Some of the globe's richest soil -- known as terra preta, or Amazonian dark earths -- can transform poor soil into highly fertile ground. Because terra preta is loaded with so-called bio-char -- ...

Indigenous people of the Amazon produced rich agricultural soil by adding charcoal, manure, and animal bones to the otherwise nutrient-poor dirt of the world’s greatest rainforest. The inputs allowed ...

Terra preta, the ancient charcoal-based soil used by ancient Amazonians to create permanently fertile agricultural lands in the rainforest, is getting serious consideration as a means to fight global ...

With so many nutrients caught up in the life cycles of lush forest plants, most soil in the Amazon Basin is nutrient-poor clay. But throughout the region, pockets of fertile, dark soil (“terra preta” ...

When a rainforest is clearcut for agricultural use, we only see the surface problems: fewer trees, destruction of plant and animal habitats, and countless other negative effects on the environment. A ...

The search for El Dorado in the Amazonian rainforest might not have yielded pots of gold, but it has led to unearthing a different type of gold mine: some of the globe's richest soil that can ...