Amazonian terra preta, super-dirt

[Guest guest]

I know this has come up before on these groups, but it's worth

mentioning again.

Saw this one on a Mesoamerican archaeology e-mail list and thought it

would be of interest to all gardeners and farmers. The article

contains text and a short video on the apparently human-engineered

soil from centuries ago which neutralized the pH of the acidic

Amazonian soil, making lush, fertile growth possible in an area where

normal soils are sterile for growing most things humans like to eat.

It still makes fruit trees and other yummy things grow well today. It

would have made the " lost cities " possible, as a mechanism for growing

the food necessary to feed all the people seems to have been found.

Note: if the URL breaks across more than one line, cut and paste the

whole thing back together in a text editor, removing any extraneous

characters your mail server or mail reader may have tacked onto the

end of one line, like " + "

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081119-lost-cities-amazon.html

Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta