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BIO-CARBON
THE BIOLOGICALLY ACTIVATED CARBON.
BIO-CARBON
•What is it?
•Why was it formulated?
What is it?
• High carbon content, high beneficial microbial content organic based soil restorer.
• Therefore known as BIO-CARBON short for biologically activated carbon.
• Key words; Carbon, Microbial activity, Biological, Organic, Soil restorer.
Why was it formulated?
• To provide a unique blend of compensating organic based products in a single formulation to improve soil health.– What are these products?
• Decomposed wood chips aged 12 to 16 years.• Vermi compost.• Biochar.• Mycorrhizae spores.• EM (Effective microbes)
What is the significance of the formulation as it relates to soil
health?• What is soil health?• The best way to describe the “state of
health” of a soil is by establishing the following:-– how far it has “deteriorated” from its virgin
state due to intensive farming practices?– Where have interruptions in the soil food web
occurred?– The above two questions are actually the
same just asked with different terminology.
The soil in a virgin state.
• ALL MICROBIOLIGAL PROCESSES ARE IN HARMONY KNOWN AS A BALANCED ECOSYSTEM.
• THE SOIL FOOD WEB IS PROVIDING EVERYTHING THE PLANTS GROWING ON IT NEEDS.
The Soil Food Web:
Where do things go wrong in the soil food web?
• Agricultural production is synonymous with mono culture cropping.– Plowing.( Soil structure destruction)– Fertilizing. (Over fertilizing to obtain crop
yields.)– Irrigating. (Over irrigating, poor water quality)– Fungicide / Insecticides / Herbicide
applications.
What is the result of these practices?
• Depletion of oxygen.• Depletion of soil organic matter.• Destruction of soil structure.• Poor drainage.• Depletion of beneficial microbial systems.• Depletion of mutualistic fungal and
bacterial associations.• Domination of pathogenic microbes.
BIO-CARBON and the relevance to improving soil health.
• The Carbon factor. – A balance of active and stable carbon is
required for a healthy soil to support the beneficial microbial populations.
– The active carbon is the portion that can be consumed by microbes and is regarded as microbial food.
– The stable portion is non microbial food and regarded as the microbial habitat.
What does BIO-CARBON provide?
• The decomposed wood chips as well as vermi compost provide lots of active carbon or microbial food.
• The biochar is a very stable form of carbon and provides the “safe” microbial habitat which has been described as the microbial reef habitat.
The Mycorrhizae factor.
• As can be seen from the illustrative soil food web the mutualistic mycorrhizal association is a very important component of the soil food web.
• This association will protect most plant roots from pathogenic nematodes and pathogens.
What does Mycorrhizae (VAM) do and how does it function.
• VAM colonizes the host plant roots serving as additional fine root hyphae that can add several kilometers of feeder roots to the host plant.
• The host plant provides the necessary carbohydrates to the VAM fungus which in turn sources the required nutrients required by the host plant. This is known as a mutualistic process.
Other stimulating influences assisting VAM efficiency.
• Dr. Johannes Lehmann of Cornell Univ, USA found the following:-
– Biochar improves the efficiency of Mycorrhizae.
– There are a group of bacteria known as Mycorrhizae Helper Bacteria (MHB’s) that interact and facilitate the efficiency of VAM.
– The following slide explains the interaction.
The Mycorrhizal mechanisms.
1. Biochar changes soil nutrient availability.2. Biochar alters the activity of other micro
organisms (MHB Mycorrhizae Helper Bacteria) that have effect on Mycorrhizae.
3. Biochar alters the signaling dynamics between plants and Mycorrhizal fungi.
4. Biochar serves a refuge for colonizing fungi and bacteria.
OLIVE TREES
VERMI COMPOST PROVIDES.
• A wide range of Mycorrhizae Helper Bacteria such as the Phosphate solubilizing bacteria.
• Several beneficial Pseudomonas species.
• A very wide range of beneficial bacteria and fungi.
Disease Suppressive Microbes.
• Bio-carbon is also inoculated with a wide range of disease suppressive organisms such as:-– Trichoderma.– Pseudomonas fluorescence– Agro bacterium radiobacter.– As well as the 80 odd Micro-organisms derived from
EM such as:-• Actinomycetes,Photosynthetic bacteria, Fermenting fungi,
yeasts, moulds and lactic acid bacteria.
What do we want to achieve with BIO-CARBON?
• Our philosophy is that by establishing, maintaining and improving the most well known mutualistic soil microbial system the other soil health issues will follow naturally.
• We believe that the major disruption of the soil food web occurs around the Mycorrhizal system.
• That Bio-carbon is formulated with all 3 ingredients (VAM spores, biochar and vermi compost containing most of the MHB) to re-establish this very important soil microbial system.
AGRICULTURAL APPLICATIONS.
• All soils that have been over worked.• Seedling establishment.• All vegetable row crops.• Re-plant problems with the following tree crops:-
– Avocadoes.– Apples.– Citrus.– Stone fruit.– Vines.
• All landscape applications.
MY CONTACT DETAILS.
• Willie Pretorius.
• E-mail:- [email protected]
• Office tel:- 021 913 2913.
• Mobile :- 083 458 9854.
