Humic substance

Field Trials;
 I am field testing for the 09 corn season with JMU and consultation  Dr. Hepperly at Rodale Institute.

Ten research priorities were identified at the IBI conference, The following priorities I hope to address:
• 1- Economy research/market research
• 2- plant+soil research depending on biochar
• 5- field trials
• 8- application to soil (depending on agricultural or other
systems/remediation`)

Planting date: June 24th.
Two split plots , which each are split into a 20% (27 tons/Ac) & 5% (7 tons/Ac) application rates,
All chars soaked in tarps for 1 month, all chars were mixed 1:2 by volume with finished poultry litter compost and roto-tilled to 5 inch depth.

3 treatment groups with 3 replications
Char+ Compost
Char+ Compost + soluble NPK (soaked in char)
MYC+Char+Compost ("Dr. Mike's" Mycorrhiza corn inoculent)
Charcoal #1: Alterna Energy Biocarbon
Charcoal #2: Cowboy Hardwood Lump Charcoal

Soil Testing:
Dr. Mike Amaranthus of Mycorrhiza Applications ( http://www.mycorrhiza.com/ ) has  supplied his granular corn MYC , applied at planting, and lab support for harvest root analysis.
Dr. Kristine Nicoles of ARS, their head glomalin researcher, will also run soil test at Harvest
Lynn Rogers of Microbial Matrix will be testing for functional microbe groups

Total wet weight of corn biomass will be collected for each treatment group.

Much Thanks to:

 James Madison University / I.S.A.T., Dr. Wayne Teal - for providing a student for work and help in publication.

Local farmers Keith Sheetz and Andy & Jack Dixon

Dr. Paul Hepperly of Rodale Institude in PA. for consultations and his sister study in cow-peas.

Special thanks to Ecotechnologies Group for funding both of our studies.  http://www.ecotechnologies.com/index.html

The soil carbon bond can lead to an integration of organic and commercial agriculture practices. Biochar is a tool for both, for organic to increase its already-sustainable credentials, for chemical agriculture to at least halt soil carbon mining and seriously reduce nutrient runoff. The carbon sequestration bond can lead to a marriage of the best practices from both systems of agriculture to build soil into a biologically vital synergistic organism.

I hope to demonstrate this in my field trials with Roundup-ready corn, with the consultation of the Rodale Institute. Soil test for the full spectrum of food web organisms should ferret out the affinity of BioChar with these organisms in the context of standard chemical agricultural practices, and at Rodale with organic practice.

Erich J. Knight
Eco Technologies Group Technical Adviser
University of California Riverside advisory board member
Shenandoah Gardens (Owner)
1047 Dave Barry Rd.
McGaheysville, VA. 22840
540 289 9750

Distinguishing Black Carbon from Biogenic Humic Substances in Soil Clay Fractions
Laird, David, Chappell, Mark, Martens, Dean, Wershaw, Robert, Thompson, Michael
Geoderma, October 3, 2007
Interpretive Summary:
Soil organic matter, often called humus, contributes substantially to the quality of soils by stabilizing soil structure and both retaining and helping to cycle plant nutrients. The chemical structure of soil humus is very complex, but has been thought in the past to be a complex polymer with a backbone of aromatic carbon. We developed a method to physically separate aged charcoal from soil organic matter. The charcoal contributed about 8% of the carbon in the three soils we studied. The charcoal was old and was not very available to soil microorganisms. The true humus was the fraction of the soil organic matter left after the charcoal had been extracted. The true humus was young and readily available to soil microorganisms. The true humus had very little aromatic carbon; rather it was a mixture of fatty acids and sugar-like structures. This discovery means that many of the previously proposed models for the structure of soil humus are wrong, because most of the aromatic carbon is in the charcoal not in the true humus. This study will help scientists to understand how soil organic matter is formed and stabilized in soils. Such information is needed to design agricultural management systems that build soil organic matter. Policy makers need to understand that charcoal is a natural component of soils and that adding charcoal to soils will help build soil quality because in the future conservation practices may include adding charcoal to soils.
Technical Abstract:
Most models of soil humic substances include a substantial component of aromatic carbon (C) either as the backbone of humic heteropolymers or as a significant component of supramolecular aggregates of degraded biopolymers. Here we report that most of the aromatic C in the clay fraction of three studied soils was associated with discrete particles (0.2-2 um) of pyrogenic black carbon (BC), which were physically separated with the coarse clay subfraction. The physically separated BC particles contained approximately 60% aromatic C, with the remainder being a mixture of aliphatic, anomeric and carboxylic C. We hypothesize that as BC particles aged in soils their surfaces were oxidized to form carboxylic groups. Further, we suggest that anomeric and aliphatic C accumulated in BC particles either by adsorption of dissolved biogenic compounds from the soil solution or by direct deposition of biogenic materials from microbes living within the BC particles. The biogenic soil organic matter that was physically separated with the medium and fine clay subfractions was dominated by aliphatic, anomeric, and carboxylic groups with little aromatic C and existed as diffuse filamentous clumps and films binding clay particles together. The lack of aromatic C in the biogenic soil organic matter is inconsistent with the heteropolymer model for the formation of humic substances.

Amelioration of Shallow and Compact Soils Through Charcoal and Humic Material Amendment
Paul Seger, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN

Potential Benefits of Charcoal and/or Humic Materials
•Highly resistant to microbial breakdown
•Functional groups provide exchange sites
–Increase nutrient retention
–Assist pH buffering capacity
•Encourages aggregation
–Development of soil structure
–Benefit to available water holding capacity