I agree with you. The rainforest does not have enough nutrients to support more than one seasons worth of growth, if that, once it's been denuded, and then it becomes a barren wasteland. I have an idea that the land is so poor/the rainfall so heavy that it requires simply far more biological material to produce crops than humans can provide.
The trials that they were conducting proved that the clearcut land won't support sustainable agriculture. They said that the first year the slash and burn plot produced a crop, when they showed it was during it's third year and all the plot had to offer was one measly twig that did not have any produce on it. The charcoal and mineral fertilizer bed had plants with nice big heads on them. It isn't logical that adding charcoal would have a positive effect. It doesn't fit into what we know should happen, yet it does work for them and if developing the techniques helps support that area and prevents more rainforest from being destroyed, that's a fantastic benefit for the whole world. I find that fascinating, and intend to try to keep track of research.
Prior to this morning most of the research that I had done on terra preta was on the scientific databases the college I attend subscribes, between doing class research and keeping my kids entertained. Today I started digging into the internet, and wow...now I understand what you're talking about when you mention the hype around it. I'm not buying into that, my interest is more of the science is fun and isn't nature fascinating bent, hence my own little experiment.
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