Making biochar!

[Weaselcracker]

Cool. Thanks for checking that out. Sounds like it's comparable to ashes, but presumably more of a slow release. Around here the nettle patches, which are quite prized for spring eating and aren't all that common, mainly grow in spots in the bush where there were former settlements with fire pits/burn piles. The nettles seem to only grow here where it's highly alkaline. Also sometimes old seashell middens but that's more rare. A lot of those burn piles are more than 100 years old and the nettles are still going strong which makes me think that the biochar/ashes &whatever lasts a long time. Very unscientific- just an observation.

Fwiw, I think that, because the RO water is zero ppm- or should be anyway- the ph is essentially an empty value. I use rainwater, so that's similar. One drop of a ph+ or ph- substance would sway large amounts of it easily- so it's ph shouldn't have any real effect on the test results.

 

[Conradino23]

Guys listen hmm it's not that everybody has to follow the same path far from it but as an organic grower I measured PH once in my life when I had problems with seedlings indoor... water of around 8 was practically melting their bodies. But with biochar even if it's so far up I never had any problems neither in pots nor directly in the ground, and I've been transplanting straight into mix of biochar and soil, no burn just nothing. My guess is that healthy roots with enough bacterial floral and fungal network will adjust to any ph, they'll actually influence it, so that it's perfect for the roots. Actually biochar works like magnet for all of them providing there's enough carbon around for them to multiply and exudates from the roots. Also biochar mixed with soil will up ph but it won't be any close to 9, my guess it's gonna be more like 7 so perfect for calcium and magnesium cations uptake. If you really want to check what it does in practice I'd take the runoff from the pot after the plant was transplanted. That should be closer to working conditions

 

[Weaselcracker]

I should have mentioned that I was just talking really, out of interest, not concerned about a ph rise when it's used normally, or questioning the use of it at all.

 

[Timmo]

Conradino, I appreciate the reassurance that pH isn't a real concern. I don't use my pH meter much anymore--mostly just out of curiosity. This time around, I'm making a really, really big pile of dirt, so taking a few minutes to run some tests to be sure I don't do anything that messes it up seemed worthwhile.