THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO BIOCHAR: how to make it, how to use it, and why it's important
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 พ.ค. 2024
- Part 1: In this video, restoration ecologist Paul Morris talks about the start to finish of making biochar in the most efficient ways, how to use it in your soil, and why it's important for soil health, plant health, and climate change.
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0:00 Introduction to Biochar
4:13 Making biochar - Contiki and Barrel methods compared
7:15 Analysis of TULD method of making biochar
10:00 Quenching and charging the char with urine
16:00 Crushing the char and charging the biochar
20:00 Superbrew
24:00 Finished biochar
27:00 How to use biochar in the nursery
28:00 No-till garden method using biochar
Part 2: Super Powerful Brew video here: • Super Powerful Brew - ...
Part 3: Microbiome Collection and Use: • Microbiome Collection ...
Quick Guide to Making Biochar:
1. Add brush to oil barrel and light
2. Add layers of brush as lower layers burn down, but before ash forms
3. On last few layers, use smaller brush to ensure an even burn
4. Fill barrel with water to halt the burning process
3. Add urine to charge the char with nitrogen and leave overnight
5. Drain any water that has not been absorbed and spread the char out in an even layer
6. Crush down any larger pieces using a carpet roller or something of the sort
7. Turn in manure, soil and leaf compost (or whatever is available)
8. Pour on diluted Super Brew mixture (Super Powerful Brew video)
9. Cover with a tarp and let sit for 3 months to break down and infuse into biochar.
10. Bag up and use!
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What is a Kon Tiki? - wiki.opensourceecology.org/wi...
BIOCHAR GUIDELINES
FOR AGRICULTURE APPLICATIONS-
Practical insights for applying biochar to annual and perennial crops biochar-us.org/media/download...
Summary of studies showing the benefits of biochar. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...
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12:07 "What's the Best Nation? Urination" Beavis & Butthead 😉
Great video, Alot of work. Can i use this to spread over my pasture for cattle grazing? What about ph and other tests ?
Also what about putting it through a leaf/branch grinder ! Just wondering how to efficiently spending over pasture ? Thanks .
Have you compared your original soil and you bio char mix re plant and grass growth ?
@@roarkbjorn2389 pH is lower with the biochar depending the efficiency of your burn and how little ash you get. Spread on pasture works well, in our area they use a manure spreader or you can mix the biochar into the manure before spreading. Carbon (without the additives) in the feed also lowers methane production from cows. Carbon in the bedding reduces smells and the cows mix it in for you!
So its charcoal which is charged with goodness
@@saddammall3337 Charcoal made in high temperature burn. Most charcoal is made with a low temperature burn and is not as good.
I’ve been a professional gardener for over thirty years. This year I’m setting up a poly tunnel with “no dig” raised beds in my own garden (as part of my life long experiment and learning about growing). I now feel inspired to and knowledgable enough to create my own biochar and inoculate all the growing beds. Best authoritative lesson I’ve had on the subject and how to use it. Thanks for your time. Will definitely be listening to what else you have to say 👍
I would be happy to help virtually or in-person if that is reasonable. I'm in Ontario, Canada right now.
Thanks. That would be fantastic but I’m in the UK 🇬🇧. If you ever get to visit for any reason though, I’d be honoured to meet you.
@@PlanetHealers I'm I northeastern California, would love your help, I have 40 acres that I want to regenerate the soil on. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
@@richardbellsr2345 Planethealer1@yahoo.ca to contact me directly. I'd need to know what you are planning to do, goals and objectives, soil test, googlemap location to "see" the property...
please share your results.... you sound like a good person to make solid observations.
I dug a concave hole about 30" deep at center and 4' wide at top and filled with very dry small branches up to 1.5" with several up to 2" on top. It burned very hot and fast with some wind blowing and as I saw hot coals at bottom I started adding dirt around the edges to slowly smoother the deeper part fire. I kept filling in around the edges until only a few larger pieces were burning on top. When they were well charred I sprayed water to put it out. I had almost no ash and a full pile of char.
Can you make a video abt it :)
appreciate your comment I dont want to buy the big system he showed yet! Ideally in the future tho lol - the dumping feature seems great
Thank you for this excellent and informative video!
OUTSTANDING presentation. Thank You
Excellent Content! I love how detailed, hands on and thorough this is! Subscribed!
Thank you!
Wow! I need to persuade my husband to make it for me!! Ty I’m sharing this video.
Great video and super informative. Will be using some of these ideas in the future. Thanks for all your time and effort!
You welcome Sean!
Fantastic video - thank you for your important work!
My pleasure!
Thank you for putting your steps into layman's terms. Very informative. Much appreciated.
Very welcome
Thank you for the step by step and easy to understand walkthrough of how to create and use biochar! Looking forward to starting this up and getting this going to use in our raised beds.
You're welcome Phillip!
Excellent Paul! Really useful, thank you!!
So cool. This is gonna be my winter project.
Most practical video on making biochar I have seen. Good job.
Your welcome Brandon. Our goal is to get this out there so that it will be made with simple materials and used. We had little resources in the jungle so we created this simple system that anyone can do with little $
What a great explanation Paul. Very garateful for your effort in uploading this great knowledge. Just the thing I was looking for. Looking forward to your super brew video. And another subject that you touched about mycorrhizae solution. Please do a video on that as well if possible. Much love from Pakistan. Thanks again!
Thank you both for taking the time to make this informative video. I am definitely going to do this for my garden.
Cheryl / Hawaii
Your Welcome Cheryl!
I love this! So easy to follow, simple step by step.
I'm new to gardening and this has helped immensely since I'm doing organic planting.
Cheers!
You don't need any special equipment. I simply build a teepee shaped burn pile, taller than wide, it burns fast and clean that way with flames shooting up the middle. (also takes much less space in the yard than a random pile) In about 90 minutes my 8 ft diameter by 10 or 12 ft tall, dense pile is ready to be mostly quenched with just small pile of big chunks raked aside for continued burning. Quench with garden hose as soon as there is near zero woody material left. I get a couple big wheelbarrows of char each time twice per yr from my tree trimmings.
My yields may not be optimal but time invested is minimal and no barrel required, minimal handling. Note of caution: check on char a few times for couple hrs and soak it completely or you might come back next day to a pile of white ash as the char can easily relight and consume itself.
I love what you are doing! I was kind of doing some of these practices but was really looking for some educational instruction... And it's super fun
Cheers!
I plan on instituting this in my garden and flower beds.
Thanks again. I've watched this video many times. Great information!
Awesome, thank you!
@@PlanetHealers in your opinion, is there ever any negative from using char?
@@SARJENT. I suppose if it is made with more ash in the mix it would be more basic and could imbalance the soil pH. You can test this and balance the mix you add to charge the char. In the Yucatan, the soil was already more basic with limestone so we collected orange peels to make our compost more acid before adding it to the char. Using wood with toxic substances in it could be transferred to the soil. The carbon part of the char is inert so if made well it should cause no problems. Always be aware of what you're putting in to burn and the amendments that you are adding to charge the carbon.
The Ultimate Guide to Biochar. Indeed it is! Thank you for making this video.
Your welcome!
I've spent half of this very cold day in GA watching biochar videos. Yours has been greatly educational. I can't wait to get started. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
Glad it was helpful!
You have explained very clearly, understandably and to my knowledge perfectly how terra preta is done. I greet you from Slovenia (EU)
Wonderful!
Excellent Thank You Brother!
The best and complete video about biochar, ever!
Thank you Enrique!
thankyou from Australia, I learnt a lot from you
thanks Paul, stay safe
You are very welcome
Greetings from Maldives, I'm using it for my banana farm it's effective and tree's are healthy and happy , thank you for your knowledge. I'm using exactly your method. Again thanks.
Excellent! I’m amazed at how far and wide people have embraced this useful technique!
Hello thanks for your reply to this video. How are you adding it to your trees? Just before planting I know but do you yearly add it around the base of trees also? Ty for your response here
I'm amazed at your great work! Thank you!
Your welcome Zoran!
Thank you for sharing!! I’ll be starting this as soon as it warms up!!
Cheers
This is very important and interesting, I now understand how to prepare biocher and it application.
Thanks God bless you
Glad it was helpful!
Easiest way I've seen to make the biochar. You a good practical way to gain the most benefit by mixing it with composting materials and bacteria. It makes sense that this material would create a great home for fungi to proliferate which is paramount to our soils.
I'm inspired all over again to follow what really drives me.
Thank you for creating this, oh and you seem like a gentleman which is refreshing.
Your welcome John!
I love how you explained the process of making biochar, clear and timely. I watched your video til lthe end.THANKS.
You are welcome 😊
Excellent video. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Your welcome Slim!
We are so grateful for what you have made available for us to get started! I prayed and asked HolySpirit for what to do with HIS back to Eden garden Hallelujah Hallelujah Praise Him forevermore
Glad to be of service Allen
Thank you Paul from NZ.
Over the years walking about the hill country in my West Coast area I've often seen black burnt soils and old embers on our ancient Maori Pa.
Believing it was there because of the way our early European forefathers burnt the land for farming.
Since watching programs such as yours I now believe our Maori of old known about the secrets you are trying to re teach us on here.
Once again thank you and I look forward to watching more of your programs.
I always thought I was a pretty good gardener using tricks my mother taught me 50 years ago and nothing like what you have shown me.
+1 - current society demonizes stuff like burning wood but in reality the only problem earth faces is over population of humans. These techniques of creating biochar, liquid fertilizers, etc. are all natural processes that overpopulation & things like concrete have disrupted. In isolated environments these things re-create the natural biome of our planet it seems.
One of the best videos on biochar I have seen. Your single barrel method explanation has made it clear to me why I will adopt this method. You have made a comprehensive video covering even the charging process. Thank you for sharing. If I may say that the wind ‘blowing’ on the mic is understandable when filming outside.
Thanks, some days you just have to work with the weather!
Very interesting, I built my own Hugo culture, now I want to make my own biochar, and I have good size of composting worms farm . I'm just excited about nature and how it works. I'm in Texas and my property is nothing but sand and moles. So I have to grow above the ground. I'm growing all kinds of goodies that Texas environment that will let me I've also Incorporated permaculture to get what I want. Thank you for the video.
Excellent biochar will certainly help for growing in Texas soils. Worm casting are a great addition to the biochar mix with all its microbes!
Good day, I live on a Caribbean island where the weather is good for growing all year round. I am moving to a new place with a large yard. I love gardening and I've had fair success in the past growing tomatoes, sweet peppers, corn etc. I am very interested in studying soil health and getting the best soil possible for my plants. I am keen on using your methods to do this, especially the activated biochar. I am basically starting my garden from scratch and plan to grow in raised beds. I would really appreciate any advice you can give me about getting started and some key things to get right from the start.
I like the no-till method we showed in the video. That was setting up a garden from scratch. Using no-till minimizes the disturbance to the soil microbiology and it is the soil ecosystem that we are focusing on building to then help us grow good food.
best biochar video yet! thank you
Your welcome!
Super video thanks, best Ive seen on making bio char.
Your welcome Simon!
Best comprehensive video about Biochar. Thank You.
You are welcome!
Great video, very thorough!
Does the barrel have any holes in the bottom, also do you keep the drain open in the bottom of the Kon-Tiki during the burn?
I like the simplicity of a single container and not needing to fill a retort and add it to a burn barrel and use wood only to heat other wood (even though it might have advantages in other reagrds).
Thanks Brendan! No holes in the barrel and drain closed in the Kon-Tiki. We don’t want air to oxidize the charcoal to ash. Yes we get a lot more charcoal. The disadvantage is the ash formation on top but if managed well it produces little ash. Cheers Paul
Simple is better easier faster and cleaner. Good job at teaching more than the obvious.
Thanks for your professional and informative channel , its late at night in a wintery U.K. but your video
has kept me really involved as I will be using biochar for the first time this year . I will be using some of
your methods Thanks, and good luck fo the coming year.
Your welcome Graham!
I will share that on facebook. Greetings from Cancún.
wood vinegar , another by-product of biochar has a lot of beneficial use for the garden too.
Fascinating. Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it
What a great video and vibe
Good luck with all you are doing fixing ,our mistakes
Thanks for the video. I’m very interested in this practice and will be trying my hand at making bio char this spring. From Northern Michigan. Where are you located in Ontario?
We are near to London
Super erklärt werde es auf diese Art mal probieren danke
Perfectly put my friend,
I'll tell every one 👍🌴👍
I can't believe you don't have
five million views already ! 🌴
Great video thanks Paul, I wish you could show the results once you have them
Will do
Thanks for this great video! How about suffocating the fire and letting it cool, so that the carbon pieces stay dry and could intake even more nutrients? To frame my question, I was thinking of an application to reduce sewerage nutrient leach to natural waterways by adding baskets of biochar into the last septic tank.
The char is hydrophobic when fully dry and is more difficult to wet. Then the nutrient will go in better. Most charcoal is made with the suffocation method but if any air gets in the whole lot turns to ash. The char is great for absorbing nutrients and toxic chemicals but in a septic system it would need to be renewed regularly as it gets fully charged or it would stop absorbing. Not sure how it would work as a bioreactor, just being a big surface for microbial action.
@@PlanetHealers Thanks for answering! I’ve heard they use biochar as a floating tap/coat on the open liquid manure silos to minimize ammonia loss and mitigate smell. That’s why this just came to my mind, since I’ve 2 septic tanks and I’m interested to reduce my family nutrient impact to local waters..
@@jannealasaarela233 We use our biochar in the dry toilet here to keep down smell as well. Add a scoop...! Yes the biochar will float as it is lighter than water. As for capping the smell, it would probably work
@@PlanetHealers you can make charcoal hydrophilic by treating it with a mild acid. Look up "activating charcoal with acid". The choice of acid is obviously important :-) Also, putting your mix into an anaerobic environment with excess water will produce lacto bacilli, which will produce lactic acid. Etc.
Addendum: found out that citric acid has been used to activate charcoal DIY. it has less capability than commercial activated carbon, but still worked to adsorb. They were unhappy with their results, but as an agricultural amendment, this could speed up your process. "Using Citric Acid to Activate Charcoal Obtained From Agricultural Wastes"
Thank you Paul, it's a great video. Will surely practise it.
Excellent Thank you RAOT
Thank you for sharing . Great stuff !!
Your welcome Jerry
Great, informative video, and nicely presented. Thank you!
I'm starting a garden this year, on a place that is a grassfield now. The plan is to plow it just this year, so it instantly looses up the soil and destroys some vigor from grass. But next years I plan on doing no till, just adding compost once a year. Also I don't have enough cardboard to put as a bottom layer everywhere.
I would ask, what do you think would be the best method of incorporating biochar? Before I only wanted to fertilize the garden this year with spreading older manure, which would get plowed under, and that will happen in a next month or so. But now I'm thinking to add some biochar, too. Could I just soak the biochar now in urine, add it to the old manure, and plow both under? (the question is mostly focused on adding the biochar deeper underground, since next years I'll only be adding it on the top).
And another thing. I make my compost just by piling up manure and some leaves, leaving it for a year, turning it once or twice in the process. Is it okay if I just add the urine charged biochar to the pile now, leave it for a year, and then use that entire mix, which will be a compost by then, for spreading over the beds (market gardeners style)? Will it be good as the main medium, for direct seeding into etc.?
And yet another thing, is it okay to just add unactivated charcoal into the manure pile, leave it and not use it for a year or so? Will it get charged adequately that way too?
In the Yucatan, we dug the biochar into the soil to mix it with the native soil and in Canada we just added it to the top as a no-till system after solarizing the beds for a year. Both worked but I prefer not disturbing the soil and leaving the soil structure intact and letting the soil organisms and frost heave take the biochar into the soil.
Adding to the top compost or a mix with biochar is best and not digging or stepping on the beds again after they are established.
Both adding raw char to compost or to raw manure also works to charge the char during the composting process. We have added it to human manure also in our compost toilet. It helps with keeping the smell down and when finished can be used.
Some people have added the activated carbon to animal feed to help detox and have less smell. I wouldn't do it too much as the activated carbon absorbs the nutrients from the animal as well.
12:30 - I guess that a barrel could be safer, because it's possible to close the barrel and block air access so that the charcoal inside cools down. I don't really know if it'll work but I'd try rolling it back and forth, to crush the charcoal. (After that, the barrel could go to an outhouse for "charging" :D )
Fascinating and authorative piece on creating and using biochar. I to will be incorporating into my no dig gardening project in uk.
Many thanks
Regards
Your welcome David!
Very well explained. Ty I feel better can manage making it now.
Your welcome Janice!
Excellent vid and info but in filling those bottles with urine, I must congratulate your marksmanship also.
Sorry I don’t share that technique ;)
you need to drink more water bud. that pee is really yellow
A lot better than Dr. Rick Marshall.🦖
@@wilheln it always looks a lot more yellow when it's in a container. I was surprised the first time I did it just how yellow it actually is when it's not diluted in a toilet bowl full of water.
Hi. I enjoyed your video and the way you described the different processes with minimal use of technical terms.
One term you used was “inert”, to describe the carbon after being changed by the pyrolysis process. You were fully correct of course, but perhaps there are some in your audience who only partially understand the term in the context you are using it and why organic matter becomes inert after the charring process.
A way of looking at this that I’ve found helpful is to go one step further to point out what being “inert” means in the context of this subject. Photosynthesis builds more complex molecules by converting radiant energy into chemical energy in the form of organic molecules, and it is this stored chemical energy that other life forms, ourselves included, break down to extract the chemical energy in it to fuel our metabolisms.
But in straight charcoal,, there is nothing that can provide metabolic energy to any form of life.
To put it simply, the reason charcoal can remain in the soil for thousands of years is that nothing can consume it as food.
.
Unless the particle size is small. Then it will degrade and be taken up by the natural composting process.
Thanks for teaching us how to make bio-char. It is a process I need to understand. I was taking your Eco Restoration class but had to stop studying when life took an unexpected turn. I am still interested in learning what you have to teach. I appreciate what you are doing for the planet.
Your welcome Barbara!
Thank you so much for the nice and very knowledgeable presentation. It is full of amazing new innovative technology to restoration of our Mother Nature.
Your welcome Sujit
Congratulations! Your video is very clearly and helped me a lot!
I have a question: in the system that uses two barrels, how long does the material become biochar? Can I use sugarcane bagasse in this system as biomass for biochar?
A hug from Brazil!
Hi Bruna, Any high carbon material can be used to make biochar. I would tend to make compost with quicker degrading material and biochar with the slow degrading material as with the burn it loses the nutrients and leaves only the carbon. For something with a high water content like sugarcane, it would need to be dried first or you would waste a lot of energy burning off the water first (white smoke). The sugar cane is more fibrous so the barrel in a barrel might be better as it would probably burn to ash too fast in the other methods. As stated in the video though the barrel on barrel method wastes all the outer barrel material that could be turned to biochar in the other methods.
@@PlanetHealers thanks ❤
sugar cane , before you extract
the sugar out,.
i wish i can come and live alongside you. amazing channel. and hardwork. and such beauty arround you. Nice to see this. Please grow this channel and maybe just add how you growing certain vegetables and adding animals into farming. Very beautiful.
Thank you Adnan. We will be adding many videos over the next while with a variety of topics!
Very informative video. Thank you.
Your welcome Douglas!
Excellent video, very helpful for Garden lovers
Thank You
Thank you for mentioning that it takes 3 months to properly brew! I see so many people wanting to rush through to the end result, and it always worries me that the premature biochar may actually rob their gardens of nutrients, instead of adding to the fertility. Carbon is a powerful sponge.. patience pays off!
We did experiments trying to cut the time until used. At one month you could use it with legumes because they fix their own nitrogen. Less time and the beans were stunted and had yellowing (nitrogen deficiency). So at one month we were able to get a bean crop off. Other non nitrogen fixing crops would need the full three months.
Did this time depend of how close we are from the equateur ? I am working in the Amazon in chaikuni institute at 3°south from the equateur, do you think we as well need to wait 3months or as with the high temperature and humidity in our region the process maybe quicker ?
And by the way thanks you so much for sharing your experience and knowledge, it is deeply appreciated !
Idk. I think if you add biochar and then a large amount of old chicken manure or something with nitrates you're probably okay since you're adding a lot of nutrients. I added biochar to my garden and did like 3 parts charcoal and 1 part chicken manure. I soaked it for three days in water and then added it. If charcoal does soak up loads of nutrients maybe people can just add more to the garden if they don't have time to wait like if it's planting season.
Hi Paul, thanks! I attended a biochar presentation in VT several years ago with a visiting German scholar. One thing I recall is that you should be able to crush it in your hands and then just rinse them off to totally clean. If any tars remain on your skin it was not done correctly. A few recent videos talk about having buckets at the ready when time to quench it arrives. Do you do this as well, and is a helper important, or can one person pour it fast enough? Also, I wonder if anyone is connecting with Dr. Elaine Ingham to have her or someone trained by her check for "micro beasties" and all she knows about healthy soil to close the loop as it were in terms of which pre-charging strategies are most effective. Couple this topic with what they are doing in the Green Gold documentary and we have ourselves a garden of Eden once more! Assuming the looming space weather cycles don't set us too far back...
Hi Jesse, usually we quench having 6 buckets of water ready. One person does it careful not to get burned by the steam. Then fill the rest with a hose. Haven’t connected with Dr.Elaine but a good idea
ya it's hilarious everyone says oh carbon is the sole reason for global warming. No one cares about the grand solar minimum and the sun. Only a few people ever mention it was the sun that caused the mini ice age that forced the vikings out of iceland for instance. If sun cycles do matter you'd think people would talk about it and historically it seems like it does matter.
Wow amazing video, super informative!
Your Welcome Dwight!
You’ve done your homework. Great tutorial sir.
Thank you Arjuna
Wonderful video, thank you. Do you see any possibilities for using biochar on a large scale, specifically in urban green waste recycling?
For urban applications, I would compost and keep the nutrients. Biochar is like a sponge and holds water and nutrients in the soil and slowly releases them. Biochar is for high carbon materials like wood, corn stalks...
@@PlanetHealers Good point. It would be interesting if a community that had large amounts of wood available made biochar, and then gave it to people (or sold it inexpensively) to use in their yards. It would help with water retention, and soil fertility. Hmm, I may have a small community project on my hands. I am moving to an area that has these exact properties. Your video has been extremely helpful!
@@thisorthat7626 It is a fair bit of work to do this (the results are great) so if I was offering to others I would sell it to compensate for your time and materials.
@@PlanetHealers Of course. :). I was actually thinking out loud about starting such a program in the area I am moving to. All the requirements are there. It's a question of whether I want to put in the work for free, or for a small compensation. Your video was extremely helpful!!
Do you sell your activated carbon/biochar in the U.S. ?
With the soil in the mix, it would be hard to get past the border and I would be concerned about moving microbes from one area to another for disease reasons. Better to make your own and use local materials.
Excellent instruction!
Your welcome!
Thank you for the teaching.
You're welcome Eddy!
So once you add the bio char, do you need to keep adding it? Or just add the bio to replenish the microbes in the char that is in the soil?
You could keep adding it to the soil until the cabon component is 25-30% but usually 10% is enough for most soils. Our plots in the Yucatan had higher % because we wanted to hold more moisture in that fast draining soil. Yes you can just add more organic matter or compost to keep the nutrients up. we use our super brew.
I love the vid. Looks like you need a better air pump/stone eh.
Maybe if we all chip in a buck ($) on his patreon page he might be able to afford one. I'll start off with my donation right now! (just to make it easier for you to do likewise, go to Patreon page and find the 'Custom Pledge' button ... 100,000 (and who knows, in years to come maybe even 1 million!) small pledges of @$1 each is probs better than a handful of higher level pledges. Let's support those who support us to support the world!!!
Thank You Irene for supporting our work and encouraging us to share our work!
Great info! Thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
Terrific. We are surrounded by virgin bush. There is a huge hazard reduction over 323 hectares surrounding our entire property planned by our fire services. So I had been searching for a way to reduce on ground fuel to reduce the risk and the environmental impact. We have done two loads of biochar so far. We are so impressed how little smoke we have created and looking forward to using this resource. Thankyou for this video. I now need to work out how to knock off our horses urine to innoculate our biochar.:)
Yes, I understand it is a challenge to create a burn barrier while not "cleaning" too much so that you remove all biomass/nutrients needed by the forest and habitat for wildlife. I'm glad that the biochar process is helping you with that!
Spring is coming! Subscribe to our channel to be alerted when we make our Super Brew fertilizer video!
Hello!! Did you already broadcast the super brew fertilizer video???
Wonderful video. Thank you for sharing this sacred knowledge!
Your welcome!
Gracias, por compartir su sabiduría, I'm from Chile, I Want to learnt more , my english is so bad, but gratefull for you videos and experiencie!!!
De nada Maria. Es un placer
@@PlanetHealers Gracias a ustedes!!!
Thank you very much! This is great.
Your Welcome!
I would have caught the water to put into the compost tea.. Waste not Want not.
In the Yucatan, we reuse the water again in the next burn especially because we do our burns in the dry season there and water is limited. To add it to a compost tea I would check the pH as it does produce some ash and that will make the water more basic.
I have been saving all my hardwood from my fireplace and I have been adding it for years now. Great video thanks for sharing with us
Excellent thank you Coastal Redwoods!
Lots of education, Thanks you .
You're welcome!
Great video. Thanks a lot!
Your welcome !
Great video thank you!
Your welcome Kyle!
Hi Paul! This is Michel from ERC, Community Desperto, Brazil. Amazing video, i just recall to saw it to learn the process and begin doing here! Thank you! Best regards!
Glad you enjoyed it! It is very useful in tropical soils!
Fantastic video, and I'm glad I came across this before I went for the barrel-in-a-barrel method and ended up wasting a bunch of wood! I do have a few questions though:
Firstly, I'm wondering about using the charcoal in place of wood chip for a hot composter - the way I understand it, the primary purpose of the wood chip or other bulking material in a hot composter is to provide spaces for airflow and stopping the whole thing going anaerobic, and those chunks of charcoal look about the same size as the wood chip I use. It would pre-charge the charcoal too, and a thin layer of charcoal on top might help with odours - in a small garden in an english suburb, the smell out of the top of my hot composter isn't ideal.
Second, how small a barrel would this work with? Like I say, I've got a very small garden and neighbors very nearby, so a full-size oil drum would be impractical even if I was generating enough waste wood to fill it. I also wouldn't need vast amounts of charcoal given the scale I'm working at, so a bucket would probably be plenty of volume, and it's not like I can't have a few friends over and break out the camping chairs while I do a burn - not exactly a chore at that point if I have to do burns more frequently! Does it scale down that far?
Lastly, most folks seem to suggest using hardwood for biochar, but is softwood or other plant material usable as well? Folks around my neighborhood are forever churning out conifer trimmings from hedges, which I'm wondering about using if the actual structure of softwood gives good results. I'm also wondering about whether the burn is controllable enough, after thinking back to the incident in my teens in which I tried to burn a big pile of conifer branches and ended up with a fairly lacklustre bonfire, right up until the whole thing got hot enough to boil off the resin and went up so rapidly it singed my hair! I also have a persistent problem with Montbretia in my garden, which is highly invasive in britain and which I don't trust my hot composter to break down entirely. After a few hours of digging the root corms out of heavy clay soil, being able to turn them into charcoal appeals to my vengeful side!
Cheers!
R
Hi R
We have done quick demos with a metal bucket and it worked well. For the hot compost the charged biochar would be great to start the process adding all the microbiome fast. I could not replace the wood chips though as the char is inert and the chips are organic matter that will degrade and make the heat. On top uncharged char would help with the smell.
Any woody material can be used to make the char even corn cobs but you will get less char out as it is less dense. Burning faster you need to be mindful of making too much ash. A good way to deal with invasive species! Try to make sure the material is fairly dry when burning to minimize the white smoke and get a clean burn.
Cheers
Thank You for the great video w' the introduction to the use of biochar & for sharing your expertise & extensive knowledge w' others..it is highly appreciated⁉️😊
Stephen RAD frm Cape Town,South Africa
Your welcome Steven!
Very nice video I enjoyed it very much
Cheers!
exellent THANKS!
hi,very interresting video !!! thanks for sharing all those great informations. greetings from the azores !
Your Welcome!
awesome video, thanks!
Your Welcome!
It was a great learning and eye opener for me today. Thanks for such a valuable knowledge sharing and methods of using biochar. I am from India. I wish to use biochar in my Agricultural land and grow much healthier and nutritious food.
Welcome to the new frontier of regenerative agriculture!
Sir,
Mr.Ramachandra,
I am kannan from karaikudi, Tamil Nadu, new to agriculture purchased an agricultural land. I am interested in ORGANIC FARMING. Just now I went through this Carbon farming and Bio char. Amazing. I am interested to have contact with you.
Hai sir
@@kannankuppan298 you have contact here or more on our project on our website Earthconnection.center
Thank you so much.
Your welcome D Essence
Thank you for the this good video! i've learned a lot! I'm wondering if i can skip the super brew part and still be beneficial for my garden?
Just mixing in your compost or a manure pile will work also. The super brew helps charge it with all micronutrients and microbes
@@PlanetHealers thank you! I will get started as soon as snow melts
Very good video. Thank you so much. I have a few questions. 1. I was very glad to hear it's contributing in some small way to the environment. However, I wonder if we are releasing Carbon into the atmosphere by burning the wood? Or causing other pollution in the burn. Wanting to make sure the good outweighs the bad. 2. I'm planting my garden now and I'm wondering if I can inoculate the charred wood I have and use it sooner than 3 months? I may not do quite such a complex job of inoculating, but want to make sure it is of use to the plants sooner. Will it keep improving if it's in the soil under a plant, therefore continuing to benefit the plant in the next few months & beyond? Thank you for your time and your generosity in sharing your knowledge.
1. always know that you are using natural wood in the burn no treated wood. In nature, all the carbon would be released back to the environment and here we keep 50% for long-term soil amendment. 2. we have done a shorter charge and planted nitrogen fixers (beans) and used the super brew regularly and had 50% success 1st trial was good, 2nd had yellowed and stunted growth (we used less super brew to compensate). The biochar gets better year over year as the microbial community improves and the char is fully charged. The first year may not have the best results that is why we charge it for so long. So the char is fully charged and not taking from the soil.