Technical

Research demonstrates that chemical contaminants found in wastewater and sewage sludge (aka biosolids) may accumulate in plants.  (EHN Source) 

I have been producing small quantities of biochar at home and using it in my compost.  My equipment is relatively low tech, but my process is reasonably efficient. Those who care deeply about the implications of rising atmospheric CO₂  will invariably ask, can biochar produced in such a low tech system offset the carbon produced by the fire used to create the biochar in the first place?   The answer can be decidedly yes even when efficiency is low if you keep it simple.

 Editor's note:

Wetland delineation in permafrost soils presents a unique challange. Right now I am in Interior Alaska, northeast of Fairbanks conducting a wetland delineation in black spruce (picea mariana) forests underlain by permafrost. One of the trickiest parts of deciphering the wetland soil features is understanding the seasonal timing in relation to the permafrost depth. When I visited this site in mid-May, the seasonal frost was still at 8" below the surface. Now we are running into season frost and/or permafrost at 16" or so.

Issue 50 of the National Cooperative Soil Survey Newsletter (February, 2010) is now available online.

Gary Jones geeks on grass-fed beef, soil, and biochar at garyjones.org. He writes much worth repeating, and I especially appreciate his unwavering perspective on biochar: environment and food are nonessential sideshows, biochar is about the soil.

The 11th edition of Keys to Soil Taxonomy, as well as a summary of all changes for this new version of the Keys is available at: http://soils.usda.gov/technical/classification/tax_keys/

Invest in yourself. Invest in your profession.

My career has seen the soil science profession shift from predominantly government employer to mixed private, government and university employers. Until recently, I thought I was witnessing the decline of the profession, but now I believe it is the effect of the diversification that has ultimately broadened the knowledge and application of soil scientists. Today, there are more laws and regulations that pertain to soils than ever before, and states continue to add licensing. So why is the number of soil science students continuing to decrease?

Arsenic contaminated drinking water is a huge problem in Bangladesh. Scott alerts us to the news that the critical source of the contamination has been discovered: ponds excavated to provide material for flood protection.

Danny Day tells us: Updated 11/18/2009 with new date

Prompted by a post on LinkedIn by NSCSS Member Russell Losco, I am considering the business potential of producing biochar locally to serve a small but growing interest in biochar.

Fleshing out my previous statements made in support of the need to start gauging the neutralizing power of biochar.

Soil changes over time. Anticipating the effects of management and environmental change is increasingly important. How best to capture that dynamic, and communicate it, is one of the more stimulating subjects being addressed by our soil scientist peers in academia and the public sector.

Soil Change Working Group: Soil Change within the Human Time Scale