Hello to you all! It was great to be at the Soil Hack's first gathering and meet you. I have an apology to make for my lack of talk whilst demonstrating the "cone pit" demo - this was my first "quicky- micro pit" and my thoughts were taken up with achieving a complete burn to char! and I should have covered much more information. To Brian, "the role of tree roots in soil- good thing or bad thing? Do the trees rob nutrients from the soil?" The trees form a sybiotic relationship with the soil organisms with exchanges of nutrients from photosynthesis in the form of exudates from the roots. It is said that up to 40% of the plants total nutrient production from photosynthesis is sent via the phloem to form root exudates. This video link of Joel Williams presentation has some great info on the soil/microorganism/plant relationship. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvFrm-wst8c Warm Regards Robert From: Brian Hughes <[email protected]> To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, 7 June 2017, 18:23 Subject: [soilhack-announce] Questions and thoughts on gathering #yiv6068675373 #yiv6068675373 -- P {margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;}#yiv6068675373 Thanks to all involved for a memorable weekend- if only because it highlighted what a complex issue soil science is. To a degree, I've been focusing on the combustion engineering side of charcoal making, and the next big learning curve is about how biochar works in the soil- to a degree, I gloss over this angle, and just say that it retains water and soluble nutrients. I've lots of questions -good- but the one in my mind at the moment, that I don't remember being touched on, is the role of tree roots in soil- good thing or bad thing? Do the trees rob nutrients from the soil?_______________________________________________ soilhack-announce mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/soilhack-announce