Conradino23
Well-Known Member
Extract from wikipedia:
"Biochar is a name for charcoal when it is used for particular purposes, especially as a soil amendment. Like all charcoal, biochar is created by pyrolysis of biomass. Biochar is under investigation as an approach to carbon sequestration to produce negative carbon dioxide emissions. Biochar thus has the potential to help mitigate climate change, via carbon sequestration. Independently, biochar can increase soil fertility, increase agricultural productivity, and provide protection against some foliar and soil-borne diseases. Furthermore, biochar reduces pressure on forests. Biochar is a stable solid, rich in carbon and can endure in soil for thousands of years."
More to read:
"Biochar is found in soils around the world as a result of vegetation fires and historic soil management practices. Intensive study of biochar-rich dark earths in the Amazon (terra preta), has led to a wider appreciation of biochar's unique properties as a soil enhancer.
Biochar can be an important tool to increase food security and cropland diversity in areas with severely depleted soils, scarce organic resources, and inadequate water and chemical fertilizer supplies.
Biochar also improves water quality and quantity by increasing soil retention of nutrients and agrochemicals for plant and crop utilization. More nutrients stay in the soil instead of leaching into groundwater and causing pollution."
And even more:
"My Land Institute colleague Tim Crews, whose ecology research focuses on soil nutrient cycles, says biochar has two primary agricultural benefits: improving soil "tilth" (its physical condition, which affects plant growth) and increasing the soil's capacity to retain nutrients and make them available to plant roots. "Biochar is not," he stresses, "a significant source of nutrients itself." If nitrogen, or phosphorus, or other essential elements are deficient in a soil, incorporating bichar into the soil won't add enough of those nutrients to make a difference. But for certain types of soils that don't hold onto nutrients or water very well, biochar can help.
Addition of biochar improves soil tilth and nutrient-holding capacity, according to Crews, only when it's in the technique's "original context." The practice was first used millennia ago to improve heavily weathered tropical soils in the Amazon basin. "There," says Crews, "years and years of slash-and-burn cropping cycles, with long periods for regrowth of natural vegetation between episodes of burning and tillage, added charcoal that persisted in the soil for a very long time. Not just any old kind of charcoal-making will result in such durability, so it must have been done with some insight; the burning must have been done with a smoldering fire in an oxygen-deprived situation, which is required to make 'good' biochar." And it was done again and again and again. Over the centuries, that charred plant material was incorporated into the soil and has remained there.
In those very old, weathered, acidic, iron and aluminum-rich soils with often low organic matter–known as Ultisols and Oxisols –the addition of biochar brought significantly better crop growth, because the soils were better able to retain essential nutrients until the crops needed them. Those soil types are found throughout the tropics, but in the United States they are common only in parts of the Southeast. Most soils in temperate latitudes were rejuvenated in relatively recent geological history by glaciers "rototilling" the Earth. These soils retain nutrients very well without any amendments like biochar."
I started mixing it with wood ash, my own compost and loam (which is what I have everywhere here) for this year's outdoor grow. Wonder what the results will be? Has anybody used it indoor or outdoor?
"Biochar is a name for charcoal when it is used for particular purposes, especially as a soil amendment. Like all charcoal, biochar is created by pyrolysis of biomass. Biochar is under investigation as an approach to carbon sequestration to produce negative carbon dioxide emissions. Biochar thus has the potential to help mitigate climate change, via carbon sequestration. Independently, biochar can increase soil fertility, increase agricultural productivity, and provide protection against some foliar and soil-borne diseases. Furthermore, biochar reduces pressure on forests. Biochar is a stable solid, rich in carbon and can endure in soil for thousands of years."
More to read:
"Biochar is found in soils around the world as a result of vegetation fires and historic soil management practices. Intensive study of biochar-rich dark earths in the Amazon (terra preta), has led to a wider appreciation of biochar's unique properties as a soil enhancer.
Biochar can be an important tool to increase food security and cropland diversity in areas with severely depleted soils, scarce organic resources, and inadequate water and chemical fertilizer supplies.
Biochar also improves water quality and quantity by increasing soil retention of nutrients and agrochemicals for plant and crop utilization. More nutrients stay in the soil instead of leaching into groundwater and causing pollution."
And even more:
"My Land Institute colleague Tim Crews, whose ecology research focuses on soil nutrient cycles, says biochar has two primary agricultural benefits: improving soil "tilth" (its physical condition, which affects plant growth) and increasing the soil's capacity to retain nutrients and make them available to plant roots. "Biochar is not," he stresses, "a significant source of nutrients itself." If nitrogen, or phosphorus, or other essential elements are deficient in a soil, incorporating bichar into the soil won't add enough of those nutrients to make a difference. But for certain types of soils that don't hold onto nutrients or water very well, biochar can help.
Addition of biochar improves soil tilth and nutrient-holding capacity, according to Crews, only when it's in the technique's "original context." The practice was first used millennia ago to improve heavily weathered tropical soils in the Amazon basin. "There," says Crews, "years and years of slash-and-burn cropping cycles, with long periods for regrowth of natural vegetation between episodes of burning and tillage, added charcoal that persisted in the soil for a very long time. Not just any old kind of charcoal-making will result in such durability, so it must have been done with some insight; the burning must have been done with a smoldering fire in an oxygen-deprived situation, which is required to make 'good' biochar." And it was done again and again and again. Over the centuries, that charred plant material was incorporated into the soil and has remained there.
In those very old, weathered, acidic, iron and aluminum-rich soils with often low organic matter–known as Ultisols and Oxisols –the addition of biochar brought significantly better crop growth, because the soils were better able to retain essential nutrients until the crops needed them. Those soil types are found throughout the tropics, but in the United States they are common only in parts of the Southeast. Most soils in temperate latitudes were rejuvenated in relatively recent geological history by glaciers "rototilling" the Earth. These soils retain nutrients very well without any amendments like biochar."
I started mixing it with wood ash, my own compost and loam (which is what I have everywhere here) for this year's outdoor grow. Wonder what the results will be? Has anybody used it indoor or outdoor?