Recreating Terra Preta: I Think We're Getting Closer

Two years ago we began a quest to recreate terra preta, the famed "dark earth" of the Amazon. Now we are continuing the experiment on a new property, with new resources available to us. Will it work?
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Terra preta, the "dark earth" of the Amazon, is a rich soil, almost certainly anthropogenic in nature, which keeps its fertility for centuries. Creating terra preta is one of the goals of our homestead, and we may be getting closer. Stay tuned as we try to make terra preta for our gardens here in Lower Alabama. We are making biochar, making bone ash, making bone char, adding meat, adding manure, adding clay, adding pottery shards and more. We must continue this quest!

[@carrotspaghetti236]

Okay, if you are faint hearted skip my contribution. I butcher at least 6 roosters yearly, catching blood in a bucket, keeping said bucket as a fetid fertilizer solution; in the winter, being in zone 5, I use a woodstove and take a little wood out before its fully burned, and crumble the charred wood into the blood bucket and let it fester all winter in the mud room where it won't freeze and break the bucket. My sandy soil has been pitiful, but where I amended the garden bed this spring with my fetid bloody char solution, I have had tremendously increased production.

[@davidthegood]

Very good idea

[@HickoryDickory86]

That me think about my idea, which I brainstormed regarding the new proposed EPA regulations on meat processing facilities (they will have to have their own sewage treatment since they will be prohibited from contibuting to municipal sewage). I was thinking that they could partner with a co-op and offer the blood and entrails to be composted. This would greatly reduce the amount they would need to treat when they have to make the transition. But yeah, the same idea of animal waste compost but a bit different and on a larger scale. I think it would be a great idea. Don't know if it woukd ever be adopted, though.

[@NathanielKenaston]

Doesn't that smell absolutely awful?! But I'm sure it works

[@t3dwards13]

​@@HickoryDickory86I'm sure they'd invent regulations regarding that as well. Just like having to make under the table deals with grocery stores to get their food waste. I'm now an ask forgiveness, than permission...But I thank you for showing another way they're trying to screw us!!!

[@Marigold-ip3gw]

I’ve got a 5 gal bucket of water and fish carcasses that have been brewing since last summer. I’m going to strain and jar up before I move later this year but I’ll be soaking char in it this spring then spreading across my gardens here ❤ It stinks to high heaven but I keep it in direct sun with a lid so 99% stench stays inside.

[@madprofessor1683]

You screaming "chicken pit" wins the internet today, sir.

[@cajunsurvivor]

Chicken feet

[@haleya9526]

I know, I spat out my drink laughing

[@WilliamCavnar]

For me, the high point was “cargo-culting in reverse”. Absolutely priceless!

[@rosehavenfarm2969]

one more data point: about 5 winters ago, any time something would go bad in the fridge, I chucked the remains onto one spot in the garden. Meat, veg, fruit, soups, rice, pasta...anything. The next summer I planted poblano peppers in that area. The plants were over 6 feet high, very strong (I never staked them) and super productive. I still have some of the poblano salsa and jelly from that year, there was a LOT. I have taken to throwing refrigerator compost directly into the garden during the winter. During the summer, it gets added to the compost pile.

[@davidthegood]

Very, very good.

[@gkiferonhs]

Terra preta has a lot of shards of pottery. The pottery will serve to wick and store moisture in ways that clay soil cannot. I think you need the capillarity as part of the system.

[@Dinofaustivoro]

I guess charcoal/biochar is optimal for that already

[@davidthegood]

I think it's part of it. We have to work on a pottery source.

[@gkiferonhs]

maybe end of the season at garden stores with terra cotta. Get their breakage? @@davidthegood

[@gkiferonhs]

But I think that's pretty fragile and you'd quickly lose capillarity.@@Dinofaustivoro

[@TheParadiseParadox]

​@@davidthegoodthe Mexican watering ollas are getting more popular around the world. If you find a supplier they might be able to send you shards for cheap

[@jamesbackyard7192]

Love your teachings, barely 2 years and my food forest is exploding. Bio char has been a big part.

[@NoNORADon911]

Git R Dun

[@gardengatesopen]

I'm waiting for the fire ban to be lifted to make bio char again... We can't even use our bbq 😪 Last Winter when I was planning my time to make bio char, I wasn't counting on having to wait out a drought. But the places I put the bio char I made the previous year are doing GREAT!

[@davidthegood]

Good luck. It's gotten super dry here - pond is almost empty.

[@Mrbfgray]

Hard to imagine Amazonians had 50 gal petrol drums to make char the hard way or that it matters.

[@NoNORADon911]

@@Mrbfgray Life is amazing isn't it?

[@diggin4thepony]

The terra preta thing is fascinating. The pottery thing, in particular is interesting because it seems almost intentional technologically, but they couldn't KNOW about microbiology or the function that the porous pottery serves in the soil. That got me thinking. The common elements are char, ash, bones, small pottery shards. In lots of indigenous cultures, there's a cooking method involving pretty much any protein, leaf wrapper, and then a thick coating of wet clay, which is tossed directly into a fire to cook for several hours unattended. I've seen them drug out of the fire and cracked open and I've seen videos on YT where they get opened straight in the pit and the leaf package retrieved to the plate. It seems to me this type of cooking done at village scale solves a lot of communal issues as a kitchen initially might account for most of the ingredients and perhaps subsequent generations went on to use it as a communal trash pit. I like the idea that my barbecue pit may some day respawn paradise. Thanks for your books and videos, Dave.

[@vidard9863]

That is an interesting idea. I had assumed that it was just due the poor quality pottery due to the poor quality clay available, but if they were effectively making pottery every time they cooked, and making extra charcoal by burying the fire for the roasting process, they could be generating the primary components unintentionally at an alarming rate.

[@rafaelmorodevens4564]

You talk like the Amazon indigenous people were just throwing things like this American "We are just throwing things and seeing if it's gonna work" the indigenous in those areas did terra preta knowing what they were doing and some of them still doing. And they do in intentional and neat way. Not throwing things.

[@NathanielKenaston]

That's a unique thought! You might actually be onto something though!

[@burtrat4851]

Amazing, watched initial video about making, watched your video yesterday about Oak roots and you said you'll revisit this technique. And here we are. Bought your books and we really do compost everthing, developing Humanure, and want to get great soil. You are a bigger influence than you realize with a bigger range. Cheers from North Queensland 👍

[@davidthegood]

Thank you very much.

[@samuelkorger3567]

I’d love to see an assessment of what microbes are predominant in terra preta soils. It might give you some clues to what materials are needed to get it going.

[@davidthegood]

I would too.

[@onionring1531]

From what I've seen just getting your soil levels to about 20% charged biochar will basically make Terra Preta.

[@apocalypsegardens]

When can we expect the Dave's Chicken Pit T-shirts to be available?

[@lelandshanks3590]

I think your onto a good clue David, Archeologists have also noticed middens i.e. trash piles left by the natives tend to be loaded with vegetation over them.

[@MissZ1KCMO]

Love how you are able to find resources. Thank you for the inspiration!!

[@davidthegood]

Thank you

[@b.war.8651]

I so love your compost your enemies song! Got stuck in my head for days.😂😄💖 Thank you so much for interesting information on this subject. I think I've watched them all now so I am going to experiment with this too! If you create a playlist I'll be checking regularly for new videos. Can we have one charred thumb and one green thumb for balance? 😄👍🏻

[@derpderp1101]

Layering of char/bio mass staggered over time with fairly sustained or deep moisture level is my guess. Also the forests down there have so mich bio diversity in the soil it may happen more quickly down there vs where you are. I don't know. Just some char for thought.

[@TheParadiseParadox]

The Johnson Su bioreactor is known to foster a lot of microbiology diversity. It's probably worth taking the compost from a bioreactor and mixing it in with biochar and other ingredients

[@indirarimkeit6644]

I always watch til the end to be sure to hear that jazz bumper. Live your videos, David.

[@JerzeyGardenZ]

some live microbial specimens from terra preta would be truly amazing

[@ReapWhatYouSowGardening]

I love biochar compost

[@ocda3]

I'm really glad to see you continuing this project, can't wait to see what you learn!

[@zmblion]

Excellent video thank you 👍 im stoked to see how this goes in like 5yrs if it holds nutrition or get degraded. When i have tried similar but not the same things the trees no matter how far they are away seem to hunt it down.

[@umiluv]

I usually cook the bones I have into bone broth but this would be awesome to do with the leftover bones and veg that I strain to make the broth. And any leftovers that we throw out. Any way to reduce waste and turn it into fertility is a huge win.

[@jeas4980]

I've been adding those to my fetid swamp water bucket!

[@josephlevacher995]

You've got me hooked. I'm starting my expérimental pit this spring. Different climate being in Canada (Laurentian mountains, Québec). Will use what you tought me and my farm management and technology training and see what I can achieve. Thanks for your inspiration.

[@gryphonrampant1]

How do you go about making connections to get free food waste like the chicken bones? You've destroyed my fear of grafting, but i need help with the fear of asking strangers for meat waste.

[@davidthegood]

We make friends via giving away plants and produce.

[@umiluv]

Maybe start with asking neighbors you know? One of my neighbors comes over to dump large amounts of watermelon waste in my compost during the summer.

[@glassdaft]

Thank you for continuing you experiment. 3 years later I’m trying to improve my ground with much thanks to your guidance ☀️ I’m 55.4 degrees north, right on the coast of West Scotland. My ground just a foot & a half down is orange sand. NOBODY in the gardening world ever talks about growing in this stuff. However I refuse to be beaten. Nothing leaves my property, I compost or burn it first. However the most noticeable difference to my hundreds of hours of gardening effort is adding bentonite clay first. It rains here a lot. A LOT. No water ever sits not even for 20 seconds! Therefore all my amendments just get washed through, nothing hangs around for very long. I wouldn’t have figured out half of what I needed to do without your enduring curiosity. So I thank you again. Plus your dry humour is why I have you right up there with Charles Dowding ( who is not funny but very sincere) as my favourite channels.

[@cranberrypanic]

Thanks for the update! I really appreciate all the effort you're going to in running these experiments. I'll be watching closely!

[@HeatherNaturaly]

Makes perfect sense to me that they used their village compost, to fertilize their fields. Perhaps they randomly tossed the remnants of their fires in there, too. Or maybe, when it got too stinky because they didn't understand the science of composting, they burnt it.

[@FastGardeningMichigan]

I love this! I put my biochar in the chicken composting run. I did a video on how I make my char in a half hour and the "experts" brought up pyrolysis talking about oxygen getting in. I don't like my processes to get scientific. I let my plants tell me how the finished product works. Little oxygen never hurt anyone, including char. Can't wait to see the results!

[@vidard9863]

Meh, oxygen is just an efficiency concern, can't get hung up on details, otherwise you will never do anything.

[@meehan302]

Thats a good base for composing different materials.

[@ryankelley85091]

What did the ancient Amazon people grow? Corn? Tall stalks that can be burned after each harvest, providing more char? Grind it in season after season for many years...

[@1038bro]

over 100 types of edible plants! read 1491 by Charles Mann. super informative

[@leomiranda-castro6908]

Love it! This season, I will get all the deer and wild hog carcasses and make them "wild game pits" in a terra preta mix! It should be fun and informative!

[@leomiranda-castro6908]

@@ozarksbuckslayer2484 Awesome!

[@leomiranda-castro6908]

@ozarksbuckslayer2484 I like that! Earlier this year, a friend and I went fishing for catfish in a nearby reservoir. Ended up with about 200 lbs of guts and carcasses. They are still rotting in 52 gal. plastic drums (my catfish swamp water inspired by @davidthegood). They don't smell anymore, so I think they are good to go!

[@davidthegood]

The smell really does go away after a time.

[@PatrickKQ4HBD]

​@@leomiranda-castro6908🤢🤢🤢

[@b3s13g3d]

This is what I'm subbed for, please keep updating on this. I'm very interested in your progress as I have some southern red clay soil I want to plant in, and I'd like to get a start on amending.

[@Alkasch23]

Maybe you have to bury the potery intact with the opening on the top so that the water cant wash the nutrients away, but the plants can reach it with their roots. Maybe the broken potery wasnt broken when the fields were active.

[@coombabaykelpiesltf5494]

Love this! More please!

[@mwmhzzt101]

The old midden’s pile was a good place to selectively pick slightly bigger tomatoes that popped up from last years. And squash and maize and avocados and peppers and beans. Virgil wrote about corn in the classical Georgics - I figured out he meant grain in general.

[@davidthegood]

I bought the Georgics this year and have not read it yet.

[@mwmhzzt101]

@@davidthegood reading the much newer ‘American Georgics’ inspired me to read it. Virgil mentions Sylvanius whom received offerings at the edge of agricultural fields and the wild forest - maybe kept pests away, lol.

[@davidthegood]

Very interesting. I read Cato's De Agricultura earlier this year and enjoyed it.@@mwmhzzt101

[@thecurrentmoment]

"Corn" as a word means a hard grain, hence the word "corned beef" or "corns" which are hard lumps on your feet, and "peppercorns" and "ryecorn". So yes, " corn" meant "grain", not just maize like not wpeople use it now

[@ladyela9283]

BRILLIANT! I'm blessed by your addition of Scripture at the end, also🙌

[@chrissoutdoorsgardening1261]

love the videos david Been watching you for over 6 years and love the books. keep up the work man glad to see your continueing to go at it. I have my own terrapretta mix for here in apalachia kentucky where our soil is all clay and limestone keep at it man.

[@chriseverest4380]

David's chicken barbecue pit or human sacrifice crematorium? As the Feds investigate mass poultry suicide and Amazonian tribes living in the jungles of the USA David seeks green nitrogen and practices looking innocent (whilst wearing a "Compost Your Enemies" T shirt😂😂😂😂❤

[@MathiasVIKING0403]

When I want great soil I make it. A lot like what your doing. I layout a giant brush pile and burn to char. I cover the char with a 6 inch deep layer of wood chips. I cover wood chips with leaves and grass clippings and chicken manure to sit over winter,as im in northern Virginia. The bed should be ready to plant in spring. It basically a permaculture garden on top of bad soil that penetrates the bad with fungal shoots that break apart,yet hold together the soil and turning it the most perfect black , loomy soil! But,like you said,the Terra preta keeps self feeding for many years to come ,as to where you would have to put more manure on top if the garden is lacking. Every method has it's ups and downs. That's part of the beauty of gardening. PTP.. point to ponder... I noticed that I have a mycelium layer that is critical to long term self feeding process,but keeping the mycelium fed is an issue I solved by collecting all my lawn waste. I vacuum mow what grass i have left,and then go up and down the side of my road gathering hrass clippings and leaves. I pike extra for chickens to go through and they break most things down for me in a fraction of bio- waste time of natural process. Sorry I am rambling.

[@sylviadinnam2343]

I would bet it's any plant matter that remained from the late summer harvests so in the south present day maybe all that's left post harvest from late plantings of field peas.. sweet potatoes.. sugarcane pumpkin vines etc. and corn.. in South America corn is seen as being a gift of the gods so it would make sense that it somehow make good biochar for next year's corn field.. just a guess though

[@user-gh8sl7iu3y]

Neighbors probably wondering where the chicken is cooking.

[@davidthegood]

I know. It smelled great!

[@jadvla]

What are your plans? Since you are getting all this chicken and you have all that brush, how much can you continue to burn into the fall and will you be digging and burning on all your rows? Any thoughts about using your terra preta to amend your permanent row gardens?

[@davidthegood]

We'll work on some test beds with other non-amended beds beside them

[@geraldbock1012]

Looks good David!

[@venidamcdaniel1913]

Been making char from tree limb trimming. Even garden waste. Tomato pepper plants with.we have burning ban July to October. It’s stupid.

[@jeas4980]

So I'm working on the Fetid Swamp Water collection and I'm using the local weeds and the scraps of scraps... like the bones after bone broth is made, the fruit scraps from the strained vinegar, the potatoes that rotted waiting to be chitted. I can't believe the amount of money I've wasted on fertilizers. Thank you David!

[@anotherplottwist]

Loved this‼️‼️ definitely subbing

[@SCOTTBULGRIN]

David is a true Renaissance Man. A Man of GOD, Gentleman Farmer, Musician, Writer, Author, Traveler, Academic, and 1500s Biochar experimenter. Let me know if I missed any.😁

[@davidthegood]

"wretched sinner, only saved by Grace..."

[@Embassy_of_Jupiter]

Damn it I wanted to watch a movie but them I saw a new upload from you, so I couldn't resist

[@danielp4507]

Thank you for doing putting in the groundwork for the rest of us.

[@davidthegood]

It's really fun. I would be experimenting anyhow, but having an audience to bounce ideas off of is even better.

[@brrhyzal]

"COMPOST YOUR ENEMIES" 😂 So much love for that shirt!

[@cowboyblacksmith]

I built a kon tiki style fire pit in the ground to make charcoal for my biochar and just love it. All of my beds now have biochar in them you see if you grab a handful and they're a few years old so well aged. my greatest tip is to store up gallons of urine and use that as the initial quench, the steam will frack the nitrogen from the soil deep into the charcoal and no pathogens survive red hot coals. It's got a start on inoculation right from the start. After it's quenched with lots of water I'll add bokashi liquid, compost and leaf mold, bone meal, oatmeal (great for fungal growth), compost extract and tea, liquid JMS and anything else that's good. Between the biochar and compost my living soil cranks out amazing plants and honestly, they have little if any pest or disease pressure either.

[@ianlewis4613]

You were saying it could have been a dump site, it makes sense. In England in the victorian time they used to dump a lot of waste from the tips over the fields for fertiliser. It would include lots of char and coal, plus food waste and human waste "night soil"

[@seanrichardson881]

I'd say you're the closest so far I've seen. They would have likely started with burn pits burning carcasses from their food and possibly even bodies using the wood fuel around them. I'd imagine the next step for a true Terra preta would be using that material and doing a kind of traditional compos but with human manure.

[@VomitYou]

"Cargo culting in reverse" is the most interesting idea I've ever heard. Thank you.

[@johnbautiste]

Dig a narrow 12 to 20 foot trench at depth. Put in large metal or clay pipe with elbow extending up to ground level or just a small hole if no elbow available. Cover with grate so no one steps in it. Bury and compact pipe. Mark ends. Dig larger but not too large compost burn pit with other end of pipe extending slightly into pit. Now you will get a nice clean burn with lots of oxygen.

[@rickershomesteadahobbyfarm3291]

I actually throw chicken bones into my food forest after I cook them until they are brittle. When livestock and pets die, I plant them in my food forest. When I die, I want to be planted in my food forest or have my ashes spread throughout it.

[@baddriversofcolga]

It's nice to see that food waste diverted from the waste stream. 😊

[@davidthegood]

For sure. It's amazing how much "waste" is getting chucked!

[@sebastianalegre7148]

I can't help but to notice the lack of fungi and mushrooms explicitly introduced into the terra petra. Earthworms also. What you're looking for is the most bioactive environment so that the soil can basically fertilize itself. I would introduce a secondary pit next to it converted into a pond. That way enough water can filter into the terra petra to keep it hydrated and bioactive. These rainforest soils had a huge amount of water in and around them. That's what you're missing most.

[@SG-vu4qy]

i studied Mayan archeology, they were master architects at gardening and feeding their populations. I know a pure Mayan family in Punta Gorda Belize. their history is spoken. but the other history is in the pyramids and how they used terracing.

[@myworke-mail339]

I like your shirt, but here in AZ, that's a real thing (only happened about 15 min. from where I like to hike). Ahhhhh! I go outside anyways, but bring my dog. Your videos are always entertaining and informative. Thanks & God bless!

[@coronapack]

Dont forget this will take TIME. I suggest looking into terrarium biome kits. They have the insects needed for breaking down wastes and soils. Also get worms. After youve introduced all that into your finnished and filled pit, everything must be left to break down underground naturally for a long TIME. Thin i suggest planting into the pit instead of digging it up to transplant somewhere else. Best of luck.

[@alaskansummertime]

The irony is that they probably even had less of an idea of what they were doing than we do. They probably did it because it had always been done that way. Saw dad do it so that is how I do it.

[@davidthegood]

Tradition is a powerful thing.

[@vidard9863]

I don't know about that, they might not have fully understood it, but they knew what they were doing because they gave up a valuable resource like charcoal for quite a long time. They knew how they were doing it, and why, and must have had their own theories.

[@thomasenderson893]

​@@vidard9863Right. They may not have had empirical understanding but that's not the same as not having understanding. Obviously they didn't think "these broken pots and bits of charcoal and bone provide optimal porous habitats for microflora and nutrient storage, while also introducing air pockets and aiding in water retention". Rather, they probably thought something like, "We feed the earth with these things because the earth must eat to bear children. Where we place the most food is where the earth is most fed and can give birth to the most things." You can even see the symbolism in carving a deep trench. It's very mouthlike. Pragmatically, the two explainations are equally true because they draw us to the end we are seeking: better soil.

[@BigTrees4ever]

Likely you’re correct, as they were the descendants of a scientifically and technologically advanced civilization that had survived a great calamity. Don’t forget, they figured out the 26,000 year cycle of the precession of the equinoxes, by observation. These indigenous cultures are severely misunderstood.

[@davidtansy4814]

A friend of mine is making a Terra Prada by processing each component, then finding the mix. She's making a small batch set up for herself.

[@wendyleslie6461]

"This video has been removed for violating KZbin's policy on propitiating the Great Old Ones." 🤣

[@racepics]

Here in suburbia a fire and smoke like that would get you arrested 😅 Oh the joys of living way out of town. I watch in envy ;)

[@lostpony4885]

I saw a dig on tera preta pointing out the clay pottery sherds but they werent noticing the sherds are not random but arranged specifically as though creating water seepage transport across the materials below. I hope people notice and study the position of the elements more, thats likely going to resolve whether its happenstance or intentional. Its intentiinal.

[@sparkysoutdoors6240]

No sewer or garbage truck… seems like these folks dug a pit, put biochar and ash on the bottom (that would absorb and mitigate smells). They could then dump all waste material on top until it was covered and repeat the process until the hole was filled. Wouldn’t be much of a stretch for them to discover that after decomposition plants grew quite well on these areas. A beneficial byproduct of there outhouse/trashcan.

[@AHomeIsHaven]

" This video has been removed for violating KZbins policy on propitiating the Great Old Ones" 🤣🤣🤣

[@ReidAnderson7]

Thank you for another video on this! I am throwing my pottery and my scraps in the hole, got the torch, ready to party!Jesus, please bless my soil

[@dundeeorganix]

We have had excellent results with tallow fat additions with the char, bones, compost and ash. Used tallow from high end fish n chip shop. Not seed oil. 1:55

[@Iloveorganicgardening]

OK, yes……… but that is a king James version fire pit, right???!

[@davidthegood]

Douay-Rheims this year.

[@jerrypackard6807]

Yo Dave! Will your greenhouse experiment involve water barrels and a JACKFRUIT TREE? ;-)

[@davidthegood]

I have a mango to plant. A jackfruit would be awesome.

[@jerrypackard6807]

Push The Zone my friend. :-) @@davidthegood

[@ninemoonplanet]

Adding that much bone material may put the calcium a bit high. I did my own bone meal and used a vinegar, ground eggshell mix to get the calcium and the residual micronutrients in a bioavailable solution. The wood needed may be higher for a complete burn, but you're trying to recreate a centuries old process so you likely have to play around with proportions. What could be interesting is adding vermiculture compost to the remaining product to see if the char material breaks down faster. Pond water to douse the fire woul mimic the Amazonian processes, especially if there are fish in the pond.

[@ephjay6t87]

Maybe dig an outhouse pit and put an outhouse on it. Layer in the Biochar, green sand, etc. It's a slow method but in a few centuries there may be a rainforest living there.

[@fiendeng]

You're unlocking some very Mystic moojoo. Be warned giant watermelon are forsaken on you ! 😂

[@PatrickKQ4HBD]

My pet hypothesis is that proper Terra Preta is built over decades to maybe centuries. Don't be discouraged if starting all over again doesn't work out completely. You already know most of the ingredients make for richer soil.

[@davidthegood]

Yes

[@johnd169]

Native Americans are still making terra preta today. They sweep up ashes and coals and pile organic matter to let that compost and make the soil “strong”. I don’t think it’s a mystery any more. One factor to consider is the local soil chemistry of the Amazon basin. In general, studies show fresh organic matter composted on the native soil with fresh biochar selects a uniquely beneficial distribution of soil microorganisms by the graphite like carbon crystals facilitating electrochemical communication between species of said microorganisms. The other physical and chemical properties of biochar have been well characterized.

[@Undecided322]

The addition of litter rich in lignin is what forms terra preta, the formation of a living soil is what allows fertility over time without the need to add more and more external inputs. Ernst Götsch's work is perhaps the most complete on regenerative and sustainable agriculture, I suggest the research.

[@Undecided322]

Try tô create "terra preta de índio", is trying to create a process of millennia of human action in an area, it is not natural and replicable, they had the largest tropical forest in the world as a source of nutrients, the largest cycler of nutrients vital to life in the world.

[@MrEzekiel1982]

I remember reading about Terra preta on a small scale in the middens of Europe

[@matthewkizziahcuzia...gott9632]

Not necessarily human sacrifice but what do you do with the elderly or the sick when they go. Living in a jungle you can't just bury them everywhere. Predators would dig them up. "Bring um to the pit."

[@DrLager2000]

You could fire some river clay in the pit which will make terracotta and help exclude some air.

[@EminTemiz]

David the Good is actually good

[@alexsummersell3567]

With all the meat left on those bones, you could turn those scraps into Blue Crabs if you lived closer to the Gulf. You might need to try that on one of your road trips. Maybe see what you get in your local fresh waters.

[@davidthegood]

Man, that is a good idea. We used to catch them in the canal when I was a kid.

[@alexsummersell3567]

@@davidthegood And after you eat. The Crabs, the shells can go in the pit.

[@davidthegood]

Yes! Win-win. It's about the best crab in my book. Very nice.@@alexsummersell3567

[@karenmorris8899]

Crab shells and oyster shells would probably be great in your compost pit, too.

[@PANTTERA1959]

The 5,000 year old pits are called "Landfills" today.

[@umiluv]

Yah but ours are filled with inorganic material. Mostly packaging.

[@davidthegood]

Yes, unfortunately.

[@thelastofthelemmings6279]

@ 1:26 i love the youtube Medusa 😅

[@williamvillar2519]

Looking forward to the results, David, but I have a sneaking suspicion they will be great. How about this drought? All the more reason to get more organic material in to the soil, right? Food forest principles mixed with grocery rows has been a game changer, for sure.

[@davidthegood]

Yes. The drought is terrible. I actually watered the Grocery Rows by hand last night.

[@richbrown9690]

1:21sec lmao you have yourself a sub, I came for soil knowledge and got a good laugh xD

[@davidthegood]

Welcome

[@NorthernThaiGardenGuy]

The only draw back to Biochars and Terra Preta is the interruption is creates with Mycorrhizal Fungi.

[@phyzix_phyzix]

The Amazon had 1 advantage: seasonal flooding which brought a huge amount of nutrients to the soil.

[@GuitarKitchen]

Thanks!

[@feral664]

My bet was they dig a bit- that was their kitchen for a while, then it became the latrine for a while, then it because a landfill - then it became the farm

[@FruitForest.CostaRica]

You can hear the firefighters coming at 6:35 :D

[@indujadiasnanayakkara7832]

You should find more about South Asian soil fixing. Sri Lanka and Southern India had something called Chena cultivation where the agriculture land were completely burnt down after a certain set of harvests and the farmers move to a new land on which they cultivate and move back to the former burnt down land once it is completely reforested naturally. I think the native American lands just had very long time to get fertilizer from natural decomposition after the civilization had done some thing similar to what you did. Just an assumption,I most definitely could be wrong.

[@OhmSteader]

My girl friend brought all her compost down from New York. Thats dedication.

[@davidthegood]

That is a keeper.

[@robinkirk3601]

a brick maker or a pot marker would see clay and charcoal fragments differently. If they are living in an area with a lot of clay - dig out some clay, kind of pound it thin, let it dry, and then when you make the fire, put the dry clay on top. the chemical reaction makes the new, dry clay parts great for drainage and all the other things that the wet clay wont do. maybe a big wood fire, and then all the other stuff like bone, and then layers of dry clay on top.

[@babylongate]

The secret is pottery fragments holding water and charcoal filtering nutritions then creates medium for beneficial bacteria when leaves and organic matter fell inside continuously create more and more breaking down nutritions and filter up all that by carbons, that makes it perfect soil

[@Joe_C.]

Dang you KZbin spoiling our experimental sacrifice videos! 👊🤬

[@thecurrentmoment]

I wouldn't let it bother you - just don't put your experiment on KZbin, keep it to yourself...😅

[@jakemon4550]

one thing I heard was a theory is that they burned it wet, kinda more of a boiling to break it down, and my theory which is probably wrong is that by burning it like that you lose less of the good stuff that comes of in the smoke which does take out nitrogen from the wood when you burn it.

[@stronggrom68]

Lots of peeps chiming in so i think ill have my five cents , i think that location and the starting soil that needs to be improved is a component not being taken into account. A sandy soil that drains and drys too quickly is the blank pallet , adding bio char adds water holding capacity and surface area for micro biology (habitat) the baked clay also adds porosity but more importantly cation exchange capacity, the manure and urine inoculates the mix and provides the food for the biology.

[@davidthegood]

Yes

[@willspanish]

How is it coming along 5 months later?

[@p.g.mcfinnigan4009]

I'd think of how it was first formed and do some science-based guess work. 1) The science. Charcoal has like twice the surface area of dirt. The reason is, it still has the channels that water traveled up the trunk to the top of the tree. It's porous. Because of the holes all throughout the material, it traps nutrients. So not only does it have surface-level nutrients, like dirt, it also traps nutrients directly. The more, the better. Clay is a slow absorber and releaser. That is great and it's required, but the soil already has to have a ton of nutrients for this to occur. Terra Preta has a unique microbial biosystem that has evolved for that type of soil. Knowing that, here's what I think but can pretty much guarantee what happened: Humans kept feces and nasty left over animal-based food parts and similar things away from their food in some form of dump. One day they noticed that a ton of stuff was growing really large and really fast near their dump and no where else. People like to grow food fast. So they decided to start growing stuff with the material from their dump. It worked. So the kept doing it. Terra Preta was not formed intentionally; it was a lucky coincidence. So what are the pieces that matter? A local fertilizer ecosystem. All of the waste was almost universally a product of what they were growing and what grew around the area. They were burning local trees and burning local waste produced by the consumption of local food being produced in the farm where they were going to use the waste. Terra Preta is the result of this process being repeated over at generations. So if you were going to recreate this process faster, you would most want: A ton of charcoal. You know that from the science. I would guess that you would such want to try to avoid one-off fertilizers that don't use the same bacteria that breaks down the plant waste of what you're growing. You want long term benefit, not short term, so you'd want to add mostly compost from what you intend to grow and have that be your fertilizer, and if possible, manure from animals whose diet is either what you're planning to grow, or at minimum, local plants. Not artificial foods. Anything else Is consider whether it's really required and would actually benefit, or if it's just a one-off fertilizer that will disappear as soon as it's used up by the plants. I think the localized bacteria colonization is an aspect oven overlooked. For fast forwarding your efforts, a small amount of Terra Preta might help because of the bacterial colonies, or it might not. It would probably depend on what you're growing and where. I would guess whatever is growing in it is suited to that type of soil, but at the end of the day, the ecosystem formed because it was local microbes feeding on local waste and plants over time. It will happen sometime either way, but maybe you'd get a lucky boost early on.

[@Sam-lp6sj]

I wonder if lining the bottom with clay would make a difference since the Amazon has so much clay underneath