Soil will lose the capacity of holding water when it burnt When it rains water flows effortlessly through the soil This will increase the soil erosion It will washout your fertile soil Then why do we apply burnt soil in our agriculture system Is there any scientific reason behind this? Let us see Hi, welcome to Couvana Farms, I am Vijay Karla To known the secrete behind the burnt soil it is necessary to understand the science behind it Also we should look into the history of soil burning process
There was a well developed civilization in Amazon almost 7000 years ago With an estimated 10 million population it had settlements as well as agriculture Do you know the thing that they used to make their land fertile so that they can feed 10 million people? Biochar or Organic Charcoal Scientists discover a very fertile land in Amazon as they were excavating and they call it Terra Preta They realize that the soil is man made and not the naturally occurring soil The meaning of terra preta is bla
ck soil It's complete name is terra preta de indio which means black soil of the Indians As the scientists conduct more studies on the soil they find enormous amounts of charcoal along with organic compost and manure Also they find huge amount of microbes in this soil This portion of amazon was growing lush green as the soil was very fertile with micro organisms Let's come back to our home land from Amazon Lets see the difference between 7000 year old burnt soil of Amazon and our present day soi
l burning procedure Most of our soil burning process end up with burnt soil and ashes of the organic matter Organic matter like dry wood, dry branches, sticks, leaves of coconut and areca nut are used for burning the soil I have already spoke on burnt soil Now let's see the remaining ashes As the organic matter gets burnt, it will start turning into black As the burning continues, it will turn into grey powder and then finally into white colored inorganic compound Most people think that it conta
ins maximum potassium In fact it contains large number of calcium crystals potassium not even 10 percent Why there is so difference between 7000 year old Amazon black soil and our black soil procedure There are two types of burning process First one is combustion Here the the combustibles burn in the presence of oxygen and finally turn into ashes The second process is pyrolysis Here the combustibles are burnt in the absence of oxygen or in the limited supply of oxygen Here the combustibles are s
ubjected to a 430 degree centigrade high temperature treatment The combustibles subjected to this process turns into organic charcoal or biochar Drum method is used to produce the biochar in the western countries Drum will have holes at the bottom and a chimney at the top Please check the video link in the description for biochar production using drum method To limit the oxygen in burning organic materials, mud or soil is easiest substance to use Organic matter will burn in limited supply of oxy
gen when the soil layer is created and will turn into biochar But this is not as efficient as drum method Any way, now you know the role of soil in the burning process Biochar production is the ultimate reason for using the soil in this burning process Now the question is what is this biochar? What is the benefit of using it in our garden or plantation (agriculture) A piece of biochar mainly consists of carbon If I burry this biochar in the soil, it will remain as it is for thousand years Then
what is the benefit of this to the plants? Let us see a simple example You put cow dung manure or any other manure to your orchard Unless this organic manure break down and converts into tiny soluble micro nutrients by decomposition, there is no use of it Who will do this tough job? They are none other than microbes in our soil If you observer few milligrams of soil under a microscope, you can find thousands of microbes in it Bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, micro-arthropods it's a living s
oil As there is a food chain above the ground there is a food chain below the ground as well The low level creatures of this food chain are organic matter eating bacteria and fungi Protozoa eats the bacteria arthropods eat fungi and nematodes they even eat bacteria The earthworm which eats soil will consume bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes etc Therefore it is called soil food web The biproducts excreted by this soil food web, mainly soluble mineral nutrients will become food to the plants In
other words more the microbes in your soil more the soil will be fertile Then what is the connection between biochar and microbes? A table spoon of biochar contains surface area with that of a football stadium Biochar is like a microscopic sponge When you mix the biochar with compost, the microbes in the compost will get a palace to live for next hundreds of years With millions of rooms in the biochar, microbes will stay here and get multiplied More microbes means more the fertile soil Remember
to provide the biochar to the plants along with the compost It is better to provide biochar as granular pieces rather than making it powder Provide 5 to 25 percent of biochar mixed with the compost Providing mulching on top will yield best results Let me tell you one interesting fact Plants produce oxygen and glucose by absorbing CO2 from the air, sucking water from the roots and with the help of energy from the sunlight They release the oxygen into the air and store the glucose When there is a
need of food to the plant, they release this sugary glucose into the soil through the roots This is called exudates These exudates attract sugar loving bacteria towards the roots This will bring bacteria eating microbes as well Now the food web around the roots will start excreting the food for the plant From the recent experiments and research it is found that the plant roots are capable of swallowing the microbes The plant releases super oxide onto these swallowed microbes This super oxide wi
ll destroy the cell walls of the microbes This will release the nutrients within microbes inside the roots and the plant root cells will absorb these nutrients The microbes which survive through this process will get accumulated near root hair initials As more and more microbes gets accumulated in the root hairs, the root hairs will get elongated and at the end they will get expelled through the root hair tips As a result plant can absorb more and more nutrients through the root hairs This is ca
lled rhizophagy cycle The plants have gone one step ahead where they store best microbes in the seeds It will make the microbes readily available during the germination process The clever way of plants cultivating the microbes has become astonishing invention in the science today With more information related to agriculture I will meet you in next video. Thank you.
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