It’s been making the rounds here and there, and has finally gotten into Nature. (Note to self: cancel Wired, keep science rags, pick up Nature).

Was changing my clothes after a quick run, and reading 1491 (my new bathroom book: smart people may be able to read it all at one go), when they finally got around to discussing the Amazon as an engineered entity.  Okay as that goes… but just earlier I’d read up on the “Dead Zones” caused by runoff fertilizer. 

If Terra Preta can be applied to a wide variety of soils (and since the main ingredients seem to be charcoal and fish bones, I don’t see why not), then not only do the coal-mine folks stand to pick up an entirely new and highly-profitable new product, but home gardening might start getting a LOT easier.  Back in Hungary, where they have an equally-amazing soil, you can practically stick arrow shafts into the dirt and come up with cedar trees.

And there’s an easy way to find out:  the “Army of Davids” approach with folks testing at home.  All you’ve got to lose is some effort, if you have a firepot out back like I do… and the gains, theoretically up to 800% in growth, might finally square the circle between pissed-off environmental activists and farmers who know how hard it is to actually generate the Green Revolution food supply that all of us 21st-century Americans take for granted.