patch and is the likely best location for developing a black soil outside of corn culture.

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