SOME QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT TP

These are the answers by Dr. Reddy to the questions asked by a Journalist on TP.

1. whether you think charcoal to be a novel way of binding the carbon to the soil and also increase the fertility of the soil.

Yes it is a novel way, it has many values, improving the fertility of the degraded soils (alkaline / acidic / poor / degraded), preventing wasteful burning of millions of tonnes of biomass in the open fields after harvesting the crop and for carbon sequestration.


2. How can that improve the agricultural quality in India, and its effect on the methods of agriculture in India.

The small and marginal farmers can easily adopt to this method very easily, who are the majority. They could be easily trained on charcoal making from the biomass available in their field and surroundings for treating their soils.


3. I think this technique of producing charcoal from burned leaves and mixing it in the soil has been followed in India from some time. Why has it been that no work has been done here in that respect.

In my terrapreta signatures I posted the information - as part of tradition / culture people had been using charcoal and ash in their fields. Such practice is there all over the world, where civilizations existed in the last 5000 years, there is a need to recognize the values and create awareness.


4. Does this charcoal have the same effect on each variety of soil or does it effect varies with each variety of soil?

The affect is based on the amendments made to soil along with charcoal, charcoal alone has very less value to improve the fertility of the soil. other additions are like soil microbes, FYM, vermicompost, Mulch, micro-nutrients, sand, gypsum, fertilizers, silt, etc.