Dear AD Karve, The top layer of the soil is definitely the richest in soil nutrients.
But I suspect part of these nutrients get leached into the deeper layers of the soil along with the rainwater which percolates into the soil. Best Regards, Rajan ----- Original Message ----- From: Anand Karve To: [email protected] ; Discussion of biomass cooking stoves Sent: Sunday, 26 September, 2010 11:42 PM Subject: Re: [Stoves] Stoves Digest, Vol 51, Issue 9 Dear Rajan and Roger, as far as biomass production per unit area and unit time are concerned, the grasses may outyield the trees, but are these figures compensated for the high silica content of the grasses? Secondly, both the grasses and trees (i.e. dicot vegetation) take up their minerals from the surface layers of the soil. The dicots with their deeply penetrating tap roots, take up mainly water from the deeper layers of the soil. If fact, that is the reason why tree crops have greater yield stability that cereal crops. The latter are extremely sussceptible to drought. Yours A.D.Karve On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 8:12 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: Dear All, Message: 5 Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2010 18:32:45 -0400 From: "Crispin Pemberton-Pigott" <[email protected]> To: "'Discussion of biomass cooking stoves'" <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Stoves] The Biochar myth..another stovers myth Message-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" It is Roger who has conclusively shown that grasses significantly outperform trees. Grasses work from the surface layer of soil and trees work from deeper layers of soil. So, I feel they form a good team and compliment each other - rather than any conflict. Best Regards, Rajan
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