Horticultural adviser presented their results so far in the use of their own testified Terra Preta and the product itself. After four months, the product was ready. To the mixture of horse manure, charcoal and zeolite, every four weeks by working with the compost mixer. A finger test the product with about 20 percent humus leaves black charcoal marks on the fingertips.
The term Terra Preta currently haunts the professional world. He translates from Portuguese: the black earth of the Indians in the Amazon. It is believed that the formation of terra preta in the Amazon is the result of sustainable land use, in a special, bringing the forgotten method for the recovery of carbon and nutrients from human and animal excrement plays an important role. Characteristic of terra preta is the high proportion of pyrogenic carbon, the slash and burn is not plausible explanation. As components of the Terra Preta could charcoal, human and animal excrement, food waste, ashes, and terrestrial and aquatic biomass can be detected.
The former aborigines have created most likely instead of huge fields, highly productive forest gardens. Derived from archaeological findings and experiments it can be assumed that the large amounts of charcoal in the soil explained by a biologically sophisticated plumbing system. The used sanitary system probably based on the principle of an anaerobic dry separation toilet. There are separate urine and feces and collected in tightly sealed pottery. To suppress the generation of methane and of unpleasant odors and harmful insect pests, the feces were covered in airtight containers with charcoal dust. As a side effect in the charcoal was settled microbes and nutrients attached.
The separately collected urine was then, among other things as a valuable mineral fertilizers available. The charcoal-feces mixture was the addition of municipal solid waste and other organic matter specifically anaerobically fermented in large clay pots. The aim of this fermentation is the preservation of organic matter, among other lactic acid. Similar methods are used for millennia in food preservation. By inoculating soil organisms, the material was further converted, sanitized and the bottom-forming process initiated. After maturing then the fermentation vessels could be planted and dug into the earth. By the pottery the leaching of nutrients in the initial phase of the substrate formation was prevented. With the progress of the soil-forming process plant nutrients were then tied largely organic. In ground water, therefore only small amounts of nutrients are released. The non-chemically and biologically degradable porous carbon is probably as space colonization of microorganisms that promote the humus and thus soil fertility. The nutrients for the plants to be developed mainly on the mycorrhizal fungi with which the fine roots live in symbiosis. In conjunction with crops in the forest gardens in nutrient losses can be avoided by mineralization or leaching despite high temperatures and precipitation.
Regional closing of material cycles in conjunction with the increase in energy efficiency has potentials that are currently exploited. By rediscovering the manufacture of terra preta There are diverse opportunities for sustainable land use. By the incorporation of large amounts of inert carbon, both the surface permanently increased productivity, as well as resource efficiency and climate protection can be significantly improved. In particular could in the future through more efficient land use current losses of organic carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and water productively contribute to the regional value. It results in very interesting options, water supply and waste management with the production of energy crops and food back to dovetail more closely with the growing urban structures. These reports from journals and research on the Internet, have Sachsenheimer persuaded themselves to carry out tests.
“Having worked for more than twelve years with effective microorganisms and each year have produced thousands of liters Bokashi, it was no problem for me, this Bokashi develop into a fermented substrate with charcoal and Zeolithzugaben” says the creative gardening experts. “In normal Bokashi I have already noticed a significant increase in the yield of my vegetables. More astonished we were that with this new substrate is again a substantial increase my crops could be achieved.” A short time after the incorporation of the manure into the soil to soil life have increased dramatically. Here, microorganisms can colonize and multiply. It is not enough simply to distribute charcoal on the garden floor. “The activated charcoal must be back by this fermentation process”.