Estado da Artedas Terras Pretas de Índio

no Âmbito Mundial

Christoph Steiner – University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA

William Woods – University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA

Anthrosols mineral soils conditioned by Man

www.treehugger.com

Characteristics result from human activities

Formed or profoundly modified through long‐term human cultivation or addition of materials:

• Organic materials• Irrigation• Cultivation

European example the Plaggen (Plaggic Anthrosols)

Addition of sods mixed with farmyard manure

Cultivated Landscape Amazonia is no exception (the Beni)

Photos by Clark Erickson

Photo: Ilse Ackermann

Anthrosols Brazil – Terra Preta

“…there could be seen very large cities that glistened in white […] many roads that entered into the interior […] and besides this, the land is as fertile […] as our Spain”

Terra Preta History early descriptions

http://www.photolib.noaa.gov

Terra Preta History early descriptions (1879)

“… the bluff-land owes its richness to the refuse of a thousand kitchens for maybe a thousand years."

"This is the rich terra preta, "black land," the best on the Amazons. It is a fine, dark loam, a foot, and often two feet thick. …..everywhere we find fragments of Indian pottery, so abundant in some places that they almost cover the ground."

C. Barrington Brown (1839‐1917)

“In two places also, in the forest, were the sites of ancient villages, marked by a deep black soil mixed with broken pottery” (Brown 1876:339); 

Terra Preta History early descriptions

“undoubtedly of artificial origin ...highly prized as agricultural grounds, owing to their fertility; and they bear the name of “Terras pretas”

Terra Preta Fifteen Thousand Miles on the Amazon and its Tributaries, Charles Barrington Brown and William Lidstone, E. Stanford, 1878, 520 pages (http://books.google.com)

In this publication Brown and Lidstone were apparently the first to use the term terra preta (“terras pretas”) in print. 

“the spot, like that on many other elevations bordering the Amazon and its branches, was the favourite dwelling-place of Indians in bygone days; …”

“Villages must have stood upon these spots for ages, to have accumulated such a depth of soil about them; and probably their original founders were of a race that has now completely vanished.”

Terra Preta History early descriptions

Terra Preta Friedrich Katzer (1861 – 1925)

“….the region's more distinguished wealth lies in its soil….”

• Conducted pioneering analytical work

• Concluded that the Terra Preta has diferent origin from Chernozems and were cultural in origin

• Terra Preta consists of a blending of mineral residuum, charred plant materials, and decomposed organics. 

• loss‐on‐ignition testing indicating high organic matter content, in contrast to soils from surrounding locations.

• Most agriculturally productive soils (Duchaufour, 1998)(5. 12. 2004 world soil day, “Schwarzerde” = soil of the year 2005)

• Residues from vegetation fires, such as black carbon (BC) (Glaser et al., 2000)

• BC constituting up to 45% of the SOM

• BC is several millennia in age (Schmidt et al., 2002)

http://members.eunet.at/rosenkranz/lysi/lysi1.htm

www.klett‐verlag.de

Charcoal, BC Chernozem or mollisol

Charcoal, BC, Chernozem and Terra Preta

Biochar History early descriptions (1846)“Charcoal absorbs and condenses the nutritive gases within its pores. The economy and benefit of such applications can be readily understood, as they are continually gleaning these floating materials from the air, and storing them up as food for plants. Charcoal as well as lime, often checks rust in wheat, and mildew in other crops; and in all cases mitigates their ravages, where it does not wholly prevent them.”

“Ammoniacal liquor holds large quantities of nitrogen,….charcoal dust may be added , ..the charcoal soon combine with the ammonia, ..it is a powerful manure, and should be sparingly used.”

“Guano should be mixed with twice its bulk of charcoal dust”

“Charcoal should be added to tanks holding liquid manure to absorb the ammonia”

“ Poudrette is the name given to the human faeces after they have been mixed with charcoal dust..”

“A dressing of charcoal has in many instances, been hound so beneficial that it has been extensively introduced in France for the wheat crop”

“The turnep (Brassica rapa.) Charcoal dust applied in the same way has been found to increase the early growth from four to ten-fold.”

Biochar History early descriptions (1846)

JOHANNES LEHMANN, JOHN GAUNT, and MARCO RONDON Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 2006

100

50

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1 32

Bio-char

Un-charred organic matter

4 5Years

Car

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rem

aini

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Charcoal Carbon Sink ‐ Traditional KnowledgeLong lasting carbon sequestration

Lehmann et al. 2006

Historic Biorefining

Fotos: Anita Buchart

Actor: Friedrich Frühwirth

Historic Biorefining

Soil degradationAgriculture without mineral fertilizers – maintaining SOC

Consumes 3.35% of world natural gas production = 0.75% of the world's energy supply

Justus von Liebigmineral nutrition of plants and Haber Bosh process N2 + 3H2 → 2NH3

Haber‐Bosch mineral fertilizersNobel prizes in 1918 and 1931

Boosted agricultural production and replenished nutrient stocks 

but did not treat soil degradation caused by SOC loss

Soil degradationmineral fertilizers – further decline in SOC

Most agricultural soils have lost 60 to >75% (20 – 80 Mg ha‐1) of their original SOC  (Lal, 2004, Science) 

From 1750 the emissions form land use change contributed about 30% to global warming, from which more than half of it is estimated from depletion of SOC (Lal, 2003).

Laurens Rademakers www.biopact.com

Global problems

peak oil “Hubbert’s Peak” Climate changesoil degradation

in 2007 FAO's global food price index rose 40%to the highest level on record

World fertilizer prices surge 200%International Center for Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development, IFDC

Dedicating land to biofuels increases carbon emissions•Corn‐based ethanol doubles greenhouse gas emissions over 30 yearsSearchinger et al. 2008, Science

http://www.smm.org/deadzone/

http://www.astrovera.comhttp://www.nasa.gov

Nutrient flow management “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico 

Material flow management

http://en.wikipedia.org/

Biochar History re‐discoveries

W. Seifritz (1993): Should We Store Carbon in Charcoal?, Int. J. of Hydrogen Energy

M. Ogawa (1994): Tropical Agriculture Using Charcoal, Farming Japan

Terra Preta Nova Wim Sombroek (1934 – 2003)

Among numerous contributions he recognized the carbon sequestration potential presented by the terra preta. 

CLAG 2001, Benicassim, SpainConference of Latin American Geographers

Photo Johannes Lehmann

Biochar Research Terra Preta Nova

EMBRAPA  research station Brazil

~50% of C remains as charcoal

Slash and Char as Alternative to Slash and Burn

~2% of C remains as charcoal

Photo: Steve Welch

Terra Preta Nova First Terra Preta workshop, Manaus 2002

•Waste biomass can be used 

•No competition with food production

• Carbon sequestration, restoring soil fertility and renewable energy production can be complementary 

www.biopact.com

Nature (2007), Vol 447

Biochar carbon negative energy 

Source www.biopact.com

Formed in 2006 at the World Soil Science Congress

2010, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

2012, Kyoto, Japan

IAI Conference 2007, Terrigal, Australia

IBI Conference 2008, Newcastle, UK