Recreating Terra Preta: Good Soil for Centuries! (Complete Film)

See the two-month update here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU1bFue93Gg

Looking forward to the 1,000-year update!

I come from a long lineage of farmers in Mexico. That migrated from the Amazon once upon a time according to the stories my aunts and uncles tell me. My grandfather passed, didnt have much time with him. One of my fondest memories of him was doing this same thing you’re doing on his farm. I would watch him while me made me clean the horse stables . I always wondered what he was doing. I thought he was trying to figure out ways to get rid of his trash lol. Seeing this video, now I know what he was up to. RIP Grandpa, the man who taught me all the answers I need in life, can be found in nature ♥️

When you're gone, I imagine someone's going to raise an eyebrow at the grave-shaped spot where things grow well.

I come from a land of red clay and the most fascinating part to me was watching you dig two feet down with a spade, quite comfortably I might add.

Well, if anything, the plants that grow there will never get bored. They will be thinking “what strange present from David awaits my roots today?”

Only 5 acres to go!

I can’t believe you convinced me to watch you throw random things in a trench for 38 minutes. Well done!

Hey, I'm an archeology guy, wanted to pass along what I've heard on the topic. They were canal builders as well, so much of the earth used to elevate the fields was dredged from waterways and channels. I got the impression that all household organics were tossed into the waterway then this material was tossed onto the slash/char. The earthworks are extensive, pretty much the entire S.American continent was terraformed before European intervention. Great video! Keep em comin'

Those chicken seeds should sprout in about 3 weeks, it takes awhile when they are planted so deep but the tap roots enjoys the room.

Letting the kiddo help is always a worthy endeavor, takes only a few seconds extra but yields so much

I live on what used to be the midden of a medieval castle. That’s the ditch around the hill where all the waste was thrown. It’s not been there for hundreds of years but the soil is beautiful. Unusual for this area. Like your example- lots of old pot shards in it too. Interesting stuff.

I am doing the same experiment here in the pacific northwest on Vancouver Island. I have developed two contraptions. One is the biochar TLUD retort (kiln) and the other is a vermicompost bathtub. So in the winter, wind storms snap branches and twigs off the Douglas fir trees which we rake into piles. This is feed stock for the biochar kiln and we make pure carbon from the twigs which is easy to crush as compared to larger pieces of wood. In the tubs, we use red wrigglers and a manure base and place in kitchen food scraps and the worms make castings and more importantly worm liquid that comes out of the drain in the bathtub. I call the liquid "worm Juice" and I take this liquid and soak the fresh dry biochar with that. Let this mixture soak for several months at least. When preparing garden beds for planting vegetables, simply dig in this mixture . The results are truly amazing and if you do it over and over the soil never denigrates. We do not buy vegetables from June to October and have stored crops in the basement for the winter. And that is not bad considering this is Canada. Cheers

I got lost in my envy of being able to put a spade into the ground more than 3mm 🤣

Sorry for my English as I am using the translator I would recommend that you try to plant kiri paulownia as a plant to generate biomass since it is an extremely fast growing plant in addition to being used to generate the preta land in addition to combining this technique with the hugelkultur type cultivation could greatly accelerate the process of creating soil.

My grandmother did something similar but without the biochar. She said that would make the soil "bitter". She would have us rake up all the leave and sycamore seeds where she would then have a trench cut and this material would go in. Because our ground was rotten granite, it was awful to grow anything in. Sand, peat, and manure was the augment thrown onto the leaves and yard waste (grass and such) as well as kitchen scraps from the parings plus bone meal, blood meal and kelp meal completed the mix. She did this year after year until they moved to a new place and started the process over again. I suppose this is a swale crossed with hugelkultur. How will this look in a couple of years and will you repeat the process over these beds in the future?

Tremendous and fascinating. Imagine a community of 10,000 people doing this together. It wouldn't take much time to transform a large amount of low grade land into Terra Preta. Now imagine a community of 100,000 people. Cheers from Ottawa, Canada🍁

Soaking your biochar in nutrient rich liquid is ABSOLUTELY key to this process and will accelerate your turn around and effectiveness! Can’t wait to see the return video, thanks for the great content 😀

I was like "Sweet lets go find this guys followup on how it did!" and realised the video is only from a few days ago.

if you want less smoke, try putting the biggest stuff on the bottom and follow up with incrementally smaller pieces. Doing it this way also prevents the larger fuel pieces from being fully cooked