I was recently watching a nature documentary on PBS, and it was about the amazon, one thing they talked about was a special kind of soil found in the amazon. Black Earth, it was supposedly created by the natives long before the europeans arrived. Its supposed to be better than normal soil and actually people are digging it up, packaging and selling it when it can be found. Its supposed to hold water and minerals very well and have little leaching, also due to its special properties and and the host of microorganisms it is known to actually grow by 1cm a year in thickness in a given area. Does anyone know anything more about this "wonder" soil? and how perhaps to recreate it? And how does this compare to worm castings? and does anyone know anything about worm farming?

Another name is Terra Preta. Take a look at the Wikipedia
article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta

My guess is the ancient people were trying to practice
slash and burn, but it kept raining and putting out the
fire, resulting in lots of charcoal. But then, I have never
been there and I am only guessing.

I did an experiment with increments of activated charcoal
and potting soil. The charcoal was in 1/8 inch lumps or so.
Some mixes had such quick drainage, that the plants died
of drought. Otherwise I did not notice any change in plant
growth due to the carbon.

well this black earth, wasn't all activated charcoal it had alot of different things. still i'd like to know more from people with any first hand experience.

Joe Real posted a lot of information on this subject perhaps a year ago. Use the search function on this forum and you will find a lot of good information. - Millet

thanks millet, i'll have to do that.

millet do you know what terms i should check for his thread? cause all the terms i can think of bring up alot of different stuff and it would take forever to sift through them.

The thread is here link