Are any of you guys familiar with Biochar? Has anyone used it? What kind of results did you get?
Some commercial and homemade varieties of Biochar have been shown to limit nitrogen availability to plants. Other forms of Biochar have been found to be beneficial in certain soils. A 2014 journal issue devoted to this topic can be found here: Journal of Plant Nutrition and Soil Science, Volume 177, Issue 5.
Here’s a recent study on the use of Biochar in a category of tropical soils known as Ferralsols in some quarters and Oxisols elsewhere.
The results are mixed. Note that conclusions based on Ferralsols have little or no application to soils in the majority of the U.S. and Canada but might help some members in tropical regions.
Effect of biochar, lime, and compost application on phosphorus adsorption in a Ferralsol
Richard,
Thanks. I’ve seen a lot of studies and technical data but thanks for the specific links. I was wondering if anyone had any hands-on experience with it on fruit trees.
I believe the issue with N availability is this. One of the benefits is to increase the soils capacity to hold nutrients in the long run. If the biochar is not charged before application that it can actually pull the N and reduce the available N for the first few years. I believe it is usually charge with compost, chicken litter, or urine and absorbs N that would otherwise be volatized.
I’m still trying to understand all the aspect of it.
The long term studies show otherwise - except in specific soil types.
One important aspect is that the source materials and method of burning makes a huge difference.
As a young man I learned that 2-3 years of trial-and-error can save you a 2 hour trip to the library.
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LOL! The most important info I learned when i obtained a BS was that anything i wanted to know was in the library. You don’t need classes or instruction, it’s all there. I always admired Frank Zappa who learned to read and write music in the library. Over 50 orchestras have played his classical works. Like the LSO and Zubin Meta even conducted his works. His works are still played today. He is considered a 20th century classical composer. And he was self taught. Never went to college for more than a year. I was a huge fan, and Zappa historian too. I have a few mentions in books about him. I’m also thanked in the biography of Steve Goodman, the great folk artist from Chicago. His most famous song is City Of New Orleans covered by Arlo Guthrie. Man I miss them both!
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Depends on the courses of study and your level of genius. Since I am lacking the latter I found the instruction very useful.
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I didn’t find instruction useful in most cases, some exceptions, not many. Mostly due to the lack of good instructors, if you could figure out the accent.
I don’t have a soil science background so I was hoping someone on here had some practical experience with applying it to growing fruit trees.
There is no doubt that the underlying soil type comes into play significantly. My soils are Nasons which is a lot of clay. Building OM is a slow process for me. I’m not at all sold that the amount needed for agricultural application would make sense.
I did enough reading on the subject to contemplate the use with container grown trees. Here we are working with soilless medium largely under our control.
If I can’t find anyone who has tried it for this application, I might give it a go. It looks pretty easy to make.
If I thought my soil was low in “carbon”:
- For existing plantings in the ground, I’d utilize a diluted liquid humic acid product as a soil drench in a wide diameter around the plant and not physically disturb plant roots by digging amendments into the ground.
- For new plantings in the ground, I’d mix 1/3 to 1/2 of the native soil with amendments to improve texture and mineral content. This will be very locale dependent. I’d prefer to use thoroughly cured compost instead of Biochar in most situations.
- For new soil mixes for containers, I’d order a batch of soil mix comprised of horticultural sand, humic compost, perlite, and live worm castings as an inoculant. During the previous decade I ordered this in 50 cu.yd. batches. Nowadays I make it with my cement mixer or rototiller.
What is your purpose to use this product? Isn’t biochar=activated charcoal?
My initial purpose is to improve tree growth. I know others who are considering it for agriculture. To the best of my understanding, it is not charcoal. It is created by pyrolysis of biomass like charcoal, but since it is not intended as a fuel like commercial charcoal, it isn’t optimized for energy content. While technically you can make charcoal from biomass (wood) in a kiln, I think most commercial charcoal is made from coal. I think that in general biochar is more porous as well.
That is my understanding from the reading I’ve done anyway.
English please 
I’m slow in my age. Charcoal is made from partially burning wood in a low oxygen enviroment(kiln) I believe. From the paper Richard gave us I was under the impression that biochar was activated charcoal. Sellers on the web also indicate it is the same. I do stand to be corrected, I’m not sure on this. Activated charcoal is used to bind and detoxify different substances in the soil. If you have a heavy clay soil try pelletized gypsum. I work with a heavily weathered soil, mostly orange brown clay, and when preparing to plant trees dig a hole and mix gypsum and chicken manure into the backfill. We let this winter and in the spring redig and plant into a very friable and well drained soil. The calcium in gypsum flocculates the clay sheets causing the soil to have a better tilth. Sort of like putting gravel in between sheets of plywood, allowing root hairs to penetrate the clay better. Am I right, east coast z7? Flocculate is my $10 word.
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Unless you have clays or “stiff soils” that already have medium to high concentrations of Calcium. The latter is true of many soils in the west and southwest U.S.
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I’ve never had a chance to work with soil types in the sw but found soils in the mountain states to respond favorable to gypsum although that very well could of been the sulfate (cat)ion, could never remember the ion/cation thing. The difference I’ve seen here in Ia. is very stark. A soil that at best was difficult to put a shovel in, after a freeze thaw cycle and gypsum is mellow, will drain, and is a good producing soil. Again, this may also be on account of the sulfate. 30yrs ago I treated a 400ft sq patch in my mother’s yard in Ia.,with ammonium thiosulfate and you can still see that square. Too many things at work in soils to fix it here, but forestandfarm is out east and it certainly won’t hurt and it could be a cheap fix for him.
Chikn,
The best I understand it is this: The generalized process of burning biomass in an oxygen deprived environment (pyrolysis) is the same. I believe the differences are in the details. First is the choice of the specific biomass. I think there are other factors as well like temperature and duration. For example where fuel is the objective like charcoal briquettes, coal (biomass of centuries gone by) is used.
It is my understanding that there is a lot of fuzziness in terminology and product in the industry. Product called biochar can vary a lot. It would not surprise me that the term Activated Charcoal is used or that there is overlap between Activate Charcoal and Biochar.
I believe the touted benefits of biochar is to increase the soils ability to hold nutrients. I have read of applications with both heavy clay soils where infiltration is the issue and with sandy soils where nutrition moves through too fast. The intent is not to detoxify.
I’m only passing on what I’ve read, I was hoping to find someone with hands on experience with it. Virginia Tech did some testing a few years back and had promising results from the study.
Its a new one to me. I hope you can get some good results. It never ceases to amaze me that plants can adapt to so many differing climates, soils, and cultural practices.
Keep us informed and updated. I’m very interested. Thanks
and now it’s just a 5 minute search on the internet
forestandfarm,
Biochar is beneficial to our clay soil. If you have ever seen the grass grow where there was a campfire you were looking at the results of biochar. The grass grows in greener and taller. The grey colored ash just washes away but the black colored unburned charcoal that was deprived of oxygen is the biochar. I did experiments with biochar on Nanking cherries and they produced double the fruit and growth for two years and the third year were destroyed by Fireblight. Was the disease a result of the Biochar? I can only say the control shows no sign of Fireblight and still produces it’s meager crop. Biochar is particularly good for vegetables and grains. I’m running trials with cow manure, woodchips, azomite , magnesium, and Biochar on carmine jewel cherries. I think biochar is very beneficial to annual crops but my results on fruit trees so far is not what I expected or hoped to find. There are still many unanswered questions.
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Unless the soil is deficient in the vast range of nutrients in the fire ash or is excessively acidic.
It seem to my “untrained in science” mind that you can’t correctly test the benefits of “biochar” (the name sounds like it came out of a Madison Ave Ad. agency) if you don’t at least have a control with equivalent nutrients of biochar. I do like the idea of sequestering carbon, though.
Maybe the wide range of research results is due to the nature of contrasting soils balance of nutrients to begin with.
I use firewood ashes as my liming agent but sometimes worry I may be OD’ing things with potassium, which it is loaded with, along with almost everything else contained in wood that becomes highly concentrated in ash form.
I’ve read that these ashes used to be a commercial fertilizer in the old days where large parcels of forest were being cleared for farms and other things. It was collected and sold.
Burn piles are terrible places to plant fruit trees, BTW. Too much of a lot of good things, including calcium.
Alan as usual I don’t disagree with what you are saying and appreciate all you’ve added to the topic. As mentioned I originally learned my information about biochar from nature since walking up on an old campfire it struck me how green it was. Since I can remember annual burns are done in Kansas to improve the soil. I was with my parents as a child when they burnt fields. Many old time authors such as Louis Bromfield spoke of the large piles of trees that were burned. Apparently the settlers needed to clear pastures to farm when this country was formed 100’s of years earlier. Louis Bromfield noticed those as circles in fields and that they were more fertile all those years later. The amazon rainforest contains many farms thousands of years old still fertile from biochar. Your correct if the soil is perfect it is but I’ve never seen perfect soil . I personally have tried planting without biochar , with some biochar , and with no biochar as a control. I got more vegetables from the biochar areas. To make my biochar I burned wood chips in a sealed barrel In a fire where I was burning off brush. All the materials are widely available waste products so why not try it and see if it works in a small area? Here is a little info about Louis Bromfield who wrote several books I enjoy a great deal http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Bromfield
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