This web page is an exact copy out of the TerraCottem NV's

Distributors guidebook of 2005.

Background

The Motivation

A line of fire stretches across Africa, moving slowly southward. There are no flames, but erosion, overgrazing, climatic change and environmental stress are burning the land, leaving sterile sands where once was fertile soil. The Sahelian belt is washing steadily southwards across the whole continent at the rate of six to ten kilometers every year, along a rough diagonal from Mauritania on the West coast down to Ethiopia in the east. The widespread ecological, economic and social ruin brought about by this phenomenon have provided the rest of the world with a frightening vision of what can happen when the environment is degraded to such a great extent.

It was these conditions which, in 1983, prompted Prof. Dr. Willem Van Cotthem and a team from the Laboratory of Plant Morphology, Systematics and Ecology at the University of Ghent (Belgium) to begin researching methods which would enable plants to grow along the front lines of this war against desertification, but with a minimal supply of water. Massive damaging projects to collect scarce rainfall and the drilling of thousands of pumped wells had little or no effect in creating a new and complete vegetation cover in the region, as only the reforestation of the sandy and stony soil with indigenous tree species and other savannah plants can restore the natural equilibrium in this dry Sahel region.

Experimenting with the large variety of materials available for such work, the team from Ghent found that by mixing certain hydroabsorbent, nutritive and root growth stimulating components together, that a superior soil conditioning compound was attained which produced dramatic and swift results. The hydroabsorbent components absorbed and released the water that was usually lost to evaporation, run off and leaching, providing the plants with their most basic need: water. The nutrients provided a second element crucial to healthy plant growth: nutrition. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, root growth stimulators provided a catalyst, the “jump-start”, needed by the plant to rapidly establish itself and survive with little or no care in such a poor environment. Not only did this TerraCottem® (TC) mixture
significantly improve the capability of soils to retain and provide water and
nutrients, but it also promoted biomass production and plant growth.

Years of testing in both the laboratory and the field were conclusive: even in
the poorest soil conditions a wide variety of indigenous trees, grasses,
vegetables and herbs flourished, reversing the devastating pattern of desert
encroachment, deforestation and wind erosion. In their search for a way to
halt the continuing cycle of environmental degradation and starvation in
Africa, Dr. Van Cotthem’s team had discovered a tool with universal
applications reaching far beyond anything they had imagined...
Encouraged by the results obtained in Africa, and with assistance from
colleagues and scientists in universities around the world, Dr. Van Cotthem
tested the TerraCottem® mixture in other cultivations, climates and
applications. Utilizing data collected from these and other experiments, the
TerraCottem® mixture was refined and improved, and the foundation laid for
its being utilized on a global scale.

More than simply fulfilling the hopes of Dr. Van Cotthem and the team from
the University of Ghent, what had begun as a research project driven by
pressing ecologic, environmental and social problems in less developed
countries had evolved, after a decade of work, into a viable and readily
available tool to help alleviate many problems faced on a universal level
around the world.

The Research

The principal problem with sandy, poorly structured and degraded soils is that
they are characterized by a deficiency of organic matter and nutrients, both of
which are essential in creating well-structured soils for plant growth.
Furthermore, such soils are prone to drying out due to evaporation and deep
percolation, and are sensitive to damage from wind and water erosion.

For centuries man has been adding things to such poor soils to improve their
ability to support healthy plant growth. Some of these materials, such as
compost, clay and peat, are still used extensively today. The possibility of
using other materials to assume the role of composts and clays in improving
the soil was investigated on a scientific basis earlier in the 20th century, and
the term soil conditioning was coined. The criteria by which such materials
are judged most often remains their cost effectiveness, their ability to
increase soil moisture for longer periods, stimulate microbiological activity,
increase nutrient levels and improve plant survival rates.

The first such synthetic soil conditioners were introduced in the 1950’s, of
which Mondanto’s “Krilium” (hydrolysed polyacrylonitrile) was the best known.
Because of their ability to absorb several hundred times their own weight in
water, polyacrylamides and polymethacrylates (also known as hydroabsorbent
polymers, superabsorbent polymers or hydrogels) were tested in agriculture,
horticulture and landscaping beginning in the 1960’s. Interest disappeared
when experiments proved them to be phytotoxic due to their high acrylamide
monomer residue. Although manufacturing advances later brought the
monomer concentration down below the toxic level, scientific literature shows
few successes in utilizing these polymers for increasing plant quality or
survival.

The appearance of a new generation of potentially effective tools in the early
1980’s, including hydroabsorbent polymers and copolymers from the
propenamide and propenamide-propenoate families, gave the team from
Ghent an interesting new option in their search for a method to grow plants
in the Sahel region of Africa using less water.

Under the direction of Dr. Van Cotthem, the Laboratory of Plant Morphology,
Systematics and Ecology at the University of Ghent developed a screening
method to study the influence of a wide variety of materials (cocoa husks,
compost, hydroabsorbent polymers, peat, vermiculite, zeolite, coir fibre,
inorganic and organic fertilizers, proteins, starches, etc...) on plant growth,
singularly and in combinations.

This bioscreening evaluated each substance by determining its influence on
the following parameters:
• Seed germination: Rate of germination, from date of seeding until no
more new seedlings appear
• Total germination percentage: Final number of seedlings
• Biomass production: Quantity of aerial (above-ground) dry plant
matter. Plant is cut off above the roots, dried in an oven for 24 hours at
105º C and then weighed.
• Water consumption: Total quantity of water consumed from sowing
until harvest of the aerial plant parts.
• Water use efficiency: Ratio of biomass (dry matter) production (in
grams) divided by water consumption (in grams), to show how much
water is consumed per unit of plant material produced.
• Evaporation: Loss of water from the soil. Measured at end of study by
weighing the pots for several weeks without living plants.
• Evapotranspiration: Rate of water loss by evaporation (from the soil)
and by transpiration (through the leaves of the plant). This is calculated
by measuring the amount of water which must be added weekly to bring a
pot’s soil humidity back up to 20%.

In the first research of its kind, Dr. Van Cotthem evaluated each of the
hundreds of potential amendments using this bioscreening method. The
screening, which continues to this day, demonstrated that certain
combinations of hydroabsorbent, nutritive and root growth activating
elements work in synergy, more effectively than any single element, to
significantly benefit plant development, water use efficiency and soil
improvement.

The Conclusions

By evaluating the hundreds of products available to amend growing media,
Prof. Van Cotthem and the scientists from the University of Ghent are able to
conclusively demonstrate that certain materials compliment each other in a
synergetic manner and provide soil conditioning benefits whose collective
effect is better than the effect of their individual parts. At the same time, the
unsuitability of many products for use in such applications is also confirmed.

In particular, many of the soil amendments are derived from waste materials
of questionable efficacy, while many of the hydroabsorbent materials
available have chemical structures and purpose contrary to their use in plant
growth. Manufactured principally for use in baby diapers and other sanitary
wares, most hydroabsorbent polymers are designed to capture and hold
moisture, but not to release it easily to plant roots. Unfortunately, and
despite this fact, a large number of these same products are simply
repackaged and marketed for use in horticulture, in gardening, or as a soil
amendment.

Bioscreening evaluations demonstrate that there exists a very narrow margin
where a combination of water retentive, nutritive and root growth activating
elements worked in a synergetic way – too many nutrients decreased the
water retention capacity of the hydroabsorbents while too few nutrients
provided little or no positive influence on root or plant biomass production.

The research effort led by Dr. Van Cotthem resulted in the TerraCottem® soil
conditioner, a mixture of more than twenty components that work in synergy
to improve growing conditions and plant growth. Ten years of testing, both
in the laboratory and in the field (see References section), were completed
before the product was made available commercially on an international scale
in 1993.

Company Profile

The TerraCottem company manufactures the TerraCottem® soil conditioner
and distributes the product through a network of distributors in Asia, Africa,
Australia, Europe, and North and South America.
To ensure that the product remains at the forefront of the industry, research
and development on improving the TerraCottem® mixture continues, under
the supervision of Dr. Van Cotthem. This research and development is carried
out in conjunction with independent national research facilities in Belgium.
TerraCottem's technical and product staff are always available to advise and
assist clients with their specific questions and project needs, and will ensure
that their needs are met promptly and efficiently.

Click here for the complete Distributor Guidebook 2005 (PDF format, 530 KB)