Roger, Crispin, and Stovers,
Just a few comments below:
<snip>
"Saving of trees" happens when we "stop cutting the trees".
Personally, I am very much against unreasonable cutting of trees.
I do not necessarily agree with this. Farming biomass such as trees for
an energy source or carbon sequestering (and making money doing it) will
encourage more land being used for growing biomass. I think this should
be the goal. There are lots of land in the US along rivers, creeks and
in the mountains that are owned by lumber companies, open to the public
and protected from development. If we stopped using lumber because we
replaced it with a different product I wonder how long it would take the
loggers to realize it is not worth hanging on to the land for another 50
years. Of course there need be control over harvesting the present day
biomass so the future is in mind.
<snip>
Phytoliths in grasses are also an important carbon source for
forming soils.
Phytoliths are made of silica. They are isotropic meaning like glass, a
melt. Light bounces back and force to go straight through and not like
quartz that is a crystal bending light in a fixed direction. They look
like fragments of glass under the scope with many amazing shapes. I
believe they from from soluble silica in water taken up into the plant
and solidify in the veins in places where there is branching making the
shapes. I have found them in roots, stock, leaves, flowers etc all parts
of the plant.
I'm thinking they may cause more problems than a benefit for us as I
think they may form a hard to remove crust in places we don't want - but
I have yet to see a deposit in burners that is traced back to phytoliths
in the fuel.
To my knowledge, carbon from biochar remains in the soil as carbon for
much longer time - compared to carbon present in compost ( which gets
converted into CO2 ). Please correct me if I am wrong.
Best Regards,
Rajan
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Frank Shields
Soil Control Lab
42 Hangar way
Watsonville, CA 95076
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[email protected]
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