Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeReal
Biochar incorporated into the soil through time improves nutrient use efficiency of the plants. Nutrients could come from the air, water, animals, other plants, decaying matter, has been transported by wind or water, or from upwelling and other mass transport processes, and the easiest most obvious way is introduced intentionally by man from somewhere else. Whatever nutrients there are, they will not easily leach out from soils that have high biochar content, and the retention of those nutrients would be longer, giving it enough time for absorption by plants.
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Definitely!
Now consider the standard operations research problem in nutrition of fruit crops. From prior research, we know that the primary constraint is to maintain up to 1 lb of available nitrogen per tree per year in soil inputs along with 2/3 lb to 1.5 pounds of available potash per tree per year depending upon the fruit species. Considering the Nitrogen alone:
Suppose the growing media is a nearly ideal, biologically active soil.
The nitrogen that can be obtained from the air is a function of soil surface area per tree to a depth of about 18 inches (in terms of significant input). The density of air in this nearly ideal soil is about 8%, and hence the aerobic nitrogen volume is about 5% of the soil volume. In terms of total nitrogen, you have mils of a pound in any particular soil respiration cycle.
The soil respiration cycle is driven by the watering or rain frequency but limited by the rate of bio-activity to about once per week during the growing season. This by the way is another good reason to water most trees on a weekly cycle.
Integrating the mass of aerobic nitrogen in the soil over respiration cycles leads to about a 1/10 of a pound of available nitrogen per year. In fact, the tree will consume more nitrogen through leaf respiration than in the soil. And hence, in terms of orders of magnitude the grower is still short a pound of nitrogen per year in terms of soil input. The good news is that this nearly ideal soil permits inputs (of suitable materials and frequency) to be completely utilized by the plant.