Skip to main content
I'm thrilled to share this Proof of Concept with the world. For many decades there have been products that claimed to fix soil, conserve water in agriculture, help soils retain water, increase carbon in the soil, and make the soil a better place for microbes to live. In recent years Bio Char has become the rage with similar claims of success. However Bio Char can be nothing else other than the cellulose of wood that has burned off the lignin glue that holds the cellulose together as wood. Remember that Cellulose is glucose linked together as a larger complex sugar, so once the lignin is gone, the remaining molecular structure cannot have much of a Mechanism of Action that can change the chemistry or physics of soil. Since Bio Char is lightweight in bulk density its possible that if you used enough of it you could fluff up the soil and change its porosity, therefore increasing the soils ability to absorb water and oxygen. Remember that an acre of sand one foot deep will weigh about 4.8 million pounds so to decrease its bulk density by enough margin to make a difference you'd need to add 250 tons to the acre. This would not be economically feasible! However our company, Soil Secrets LLC has performed molecular analysis of soil carbon structures down to a sub-atomic level, describing for the first time what these molecular structures are and how they work and we can now manufacture them in bulk. We have a clear understanding of what the Mechanism of Actions are concerning these structures, some of which address the benefits I listed at the start of this statement. The attached images, part of the Commercial Proprietary Information of Soil Secrets demonstrate the evidence that this product called TerraPro, a Biological Biominetic of Nature will fix the many problems of soil including the loss of soil carbon, collapsed disperse soil, poor porosity reducing water percolation and excessive demand for irrigation in both urban landscaping as well as agriculture. We've performed a vegetation analysis on clients crops in California using Color Infrared (CIR) Imagery that shows when a crop is getting enough water, when the soil is cooler and therefore not evaporating as much water, and showing when the crop leaf temperatures have gotten too warm for photosynthesis to continue. The green on the following images are the cooler areas where TerraPro was applied. On the Corn silage image the rate of application went from 2000 pounds per acre down to 66 pounds, where even the smaller amount still shows some green. Not as much as the 2000 pounds, but still impressive results. In a future post I'll show some almond and pistachio orchards where you can see the trees have more foliage where the TerraPro was applied. Keep in mind that TerraPro is not a fertilizer, it's a soil biologic treatment. The images at ground level showing the base of corn plants shows which plants are under stress and which are not. If the stem shows pink, that's nitrate accumulation happening because the plant is under water stress, while the plants showing little to no pink are not as stressed. These two images are only a few dozen feet from each other but the green non-pink plants were treated with 2000 pounds of TerraPro per acre at planting. I can guarantee you that 2000 pounds of compost or 2000 pounds of bio-char cannot achieve this same benefit.






Popular posts from this blog

Soil Health: Level 2 - Description of Terms (Carbon Compounds)

The  Labile Carbon  is also known as the 'Rapid Cycling Carbon' and its composed of all the Soil Organic Matter that is dead and actively decomposing.  It's benefit to the soil is that it provides a source for minerals that are being recycled as potential plant nutrients, so in a sense it's Nature's fertilizer.  Active Carbon   also known as Reactive Carbon is more complex than the Labile Carbon in that its composed of all the dead and actively decomposing organic matter plus all the living soil microbial community that will eventually die and begin decomposing.   For example, the hyphae of mycorrhizae only live about 5 to 7 days before they die and start to decompose, while the fungus organism itself may live far longer.  Recalcitrant Carbons   are the Humic substances made up of complex organic chemistry, some of which is inert and some of which is very reactive and are powerful biologics, such as the Humic Acids.  Recalcitran...

Fertilizers formulated for alkaline soils of the Southwest

Recently I was in an Albuquerque retail nursery where a fertilizer was being sold that stated it was formulated for alkaline soils of the Southwest.  It contained high levels of iron and sulfur, plus the N, P and K major nutrients.  Do any of the readers care to comment on this type of product?    Pros, Cons, etc.  I have my take on it, but I'll entertain what you want to say about it.  Michael Martin MelĂ©ndrez

Growing Pecan Trees in Western Alkaline Soil

It's common to see nutrient and water inhibition compromise the production of pecans in the arid western states, particularly where the soils are high pH, which can tie up nutrients such as zinc, iron, phosphorus and more. Keeping soils moist is also a problem because the regions were we grow pecan are not wet bottomland soils where pecan is native, but are high and dry desert soils where irrigation is essential. If the irrigation water is high in dissolved solids, the problem is made worse. There are many good things Soil Secrets can offer pecan growers that can overcome these obstacles, by improving the moisture management of the soil, improving nutrient solutioning and availability of both the native minerals as well as the purchased minerals, and improving the porosity of the soil so that water and oxygen can penetrate meters deep without the need to subsoil with machinery. How's this done? By using the power of Nature's own bio-chemical called the Carbon Matrix. Starti...