the good
charcoal is very porous and it can afford places for the beneficial stuff to latch on. the little fungi and other microorganisms that help plants get nutrients like to live on porous stuff like zeolite and charcoal. it can also lighten the soil and make it retain water much better.
the bad
charcoal can absorb great amounts of nutrients which your plants might like to use. this is especially true when composting and many believe that charcoal and compost should never be mixed.
the solution
terra preta is portuguese for black earth. some time near the birth of christ the indigenous amazonian people were making a rich black soil. they a have basically been trying to reverse engineer the stuff and now believe that they understand it.
if i read this correctly then all i really need to do is "charge up" my charcoal with something very nutrient rich like urine or chicken manure tea. i am normally kinda scared of chicken manure compost since it easily burns plants. i then can add my "charged up" charcoal to my compost and get all the benefits of the charcoal without the deficits.
further reasons to use charcoal in this way is it sequesters carbon that breaks down fairly slowly. ideally i would create my charcoal in a low temperature situation but my wood stove is a great place to get charcoal since i already waste some when removing my ashes. ok, i realize that the small amount of carbon that i can sequester is infinitesimally small but at least i'm thinking about it..
2 comments:
All political persuasions agree, building soil carbon is GOOD.
To Hard bitten Farmers, wary of carbon regulations that only increase their costs, Building soil carbon is a savory bone, to do well while doing good.
Biochar provides the tool powerful enough to cover Farming's carbon foot print while lowering cost simultaneously.
Another significant aspect of bichar is removal of BC aerosols by low cost ($3) Biomass cook stoves that produce char but no respiratory disease emissions. At Scale, replacing "Three Stone" stoves the health benefits would equal eradication of Malaria.
http://terrapretapot.org/ and village level systems http://biocharfund.org/
The Congo Basin Forest Fund (CBFF).recently funded The Biochar Fund $300K for these systems citing these priorities;
(1) Hunger amongst the world's poorest people, the subsistence farmers of Sub-Saharan Africa,
(2) Deforestation resulting from a reliance on slash-and-burn farming,
(3) Energy poverty and a lack of access to clean, renewable energy, and
(4) Climate change.
The Biochar Fund :
Exceptional results from biochar experiment in Cameroon
http://scitizen.com/screens/blogPage/viewBlog/sw_viewBlog.php?idTheme=14&idContribution=3011
The broad smiles of 1500 subsistence farmers say it all ( that , and the size of the Biochar corn root balls )
http://biocharfund.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=55&Itemid=75
Mark my words; Given the potential for Laurens Rademaker's programs to grow exponentially, only a short time lies between This man's nomination for a Noble Prize.
This authoritative PNAS article should cause the recent Royal Society Report to rethink their criticism of Biochar systems of Soil carbon sequestration;
Reducing abrupt climate change risk using
the Montreal Protocol and other regulatory
actions to complement cuts in CO2 emissions
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/10/09/0902568106.full.pdf+html
There are dozens soil researchers on the subject now at USDA-ARS.
and many studies at The up coming ASA-CSSA-SSSA joint meeting;
http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/2009am/webprogram/Session5675.html
Senator Baucus is co-sponsoring a bill along with Senator Tester (D-MT) called WE CHAR. Water Efficiency via Carbon Harvesting and Restoration Act! show support for WECHAR by signing online at:
http://www.biocharmatters.org/
Congressional Research Service report (by analyst Kelsi Bracmort) is the best short summary I have seen so far - both technical and policy oriented.
http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/R40186_20090203.pdf .
United Nations Environment Programme, Climate Change Science Compendium 2009
http://www.unep.org/compendium2009/
Al Gore got the CO2 absorption thing wrong, ( at NABC Vilsack did same), but his focus on Soil Carbon is right on;
http://www.newsweek.com/id/220552/page/3
Research:
The Ozzie's for 5 years now in field studies
The future of biochar - Project Rainbow Bee Eater
http://www.sciencealert.com.au/features/20090211-20142.html
The Japanese have been at it dacades:
Japan Biochar Association ;
http://www.geocities.jp/yasizato/pioneer.htm
UK Biochar Research Centre
http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/sccs/biochar/
My 09 field trials with the Rodale Institute & JMU ;
Alterna Biocarbon and Cowboy Charcoal Virginia field trials '09 http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/node/1408
My husband and I are such lazy gardeners.
We dump our wood ash right on the garden beds during the winter, usually right on top of the snow, and then it sits there all winter. In the spring, we turn everything over before we plant in the raised beds.
I don't know if we're doing anything right, but it seems to be working okay, and the beds where we dump wood ash from the woodstove do really well.
Anyway, I don't have any scientific data or anything, but anecdotally, it seems to be doing more good than harm ;).
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