Biochar -- anyone using it?

[SoloNoMo]

Just wondering if anyone out there has worked Biochar into their garden. I've just been to a lecture on it by a rep from Bartlett Tree and saw a demo of application to an established tree last summer. I want to give it a try in the vegetable garden and looking for a local source (mid-Atlantic).
In case you haven't heard of it, Biochar is a charcoal produced anaerobically (as I understand, but I'm in no way a chemist!) that stays stable in the soil (hundreds of years) and greatly improves fertility. It also seems to have some ability to reduce pests (fungal and insect). The natives of Amazonia have been using this to greatly improve their soils for centuries -- "terra preta" is the name for these soils.
Oh, and it also does a great job sequestering carbon, too!
Anyone?

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by SoloNoMo

Just wondering if anyone out there has worked Biochar into their garden. I've just been to a lecture on it by a rep from Bartlett Tree and saw a demo of application to an established tree last summer. I want to give it a try in the vegetable garden and looking for a local source (mid-Atlantic).
In case you haven't heard of it, Biochar is a charcoal produced anaerobically (as I understand, but I'm in no way a chemist!) that stays stable in the soil (hundreds of years) and greatly improves fertility. It also seems to have some ability to reduce pests (fungal and insect). The natives of Amazonia have been using this to greatly improve their soils for centuries -- "terra preta" is the name for these soils.
Oh, and it also does a great job sequestering carbon, too!
Anyone?

I never used any product called "biochar". But I have used charcoal. It does do nice things in the garden, from what I can see.

[delltraveller]

"terra preta" is quite a bit more complicated than charcoal mixed into soil; complicated enough that, last I heard, scientists hadn't quite figured out what all was in it, let alone managed to duplicate it.

Burned plant material would return the elements in the plant to the soil in a broken down form and it would create spaces in compacted or clay soils, among other things.

[SoloNoMo]

This is different from grilling charcoal in that it is produced in a pretty much oxygen-free oven. The resulting gases are used rather than allowed to escape and the resulting charred plant waste does not break down in the soil, at least not in anyone's lifetime! Studies done in South America have found that the charcoal found in these ammended plots of land to be centuries old. There is a company in Colorado that is using trees that have been killed by the beetle invasion to create Biochar. Just gotta figure out how to get a few bags here for trial!

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by SoloNoMo

This is different from grilling charcoal in that it is produced in a pretty much oxygen-free oven. The resulting gases are used rather than allowed to escape and the resulting charred plant waste does not break down in the soil, at least not in anyone's lifetime! Studies done in South America have found that the charcoal found in these ammended plots of land to be centuries old. There is a company in Colorado that is using trees that have been killed by the beetle invasion to create Biochar. Just gotta figure out how to get a few bags here for trial!

I hate to burst your bubble, but all charcoal is made in an oxygen-free environment. That's how charcoal is made. Now the shaped brickettes are processed to get them all the same size and shape, but the initial process to turn wood into charcoal is basically the same for any charcoal. Heat cellulose in an anaerobic environment and it becomes charcoal.

It works because it is a quick way to add humus (stable carbon) to soil. If you add typical mulches and manures to soil, it takes several years (usually at least 3-4 minimum) before all the bacteria, protozoa, fungus, insects, worms etc etc recycle it down over and over to stable carbon humus. That's one reason why highly fertile high humus soils are rich and black and have a different structure, even if the subsoil is red clay. Charcoal in the soil reaches that stage very quickly.

PS Just as a bit of history trivia. The reason "organic" is called "organic" is because of the early soil scientists discovering the importance of stable carbon in the soil. Organic chemistry is sub-discipline within chemistry involving the scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of matter in its various forms that contain carbon atoms. This helped differentiate it between conventional chemical fertilizer methods that use primarily salts. Most people confuse "organic" with "traditional" or "natural". It is not true. Organic agriculture always was science based from the very beginning when the term was chosen. The confusion came because the original founders of organic first started by scientifically testing many "old fashioned", "natural" and/or "traditional" methods in comparison plots, and those that worked they adapted to modern agriculture, and those that didn't they discarded as myth.

For example in the 1920's Rudolf Steiner developed Bio-dynamic Agriculture. It had a lot of good ideas in it like the use of manures and mulches and viewing the entire ecosystem of a farm as a whole, similar to permaculture. But it also had a lot of unscientific hocus pocus crap too, like astrology and cosmic forces and energy vortexes, along with really wacky stuff like burying a cows horn filled with crystals in a pseudo religious ceremony.

So what the founders of organic tried to do was develop a modern sustainable science based agriculture that was founded on soil health and the carbon cycle, instead of the other modern science based agriculture that was based on salts and large energy inputs and not sustainable.

Funny to me how Albert Howard, J I Rodale and Lady Eve Balfour etc. were right all along, even back in the 1940's when no one else in science understood the importance of the carbon cycle or even heard the term global warming!

[Tapout]

Originally Posted by Redbaron

I hate to burst your bubble, but all charcoal is made in an oxygen-free environment. That's how charcoal is made. Now the shaped brickettes are processed to get them all the same size and shape, but the initial process to turn wood into charcoal is basically the same for any charcoal. Heat cellulose in an anaerobic environment and it becomes charcoal.

It works because it is a quick way to add humus (stable carbon) to soil. If you add typical mulches and manures to soil, it takes several years (usually at least 3-4 minimum) before all the bacteria, protozoa, fungus, insects, worms etc etc recycle it down over and over to stable carbon humus. That's one reason why highly fertile high humus soils are rich and black and have a different structure, even if the subsoil is red clay. Charcoal in the soil reaches that stage very quickly.

PS Just as a bit of history trivia. The reason "organic" is called "organic" is because of the early soil scientists discovering the importance of stable carbon in the soil. Organic chemistry is sub-discipline within chemistry involving the scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of matter in its various forms that contain carbon atoms. This helped differentiate it between conventional chemical fertilizer methods that use primarily salts. Most people confuse "organic" with "traditional" or "natural". It is not true. Organic agriculture always was science based from the very beginning when the term was chosen. The confusion came because the original founders of organic first started by scientifically testing many "old fashioned", "natural" and/or "traditional" methods in comparison plots, and those that worked they adapted to modern agriculture, and those that didn't they discarded as myth.

For example in the 1920's Rudolf Steiner developed Bio-dynamic Agriculture. It had a lot of good ideas in it like the use of manures and mulches and viewing the entire ecosystem of a farm as a whole, similar to permaculture. But it also had a lot of unscientific hocus pocus crap too, like astrology and cosmic forces and energy vortexes, along with really wacky stuff like burying a cows horn filled with crystals in a pseudo religious ceremony.

So what the founders of organic tried to do was develop a modern sustainable science based agriculture that was founded on soil health and the carbon cycle, instead of the other modern science based agriculture that was based on salts and large energy inputs and not sustainable.

Funny to me how Albert Howard, J I Rodale and Lady Eve Balfour etc. were right all along, even back in the 1940's when no one else in science understood the importance of the carbon cycle or even heard the term global warming!

Red charcoal and biochar are different in many ways. The are both produced from cellulose in a anaerobic environment but that is about all they have in common. The temperature at which charcoal and biochar are made is greatly different. Charcoal is made at a much lower temperature then biochar and has more impurities. At higher temperatures more impurities are removed and the crystalline structure of the carbon fractures more creating more surface area. A peice of biochar the size of a pencil eraser has the surface area of a typical house. A piece of charcoal the same size does not.

So lumping charcoal and biochar into the same category without understanding the differences is kinda half hazzard Also Biochar isn't biochar until the Bio is added to the char.

[John3]

Originally Posted by Tapout

At higher temperatures more impurities are removed and the crystalline structure of the carbon fractures more creating more surface area. A peice of biochar the size of a pencil eraser has the surface area of a typical house. A piece of charcoal the same size does not.

OK
Where do you get this grade of biochar to test.
All I can find is the homemade or hardwood charcoal or horticultural grade charcoal.

[bughunter99]

How were native Amazonians managing to contain the gases to create this product I wonder? How were they burning things anaerobically?
I crush the leftover chunks from the firepit and throw them in the garden. Do the plants like it? No clue. I throw too much other stuff in there to tell.

[HydroExplorer]

Originally Posted by bughunter99

How were native Amazonians managing to contain the gases to create this product I wonder? How were they burning things anaerobically?
I crush the leftover chunks from the firepit and throw them in the garden. Do the plants like it? No clue. I throw too much other stuff in there to tell.

Well, a modern way to make charcoal is to intentionally build a retort and pyrolize wood with it.

The old, low-tech way is to start a fire in a pit and then backfill it to create an oxygen poor environment. Let the fire smolder for a while (overnight, maybe a day or few) and then dig up your charcoal.

I'm planning to build a rocket stove to make my own charcoal. Rocket stoves are purpose-built to burn wood gasses, so it should be relatively easy to modify the design to add a retort and just burn off the excess wood gasses from the wood you're turning into charcoal.

As for charcoal left over from a campfire. You would want to rinse it before using it. The ashes that will probably be present will effect your pH significantly. You would also want to crush it to increase surface area and then innoculate it with fertilizer and beneficial bacteria and fungi.

[beeman]

Originally Posted by HydroExplorer

I'm planning to build a rocket stove to make my own charcoal. Rocket stoves are purpose-built to burn wood gasses, so it should be relatively easy to modify the design to add a retort and just burn off the excess wood gasses from the wood you're turning into charcoal. .

I made up a similar unit, but found the amount of biochar produced was very low for a garden of my size.
The answer, a barrel in a barrel. I took a 55 gallon punched holes around the bottom, placed another with similar holes inside. Filled both barrels with wood offcuts , replaced the inner lid, and lit the outer barrel from the top.
The heat from the outer burned off the gasses from the inner, eventually those caught fire. I allowed the fires to die down and found the inner barrel full of perfect charcoal. The amount of loss is only about 10%, which is far better than a straight fire.
I have used about 15 inner barrels on the garden and it does work, less drought effects and the produce grows much better.

[delltraveller]

I am familiar with terra preta de índio, so I know that those human produced plots aren't simply amended with charcoal, but also with pottery shards, bone, feces, and other kinds of plant material. What you are referring to, soil amended with charcoal, is called terra mulata. It isn't as productive as terra preta, but is more productive than the unamended soils around it. In either case, the charring of the charcoal incorporated has to take place at a low temperature, not a high temperature, or it doesn't retain the characteristics that allow the microbial and fungal colonization that seems to be one of the important factors in improving the soil fertility. Also, the charcoal will deprive the soil of nutrients until the pores in it fill up with nutrients, or unless the pores are "prefilled" with nutrients. And just as the charcoal can absorb and hold nutrients, it can also hold pollutants, like pesticides, herbicides, heavy metals, etc.

They're doing quite a bit of study and experimentation with terra preta in Germany, creating it, measuring how things grow in what they've created, studying and monitoring levels of pollutants in the materials and related to the production of the materials....anyway, it isn't as simple as adding charcoal to your soil. There are more things to consider, particularly if you're looking at incorporating a lot of it.

[beeman]

I have been trying out biochar for the last 4 years. My own impression, stuff grows better overall, drought doesn't seem to be the problem it was in the past. The part of the garden which I used Biochar on is much greener.
I burn off softwood offcuts (normally wasted) in a dual barrel setup, produces about 80% Biochar which i crush into smaller pieces. After a full year those particles are disappearing and the ground looks darker.

[Lidspinner]

so if one was to buy biochar, where and what is the best type of biochar? I have been reading and trying to research the effects and all that jazz and there are so many differing opinions on this stuff.....and I am talking about some highly intelligent people that I consider founding fathers of organic gardening......on the other hand I have read some other highly respected organic professional gardeners say some pretty good stuff about biochar and the wear by it.....

I am of the belief that I need to test everything that is new on a small part of a raised bed that is separate from my main garden....so this summer I am implementing biochar into my raised bed and am going to grow just a little bit of about 10 different veggies and see what happens.....my main issue is from what I have read is that all biochar is not created equal so what I ammend in my garden this summer will not be what I mix next summer unless I buy enough to save till next summer......I would love to hear anyones thoughts on this stuff and see any trial runs.

[John3]

Here's a link to Dr Evelyn Krull research
http://www.csiro.au/resources/Biochar-Factsheet

[John3]

I did a search on Mycorrhizal growing on biochar on google scholar - you can read the abstracts to get the ideal of how research is going
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=...ed=0CCsQgQMwAA