biochar
 

OK guys been reading again i know dangerous. LOl i was reading in DG about biochar and how it affects soil chemistry. i wont try to explain it I'm sure theirs lots of you all that know allot more then i do .but i was particularly drawn to this topic living in Vegas are soils are vary poor and retain Little if any of the nutrients that we invest are hard earned money to apply to are gardens. after i read that article i was highly motivated to get some charcoal to apply to my garden. i was hoping to help retain some of the trace as well as firt i put on. also in soil analysis we have a lack of bio mass in are soil so all those microbes that i have been applying arnt helping as theirs nothing for them to live on ones they get in to the soil. so again biochar cam to mind. any one know any thing they would like to contribute id gratefuly except your post on this topic. heres a link to the article in DG. all let you all know if it makes any difference this growing season cant hurt right? and i have a sours here locally thats cheep and pure

Biochar: Good for your garden AND your carbon footprint!

thanks
Paul

Re: biochar
 

Paul,

I am a proponent of the use of biochar. The effects are not immediate, so don't put your hopes up on instant rejuvenation of the soil. It takes time, 5 or 10 years. It is exactly the same principle as the Amazonian Dark Soil or Terra Pretta. By plowing biochar, there is a net entrapment of carbon from the atmosphere to be locked into the soil forever. Unlike other organic amendments which easily degrades and turn into carbon dioxide and water, so the carbon is recycled back. Peat moss as an example are mined and are therefore the same net carbon polluter as petroleum. Bark chips from trees are carbon neutral. Biochar is a net carbon entrapment.

But the benefits you will get would take a longer time to realize. I suggest that meanwhile, you mix biochar with compost and coconut dust or husk chips (usually sold as coco brix) and mix them to improve your soil. Coconut material is carbon neutral and renewable resource and lasts longer than peat moss and have aeration as well as wonderful water and fertilizer retention capabilities. You will get immediate results from such a combo if you do this over wider area and not mixing on the planting holes only.

I can give you various articles about biochar. One of my friends developed a gasifier where the wood is fed, and they get fuel from it, and the waste biochar is then used to improve the garden by mixing it with other soil amendments. Through time, the other amendments will disintegrate away and the biochar remains forever, giving you longer lasting beneficial effects just like the Amazonians of 5,000 years ago, whose technology work to this very day!

Regards,

Joe

Re: biochar
 

Jo thanks for that quik answer to my post I'm convinced more then ever that the key to successful gardening in my rocky sandy soil is to amend amend amend but i think i have to get smarter about what I'm doing and the info you gave me was such a big help could i have some of those links to the articles you mentioned in your post? i fully intend to renovate the soil in my garden and if it works well I'm going to pass this info on to others here in Vegas and the south west here after all thees years of gardening i thought i had the low down on soil but i realize that i was working with good soil before i moved here to the Mohave desert back in Missouri the earth was dark black for many many ft down and it drained well you could plant just about any thing in it and it would not only grow but it would thrive i want some of the Amazon soil YE HA! so i can have Amazonian Plants LOL!
i called HD and they don't have the coco chips so all have to get that some where els any suggestions on how I'm going to do all this with so many plants already in the ground 3/4 of my landscaping is 4 or more years mature I'm mainly filling in now so i can add to thous spots could i top dress with any success?

Re: biochar
 

I looked into biochar and like the idea and I have added the remnants of my wood burner to my potting soil. It's my understanding that its not exactly charcoal. You have to burn it with a lack of oxygen and produce a charcoal that has residue with it. Its kinda of gummy. There's stuff in that gummy substance that spose to help. Of course I think that maybe charcoal wouldn't hurt either. You can make it by putting the wood (other cellulose? can be used also) in a pot with a lid and cooking it. It will put off gasses that will flame up. What you have left in the pot is the gummy biochar. The charcoal also will absorb co2 that helps with greenhouse gasses. I found the same as Joe said that it may not give a big effect the first year but subsequent years it just improves the soil and gets better.

Michael

Re: biochar
 

Paul, I hope all the links below still works...

Terra Preta possibly The Next Generation soil amendment material or potting media.

Terra Preta is also known as Amazon Black Soil. These soils are super rich in nutrients, easily stores nutrients but does not leach out easily, and has high organic matter content. These soils are formed during the start of agricultural times when the first Amazonian civilization started agriculture by slashing rainforests and then turning the biomass into charcoal instead of burning them and then incorporating it into the soil. This retains about 50% of the carbon into the soil and the method produces the least amount of nitrous oxides, particulate matter and other green house gas emissions. The carbon incorporated into the soil becomes very stable and helps in building up the fertility of the soil through the years. Thus with the carbon dioxide being trapped by plants and then itself being trapped into the soil through the years, there is a significant net entrapment of carbon compared to burning of forests during forest fires or agroforestry industries.

Scientists of today are able to duplicate production of terra preta and there is a net entrapment of carbon into the soil, thus potentially reducing the carbon dioxide trapped by plants from the atmosphere. So how does this relate to us citrus hobbyists? Perhaps we need to add real charcoal (not the briquittes from the stores!!!), powder them up and add into composting process, or even into CHC's (Coconut Husk Chips). The CHC's, real charcoal, and compost would perhaps make the most ideal potting media yet. But if you are not into potting media, at least incorporating some real charcoal into the soil should help build it up through the years. Charcoal briquittes on the other hand I will consider them as "poisonous" to the soil, simply because of the binding agents used to form them. Fortunately, I can dig up some info on how to make real charcoal from my debris of yard waste. I will then use them to try making potting media or improving my soil. I for one really hate leaching out excessive nutrients from container grown plants. Such leacheates from potted plants are big contributors to stream pollution. Charcoal helps by minimizing the leaching of these excessive fertilizers and thus help the environment and conserve our use of fertilizers. There are very active sites in the charcoal itself that helps bind some nutrients when you apply fertilizer, and then are released back when the roots gets in physical contact or intercept those sites. We need to study this more, simply adding charcoal may not be the direct way to do it, but that would be a start.

To learn more about this ancient technology which could help us a lot today, click on the various links below:

Untitled Document
Reproducing the Amazon’s black soil could bolster fertility and remove carbon from atmosphere
Soil erosion, energy scarcity, excess greenhouse gas all answered through regenerative carbon management
Terra Preta Homepage, Dark earths, Red Indian black earth

Re: biochar
 

Paul, I can't find my contact info on the coco brix supplier! And I know they have cheap price. We had a stockholder's meeting at Las Vegas last weekend, and we met a guy who happen to be there and wanted us to resell his coco-brix. They had a website, but lost his card, so cannot find the info. If by chance other members have the info, I'll post it here. You can order direct from them. Otherwise, if you can't get hold of coco materials, you can use composted redwood bark and regular compost, mix it with biochar. I sometimes hitch a trailer and haul away horse manure from my friend's estate and dump them in my garden, and it is free stuff that you can use together with biochar. First, find friends who have horse ranches, :) You may need to make sure the horse manure have properly composted, do not use fresh manure!

Re: biochar
 

I've read only a tiny bit on this but had to burn some tree tops after having some large trees removed and decided to try it. I'm not sure if I'm going about it the right way. I had a huge stack of p-stems and covered them with the hot coals from my burning. I also covered this with ash and sawdust(wood shavings). The pile has been reduced significantly. I added some of the greener ones to the top for now.

Re: biochar
 

Saw a show the other night talking about the Amazon soils and how they are now excavating and seeing just how much charcoal was added into the soil compared to nearby areas where no charcoal was added. It was amazing!!! Here is another link that gives some good info on Terre Preta that even I could understand... Neat topic!!!

BioEnergy Lists: Terra Preta (Biochar) | Information on the intentional use of Biochar (charcoal) to improve soils.

Re: biochar
 

It's common practise here to make biochar from the chaff of particularly nutrient-hungry crops (like cane) and then plow it back into the fields before the next planting. There are canefields in Ecuador that have been in continuous production for more than a century using this method, and soil tests show that the nutrient balance is still good.

Re: biochar
 

Now it's raining :(
Perhaps the proccess was complete.

Re: biochar
 

Jo I'm not saiyng thers no manuer in Vegas but thers not much most of the ranches here are gone thanks to are LV city counsol

Re: biochar
 

I spent part of my childhood in Colusa Ca. a town surrounded by rice paddies and I remember they used to burn the fields every year. I wonder if that was partly why they did it?

Harvey, I bet you know about that!

Deb

Re: biochar
 

Hi Deb,

The burning of rice fields has/was been done to control a fungus that causes disease in rice. From what I've read in various other groups and sites in the past, I believe the oxygen needs to be cut off from the burning material to form the charcoal and those rice fields are completely open to the air (and much of the carbon goes up into the air, thus the air quality concerns/restrictions).

Joe and I discussed different designs of barrels, etc. to make biochar a couple of years ago and some day I may get around to converting an old 500 gallon fuel tank (completely empty, of course) into a biochar oven. Maybe before i die! LOL

Harvey

Re: biochar
 

Hi Deb,

I used to work with Rice Research and have many research publications in that field. I used to work with International Rice Research Institute and UC Davis Agronomy Department. I developed several phenology models and Expert Systems on rice farming. During my graduate research work, I have always driven to Chico, Colusa, Biggs, Richvale for a few years, almost everyday from Davis.

The efficient method of burning rice straw quickly and cleanly is the most preferred method, leaving very few amount of biochar that can be plowed back into the soil. The main reason why farmers burn the rice straw is to reduce repeat incidence of some fungal and bacterial diseases. If they plow the straw back, then the diseases will come back with a vengeance the next year. So the farmers set fires on the rice straw to burn them efficiently, as in no residues or charcoal left behind, in minimum labor cost. I no longer work with rice research and have been working as programmer for better pay. But during those days, there were laws designed to reduce the amount of annual burning due to "pollution" from rice smoke, accidents due to smoke crossing over busy freeways causing accidents, and so we scrambled to find alternatives. Some of the alternatives to burning is to shred the straw and plow under after letting them stand to feed the overwintering fowls, another is to gather the straws for making ethanol, or paper, or other uses, including feeding to cows. Unfortunately, turning the straw into biochar cannot be easily done in the rice fields, it was not economical for the farmers. I don't know what current alternatives to burning they are using now, and has been away for many years. But burning the rice straw as is, do not produce significant amount of biochar. I hope they'll find better methods to do it, to kill the overstaying diseases by producing biochar and plowing the biochar back, in a most economical way.

Joe

Re: biochar
 

Though not a significant use in quantity, those snake-looking erosion control rolls you see along contruction sites are typically made from rice straw. That's a nice use for something that might otherwise get burned. They do still use it for ethanol production, I believe, and co-generation. We don't see nearly the amount of burning we used to, mostly because of air quality restrictions.

The only time I've burned in my fields was when I burned wheat straw in preparation for laser land-leveling where we needed a free clear of debris. Otherwise, I prefer it to go back into the soil for tilth and nutrition.

A friend who I partner with in some of my farming has a fairly good size project with a state water quality district where he will plant rice shortly on ground owned by the state. Fortunately for him, all of the funds for the project are already paid out by the state to some local district which disburses money to him while this broke state has shut down other contracts. Anyways, I help him on various tasks and will be interested to see with how they handle the straw. Rice has not been farmed right in my vicinity in the past though another farm has grown it for a few years just about 8 miles east of me as part of a wildlife project. There, they just flood the fields and let the waterfowl feed on it, a win-win situation.

Harvey

Re: biochar
 

so Jo how do you feel about humic acid being a good and readily Incorporated sours of carbon? its been recommended to me. and i was told theres no waiting time for the carbon to become mixed in to the bio cycle as the Co is in a state that bactirea can use already

Re: biochar
 

Humic acid has many excellent properties that can improve the soil and improve soil nutrient uptake. The carbon in the humic acid will get immobilized (favorite term used by microbiologists when microorganisms consume nutrients and perhaps incorporated into their cell structures), but then ultimately released back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. So it is carbon neutral.

Re: biochar
 

That's one great use for it Harvey!

Some of those snake-looking or soil erosion nets are made from coconut fibers which lasts longer. Called coconet, it is of the winners of ecological alternative contest sponsored by Cambridge University in the UK

Bunot Co. | Cambridge University Entrepreneurs

Coconet is a soil erosion control net made from waste coconut husks. With the Philippines' rich coconut resources, the company aims to become the world's leading producers of coconet with a highly improved production capacity starting with the growing demand of the Chinese market. This enterprise is environmentally friendly and will benefit the coconut farmers in the poor rural areas of the Philippines by generating revenue in the rural economy and providing new livelihood opportunities.

I often see coconet covering the newly constructed bare ramps of an overpass or other CalTrans work.

Re: biochar
 

Joe, I don't know if you can tell the difference in appearance between coconet and the stuff made from rice. I did not know what the stuff along the freeways was made of but when I went to the big warehouse (I'd guess 100,000SFF) of Sacramento Bag Co. (now located in Woodland) last year, I saw pallets of the coils and saw that it was labeled as made from rice straw. Since it's a local material, I'd hope that CalTrans chose it for their products.

Re: biochar
 

Harvey, in some cases it make sense to use the rice straw ropes, but in other more abusive situations, coconut materials are a lot better, especially for longer term erosion control. I can usually tell the difference by inspecting the bundles carefully. In the nearby construction area, I saw most of them straw bundles but was surprised at one section that is always wet and flooded and suspected it to be from coconut husk fibers. But I know for sure they were not from rice straw because of the finer fibers. There were more straws around the base of elevated construction mounds than do coconuts, but those guide ropes leading into the sewage drain are different than rice straw materials.