Biochar
Return to DiscussionsI've been reading some good things about biochar and decided to experiment this year. I will add it to half of the plants I start inside and then add it to the soil when I transplant them to the greenhouse.
So has anyone here had some with growing with biochar?
Take a look at https://www.thehappyberry.com/BioCharProject.pdf. Walker Miller is a few hours from us and is very interested in Biochar. While we are not currently using biochar on our farm, Dr. Miller has a lot of good information on use (and production) of biochar. You may find his information and references useful. Good luck. Ed
It should not be. Use any search engine for The Happy Berry for their website. Select Farm Management and then Carbon Capture. If that does not work I'll screen shot the pages, scan them, and email them to you (if you send me an email). Let me know if the website approach works for you or I need to send you the information. Ed
I've been experimenting with biochar for 3 years or so, so far it looks like that when used by itself it requires a large amount of charging up to get things to grow on it decent, not really surprising since it's essentially an empty carbon bank waiting to be filled up. My plan now is to start making compost from chopped grass and legumes and add biochar to it, along with extra nitrogen and minerals. For minerals I'm using high calcium lime, soft rock phosphate and AZOMITE. (acronym for A to Z of Minerals and Trace Elements)
The big benefit of biochar is that it will not oxidize in warm soil like compost carbon does. In Wisconsin there's deep black soils full of carbon and they stay that way, but the further south we go the warmer the soil gets in the summer and the faster the compost carbon flies out as CO2. But biochar will stay there and help prevent the other carbon forms from leaving, as well as provide home for the soil microbes that digest minerals and help feed plant roots. Plus good environment for the fungi that does the same job.
Been making my biochar from firewood, has to be dry, split down small and stacked into steel barrels with holes in the bottom, then lit on top so it burns from top down. It pretty much turns the whole barrel of wood into charcoal before starting to make much ash. Then dump it with a hoe and have a hose close by to spray it all down real good. Usually dump it when it's 80-90% finished and the sticks that didn't get finished go in the next batch, so I catch it before hardly any turns to ash. Can drop large pieces on top and run em through 2-3 batches till they get done, done small stumps that way. I find that the easiest method, although I do have to hang around to dump them at the right time, can't just walk off and leave them to finish themselves. it's a good wintertime job. Can work near the barrels without clothes when it's much too cold to work uninsulated otherwise.
I got some biochar and inoculated it with urine, fish emulsion, Azomite and molasses. I planted half of my tomatoes and peppers in potting soil mixed with about 5% of the biochar. I have them growing indoors under lights so hopefully in a few weeks I'll have some pictures of the plants.
Also, I'm seeing that some of the seed companies are running out of stock and delivery times are increasing. If you haven't got this years seeds yet, now is the time!