Experienced organic grower for 34 years. This is the only educational channel I have found. Less is better with our soil, let it compost itself. A heap is only needed for large amounts of waste, but put it back on the soil.
Bottom line, there needs to be more research done. compost ,leaf mold, and multi species cover crops have transformed my garden soil to a point now that I can grow anything. It's taken 10 years to get there, but moisture and mulch has made my back yard a food factory with little outside input. Filling your soil with plants that stay in the soil is the best thing for garden soil. Thank you Dr. Pavlis for another straight talk video.
Leaf mold? I kept two garbage cans full of leaves that I forgot to mulch and found some mold in them was about to look into if I needed to toss them. Are they good?
I have a large quantity of charcoal produced from burning old wood, it has been rained on for several months and I know add it to my worm composting bin, can’t say specifically what occurred in that bin, but I grew prize winning carrots in the resulting compost 😊
You made a sophistry of this topic. We do know what biochar is and you defined it. High temp and low temp MOSTLY only effects the amount of ash and ash is alkaline. Ash will help if your soil is more acidic than you want it to be. You wouldn't say we don't know what gasoline is even though it is made at different octane levels or that some brands add detergent and some of it has some level of ethanol. But we still know the effects of putting it in the car: you get to drive some more. I don't really have a firm position on it. I was hoping to get more from this video but was disappointed. I would be willing to use the easy methods of biochar making: burn piles of sticks I have and douse them with water before they ash out, just as long as I'm not worried about ph levels. My reasoning is that I don't have a mulcher and this would be a good way to deal with piles of sticks. Anyway, good try. I like your channel generally, but didn't get anything out if this one.
Did you ignore everything he said intentionally? Depending on the source you get varying definitions of what biochar is. Some claim it has to do with production method. Some say it has to be made from certain sources. Some say it has to be inoculated. American gasoline is a defined and understood term. You can fiddle with it but it's still gasoline. Biochar is... what exactly. There's no standardized definition. If there's no standardized definition then there's no standardized product. If there's no standardized product, there's no way to say it has any benefits since testing an undefined product is impossible.
I tend to agree. Irrespective of how the biochar is created, it seems pretty clear that it's just charcoal. In a place with naturally poor soil that benefits from amending, this seems like an easy option for a home gardener, whether they just buy some cheap charcoal or use their own leftovers. Additionally, the argument that it's "not good for the environment" also doesn't mean it's "bad." I like this channel, but considering that he is a myth buster, it does add bias to his reasoning and I think we've seen that quite clearly in this particular video.
Sophistry indeed! Biochar is not only easily defined, it is in fact largely self defined. Bio, meaning life or living, Char, meaning the remaining carbon structure left from the pyrolysis of some form of biomass. In short, biochar is any form of charcoal that is hosting/housing any kind of soil biota.
@@shawnsgthe notion that one cannot understand or analyze biochar, what it is, or how it can be used without some authoritative, standardized, definition from on high is an appeals to authority fallacy that ignores the simple fact that biochar is easily defined without some centralized, standardized, authoritative, dictate as to what it is and is not. It is easy to understand that biochar is simply charcoal that is hosting/housing soil biota. Furthermore it is just as easily understood that that simple definition implies a broad spectrum of potential variability within the definition. Consider for comparison the fact that he advocates using compost instead, even as compost is easily as broadly inclusive in its basic definition as is biochar without batting an eye at the notion that his audience can easily conceptualize the information being communicated without his having to go into specifics as to what the compost in question is made from or how it was made, applied, or to what type of soil or growing conditions it was used in. . Some people will argue that real true, or “the best” composts are made according to specific processes and recipes, some will argue that animal proteins, fats, citrus, and onions cannot be composted while others will tell you those items will compost just fine, some will say compost should only be made through aerobic, thermophilic decomposition while others will argue that anaerobic fermentation ( bokashi) is best. Some will advocate actively aerating compost piles through mechanical turning, while others will advocate passively aerated cold compost such as Johnson sue bioreactor compost, while others still will advocate a simple “set it and forget it” style cold compost. And yet, we all have a basic understanding of what he means when he says compost, and that is that it is biologically decomposed organic matter. I absolutely agree with him that with something as broadly defined as biochar there is a huge realm of possibilities to be studied and understood, and that it shouldn’t be assumed to be a one sized fits all soil improving miracle, but he certainly didn’t have to pretend there is no way to fundamentally define the term in order to make that case, and then to advocate using another equally nebulously defined product instead was just silly. Also, the claims that biochar doesn’t increase soil organic matter on the one hand, despite its being organic matter in and of itself, and the claim that it cannot be gotten rid of on the other are completely contradictory statements. I think he showed his bias on this one, and he clearly holds the attitude that anything without a clear, specific and well defined scientific consensus isn’t worth using, when that attitude is frankly antithetical to how consensus is formed in the first place, and we can all as easily be citizen scientists when it comes to this sort of thing as we can for conducting population censuses for butterflies, or birds or whatever…science is the specific process of inquiry into reality, not the institutional constructs that centralize and curate scientific knowledge or decree standardized definitions.
@@cantseetheforestforthetree9673 Well said, giving you a thumb up on each of your responses. I trust the other thumbs up you received are in agreement that you said it really well. Totally agree with you on this. Thanks.
I’ve used bio char for 3 years and can’t see the difference , improvement with my garden soil For me it’s waisted of time and money . But grass clippings as mulch works very well and has improved the soil . Now I’m using leach, worm tea . It seems to do well , but to early to make a statement. Thanks again for backing up your statements with proof and not repeating what others say . Which most TH-camrs are doing
I had a couple bushes that were planted 12 years ago that have not grown and we sickly. I put biochar with compost on top of it around them last fall and they doubled in size this spring. My wife asked me what I did to those bushes that they grew so much. I am not saying biochar will work wonders everywhere... but in my growing beds and in my gardens (in our clay soil), it has worked wonders for us.
We had a place in our farm where we burned trash, mostly leaves and cuttings of waste wood. Then we changed the place for burning trash.. All these areas eventually used for planting Cacao and Flowering Ginger (Alpine). The areas we used for burning produced plants almost double the size. We have clay soil with Ph about 6.5. This is just an observation
This may be a novel use for bio-char. In a new home I built a 230 square foot garden: Kind of a raised bed/walk in garden hybrid. First year was great. All bumper crops of veggies + berries. Second year was not as spectacular. Third year everything basically suddenly died in about a weeks time. Eventually I discovered the perils of planting too close to a Black Walnut tree. My garden is about 8 feet beyond the Walnut canopy. I found it roots had extended out under my garden when I dug up my beds to try and replant grape vines. I soon learned of my ignorance for picking that location due to the rich moisture & nutrients of the garden drawing the walnut roots to compete. The Juglone toxicity of the walnut killed everything but the shallowest rooting plants. It had taken three months to build this fenced garden structure with arbor entrance. In order to salvage the situation I replaced the multiple in-ground beds with 18 inch raised beds. In the bottom 3 inches of the bed I put pure hard-packed uncharged char to absorb any Juglone which may came from below, and absorb any moisture or nutrients which may leach from above, so as not to draw any more walnut roots. So far, this has worked for three years, and I've had many successful nightshade yields: Tomato, Pepper, Potatoes, all previously very susceptible to Walnut toxicity. Just wanted to pass the word in case anyone else has a similar situation.
This is a perfect example of how anecdotal evidence serves to perpetuate a garden Myth. In this case, two myths in one! That is, the myth of biochar and the myth of the alliopathic Black Walnut tree. Here's just one simple fact (of many) that is contrary to your assumptions: the roots and bark of the Black Walnut do not contain Juglone.
@@priayief Indeed - Myths and endless contradictory statements are the biggest negative in the garden realm. You have to research broadly and vet your sources with scrutiny before you start to get the real picture. There are many University/Government research papers on the allelopathic properties of the Black Walnut tree. I am open minded, so please do cite a scientific resource showing that the presence of Juglone does not exist in the roots of the tree, and I will read it. If you re-read my post you'll see I did not use the Char as "Bio-Char" in the classic sense. I used it as Carbon barrier to bind to undesirable chemicals, just like is used to filter water. I am not using it to hold water or provide nutrients for roots.
Because I guess you did permanent beds, i.e. tried zero-dig or reduced ploughing method, instead of relying on at least a yearly one spade deep ploughing. The first year you bring new soil and/or ploughed the existing soil to a good depth. So it means it cut the roots of the tree and/or that the tree did not grew roots into the fresh substrate layer yet. And keep in mind that commercial garden substrate is usually mixed with fertilizer, so it will bring nutrient for the first season, but it is quickly depleted. But then as you did not ploughed the soil at least one spade deep at least once a year, the tree roots invaded the substrate. It's no juglone that did anything, it just that that the fine roots of the tree sucked all the nutrients and water, leaving the vegetable to compete with little root space and nutrient avalaibility. On top of that you did not replenenish the substrate with fertilizer. You can in fact garden right under a blacknut tree if there's enough sunlight and the walnut tree is pruned and thinned. You just have to plough a least one spade deep each year to "scalp" the fine tree roots that would otherwise compete with the crops. By packing charcoal at depth, all you did is a little root barrier. But just doing that with gravel or just soil would have done the exact same thing. Because the layer is compacted, the tree roots are slowed so that the above layer is free root space for the crops, but it has nothing to do with juglone.
Having tried every fertilizing technique the TH-cam gardening channels have fed me over the last ten years I’ve come to the conclusion I enjoy fertilizing my huge gardens with all the different methods. This channel for years has tried to break me of that habit and this year and as many years going forward I can stay off the fertilizer bandwagon I’m going cold turkey. My wife doesn’t believe me but I’m gonna try real hard. I recommend this channel the most to any new gardeners.
U.T. is a great tool and keeps me in new ideas. Everyone is telling me to swear off Miracle Grow products, but I'm not using it as much as I use to AND I can quit anytime I want!! I'm not as well practiced in "organic", but I do like to use compost and other "natural" resources to fertilize. We can only do what we can do, right??
I use maple leaves or forest mulch on everything... including the garden square we till. Keeps the soil alive and it creates a layer of nice compost over the years. Its a bit more work to rake the leaves and chop em up before spreading. Its also a bit less esthetically pleasing in the spring (before the plants hide it), and my neighbors probably think I'm weird, but 7 years in and it works great. Soil seems healthy, teaming with bugs and fungi, and plants seem happy! Its also free since we are surrounded by maple trees!
it’s fun to experiment with different fertilizers and soil amendments. Which fertilizers and soil amendments gave the best results for you? I have found high phosphate + potassium blends fed to fruit trees to be very beneficial. Some claim it does nothing, but I think it does.
I would like to hear a discussion on the "black soil" found in the Amazon rainforest that was produced by the ancient tribes living there. Was it biochar?
Lots of people promoting biochar point to Terra Prada - the black soil found in the Amazon as proof that biochar works. The reality is that scientists are not sure how the black soil was made. Anyone who claims it is biochar - has not researched the facts.
@@Gardenfundamentals1well, what about dr Higa, who makes EM1? He has researched the microbes in that amazonian soil for years. One of those bacteria is a photosynthetic bacteria, Purple non sulfur bacteria.
In Canada “Royal Oak” hardwood lump charcoal (not bricketts that have a binder) can be crushed and inoculated with compost or pee, it’s the same thing! It’s the same process!
Good news, I just bought 20lb bag earlier today, before I saw this nebulous video and crushed it in a pail and mixed it with a week old kitchen scraps, rain water and pee. Will age it 2-3 weeks with other additives like my compost and worm castings. Then will mix it with the compost that is still maturing over winter, just waiting for warmer days, have tons of worms in there. Live in Wasaga Beach, ON.
@@Cyclonut96 I have done that too but personally not sure I believe in it. At least you have saved a ton of money for just thinking rationally. What’s a 20 lb bag of biochar going for these days?
@@tobruzit’s not a bag of bio char, it’s a bag of charcoal without chemical additives, that the person bought. I bought a bunch of bags before 2020 for about 5 bucks, and that was cheap. I recently saw some in California for about 7… they weren’t huge bags, can’t recall the exact size but one of those smaller royal oak bags goes a long way. It doesn’t become bio char until it’s been filled with nutrients and stuff.
To make charcoal you need high heat and low oxygen. If you're burning in an open pit the exterior wood will turn to ash. The difference between charcoal and biochar. The biochar is inoculated . Charcoal is just carbon. The biochar becomes as I think a condominium, housing microbes and fertilizers.
Here in GCC, using biochar is very common, especially for lemon, fig and dates trees. The dates tree residue biochar usually turns to powder, and is used in the soil mix. Biochar is organic pesticide, it prevents close to 80% of plants problems. Nematoda for example can't live in a plant that is planted in or fertilized with biochar. The diameter of plants that are regularly fertlized with biochar is usually bigger than others, the tree at 3 years look as think as 5 yeaes old tree an and it produce way much more fruite. With the time the soil becomes very rich, it would have all the warms and biogerms that would have been otherwise killed by pesticides. If you want to plant organic, use biochar.
@@dl6317 Fungi can trap and eat nematodes. Adding biochar can increase fungal populations from 1 billion per handful of soil to 1 trillion. This army of fungi will keep nematodes away. Check TH-cam for the below 2 videos, this is how it is done on our farms Preparing lands for plants فوائد الرماد للارض الزراعية th-cam.com/video/z2MWlCQsAJ8/w-d-xo.html Fertilizing الرماد وافوادها السحرية مع الزعيم ابوسلمان th-cam.com/video/7q9tzzES20M/w-d-xo.html @18:30
I love how you explain the variability in all the studies. It's so east to look at one study and make a blanket assumption when in reality there are too many variables that can't be controlled.
My very limited research has led me to the tentative conclusion that the biggest advantage of biochar is that it prevents compaction due to its larger particle size. In that sense, it’s like perlite or vermiculite that you can make at home.
Agreed, its a free way to stretch my limited compost reserves, and it seems to really improve the soil texture in heavy compacted Louisiana clay. Another thing this video neglects to consider is that a lot of people are burning fires for other purposes anyway.
@@NickleJ I live somewhere where there is frequent danger from wildfires, but refuse to live without my fire pit, so I will often douse my fire and cover the coals with dirt, leading to lots of material that I can crush up and put in the compost pile. It absolutely has aided in loosening my heavy clay, and that's enough reason to continue.
Wood ash with some unburnt charcoal is a good source of potassium. The charcoal improves soil structure, water retention and drainage. I approve of this message.
Forest fires are primarily a process of oxidative combustion which actually produces a mixture of released minerals and ash. This combustion product initially provides mineral fertilization for the resumption of growth of already present species and/or colonizing species. Formation of biochar/charcoal will probably also take place during a forest fire, possibly also underground.
In traditional canadian, scandinavian and japanese architecture we burn exposed wood to prevent it being eaten up by mold, bacteria and fungi. And it works. So it feels weird to introduce inert matter to the soil and hope bacteria would dwell in it. But I have been wondering if it would be helpful to pulverize used activated carbon faucet filters to introduce captured minerals back to the soil.
I'm going to keep adding it to my compost, if only because it's a good place to put it. My biochar is a byproduct of the charcoal that I make for my barbecue (essentially everything below 1cm in size).
Thanks for the level headed explanation. I've burned tree branches with low oxegen, crushed it, and added it to my compost piles. Let it charge for at least 6 months, then added it to my garden. I figure it can't hurt in small amounts. Wondering if the studies where there was a decrease in yield, maybe they added too much or didn't charge it long enough. Hopefully they do more studies.
I go through a long drawn out process to prepare my biochar. When I make my charcoal in a 55 gallon metal barrel. I quench the red hot coals with water to expand it into a activated charcoal form.. then put it in my cement mixer with some fairly large sized rocks and enough water to keep the charcoal from getting airborne. I keep adding charcoal as it pulverizes because I can make a much bigger batch that way. When I have processed enough for my needs I remove the rocks and add enough water to get a sloppy cement consistency then I add Ammonium Sulfate to charge the biochar. After it runs for about 20 mins I start adding compost or peat moss or something as a thinning material. Sometimes I'll add compost tea at that point which helps activate the elemental sulfur I add, the little split pea looking size, to lower my soil ph, being in an area that has lots of calcium carbonate in the soil as well as in the tap water... then keep adding drier material to get it to get it into a more crumbly state so I can spread it and incorporate it into the soil. Works great for me in my situation. My soil just keeps getting better every year. Been doing that for 15 years now.
@@geraldhowse8597 Probably not. I've dumped activated coconut carbon from used filters into my fertile soil mixes several times. Seedlings planted in it grow more than vigorously.
The University of Nebraska is currently doing a study with urban/suburban gardeners to study the effects of biochar over multiple seasons. I know this because I have two plots in the study. Stay tuned.
Remember that terrapretta or bio-char infused soil comes from ancient agricultural practices including slash and burn. I think they noticed how quickly things grew after burning a field. They may have made the progression from slash and burn to sowing a living mulch and burning it off in the later winter. Doing this for 1000 years produced this thick layer of charcoal infused soil. Charcoal has been made for forge work for a very long time. It involves digging a pit and filling it with wood then covering it with dirt leaving air holes that could be opened and closed to control the air. We don't see pits or forging going on in that society so the material must have been burned insitue.
Terra preta's origin is inconclusive at best. Regular slash and burn wouldn't create biochar. Slash and burn agriculture is a method of using an area for a while until the soil becomes depleted and then letting it go fallow for many years until it's cleared and burned. Of course things grew better after a slash and burn because the area had been left fallow for an extended period of time and nutrients would have naturally re-accumulated over that time. As an aside, what else would they have done with the material after clearing an area? Gathering and moving is labor intensive.
@@shawnsg Slash and burn is taking new ground and burning off the vegetation. The topsoil including the ashes and charcoal would be pulled into hills with the only tools they had which were a digging stick and a hoe. That field could only be used for a few years before the nutrients were depleted and they would have to move to a different place and start over. They did use slave labor using thousands of captured tribe members. They could have burned fields far away and used slave labor to carry baskets of topsoil with the ashes and charcoal and spread it over fields that were near the town's. Doing that for centuries would have produced the results found there. We always over think things. Time and toil can produce amazing results.
Thanks for your valuable input! Your biochar info makes complete sense! However, I will say that my least concern about making/using biochar would be the effect on CO2 in the air (a non-issue to anyone who seeks the real facts)!
Totally agree!!! I much rather put my efforts into my worms, compost and leaf mold bins than making or using biochar' I went down the garden path with biochar a few years ago, the remainder I add to my worm bins, can't hurt. Do not need it. Stay Well!!!
The only reason I got on the biochar bandwagon is because I found myself with a lot of surplus hardwood thanks to the Emerald Ash Borer and I don't heat with wood. I had the means and materials to build a simple retort oven and got pretty good results. Well, time and commitments got in the way before I could process all of it and most of it started getting punky. So, I built some Huegelkulture beds which is maybe what I should've done anyway. I'm glad you pointed out you have to burn a heat source to make the biochar in the first place. Has it helped my garden, I have no idea? It seems like diverse cover cropping and minimum tillage has done more than anything over the last several years.
Definition: Biochar is porous char that holds more water than its own weight. Scholium: Char coal used for heating has the wood pores still mostly filled with tars and. Burn them out and you get biochar. Charcoal has ca. 2/3 the energy content of wood, biochar ca. 1/5th. The water holding capacity is the obvious quality criterion. The oldest field experiment (done right) is the Terra Preta soil in the Amazon, started before Columbus.
I'm happy to hear your analysis of "Biochar". It's great to hear how you are telling your viewers about the many variables, such as the electronic reality, the carbon sequestration argument that is a false argument for the climate religion and the fact that charcoal that is not charged will take away from its environment before it can give back. After 17 years of research and 3 years of actually using the charcoal I make in different forms and getting the results to show. This is why I don't make "Biochar". This channel is new as of this comment being posted on the first day I created the channel. Prepper's Paradise Canada has some videos of the journey here. I'll look for a future opportunity to chat with you about this. Again thank you for this video. Cheers.
Like every other soil amendment, a little wont hurt and may help. Diversity of materials in your compost is the key. I add a small amount to my compost along with old bones from my dog, yard waste, and kitchen scraps. It gets rid of waste if nothing else. The good thing about biochar is, its a sponge. It adds texture to soil where microbes can congregate and allows small pockets of air to exist in the soil around it and holds moisture. As far as charging it goes, I simply add it to my compost bins and let it weather for a year or two before adding it to the garden. At least its out of my fire pit lol
That does it. I'm digging all the carbon from the garden. See you sometime next year. Old-timers used to plant pumpkin seeds in the ashes of a burnt-out log. They cropped well.
Raw Biochar absorbs nutrients (like activated carbon) thus the need to inoculate it. If it isn’t inoculated it will negatively impact your garden. Since pathogens need 130F temperatures to kill them, soaking in manures might not be a good idea. My favorite technique is to add 10% of a compost heaps volume as Biochar. I don’t have specific test data, but I believe it is beneficial, like up to 15% greater productive plant growth. I’ve seen it under microscope and lots of protozoans, nematodes and mycorrhizae threads. More research is needed but there are too many variables which complicates measurements.
I love adding biochar to my property. Storm downed trees, pruning from others makes for piles that attract unwanted guests large and small. I try to burn just before a heavy rain so that the fire is extinguished before a complete burn and I simply rake the unburned sticks to a new pile and rake the coals up for washing and sorting. It is my growing medium for aquaponics as well as the filter. The dust washed off is in the drinking water for my animals. There is plenty to spread around the garden, but I do that with the older activated filter media. DO NOT put fresh charcoal in your garden
Biochar is a mere vessel where chemical or non chemicals can be held and transferred between. The outcome only changes due to which you choose to infuse and as in commercial slow release fertilisers work so can one inoculate Biochar for individual plant needs. The most effective way to feed ones crops is by introducing rock minerals to help the microorganisms and help biodiversity within the breaking down of humus. Mulch Mulch Mulch..!!
@@geraldfriesen5600 if charcoal can provide structure in soil, biological activity can be at least preserved due to the presence of more moisture. I’d like to see more work in this field where bio charge is added to soil with a high clay content. And work forward to enhance quality.
The claim is that due to the porous nature of biochar the microbes basically have a little apartment to live in. As long as they have food that makes sense, but do they need this "apartment" for added benefits to the soil and plants? I don't know.
I enjoy these videos. But this one was a miss for me. Presenter seems curiously negative on subject matter. Some points are well identified, but main thrust of negativity seems to be that there is no standard for the term biochar. Well, isn’t the term compost similarly open ended? Should we be as negative and fearful of all things described as compost? Applying the same advice/avoidance for any and all material that can be described as compost would surely be a big change to agricultural activities.
Biochar is great for holding the micro organisms needed to break down nutrients in the soil so that it is readily available for the plant roots to take up nutrients. It is also good for the root system and it leaves areas for oxygen for the roots so that they don't rot. Biochar is also good for water drainage/less compaction of the soil...It has it place in gardening and lawn care but it is not the be all, end all of either.
His conclusion has a basis that it is undetermined to have lasting effect for soil benefits and longevity in the soil. My personal experience is that biochar in the soil will last based on the soil and the soil depth. It also helps with soil moisture in a high clay environment. But may not help in a soil whereas clay is minimal. I have tons of clay. Without amending the soil, there is no tolerance to dry conditions. My soil is modified with sand and compost. Biochar is now combined with sand.
Organic matter breaks down in the soil quite quickly (1-3 years) whereas biochar apparently "accumulates" over time (example Amazon "terra preta") to help build soil structure. The Biochar Journal has a useful overview "How biochar works in soil - Kelpie Wilson"
@@Gardenfundamentals1 That is a strange point I had also pondered from the video. Just from a fundamental perspective, if one is adding 'relatively' large structures of carbon into the soil which is quite slow to decay, then how does the subsequent testing for carbon not identify its presence. I don't believe it has suddenly disappeared. This may be a flaw with the monitoring method?
@@Gardenfundamentals1Standard soil carbon respiration tests don't get any results from solid C in the sample because on a plant level, it's inert. You need to have a combustion test to accurately measure soil %C when biochar is present.
@@teebob21 Thank you for that explanation! That makes sense that it is carbon dioxide gas emission which is measured to determine healthy soil biology, and not elemental carbon. Your "Carbon Respiration" terminology pointed me in the right direction to dig deeper into the topic.
Try it and see what happens. The easiest way to use it is to just put crushed charcoal in with your compost and let it charge over a few months or a season before incorporating into your garden. I’ve had good results. But, it needs to get better over time by continually adding the stuff you’d normally add. Over years. Then I suspect the soil then has a lot of fertility that eventually won’t need a lot of inputs. There needs to be a look at long term results. But, I’ve done well with it.
If you live in an area that is prone to nutrient leaching out from your soil. For example, heavy rain season and very poor soil. Biochar is a good way to keep theses nutrients in the soil. It can also help the soil structure if you have a heavy clay soil. It will increase the drainage without making the soil too heavy like rock/sand could. Charcoal density is less than rock. Char would help regulate nutrients concentration in soil. If you put a little too much synthetic nute in the soil, it will absorb some of it. And if the soil it getting too poor, microbes will take nute from the pores of the char. Worst move would be to put char in your garden without loading it before. You can load it in you compost bin + pee for example. My background: analytical chemistry and mineralorist technician. And garden enthusiast! I'm sorry, I didn't took time to find study to sustain my claims, so, take my comment with a grain of smoked halite!
I add the coals from my fire bowl to the garden beds after I've dowsed them in water which keeps them from fully burning down to ash. I let it charge on the surface in the compost mulch. Theres not much cuz i have 2-3 fires a year. I'm not afraid of it cuz theres not much there. Its just something I do with waste its not a process I follow and no equipment. Many people tend to use terra preta deposits in S. A. as an example of biochar effectiveness but I cant see ancient americans going through some crazy process either. More likely they may have just gardened in former junk piles/garbage pits.
People like to retort that formation of terra preta is "akshully" a mystery, but archaeologists have a pretty good idea that it's just what you've said: villages had a trash pile that manifested as a combination compost/Humanure/burn pit, with some broken pots for good measure, and they just observed what anyone who's thrown tomatoes or squash into their compost observes: things grow well there. So they fill it up, then plant in it and start a new dump pit. Terra preta occurs in small pockets in the forest, not spread over a large area. Occam's razor points to a very simple explanation here.
I love the addage: its not what you do, but how. Charcoal is such a novel and nitpicky area. I think its good to empty your cup of preconceptions of terrapratta or biochar it just makes grand illusions. Think of it as the stuff in your water filter, think of it as the stuff that keeps your aquarium clean, its the stuff that you eat to absorb poisons, its the same stuff that chemist's use as a palladium catalyst because a small amount of palladium acts like a large amount when adsorbed (not absorbed) onto the high surface area of the "activated charcoal" That same process is why its so valuable in soil, it will loosely hold onto these charges particles otherwises known as nutrients, something else that also loosely holds these particles is fumic and humic organic acids from microbial digestion (compost) however the biggest problem of compost is its sludgyness, it significantly helps the nutritional value of the soil but at a certain detriment to soil structure... enter activated charcoal...
Also for what its worth, respectfully, i find it disheartening for someone who states eggshells last centuries to question how long charcoal lasts in anerobic conditions... which is how it was supposedly used: You take half burned logs and burythem BELOW the subsoil(as far as you can go below your clay layer) to influence nutrient leaching while naturally churning your lower soil layers as the fungus and anerobic processes naturally take over and you have settling. Take one section of garden dig a hole and start this process, every year dig further and bury more burned wood, by time you finish it go back to the start, dig up the old wood or whats left and throw it on top of the newest section bury new burned wood keep going. This "tills" the entire soil system in a way no manmade tiller could ever hope to reproduce and once done you never need to do anything as you have a relatively homogeneous soil structure 10 feet deep full of adsorbant and absorbant qualities, but who has the capability or work ethic to start digging 10 ft trenches... anyways love your tough love/piercing benevolent attitude.
Thanks for this! I have never used the stuff myself. I suppose that if it holds on to nutrients, it might be useful in a very sandy soil, where nutrients tend to wash away quickly?
I use Biochar in a very sandy soils to provide a refuge for micro organisms to survive through our very hot summers. In areas where I use it, I get improved compost and mulch breakdown. It also keeps nemotodes away from bulbs planted in sandy soils. In clay, I use Biochar to reduce compaction and to provide airspaces.
It's easy...take wood and use pyrolysis to create charcoal. Take charcoal, size it and inoculate it and it becomes biochar. If you put charcoal into the soil, it will pull nutrients from the soil and become biochar. Doesn't get much simpler than that
How about burying biochar in the wet layer of clay more then 3' below surface. Mainly just using it to level the area out for my tomato bed but id like to help it as much as i can. Also layering in weeds that vary from days old to months old and top layers of places ive burn in the yard
One thing that has been under a lot of scrutiny in the past is acidophilus. Many expert say that it doesn't do anything to promote gut health. However, many will claim that physically it helps. I can support what this site does to eliminate potential placebo effect in gardening. It's saves on time and money. On the other hand, if you have a controlled common A/B test to get results, you don't always need the answer to move forward. The key in the argument is eliminating placebo through experience because nobody has time or money to do lengthy testing on stuff like bio char, and if the tests come back to suggest that bio char does nothing even if you have excellent contradictory results with A/B testing. What then? Time would suggest do what works and KISS.
Folks years ago would often save their wood ash & put it on the garden. Some root crops like beet seem to do well with wood ash added to the soil. Does the charcoal work? I have found that not so much in the first year but in the second year it does.
Raw charcoal is like a sponge & will absorb nutrients. That would explain the results in the 2nd year. So best practice is to "charge" the charcoal before applying it to the soil.
I've made biochar in my woodstove and in a rocket stove. The hard part is grinding it up fine enough. Making compost is easier, and at least in my case seems more effective.
I agree there is lots of hype about biochar. I decided to do my own testing on container grown citrus trees. I added 20% charged biochar to my x18 citrus trees.
Do you have a control group to compare results? Please let us know your findings as we are also interested in growing fruit trees. Lots of rocky/sandy soil here, with prolonged periods of drought.
@@cosmicbeer I been growing citrus for years. I know what to expect and recognize issues. I kept few citrus trees in potting mix without biochar. All my citrus are in pots. Most of Citrus issues are related to roots. This makes them good candidates for biochar.
@@onLYbyM initial results, 3 months in to the trial, are positive. I already started to add bio char to other citrus trees / tropical plants that needed repotting. But the true tests is during winter months.
Biochar is inoculated by using compost, casting, or some other form of biodiversity. Without inoculation, it's just natural charcoal. I wouldn't recommend using it to cook your food because that's just bad juju. Using it to grow your food is good juju. You're right there's not enough information on it so I'm in season two of my test. Last season I dug out my garden about a foot and a half deep and burned yard debris mostly wood. I covered this with maybe 2 inches of compost and planted my garden. Everything grew but only the plants on the outer edges produced well. This season it's had plenty of time for nature to help it along. After adding another inch or so of compost and planting butternut squash and cucumbers I shall wait for the results. so far so good.
Thanks for such fantastic videos (this and others). I am new to gardening and it gets overwhelming with many experts telling you to do many different things to grow plants and most of the times there are opposing advices without why behind the advice. I love your way of answering question, which is asking the logical question and leading the audience towards the right answer instead of handing over it (magically). Also, there are so many myths you have debunked which makes gardening simpler! Thanks again and keep it up.
Simple and practical difference between charcoal and biochar: Charcoal contains tree oils/resins, therefore burns and can be used as a fuel source. Biochar is void of these oils, hence does not burn. The removal of these oils is what allows space for microbes and water to penetrate and stay there. When making biochar at home, if you crush is and rub it on your hands..then wash in water..if the black soot is not removing..that means its not biochar because it still has oils in it. Wheras biochar would readily wash off, and has a more glass like, lighter feel and texture. Hope that helps.
Yes, the Amazonian spent time and money sending out for samples. Did multiple third party tests, checked the results with the best consultants of the time. Conclusion, need more studies. Char is char. Simple yard debris cooked open flame cap until drum is full. Smother it out in another drum or water drench. It's char and it works.
I've heard biochar being called a bank account. It doesn't do anything on its own. It's just a way for your soil to hold on to nutrients, water, and microbes and keep them available for your plants. If you have a well-watered, well fertilized garden, then it won't do anything. But if your soil often dries out or you don't fertilize every season, then it's probably helpful. Personally, I keep my garden well cared for, so I can't see biochar helping there. But I mostly just let my lawn do its own thing, and I've been thinking some biochar could help my lawn take care of itself.
I add charcoal to houseplant potting mix. Does nothing for growth, that I can notice, however- it does result in less smell, when using organic fertilizers inside the house.
Ah, but the real question asked by so many gardeners with a fire pit where only firewood is used and the only chemicals involved may be that at the end of a match-stick or on the penny-saver paper used to start it, is: “Should I / can I use the residue in my fire-pit on/in my vegetable garden?”, or “Is there any benefit or harm to adding this residue to my raised bed(s) or garden?”🤷♂️
I have made a fair amount of biochar.... things to consider...... what is that bluish gassy like stuff on the top of the biochar rinse bucket? WHat do I do with the the bipochar rinse water? How much pollution did I make cooking that biochar? Ps. it doesn't hold that much water, although does appear to have some hydrolic effects.
I am trying it around my banana plants this year. I lit it sit in water, kelp and fish emulsion for 5 days and I mixed in a layer around my bananas. My prediction is that I will have to use less fertilizer since the char can store more nutrients than the soil around it can.
@@AhrayahLabanlong time, they did very well. However I hope they grow over my palms soon so they can grow even faster due to getting more sunlight.they are round 8ft tall, but growth has slowed for the winter. Hopefully in spring some of them will fruit.
Great point. Biochar is nothing but a fancy name for elemental Carbon. Carbon is a great CEC site, and it isn't consumed by soil biota. It lasts years and years.
seems like a good view. idk about "bio char" but the charcoal you want for agriculture is highly porous made from low density materials. the main differences in charcoals are the density of it. you find that if you look into other uses for charcoal such as foraging or black powder production. the material used is the most important factor.
Some useful content, but i would advise to ignore the unsubstantiated conclusion that biochar does not sequester C in soil. This is one of the most confident aspects, and the overwhelming majority of studies investigating this show that pyrogenic carbon in soil (charcoal/biochar) is the most long-lived of all known soil organic C pools.
Correct. There are very few microbes that consume elemental C, which is what charcoal/biochar is. Burying plant carbon as biochar will lock it up for decades.
@@GARDENER42 Not true. Most trees live less than 75 years, and when they die and rot, the carbon in them returns to the atmosphere. Charcoal or biochar is the longest lasting soil carbon sink. Of course, trees like walnut or sequoia are better long term sinks, but they are a small proportion of trees, and only thrive in certain areas.
@@teebob21 Your claim only stands if you include saplings, shaded out by their larger peers & trees cut for lumber. Oak & chestnut can reach 1,000 years, beech 400 & the average is in fact 3-400 years.
@@GARDENER42 "Your claim only stands if you include *all* the trees instead of the specific outliers that support my assertion" isn't a very strong rebuttal, my friend.
15-20 years ago there was talk of using charged biochar in agriculture. partly to bind carbon in the soil but also to get a better structure on heavy clay soil and better harvests.
I think when my dad farmed as a kid back in the 1930s, they burned the fields in the late fall. It killed overwintering insect pests and burned up weed seeds. Though I don't think they thought about it, a small amount of charcoal was left on the ground. My dad grew veggies with no effort while I've always struggled. He lived in Florida for a time where the soil was just sand. He planted a couple rows of squash, fed them a little triple 13, and picked a 5 gallon bucket of squash every day. I did he same thing and got very few squash before the vine borers killed them all. His plants were small with squash spurting out everywhere. Mine were huge with only a few. In that same soil, he said he was going to plant some purple hull peas. He got bushels and bushels of peas without even trying. I wish I'd paid more attention.
I wonder if biochar would fix my garden soil… last year we used horse manure that was from someone who fed their horses hay sprayed with herbicides. Most of my tomatoes and other vegetables curled up and died. This year I’m planning to do “no dig” on top and buying local compost to plant in.
“We've tested biochar with grass seed on several occasions and each time we found the soil supported with biochar had grass seed germinate faster and grow taller than any other soil. Grass was growing in as few as 5 days in some tests! After 10 days our grass seed is taller and more successful with the biochar mix.”
I live rural and heat with wood (I live in PEI, Canada). Is it beneficial to add some of that ash to the garden or to compost that is to be introduced to the garden next spring?
I think a good definition for bio-char would be: Non-toxic wood that went through the process of pyrolysis, made for the purpose of soil amendment. (Just a fancier way to say garden charcoal.)
Bio-char has cell walls that are in tact, charcoal does not have cell walls still in tact. The cell wall being in tact allows the bio-char creates a place for the microbes, minerals, and water to be stored. Having done several controlled growth and production studies I have found that the bio-char does in fact help a great deal with growth and production.
From my background as an environmental engineer: One should stop describing pyrolysis as combustion under low oxygen concentrations. The combustion is actually an external process, an energy source to carry out the pyrolysis but not the pyrolysis itself. The essence of the process, in the organic core material, is rather a combination of heating-boiling-distillation-flashing off volatilizable components that in ideal conditions are only burned outside the core, preferably in the external (surrounding) combustion process that provides the energy supplies to strip the core material of various organic compounds. Because the organic core material, often wood, can come from different species, with varying quality and moisture content, there is never an unambiguous starting mixture of core material, and the gas mixture of volatile substances will also vary. Even these volatile components can split and transform into subcomponents during the process, depending on temperature and transfer through the matrix. What remains is basically the same spatial matrix structure, but mainly composed of almost 100% carbon. The 'behavior' of carbon, as a chemical element, is of course also dependent on the process temperature and the dynamics within. If heating is too high for a long period of time, part of the carbon will also volatilize and disappear towards external oxidative combustion. Depending on the composition and quantity of the starter package, indicative guideline values can be drawn up in terms of temperature and time, but the technical design of the pyrolysis installation will also play a role. It may be possible to arrive at unambiguous international laboratory standards that will lead to practically workable standards for different technical designs. The end products should also be better documented in terms of origin and (pyrolysis) process, as well as carry a clear composition label. Sorry for the long 'story' but there is clearly still a lot of work to be done. And the last word isn't spoken yet 🙂
People have been producing different types of "activated charcoal" for filtering gases and fluids for a very long time. Different "cracking" processes produce different lenghts and sizes of the "cracks and voids" in different materials. Very specific types of activated charcoal are applied depending if you want to adsorb particular sizes of molecules. You can get charcoal to remove oil from gases, or large molecular gases from other gases. These are common technologies and processes that have been used all over industry for centuries. Gardeners are just a target for another market. It may be useful, but mainly... it's just an advertizing campaign.
By the way, in 1997, for a particular filter design experiment, I bought 250 lbs of activated charcoal for $35. The company normally sold the charcoal in train car container volumes, but had a few odd bags laying around. The shipping was around the price of the charcoal. Buying a gallon in a plastic bag for $30 just shows you how gullible and ignorant people can be.
@@jeffclarke5497the price people are paying really is the thing that makes my head hurt the most lol. Someone in the comments mentioned using it to extend limited compost. The town I live in sells compost at $10 for a cubic yard. I could get three truckloads of compost for the price someone pays for a tiny bag of this stuff.
@@shawnsgfor someone who has the biomass and means to pyrolyze it using biochar to stretch compost makes perfect sense since they could conceivably produce it at a much lower cost than the cost of buying in compost.
@@cantseetheforestforthetree9673 it defies logic and reason. If someone needs 3 cubic yards of compost but has one, a tiny bag of [insert definition of biochar] isn't going to "extend" one cubic yard of compost into an equivalent three regardless of what the need for the compost is. If someone has that much biomass, as you say, and some additional amount to produce heat then they can just make compost.
@@shawnsg you could try composting that red herring of a hypothetical you just threw out there. Not all biomass is ideally suited for composting. I’d far prefer processing things like tree limbs and old bamboo canes into biochar than trying to work out the logistics of composting them without the industrial equipment it would require to render them onto sufficiently small, high surface area pieces as to be compostable on a reasonable timescale. Or maybe I just want to incorporate stable carbon into my soil that will house soil biota without being consumed by it.
As I understand it Biochar has a higher cec than both regular soil and compost so it will hold more nutrients and bacteria at once. Needing to use less fertilizer and or compost or nothing at all.
I was a follower until watching this activated charcoal and biochar are produced differently maybe you should do more research. I’ve used both for years along with common sense. I’ve done my own experiments with biochar and my seed germination and plant growth has increased greatly. Maybe you should try testing it yourself
I burn a big fire in my garden every spring to get rid of tree branches. unwanted wood, and brush. I then rototill in the ashes and black chunks. I don’t know if it’s ’biochar’, and I don’t care.
Basically I’ve ascertained is all biochar is charcoal. Now what kind of is vague. BUT!!! Porous clean burned char does work well. Basically the difference I can tell that makes good char is that it is activated or it’s been cooked with steam at the right temperature. I do recall being at a brick yard where they tossed the char after burning for bricks and the areas where the more porous floating charcoal everything grew much better than everything around it. But I think it’s because the porousness and aeration, microbes etc. so it’s just a really good substrate in terms of aeration etc. now we have known that the South American Indians used tons of char. Now if you’re already burning then sure it works. Now for rooting cactus it works and I’ve used filter charcoal in aquaponics systems and it works amazing.
If you're trying to grow plants, increased CO2 levels in the air are a good thing... because(you'll never guess this!)... plants "breath" CO2..... 😲🤯... and I've got the biochem degrees and a box full of awards to back that up... The principles of "biochar" are sound. Porous materials are used in the lab all the time for various things, ceramic beads with various pore sizes are common. It's used to filter stuff or as nucleation sites, or for growing certain bio things. As for making it, the principle is simple. 1 gal paint can, put a tiny hole in the lid, toss in your carbon source, put lid on tight, toss in embers or oven or whatever, till it stops belching wood gas. When you're ready to take it off, plug the hole with a stick or bamboo skewer or something, and let it cool. Open it up and Bob's your uncle! Not rocket surgery, we do it all the time to make char cloth or charcoal. From experience making black powder, I can absolutely tell you 110% that your carbon source matters. This is because what's left is not 100% pure carbon. There are other molecules and atoms left over. We also know temp matters. Low and slow as a rule of thumb seems to be better for making black angry sand. Not sure why yet, perhaps nano structure preservation or something. Not sure if low and slow or hot, fast, and hard is best for gardening applications, you'd have to play with it. Technically, you should be able to acheive the same thing with the beads I mentioned, the "bio char" is just a biodegradable way to do it. Obviously, "charging" it 1st is a best practice, no mater what media you use, because otherwise it'll absorb stuff from the soil. Either way, you could look at it as a method of "seeding" the soil with microbes and nutrients. Is it enough difference to make a difference??? Not a clue, I just started playing with gardening, the community will have to play with "bio char" and all of variables that go along with it.
Biochar is defined as well as charcoal is defined. Having used biochar (that I made myself - pyrolysis in cans in a fireplace ), I have seen great results. How hard is it to buy a bag and try it out for a couple years and see what happens. The lack of studies tells me that the industry does not want to us know about this stuff. If biochar was bad, Scotts and all the other AG chemical companies would rail against it.
With that said, I do not understand the lack of biochar studies. With all the hype about biochar, you think that college professors would at least study it.
Could biochar simply replicate some of the processes seen in the aftermath of a forest fire, where nutrients previously locked up in vegetation are returned to the soil and microbial populations are rejuvenated? Hence why some people see better result if it's charged? Still sticking with my slow release.
Experienced organic grower for 34 years. This is the only educational channel I have found. Less is better with our soil, let it compost itself. A heap is only needed for large amounts of waste, but put it back on the soil.
I agree it works for me
That what happens with all of my ripe produce .. back into the ground with thee!!! Back I say!
Bottom line, there needs to be more research done. compost ,leaf mold, and multi species cover crops have transformed my garden soil to a point now that I can grow anything. It's taken 10 years to get there, but moisture and mulch has made my back yard a food factory with little outside input. Filling your soil with plants that stay in the soil is the best thing for garden soil. Thank you Dr. Pavlis for another straight talk video.
Leaf mold? I kept two garbage cans full of leaves that I forgot to mulch and found some mold in them was about to look into if I needed to toss them. Are they good?
@@TrggrWarning Leaf mold, I believe, is a term for dead, broken-up leaves.
@@gasoline10head oh lol I call that leaf mulch.. thank you
No, leaf mold is what fungus create at the very bottom of a leaf pile. It’s not just chopped up leaves
@@wmpx34 yeah looking around seems like leaf mold is very broken down leaves, not quite what I have.
I use biochar in my clay soil. Gives it a loose silky texture. Really decompacts and gives drainage to the areas that flooded.
I have a large quantity of charcoal produced from burning old wood, it has been rained on for several months and I know add it to my worm composting bin, can’t say specifically what occurred in that bin, but I grew prize winning carrots in the resulting compost 😊
Hello! Can I see those carrots?
@@Hapotecario all got eaten, new season upon us…. Watch this space…
rained on is necessary
You made a sophistry of this topic. We do know what biochar is and you defined it. High temp and low temp MOSTLY only effects the amount of ash and ash is alkaline. Ash will help if your soil is more acidic than you want it to be.
You wouldn't say we don't know what gasoline is even though it is made at different octane levels or that some brands add detergent and some of it has some level of ethanol. But we still know the effects of putting it in the car: you get to drive some more.
I don't really have a firm position on it. I was hoping to get more from this video but was disappointed. I would be willing to use the easy methods of biochar making: burn piles of sticks I have and douse them with water before they ash out, just as long as I'm not worried about ph levels. My reasoning is that I don't have a mulcher and this would be a good way to deal with piles of sticks. Anyway, good try. I like your channel generally, but didn't get anything out if this one.
Did you ignore everything he said intentionally?
Depending on the source you get varying definitions of what biochar is. Some claim it has to do with production method. Some say it has to be made from certain sources. Some say it has to be inoculated. American gasoline is a defined and understood term. You can fiddle with it but it's still gasoline. Biochar is... what exactly. There's no standardized definition. If there's no standardized definition then there's no standardized product. If there's no standardized product, there's no way to say it has any benefits since testing an undefined product is impossible.
I tend to agree. Irrespective of how the biochar is created, it seems pretty clear that it's just charcoal. In a place with naturally poor soil that benefits from amending, this seems like an easy option for a home gardener, whether they just buy some cheap charcoal or use their own leftovers. Additionally, the argument that it's "not good for the environment" also doesn't mean it's "bad." I like this channel, but considering that he is a myth buster, it does add bias to his reasoning and I think we've seen that quite clearly in this particular video.
Sophistry indeed! Biochar is not only easily defined, it is in fact largely self defined. Bio, meaning life or living, Char, meaning the remaining carbon structure left from the pyrolysis of some form of biomass. In short, biochar is any form of charcoal that is hosting/housing any kind of soil biota.
@@shawnsgthe notion that one cannot understand or analyze biochar, what it is, or how it can be used without some authoritative, standardized, definition from on high is an appeals to authority fallacy that ignores the simple fact that biochar is easily defined without some centralized, standardized, authoritative, dictate as to what it is and is not. It is easy to understand that biochar is simply charcoal that is hosting/housing soil biota. Furthermore it is just as easily understood that that simple definition implies a broad spectrum of potential variability within the definition. Consider for comparison the fact that he advocates using compost instead, even as compost is easily as broadly inclusive in its basic definition as is biochar without batting an eye at the notion that his audience can easily conceptualize the information being communicated without his having to go into specifics as to what the compost in question is made from or how it was made, applied, or to what type of soil or growing conditions it was used in. . Some people will argue that real true, or “the best” composts are made according to specific processes and recipes, some will argue that animal proteins, fats, citrus, and onions cannot be composted while others will tell you those items will compost just fine, some will say compost should only be made through aerobic, thermophilic decomposition while others will argue that anaerobic fermentation ( bokashi) is best. Some will advocate actively aerating compost piles through mechanical turning, while others will advocate passively aerated cold compost such as Johnson sue bioreactor compost, while others still will advocate a simple “set it and forget it” style cold compost. And yet, we all have a basic understanding of what he means when he says compost, and that is that it is biologically decomposed organic matter. I absolutely agree with him that with something as broadly defined as biochar there is a huge realm of possibilities to be studied and understood, and that it shouldn’t be assumed to be a one sized fits all soil improving miracle, but he certainly didn’t have to pretend there is no way to fundamentally define the term in order to make that case, and then to advocate using another equally nebulously defined product instead was just silly. Also, the claims that biochar doesn’t increase soil organic matter on the one hand, despite its being organic matter in and of itself, and the claim that it cannot be gotten rid of on the other are completely contradictory statements. I think he showed his bias on this one, and he clearly holds the attitude that anything without a clear, specific and well defined scientific consensus isn’t worth using, when that attitude is frankly antithetical to how consensus is formed in the first place, and we can all as easily be citizen scientists when it comes to this sort of thing as we can for conducting population censuses for butterflies, or birds or whatever…science is the specific process of inquiry into reality, not the institutional constructs that centralize and curate scientific knowledge or decree standardized definitions.
@@cantseetheforestforthetree9673 Well said, giving you a thumb up on each of your responses. I trust the other thumbs up you received are in agreement that you said it really well. Totally agree with you on this. Thanks.
I’ve used bio char for 3 years and can’t see the difference , improvement with my garden soil
For me it’s waisted of time and money . But grass clippings as mulch works very well and has improved the soil . Now I’m using leach, worm tea . It seems to do well , but to early to make a statement. Thanks again for backing up your statements with proof and not repeating what others say . Which most TH-camrs are doing
He's got a vid saying compost tea doesn't work
Have you inoculated it before applying it to the soil?
I had a couple bushes that were planted 12 years ago that have not grown and we sickly. I put biochar with compost on top of it around them last fall and they doubled in size this spring. My wife asked me what I did to those bushes that they grew so much. I am not saying biochar will work wonders everywhere... but in my growing beds and in my gardens (in our clay soil), it has worked wonders for us.
We had a place in our farm where we burned trash, mostly leaves and cuttings of waste wood. Then we changed the place for burning trash.. All these areas eventually used for planting Cacao and Flowering Ginger (Alpine).
The areas we used for burning produced plants almost double the size. We have clay soil with Ph about 6.5.
This is just an observation
This may be a novel use for bio-char. In a new home I built a 230 square foot garden: Kind of a raised bed/walk in garden hybrid. First year was great. All bumper crops of veggies + berries. Second year was not as spectacular. Third year everything basically suddenly died in about a weeks time. Eventually I discovered the perils of planting too close to a Black Walnut tree. My garden is about 8 feet beyond the Walnut canopy. I found it roots had extended out under my garden when I dug up my beds to try and replant grape vines. I soon learned of my ignorance for picking that location due to the rich moisture & nutrients of the garden drawing the walnut roots to compete. The Juglone toxicity of the walnut killed everything but the shallowest rooting plants. It had taken three months to build this fenced garden structure with arbor entrance. In order to salvage the situation I replaced the multiple in-ground beds with 18 inch raised beds. In the bottom 3 inches of the bed I put pure hard-packed uncharged char to absorb any Juglone which may came from below, and absorb any moisture or nutrients which may leach from above, so as not to draw any more walnut roots. So far, this has worked for three years, and I've had many successful nightshade yields: Tomato, Pepper, Potatoes, all previously very susceptible to Walnut toxicity. Just wanted to pass the word in case anyone else has a similar situation.
This is a perfect example of how anecdotal evidence serves to perpetuate a garden Myth. In this case, two myths in one! That is, the myth of biochar and the myth of the alliopathic Black Walnut tree.
Here's just one simple fact (of many) that is contrary to your assumptions: the roots and bark of the Black Walnut do not contain Juglone.
@@priayief Indeed - Myths and endless contradictory statements are the biggest negative in the garden realm. You have to research broadly and vet your sources with scrutiny before you start to get the real picture. There are many University/Government research papers on the allelopathic properties of the Black Walnut tree. I am open minded, so please do cite a scientific resource showing that the presence of Juglone does not exist in the roots of the tree, and I will read it. If you re-read my post you'll see I did not use the Char as "Bio-Char" in the classic sense. I used it as Carbon barrier to bind to undesirable chemicals, just like is used to filter water. I am not using it to hold water or provide nutrients for roots.
why not just fall the walnut tree. done
Because I guess you did permanent beds, i.e. tried zero-dig or reduced ploughing method, instead of relying on at least a yearly one spade deep ploughing.
The first year you bring new soil and/or ploughed the existing soil to a good depth. So it means it cut the roots of the tree and/or that the tree did not grew roots into the fresh substrate layer yet. And keep in mind that commercial garden substrate is usually mixed with fertilizer, so it will bring nutrient for the first season, but it is quickly depleted.
But then as you did not ploughed the soil at least one spade deep at least once a year, the tree roots invaded the substrate. It's no juglone that did anything, it just that that the fine roots of the tree sucked all the nutrients and water, leaving the vegetable to compete with little root space and nutrient avalaibility. On top of that you did not replenenish the substrate with fertilizer.
You can in fact garden right under a blacknut tree if there's enough sunlight and the walnut tree is pruned and thinned. You just have to plough a least one spade deep each year to "scalp" the fine tree roots that would otherwise compete with the crops.
By packing charcoal at depth, all you did is a little root barrier. But just doing that with gravel or just soil would have done the exact same thing. Because the layer is compacted, the tree roots are slowed so that the above layer is free root space for the crops, but it has nothing to do with juglone.
I don't think black walnut is a myth. It is incrementally killing my garden starting closest to the tree.
Having tried every fertilizing technique the TH-cam gardening channels have fed me over the last ten years I’ve come to the conclusion I enjoy fertilizing my huge gardens with all the different methods. This channel for years has tried to break me of that habit and this year and as many years going forward I can stay off the fertilizer bandwagon I’m going cold turkey. My wife doesn’t believe me but I’m gonna try real hard. I recommend this channel the most to any new gardeners.
U.T. is a great tool and keeps me in new ideas. Everyone is telling me to swear off Miracle Grow products, but I'm not using it as much as I use to AND I can quit anytime I want!! I'm not as well practiced in "organic", but I do like to use compost and other "natural" resources to fertilize. We can only do what we can do, right??
I use maple leaves or forest mulch on everything... including the garden square we till. Keeps the soil alive and it creates a layer of nice compost over the years. Its a bit more work to rake the leaves and chop em up before spreading. Its also a bit less esthetically pleasing in the spring (before the plants hide it), and my neighbors probably think I'm weird, but 7 years in and it works great. Soil seems healthy, teaming with bugs and fungi, and plants seem happy!
Its also free since we are surrounded by maple trees!
it’s fun to experiment with different fertilizers and soil amendments.
Which fertilizers and soil amendments gave the best results for you?
I have found high phosphate + potassium blends fed to fruit trees to be very beneficial. Some claim it does nothing, but I think it does.
compost tea
@@kated3165 yes, leaf mold soil is the best, very best. Stay away from birch and black walnut leaves..... beech is one of the best, imho
I would like to hear a discussion on the "black soil" found in the Amazon rainforest that was produced by the ancient tribes living there. Was it biochar?
Yes
Lots of people promoting biochar point to Terra Prada - the black soil found in the Amazon as proof that biochar works. The reality is that scientists are not sure how the black soil was made. Anyone who claims it is biochar - has not researched the facts.
Carbon in its simplest natural form. It's carbon. The building block for all known life. Carbon is the reason for adding organic matter.
@@samartinez1988 Underrated comment
@@Gardenfundamentals1well, what about dr Higa, who makes EM1? He has researched the microbes in that amazonian soil for years.
One of those bacteria is a photosynthetic bacteria, Purple non sulfur bacteria.
In Canada “Royal Oak” hardwood lump charcoal (not bricketts that have a binder) can be crushed and inoculated with compost or pee, it’s the same thing! It’s the same process!
Good news, I just bought 20lb bag earlier today, before I saw this nebulous video and crushed it in a pail and mixed it with a week old kitchen scraps, rain water and pee. Will age it 2-3 weeks with other additives like my compost and worm castings. Then will mix it with the compost that is still maturing over winter, just waiting for warmer days, have tons of worms in there. Live in Wasaga Beach, ON.
@@Cyclonut96 I have done that too but personally not sure I believe in it. At least you have saved a ton of money for just thinking rationally. What’s a 20 lb bag of biochar going for these days?
@@tobruz $22 at Real Canadian Superstore
That’s what I’ve used with good results.
@@tobruzit’s not a bag of bio char, it’s a bag of charcoal without chemical additives, that the person bought. I bought a bunch of bags before 2020 for about 5 bucks, and that was cheap. I recently saw some in California for about 7… they weren’t huge bags, can’t recall the exact size but one of those smaller royal oak bags goes a long way. It doesn’t become bio char until it’s been filled with nutrients and stuff.
To make charcoal you need high heat and low oxygen. If you're burning in an open pit the exterior wood will turn to ash. The difference between charcoal and biochar. The biochar is inoculated . Charcoal is just carbon.
The biochar becomes as I think a condominium, housing microbes and fertilizers.
Best simple explanation on TH-cam. Thanks
Here in GCC, using biochar is very common, especially for lemon, fig and dates trees. The dates tree residue biochar usually turns to powder, and is used in the soil mix. Biochar is organic pesticide, it prevents close to 80% of plants problems. Nematoda for example can't live in a plant that is planted in or fertilized with biochar. The diameter of plants that are regularly fertlized with biochar is usually bigger than others, the tree at 3 years look as think as 5 yeaes old tree an and it produce way much more fruite. With the time the soil becomes very rich, it would have all the warms and biogerms that would have been otherwise killed by pesticides. If you want to plant organic, use biochar.
What is GCC ?
@@bettinaripperger4159seems like maybe Gulf nations like in Middle East.
Wow, I had never heard that brochure can prevent nematodes. How does that happen/work?
@@bettinaripperger4159 Gulf Cooperation Council. Saudi Arabia, Dubai, and a few other countries.
@@dl6317 Fungi can trap and eat nematodes. Adding biochar can increase fungal populations from 1 billion per handful of soil to 1 trillion. This army of fungi will keep nematodes away.
Check TH-cam for the below 2 videos, this is how it is done on our farms
Preparing lands for plants
فوائد الرماد للارض الزراعية
th-cam.com/video/z2MWlCQsAJ8/w-d-xo.html
Fertilizing
الرماد وافوادها السحرية مع الزعيم ابوسلمان
th-cam.com/video/7q9tzzES20M/w-d-xo.html
@18:30
I love how you explain the variability in all the studies. It's so east to look at one study and make a blanket assumption when in reality there are too many variables that can't be controlled.
My very limited research has led me to the tentative conclusion that the biggest advantage of biochar is that it prevents compaction due to its larger particle size. In that sense, it’s like perlite or vermiculite that you can make at home.
Agreed, its a free way to stretch my limited compost reserves, and it seems to really improve the soil texture in heavy compacted Louisiana clay. Another thing this video neglects to consider is that a lot of people are burning fires for other purposes anyway.
@@NickleJ I live somewhere where there is frequent danger from wildfires, but refuse to live without my fire pit, so I will often douse my fire and cover the coals with dirt, leading to lots of material that I can crush up and put in the compost pile. It absolutely has aided in loosening my heavy clay, and that's enough reason to continue.
Wood ash with some unburnt charcoal is a good source of potassium. The charcoal improves soil structure, water retention and drainage. I approve of this message.
A great way to study biochar would be looking at the soil health before and after a forest fires.
Mother Nature shows us the results every year.
They did research that. Part of the reason the nations plains have such good soil is from the build up of char.
Forest fires are primarily a process of oxidative combustion which actually produces a mixture of released minerals and ash.
This combustion product initially provides mineral fertilization for the resumption of growth of already present species and/or colonizing species.
Formation of biochar/charcoal will probably also take place during a forest fire, possibly also underground.
@@brudo5056 material highest burns the most closest to the ground the least. The stuff that falls to the ground extinguishes and is left as char.
In traditional canadian, scandinavian and japanese architecture we burn exposed wood to prevent it being eaten up by mold, bacteria and fungi. And it works. So it feels weird to introduce inert matter to the soil and hope bacteria would dwell in it. But I have been wondering if it would be helpful to pulverize used activated carbon faucet filters to introduce captured minerals back to the soil.
I have found the biochar question daunting for many of the reasons you discuss. As a home gardener, I have opted out but remain curious
I'm going to keep adding it to my compost, if only because it's a good place to put it.
My biochar is a byproduct of the charcoal that I make for my barbecue (essentially everything below 1cm in size).
Thanks for the level headed explanation. I've burned tree branches with low oxegen, crushed it, and added it to my compost piles. Let it charge for at least 6 months, then added it to my garden. I figure it can't hurt in small amounts. Wondering if the studies where there was a decrease in yield, maybe they added too much or didn't charge it long enough. Hopefully they do more studies.
I go through a long drawn out process to prepare my biochar. When I make my charcoal in a 55 gallon metal barrel. I quench the red hot coals with water to expand it into a activated charcoal form.. then put it in my cement mixer with some fairly large sized rocks and enough water to keep the charcoal from getting airborne. I keep adding charcoal as it pulverizes because I can make a much bigger batch that way. When I have processed enough for my needs I remove the rocks and add enough water to get a sloppy cement consistency then I add Ammonium Sulfate to charge the biochar.
After it runs for about 20 mins I start adding compost or peat moss or something as a thinning material. Sometimes I'll add compost tea at that point which helps activate the elemental sulfur I add, the little split pea looking size, to lower my soil ph, being in an area that has lots of calcium carbonate in the soil as well as in the tap water... then keep adding drier material to get it to get it into a more crumbly state so I can spread it and incorporate it into the soil. Works great for me in my situation. My soil just keeps getting better every year. Been doing that for 15 years now.
I just add my compost pile. Does the same thing without all that ridiculous extra work.
@@geraldhowse8597 Probably not. I've dumped activated coconut carbon from used filters into my fertile soil mixes several times. Seedlings planted in it grow more than vigorously.
The University of Nebraska is currently doing a study with urban/suburban gardeners to study the effects of biochar over multiple seasons. I know this because I have two plots in the study. Stay tuned.
Nice! When will the results come out?
@@onLYbyM Preliminary results should be available next spring.
Remember that terrapretta or bio-char infused soil comes from ancient agricultural practices including slash and burn.
I think they noticed how quickly things grew after burning a field.
They may have made the progression from slash and burn to sowing a living mulch and burning it off in the later winter.
Doing this for 1000 years produced this thick layer of charcoal infused soil.
Charcoal has been made for forge work for a very long time. It involves digging a pit and filling it with wood then covering it with dirt leaving air holes that could be opened and closed to control the air.
We don't see pits or forging going on in that society so the material must have been burned insitue.
Terra preta's origin is inconclusive at best.
Regular slash and burn wouldn't create biochar.
Slash and burn agriculture is a method of using an area for a while until the soil becomes depleted and then letting it go fallow for many years until it's cleared and burned. Of course things grew better after a slash and burn because the area had been left fallow for an extended period of time and nutrients would have naturally re-accumulated over that time.
As an aside, what else would they have done with the material after clearing an area? Gathering and moving is labor intensive.
@@shawnsg Slash and burn is taking new ground and burning off the vegetation. The topsoil including the ashes and charcoal would be pulled into hills with the only tools they had which were a digging stick and a hoe.
That field could only be used for a few years before the nutrients were depleted and they would have to move to a different place and start over.
They did use slave labor using thousands of captured tribe members.
They could have burned fields far away and used slave labor to carry baskets of topsoil with the ashes and charcoal and spread it over fields that were near the town's. Doing that for centuries would have produced the results found there.
We always over think things. Time and toil can produce amazing results.
Thanks for your valuable input! Your biochar info makes complete sense! However, I will say that my least concern about making/using biochar would be the effect on CO2 in the air (a non-issue to anyone who seeks the real facts)!
Totally agree!!!
I much rather put my efforts into my worms, compost and leaf mold bins than making or using biochar'
I went down the garden path with biochar a few years ago, the remainder I add to my worm bins, can't hurt.
Do not need it.
Stay Well!!!
The only reason I got on the biochar bandwagon is because I found myself with a lot of surplus hardwood thanks to the Emerald Ash Borer and I don't heat with wood. I had the means and materials to build a simple retort oven and got pretty good results. Well, time and commitments got in the way before I could process all of it and most of it started getting punky. So, I built some Huegelkulture beds which is maybe what I should've done anyway. I'm glad you pointed out you have to burn a heat source to make the biochar in the first place. Has it helped my garden, I have no idea? It seems like diverse cover cropping and minimum tillage has done more than anything over the last several years.
Thanks for the info on BC! I have three of your books and enjoyed reading them all!!!
Definition: Biochar is porous char that holds more water than its own weight.
Scholium: Char coal used for heating has the wood pores still mostly filled with tars and. Burn them out and you get biochar. Charcoal has ca. 2/3 the energy content of wood, biochar ca. 1/5th.
The water holding capacity is the obvious quality criterion.
The oldest field experiment (done right) is the Terra Preta soil in the Amazon, started before Columbus.
I'm happy to hear your analysis of "Biochar". It's great to hear how you are telling your viewers about the many variables, such as the electronic reality, the carbon sequestration argument that is a false argument for the climate religion and the fact that charcoal that is not charged will take away from its environment before it can give back.
After 17 years of research and 3 years of actually using the charcoal I make in different forms and getting the results to show.
This is why I don't make "Biochar".
This channel is new as of this comment being posted on the first day I created the channel.
Prepper's Paradise Canada has some videos of the journey here.
I'll look for a future opportunity to chat with you about this.
Again thank you for this video. Cheers.
Like every other soil amendment, a little wont hurt and may help. Diversity of materials in your compost is the key. I add a small amount to my compost along with old bones from my dog, yard waste, and kitchen scraps. It gets rid of waste if nothing else. The good thing about biochar is, its a sponge. It adds texture to soil where microbes can congregate and allows small pockets of air to exist in the soil around it and holds moisture. As far as charging it goes, I simply add it to my compost bins and let it weather for a year or two before adding it to the garden. At least its out of my fire pit lol
This is great explanation! Thank you for sharing your insights
Don't forests grow back stronger after forest fires? Seems that nature has been doing it for itself for a long time.
That does it. I'm digging all the carbon from the garden. See you sometime next year. Old-timers used to plant pumpkin seeds in the ashes of a burnt-out log. They cropped well.
Raw Biochar absorbs nutrients (like activated carbon) thus the need to inoculate it. If it isn’t inoculated it will negatively impact your garden. Since pathogens need 130F temperatures to kill them, soaking in manures might not be a good idea. My favorite technique is to add 10% of a compost heaps volume as Biochar. I don’t have specific test data, but I believe it is beneficial, like up to 15% greater productive plant growth. I’ve seen it under microscope and lots of protozoans, nematodes and mycorrhizae threads.
More research is needed but there are too many variables which complicates measurements.
I love adding biochar to my property. Storm downed trees, pruning from others makes for piles that attract unwanted guests large and small. I try to burn just before a heavy rain so that the fire is extinguished before a complete burn and I simply rake the unburned sticks to a new pile and rake the coals up for washing and sorting. It is my growing medium for aquaponics as well as the filter. The dust washed off is in the drinking water for my animals. There is plenty to spread around the garden, but I do that with the older activated filter media. DO NOT put fresh charcoal in your garden
I really enjoy watching this video. An eye opening!
Biochar is a mere vessel where chemical or non chemicals can be held and transferred between. The outcome only changes due to which you choose to infuse and as in commercial slow release fertilisers work so can one inoculate Biochar for individual plant needs. The most effective way to feed ones crops is by introducing rock minerals to help the microorganisms and help biodiversity within the breaking down of humus. Mulch Mulch Mulch..!!
rock minerals like a basic bag of 10-10-10
The best arguments I've heard for biochar are to better store nutrients in the soil and to provide a good home for microbes due to it's structure.
@@geraldfriesen5600 if charcoal can provide structure in soil, biological activity can be at least preserved due to the presence of more moisture. I’d like to see more work in this field where bio charge is added to soil with a high clay content. And work forward to enhance quality.
The claim is that due to the porous nature of biochar the microbes basically have a little apartment to live in. As long as they have food that makes sense, but do they need this "apartment" for added benefits to the soil and plants? I don't know.
I enjoy these videos. But this one was a miss for me. Presenter seems curiously negative on subject matter. Some points are well identified, but main thrust of negativity seems to be that there is no standard for the term biochar. Well, isn’t the term compost similarly open ended? Should we be as negative and fearful of all things described as compost? Applying the same advice/avoidance for any and all material that can be described as compost would surely be a big change to agricultural activities.
Biochar is great for holding the micro organisms needed to break down nutrients in the soil so that it is readily available for the plant roots to take up nutrients. It is also good for the root system and it leaves areas for oxygen for the roots so that they don't rot. Biochar is also good for water drainage/less compaction of the soil...It has it place in gardening and lawn care but it is not the be all, end all of either.
His conclusion has a basis that it is undetermined to have lasting effect for soil benefits and longevity in the soil. My personal experience is that biochar in the soil will last based on the soil and the soil depth. It also helps with soil moisture in a high clay environment. But may not help in a soil whereas clay is minimal. I have tons of clay. Without amending the soil, there is no tolerance to dry conditions. My soil is modified with sand and compost. Biochar is now combined with sand.
Organic matter breaks down in the soil quite quickly (1-3 years) whereas biochar apparently "accumulates" over time (example Amazon "terra preta") to help build soil structure. The Biochar Journal has a useful overview "How biochar works in soil - Kelpie Wilson"
That is what everyone says - so why does the carbon level not go up with added biochar?
@@Gardenfundamentals1 That is a strange point I had also pondered from the video. Just from a fundamental perspective, if one is adding 'relatively' large structures of carbon into the soil which is quite slow to decay, then how does the subsequent testing for carbon not identify its presence. I don't believe it has suddenly disappeared. This may be a flaw with the monitoring method?
@@Gardenfundamentals1Standard soil carbon respiration tests don't get any results from solid C in the sample because on a plant level, it's inert. You need to have a combustion test to accurately measure soil %C when biochar is present.
@@teebob21 Thank you for that explanation! That makes sense that it is carbon dioxide gas emission which is measured to determine healthy soil biology, and not elemental carbon. Your "Carbon Respiration" terminology pointed me in the right direction to dig deeper into the topic.
@@GasOperatedDad Happy to be of service to a fellow gardener 😊
Try it and see what happens. The easiest way to use it is to just put crushed charcoal in with your compost and let it charge over a few months or a season before incorporating into your garden. I’ve had good results. But, it needs to get better over time by continually adding the stuff you’d normally add. Over years. Then I suspect the soil then has a lot of fertility that eventually won’t need a lot of inputs. There needs to be a look at long term results. But, I’ve done well with it.
If you live in an area that is prone to nutrient leaching out from your soil. For example, heavy rain season and very poor soil. Biochar is a good way to keep theses nutrients in the soil.
It can also help the soil structure if you have a heavy clay soil. It will increase the drainage without making the soil too heavy like rock/sand could. Charcoal density is less than rock.
Char would help regulate nutrients concentration in soil. If you put a little too much synthetic nute in the soil, it will absorb some of it. And if the soil it getting too poor, microbes will take nute from the pores of the char.
Worst move would be to put char in your garden without loading it before. You can load it in you compost bin + pee for example.
My background: analytical chemistry and mineralorist technician. And garden enthusiast!
I'm sorry, I didn't took time to find study to sustain my claims, so, take my comment with a grain of smoked halite!
Appreciate your input. Thanks
I add the coals from my fire bowl to the garden beds after I've dowsed them in water which keeps them from fully burning down to ash. I let it charge on the surface in the compost mulch. Theres not much cuz i have 2-3 fires a year. I'm not afraid of it cuz theres not much there. Its just something I do with waste its not a process I follow and no equipment. Many people tend to use terra preta deposits in S. A. as an example of biochar effectiveness but I cant see ancient americans going through some crazy process either. More likely they may have just gardened in former junk piles/garbage pits.
People like to retort that formation of terra preta is "akshully" a mystery, but archaeologists have a pretty good idea that it's just what you've said: villages had a trash pile that manifested as a combination compost/Humanure/burn pit, with some broken pots for good measure, and they just observed what anyone who's thrown tomatoes or squash into their compost observes: things grow well there. So they fill it up, then plant in it and start a new dump pit. Terra preta occurs in small pockets in the forest, not spread over a large area. Occam's razor points to a very simple explanation here.
I love the addage: its not what you do, but how.
Charcoal is such a novel and nitpicky area.
I think its good to empty your cup of preconceptions of terrapratta or biochar it just makes grand illusions.
Think of it as the stuff in your water filter, think of it as the stuff that keeps your aquarium clean, its the stuff that you eat to absorb poisons, its the same stuff that chemist's use as a palladium catalyst because a small amount of palladium acts like a large amount when adsorbed (not absorbed) onto the high surface area of the "activated charcoal"
That same process is why its so valuable in soil, it will loosely hold onto these charges particles otherwises known as nutrients, something else that also loosely holds these particles is fumic and humic organic acids from microbial digestion (compost) however the biggest problem of compost is its sludgyness, it significantly helps the nutritional value of the soil but at a certain detriment to soil structure... enter activated charcoal...
Also for what its worth, respectfully, i find it disheartening for someone who states eggshells last centuries to question how long charcoal lasts in anerobic conditions... which is how it was supposedly used:
You take half burned logs and burythem BELOW the subsoil(as far as you can go below your clay layer) to influence nutrient leaching while naturally churning your lower soil layers as the fungus and anerobic processes naturally take over and you have settling. Take one section of garden dig a hole and start this process, every year dig further and bury more burned wood, by time you finish it go back to the start, dig up the old wood or whats left and throw it on top of the newest section bury new burned wood keep going. This "tills" the entire soil system in a way no manmade tiller could ever hope to reproduce and once done you never need to do anything as you have a relatively homogeneous soil structure 10 feet deep full of adsorbant and absorbant qualities, but who has the capability or work ethic to start digging 10 ft trenches... anyways love your tough love/piercing benevolent attitude.
Thanks for this! I have never used the stuff myself. I suppose that if it holds on to nutrients, it might be useful in a very sandy soil, where nutrients tend to wash away quickly?
Biochar, or any organic material, is a great thing to add to sandy soils.
I use Biochar in a very sandy soils to provide a refuge for micro organisms to survive through our very hot summers. In areas where I use it, I get improved compost and mulch breakdown. It also keeps nemotodes away from bulbs planted in sandy soils. In clay, I use Biochar to reduce compaction and to provide airspaces.
Another great video, thank you
It's easy...take wood and use pyrolysis to create charcoal. Take charcoal, size it and inoculate it and it becomes biochar. If you put charcoal into the soil, it will pull nutrients from the soil and become biochar. Doesn't get much simpler than that
How about burying biochar in the wet layer of clay more then 3' below surface. Mainly just using it to level the area out for my tomato bed but id like to help it as much as i can. Also layering in weeds that vary from days old to months old and top layers of places ive burn in the yard
One thing that has been under a lot of scrutiny in the past is acidophilus. Many expert say that it doesn't do anything to promote gut health. However, many will claim that physically it helps. I can support what this site does to eliminate potential placebo effect in gardening. It's saves on time and money. On the other hand, if you have a controlled common A/B test to get results, you don't always need the answer to move forward. The key in the argument is eliminating placebo through experience because nobody has time or money to do lengthy testing on stuff like bio char, and if the tests come back to suggest that bio char does nothing even if you have excellent contradictory results with A/B testing. What then? Time would suggest do what works and KISS.
Folks years ago would often save their wood ash & put it on the garden. Some root crops like beet seem to do well with wood ash added to the soil. Does the charcoal work? I have found that not so much in the first year but in the second year it does.
Raw charcoal is like a sponge & will absorb nutrients. That would explain the results in the 2nd year.
So best practice is to "charge" the charcoal before applying it to the soil.
One thing is clear, co2 is essential for living things.
Well, essential for living plants, anyhow. Obligate aerobes like animals have limits on their CO2 tolerance.
I've made biochar in my woodstove and in a rocket stove. The hard part is grinding it up fine enough. Making compost is easier, and at least in my case seems more effective.
Char chunks less than an inch cubed are great resources for any soil. Don't bother grinding your char....just put the fines in your garden.
I agree there is lots of hype about biochar.
I decided to do my own testing on container grown citrus trees. I added 20% charged biochar to my x18 citrus trees.
Do you have a control group to compare results? Please let us know your findings as we are also interested in growing fruit trees. Lots of rocky/sandy soil here, with prolonged periods of drought.
@@cosmicbeer I been growing citrus for years. I know what to expect and recognize issues. I kept few citrus trees in potting mix without biochar.
All my citrus are in pots. Most of Citrus issues are related to roots. This makes them good candidates for biochar.
@@SamMTL514 Try adding it to soil that has been over amended heavily with organic fertilizers. Balance the PH of both the test and the control.
Hi. Interesting little home study 😂... Any findings yet?
@@onLYbyM initial results, 3 months in to the trial, are positive. I already started to add bio char to other citrus trees / tropical plants that needed repotting. But the true tests is during winter months.
Thank you. Compost for me. Which is easy for me and my chickens to make.
Biochar is inoculated by using compost, casting, or some other form of biodiversity. Without inoculation, it's just natural charcoal. I wouldn't recommend using it to cook your food because that's just bad juju. Using it to grow your food is good juju. You're right there's not enough information on it so I'm in season two of my test. Last season I dug out my garden about a foot and a half deep and burned yard debris mostly wood. I covered this with maybe 2 inches of compost and planted my garden. Everything grew but only the plants on the outer edges produced well. This season it's had plenty of time for nature to help it along. After adding another inch or so of compost and planting butternut squash and cucumbers I shall wait for the results. so far so good.
I’m in my Science class here. Very educational.
Thanks for such fantastic videos (this and others). I am new to gardening and it gets overwhelming with many experts telling you to do many different things to grow plants and most of the times there are opposing advices without why behind the advice. I love your way of answering question, which is asking the logical question and leading the audience towards the right answer instead of handing over it (magically). Also, there are so many myths you have debunked which makes gardening simpler! Thanks again and keep it up.
Simple and practical difference between charcoal and biochar:
Charcoal contains tree oils/resins, therefore burns and can be used as a fuel source.
Biochar is void of these oils, hence does not burn.
The removal of these oils is what allows space for microbes and water to penetrate and stay there.
When making biochar at home, if you crush is and rub it on your hands..then wash in water..if the black soot is not removing..that means its not biochar because it still has oils in it.
Wheras biochar would readily wash off, and has a more glass like, lighter feel and texture.
Hope that helps.
Yes, the Amazonian spent time and money sending out for samples. Did multiple third party tests, checked the results with the best consultants of the time. Conclusion, need more studies. Char is char. Simple yard debris cooked open flame cap until drum is full. Smother it out in another drum or water drench. It's char and it works.
I've heard biochar being called a bank account. It doesn't do anything on its own. It's just a way for your soil to hold on to nutrients, water, and microbes and keep them available for your plants. If you have a well-watered, well fertilized garden, then it won't do anything. But if your soil often dries out or you don't fertilize every season, then it's probably helpful. Personally, I keep my garden well cared for, so I can't see biochar helping there. But I mostly just let my lawn do its own thing, and I've been thinking some biochar could help my lawn take care of itself.
Thanks. Finally, somebody that thinks with scientific reasoning on you tube.
Science requires studies. Studies require funding. Why do we not see more biochar studies?
@@lofm6213You hit the nail in the head 😂
Good point
I add charcoal to houseplant potting mix. Does nothing for growth, that I can notice, however- it does result in less smell, when using organic fertilizers inside the house.
Oooo that's a HOT topic! 🔥🔥🔥 Good luck with that one lol 😂
Ah, but the real question asked by so many gardeners with a fire pit where only firewood is used and the only chemicals involved may be that at the end of a match-stick or on the penny-saver paper used to start it, is: “Should I / can I use the residue in my fire-pit on/in my vegetable garden?”, or “Is there any benefit or harm to adding this residue to my raised bed(s) or garden?”🤷♂️
Great information. Thank you for making this video.
I have made a fair amount of biochar.... things to consider...... what is that bluish gassy like stuff on the top of the biochar rinse bucket? WHat do I do with the the bipochar rinse water? How much pollution did I make cooking that biochar? Ps. it doesn't hold that much water, although does appear to have some hydrolic effects.
I've heard as well as nutrients, it will become a great storehouse/retreat for beneficial soil microorganisms!
I always was told to use wood ash in the garden 👍
Wood ash is great, if you have acidic native soil. If you have alkaline soil (like I do) it's a net negative.
Thank you sir for your research.
I am trying it around my banana plants this year. I lit it sit in water, kelp and fish emulsion for 5 days and I mixed in a layer around my bananas.
My prediction is that I will have to use less fertilizer since the char can store more nutrients than the soil around it can.
Any updates on your banana trees so far?
@@AhrayahLabanlong time, they did very well. However I hope they grow over my palms soon so they can grow even faster due to getting more sunlight.they are round 8ft tall, but growth has slowed for the winter.
Hopefully in spring some of them will fruit.
@@Rocketman0407 This is encouraging to hear! Thanks for the update.
The further south you go the more biochar makes sense. Organic matter is harder to keep in southern latitudes but biochar lasts.
Great point. Biochar is nothing but a fancy name for elemental Carbon. Carbon is a great CEC site, and it isn't consumed by soil biota. It lasts years and years.
seems like a good view.
idk about "bio char" but the charcoal you want for agriculture is highly porous made from low density materials.
the main differences in charcoals are the density of it. you find that if you look into other uses for charcoal such as foraging or black powder production. the material used is the most important factor.
Some useful content, but i would advise to ignore the unsubstantiated conclusion that biochar does not sequester C in soil. This is one of the most confident aspects, and the overwhelming majority of studies investigating this show that pyrogenic carbon in soil (charcoal/biochar) is the most long-lived of all known soil organic C pools.
Correct. There are very few microbes that consume elemental C, which is what charcoal/biochar is. Burying plant carbon as biochar will lock it up for decades.
@@teebob21 Using it to grow trees will lock it up for centuries...
@@GARDENER42 Not true. Most trees live less than 75 years, and when they die and rot, the carbon in them returns to the atmosphere. Charcoal or biochar is the longest lasting soil carbon sink. Of course, trees like walnut or sequoia are better long term sinks, but they are a small proportion of trees, and only thrive in certain areas.
@@teebob21 Your claim only stands if you include saplings, shaded out by their larger peers & trees cut for lumber.
Oak & chestnut can reach 1,000 years, beech 400 & the average is in fact 3-400 years.
@@GARDENER42 "Your claim only stands if you include *all* the trees instead of the specific outliers that support my assertion" isn't a very strong rebuttal, my friend.
15-20 years ago there was talk of using charged biochar in agriculture. partly to bind carbon in the soil but also to get a better structure on heavy clay soil and better harvests.
I think when my dad farmed as a kid back in the 1930s, they burned the fields in the late fall. It killed overwintering insect pests and burned up weed seeds. Though I don't think they thought about it, a small amount of charcoal was left on the ground. My dad grew veggies with no effort while I've always struggled. He lived in Florida for a time where the soil was just sand. He planted a couple rows of squash, fed them a little triple 13, and picked a 5 gallon bucket of squash every day. I did he same thing and got very few squash before the vine borers killed them all. His plants were small with squash spurting out everywhere. Mine were huge with only a few. In that same soil, he said he was going to plant some purple hull peas. He got bushels and bushels of peas without even trying. I wish I'd paid more attention.
I wonder if biochar would fix my garden soil… last year we used horse manure that was from someone who fed their horses hay sprayed with herbicides. Most of my tomatoes and other vegetables curled up and died. This year I’m planning to do “no dig” on top and buying local compost to plant in.
“We've tested biochar with grass seed on several occasions and each time we found the soil supported with biochar had grass seed germinate faster and grow taller than any other soil. Grass was growing in as few as 5 days in some tests! After 10 days our grass seed is taller and more successful with the biochar mix.”
Very good video. I press big like button.
I love your videos because you are such a ardent contrarian, but you're rarely wrong.
I live rural and heat with wood (I live in PEI, Canada). Is it beneficial to add some of that ash to the garden or to compost that is to be introduced to the garden next spring?
It's just like a natural forest fire. Slash & Burn methods have been used around the world for thousands of years.
I think a good definition for bio-char would be:
Non-toxic wood that went through the process of pyrolysis, made for the purpose of soil amendment. (Just a fancier way to say garden charcoal.)
Can you please talk about WOOD WINEGAR also. Thank you. Your videos are so useful.
Bio-char has cell walls that are in tact, charcoal does not have cell walls still in tact. The cell wall being in tact allows the bio-char creates a place for the microbes, minerals, and water to be stored.
Having done several controlled growth and production studies I have found that the bio-char does in fact help a great deal with growth and production.
From my background as an environmental engineer:
One should stop describing pyrolysis as combustion under low oxygen concentrations.
The combustion is actually an external process, an energy source to carry out the pyrolysis but not the pyrolysis itself.
The essence of the process, in the organic core material, is rather a combination of heating-boiling-distillation-flashing off volatilizable components that in ideal conditions are only burned outside the core, preferably in the external (surrounding) combustion process that provides the energy supplies to strip the core material of various organic compounds.
Because the organic core material, often wood, can come from different species, with varying quality and moisture content, there is never an unambiguous starting mixture of core material, and the gas mixture of volatile substances will also vary.
Even these volatile components can split and transform into subcomponents during the process, depending on temperature and transfer through the matrix.
What remains is basically the same spatial matrix structure, but mainly composed of almost 100% carbon.
The 'behavior' of carbon, as a chemical element, is of course also dependent on the process temperature and the dynamics within. If heating is too high for a long period of time, part of the carbon will also volatilize and disappear towards external oxidative combustion.
Depending on the composition and quantity of the starter package, indicative guideline values can be drawn up in terms of temperature and time, but the technical design of the pyrolysis installation will also play a role.
It may be possible to arrive at unambiguous international laboratory standards that will lead to practically workable standards for different technical designs.
The end products should also be better documented in terms of origin and (pyrolysis) process, as well as carry a clear composition label.
Sorry for the long 'story' but there is clearly still a lot of work to be done.
And the last word isn't spoken yet 🙂
Can you do a video on fulvic acid and/or humic acid?
People have been producing different types of "activated charcoal" for filtering gases and fluids for a very long time. Different "cracking" processes produce different lenghts and sizes of the "cracks and voids" in different materials. Very specific types of activated charcoal are applied depending if you want to adsorb particular sizes of molecules. You can get charcoal to remove oil from gases, or large molecular gases from other gases. These are common technologies and processes that have been used all over industry for centuries. Gardeners are just a target for another market. It may be useful, but mainly... it's just an advertizing campaign.
By the way, in 1997, for a particular filter design experiment, I bought 250 lbs of activated charcoal for $35. The company normally sold the charcoal in train car container volumes, but had a few odd bags laying around. The shipping was around the price of the charcoal. Buying a gallon in a plastic bag for $30 just shows you how gullible and ignorant people can be.
@@jeffclarke5497the price people are paying really is the thing that makes my head hurt the most lol. Someone in the comments mentioned using it to extend limited compost. The town I live in sells compost at $10 for a cubic yard. I could get three truckloads of compost for the price someone pays for a tiny bag of this stuff.
@@shawnsgfor someone who has the biomass and means to pyrolyze it using biochar to stretch compost makes perfect sense since they could conceivably produce it at a much lower cost than the cost of buying in compost.
@@cantseetheforestforthetree9673 it defies logic and reason. If someone needs 3 cubic yards of compost but has one, a tiny bag of [insert definition of biochar] isn't going to "extend" one cubic yard of compost into an equivalent three regardless of what the need for the compost is.
If someone has that much biomass, as you say, and some additional amount to produce heat then they can just make compost.
@@shawnsg you could try composting that red herring of a hypothetical you just threw out there.
Not all biomass is ideally suited for composting. I’d far prefer processing things like tree limbs and old bamboo canes into biochar than trying to work out the logistics of composting them without the industrial equipment it would require to render them onto sufficiently small, high surface area pieces as to be compostable on a reasonable timescale. Or maybe I just want to incorporate stable carbon into my soil that will house soil biota without being consumed by it.
As I understand it Biochar has a higher cec than both regular soil and compost so it will hold more nutrients and bacteria at once. Needing to use less fertilizer and or compost or nothing at all.
В любом случае, использование charcoal улучшает структуру почвы и уменьшает содержание CO 2 в атмосфере.
I was a follower until watching this activated charcoal and biochar are produced differently maybe you should do more research. I’ve used both for years along with common sense. I’ve done my own experiments with biochar and my seed germination and plant growth has increased greatly. Maybe you should try testing it yourself
How do you prevent mycotoxins in garden? Especially in mulch?
Charcoal = charcoal
Biochar= charcoal that has been inoculated. I would not call it biochar until it has been inoculated.
I burn a big fire in my garden every spring to get rid of tree branches. unwanted wood, and brush. I then rototill in the ashes and black chunks. I don’t know if it’s ’biochar’, and I don’t care.
Thank you great video!
Basically I’ve ascertained is all biochar is charcoal. Now what kind of is vague. BUT!!! Porous clean burned char does work well. Basically the difference I can tell that makes good char is that it is activated or it’s been cooked with steam at the right temperature. I do recall being at a brick yard where they tossed the char after burning for bricks and the areas where the more porous floating charcoal everything grew much better than everything around it. But I think it’s because the porousness and aeration, microbes etc. so it’s just a really good substrate in terms of aeration etc. now we have known that the South American Indians used tons of char. Now if you’re already burning then sure it works. Now for rooting cactus it works and I’ve used filter charcoal in aquaponics systems and it works amazing.
If you're trying to grow plants, increased CO2 levels in the air are a good thing... because(you'll never guess this!)... plants "breath" CO2..... 😲🤯... and I've got the biochem degrees and a box full of awards to back that up...
The principles of "biochar" are sound. Porous materials are used in the lab all the time for various things, ceramic beads with various pore sizes are common. It's used to filter stuff or as nucleation sites, or for growing certain bio things. As for making it, the principle is simple. 1 gal paint can, put a tiny hole in the lid, toss in your carbon source, put lid on tight, toss in embers or oven or whatever, till it stops belching wood gas. When you're ready to take it off, plug the hole with a stick or bamboo skewer or something, and let it cool. Open it up and Bob's your uncle! Not rocket surgery, we do it all the time to make char cloth or charcoal.
From experience making black powder, I can absolutely tell you 110% that your carbon source matters. This is because what's left is not 100% pure carbon. There are other molecules and atoms left over. We also know temp matters. Low and slow as a rule of thumb seems to be better for making black angry sand. Not sure why yet, perhaps nano structure preservation or something. Not sure if low and slow or hot, fast, and hard is best for gardening applications, you'd have to play with it.
Technically, you should be able to acheive the same thing with the beads I mentioned, the "bio char" is just a biodegradable way to do it. Obviously, "charging" it 1st is a best practice, no mater what media you use, because otherwise it'll absorb stuff from the soil. Either way, you could look at it as a method of "seeding" the soil with microbes and nutrients.
Is it enough difference to make a difference???
Not a clue, I just started playing with gardening, the community will have to play with "bio char" and all of variables that go along with it.
Biochar is defined as well as charcoal is defined. Having used biochar (that I made myself - pyrolysis in cans in a fireplace ), I have seen great results. How hard is it to buy a bag and try it out for a couple years and see what happens. The lack of studies tells me that the industry does not want to us know about this stuff. If biochar was bad, Scotts and all the other AG chemical companies would rail against it.
With that said, I do not understand the lack of biochar studies. With all the hype about biochar, you think that college professors would at least study it.
@@lofm6213All good points. Big companies don't want to fund studies that will bankrupt them 😂.
Reminds me a lot of the Vitamin D in medical field.
Could biochar simply replicate some of the processes seen in the aftermath of a forest fire, where nutrients previously locked up in vegetation are returned to the soil and microbial populations are rejuvenated? Hence why some people see better result if it's charged? Still sticking with my slow release.