For this episode we are joined by Aaron Joslin, who has done research on agroforestry systems in the Brazilian Amazon and is currently developing a PhD research project at the University of Georgia. Topics of discussion include the use of mulching tractors as an alternative to tropical slash and burn, an agroforestry system in the Brazilian Amazon, the origins and significance of the Terra Preta soils, biochar for soil management and climate change mitigation, and the relevance of mobile pyrolysis.
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3 responses to “Episode #108: Terra Preta and Agroforestry in the Brazilian Amazon”
On the subject of swidden and biochar: Jean Pain rotationally thinned his woodlands (to create firebreaks), putting the slash through a chipper, and hauled the chips to a pile near his home. The pile, correctly constructed (compacted, chips of right shape, high water content, with pipe coil and digester), would produce all the hot water and methane for his needs — hot water, space heating, cooking gas, and methane fuel for his electrical generator, small car, and of course his forestry equipment (the woodchipper above all). After 18 months the chip pile is used as garden mulch (he felt the nitrogen properties of spent chips were ideal). A few other bi-products could be methanol and the whole range of pyrolysis outputs (also, sawdust for your bucket toilet) and the same operation could produce timber, mushroom substrate, etc etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Pain
Hosted by a client of Darren Doherty:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHRvwNJRNag
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In the Amazon a cultivation technique takes advantage of brushwood instead of burning it
http://www.revistapesquisa.fapesp.br/site_teste/extras/imprimir_en.php?id=2261&bid=1
Fighting to conserve forests, fields and soils.
The Tipitamba project in the Brazilian Amazon
http://www.zef.de/fileadmin/webfiles/downloads/annualreport/ZEF_News_Jubilee_Issue_web.pdf (pp.10-13)
Mechanized land preparation in forest-based fallow systems: The experience from Eastern Amazonia
http://www.springerlink.com/content/m7753700w3h71220/