How using Biochar can benefit the garden
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ค. 2024
- Join us as we show you how we made homemade biochar from old wild blackberry plants. We discuss the benefits of biochar to soil fertility both pros and cons in the garden. We also show how to activate biochar before its application and discuss why this is critically important. A final note is that we walk through how we made this biochar at home using a simple open pit burn method.
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#baremtnfarm_biochar - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
I love everything you did here, but if I could offer a word of advice, cover the layer of compost with leaf mulch or straw, or wood chips, and your system is golden! You want to protect the mulch from sun damage, and help it from washing away with rain, and mulch will do that, just the same as covering the biochar with compost helped protect the biochar. Thanks for putting in the work to make this video, and helping all of us who are trying to grow food :)
The Biochar is an ideal matrix for mycorrhiza. Mycorrhiza is a huge benefit for the plant roots and soil optimization. I’d add mycorrhiza and some organic matter fuel for the mycorrhiza network to develop.
I agree that mycorrhizae addition would also be beneficial. I think keeping a living root in the soil at all times would be key.
Dr Elaine student Matt Powers has spoken about purchased mico. The spores die in the aneurobic packaging, and you end up with a highly bacterial batch. He has tested most mico for sale under a microscope and doesnt recommend buying it. But if you do want to spend money on it, he has used packaged mico and will probably recommend a brand worth buying, if you can reach him. I dont think he does regular youtube live podcasts .
Good info - well done, thanks for taking time to make!
Good video. This is how we’ve been producing char. I use the metal bowl from a patio fire pit. When we kill the fire, it holds water. Then we scoop the char into sandbags and screen the leftovers with window screen.
Great way to go @jbelme1!
Yup and I just mixed it up with native soil. Love it!
Hi Cheska, it certainly is magical stuff. Our own mini Terra Preta.
Now that's a knife mate 😊😊😊 great explanation
Good video
Must be a vintage Sears wheelbarrow. Amazing it held up so long. We had one 60 years ago, should have kept it out of the weather.
Hi @Tom Jones. Yep, we purchased that wheelbarrow about 35 years ago. Sadly it recently failed at the wheel axle and the wheel collapsed ending its long run. We found a useful replacemnbet at a reasonable cost from Home Depot(USA) for about $39 USD. Don't think it will last as long(probably not me either😉)
Oddly I purchased one just like it at a junkyard, love it .... Sad yours finally wore out, did you make a lawn ornament out of it?
@@ansellovestogroworganicall2180 No, I guess I should pull it out of the weeds and examine it. Maybe I can patch the bed and bolt it back to the frame. If too far gone yard art is a good idea though. Thanks.
I just learned this from Dr Olivier Husson's free course over at Regen Ag. You can greatly improve Biochar by treating it with Ferrous Sulfate prior to burning. Unfortunately, he is an academic and gives long lectures with a terrible French accent. In the same section he talks about the benefits of paramagnetism (shades of Dr Arden Andersen). Paramagnetism refers to the magnetic attraction of minerals derived from volcanic rock (basalt.) Perhaps this ferrous sulfate increases the
paramagnetism of the biochar. Yes. But how do we apply it? Do you have any suggestions. This could be a new advance in biochar. Andersen already sold me on basalt rock dust. Thanks in advance for your
suggestions.
Sure would like to see a follow up on this Asparagus Bed.
Hi @Charles Coker we did a general update on the kitchen garden about a month ago. When we get a chance before winter I think we can do a specific update on the Asparagus.
Gleaning info from your biochar recipe for asparagus and making some leaps of understanding, would you agree the following is a reasonably good biochar recipe?
per 1 cu. ft crushed charcoal, add
8 cups of worm castings
4 cups of Calphos or rock phosphate
8 cups of rock dust or Azomite
great video! diluted with water urine would charge the biochar and a pinch of Epsom salt as well...
Yep @T W that technique works too!😉
I have those readily available!
I didn’t know you’re supposed to age compost that long. Does the same apply to vermipost?
You can fill a gunny bag with biochar and trash it with a thick stick for a easier breakdown. Thanks for sharing.
Great idea!! @Satish Chandra Kodagally. This would definitely keep the dust down.
What was the second ingredient used? Good info, thanks.
The materials we use in charging the biochar are rock dust, soft rock phosphate
I wish I had seen this video two days ago before I burned a large pile of oak twigs. Unfortunately, I let it burn to the ash state. I am going to clear a bed of raspberry canes soon. Were the blackberry canes you burned green or did you let them dry first?
Hi Tricia, the canes we burned were about 60% dry the rest green. The drier the material the quicker and hotter the fire. A hot fire is key to get the coals.
Hi Kevin,
I’m sorry but I didn’t hear or understand the name of the final products that you add to your biochar ; can write it down for me please ?
I wish you an happy new year from Lorient - Brittany- west cost in France.
Regards
Mark
Hi Mark; We added to two cubic feet of biochar as a percent of the biochar volume; 15% worm compost or good biologically active compost, 15% Basalt Rock Dust, and 7-10% soft rock calcium phosphate (sold under the name CalPhos in the U.S.). Thanks for watching from France!
Please adjust the volume! 😃
Hmm...@Stefan was it coming too loud or too low? We have had difficulties working on this. Thanks for the feedback
Bare Mtn Farm the voice is relatively low followed by music at a relatively normal level. Meaning the listener turns up the volume at the beginning and will be shocked with the higher volume of the music. Especially with headphones this could be painful. It’s a pretty common issue.
Question : To "powderize" your charcoal couldn't you use a grain grinder ? When you use the grain grinder you could then add your powders like rock dust and such and that would mix your powders together . Plus grain grinders have an auger system that would "dump" your mix into a cart or wagon so that you could put your mix material where you want it .en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grinder-mixer ...
You could grind it up better, but it really is not necessary.
Fine charcoal just floats away in the wind, so if you make it too fine, use it in a Lab, not a garden.
Yeah, @William Waha we don't tend to want to pulverize it too much. The process creates a lot of dust doing that. For our purposes a coarse grind may take a little longer to bust up in the soil but it seems to work for us. Thanks for watching!
I collect the construction trimmings, tree service chunks, even the wood chips from tree service, I dig a big pit, depending on volume I collected, once the base of heat are built Wich red-hot coals, I layer it with my materials, then I drag a piece of tin over it, kinda seal off the edges, and let it heat smoke, and a few times fever it a shot of leaf blower air, practiced on about 6 burns now, then completely seal the tin edges, about 3 hours later it gets the pit flooded, then I let it drain away naturally a week or so later I scoop it out and into my wood chipper, I get barrels of it, usually 4 and I then put a diluted pool acid into the barrels, I do it as I already have too high a PH, and then it gets layered into a composted , blended with coop cleanings, alfalfa hay, pellets, and let it steep, and compost more, it usually is teaming with worms in the spring, and gets spread around.
My efforts are working, original soil organics, 1% now at 16-19, and under the trees it gets covered with more alfalfa, and covered with wood chips.
How has the biochar improved what you grow? How poor was your soil to begin with?
Hi @Charles Coker the area we applied this biochar to had a low organic matter level and is a clayey loam. Our goal was to use the biochar to boost the water and nutrient retention and put a longer term carbon source in the soil. So far so good, the asparagus seems to be doing fantastic in the second year with lots of fronds exceeding 6'.
How do you apply charged Biochar to existing potted tree?
Hmm, this would be a challenge unless you're repotting the tree. A surface application in the pot wouldn't give you much benefit. The biochar needs to be part of the potting soil mix to gain any benefits.
So whats the definition of biochar? You said that it's organic matter burned with a low to no absence of oxygen. Does the oxygen level have any effect on the quality of biochar? Seems like many companies jumping on this idea like its the next super amendment. Have you done tests using just compost vs biochar?
Confused. You use biochar to retain moisture then you mix in other ingredients that draw moisture from the biochar. ??
What part am I missing? Thanks.
Hi @Rob Hardwick Your right what I'm doing when mixing these things seems on the surfacecounter intuitive. When I'm mixing the material to be applied the dry Cal-Phos & rock dust do temporarily act as desiccants. However ,after applying the mixture to the soil surface and then covering it with compost plus wetting the area thoroughly the rock powders are no longer acting as desiccants and the biochar will again reabsorb moisture. Now that the biochar has moisture in it the bacteria and other biology from the compost, soil, and worm castings will begin to colonize the biochar. In a short period of time this biologic community will help make moisture when needed available from the biochar.
is mixing the biochar with just poultry manure sufficiently charged the biochar for applications?
Hi @C Xyooj Well decomposed poultry manure would work to charge the biochar. It will need sometime for it to absorb the biology and nutrients in the manure so give it several weeks.
@@BareMtnFarm thanks. I am planning to mix biochar with poultry manure (chicken and ducks), so should I go 10% biochar and 90% poultry manure in the mixture? or what's the right formula? how do i speed up the absorption and nutrients into the biochar to say 3 days? much appreciate your expertise :)
I'm guessing your main objective is to use the manure as a fertility source and the biochar as an additive in which case the 10% biochar sounds reasonable. I'm not really sure how to compress the time frame as this is biologic rather than a chemical process. Sometimes time just improves the outcome. Do keep the material moist to the touch and in a shaded place out of UV light. I'm also guessing the manure is well rotted and contains bedding materials like sawdust which helps keep the process full of biology.
When making the biochar from your method is there a great deal of smoke?
Hi @ronald fousek Initially as the materials burned there was as much smoke as say from a campfire. To achieve a totally smoke free process you would need some type of double retort where the gases from the fire are reburned before being exhausted. There are lots of cool videos on TH-cam on the process too!
Thank You.
What is the purpose of the biochar ?
Hi @Chuck Trent we use biochar primarily to aid in moisture retention in our raised beds. If your soil has high fertility many folks don't see much benefit to additional fertility. However if your soil say is sandy and has a low organic matter content biochar can greatly aid nutrient plus moisture retention.
How do you burn garden detritus without oxygen, please?
OK Never mind, I asked too soon and you answered the question.
What's its PH?
Hi @Pat Merrick We haven't tested the PH but initial after the burn typically for bio-char it is slightly alkaline but with the biology in the soil will quickly stabilize to 6.5-7.0 ish. We have never noticed any negative effects on our plants with a fairly light application such as we did in this video.
Shouldn’t you have let the biochar set for at least a couple of weeks to get activated.
You can just buy 100% hardwood lump charcoal ( I get the red bag) from any grocery store or Walmart it's basically big pieces of biochar and only needs to be crushed and activated with microbes. It probably cheaper than a bag that says biochar, your paying for the name and hype of biochar
is anyone truly sure that biochar works? I have seen examples where roots appear to avoid the char when you analyze what's really going on down there.
Have you done any other research? I see you make this comment on several posts. I ask you; Which roots, and what was the char used, and what was in the char, or was it un- charged, was the char toxic? Some char can inhibit specific types of nematodes length, yes, many studies have been done, using highly scietific methods to study char.
"Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County" on TH-cam has a vid called "the science behind biochar", & UCCE Small Farms Advisor Margaret Lloyd - "Evaluation of Biochar for Agricultural Soil Management in California" is also informative and should answer your question and open the door to new questions🕳🐇
🙏🇨🇦👊🏻👨🌾💖
Not all biochar is created equal, its not simple science, its complicated if you want to go deep into it. Your path needs to move forward, and you need to be expanding your questions into deeper understandings, I hope you get the anwers you need in these 2 vids.
Wind will blow the char if no compost or mulch it's applied on the top !
Can't slip by you @void main {void}! We did indeed put a 2" or 5cm layer of compost on top after applying the biochar to prevent that very issue.
bio char great, rock dust no
Hi @MRgreen I'm beginning to come around to cutting back on the rock dust for minerals too and move to using more biologically aerated compost teas. My thought is the base soil already has all the minerals needed we just have to work the biology to make them more available.
From what I have watched. If you have good soil. You will not see much if any improvement.
Yup @Charles Coker folks who have been building their soils for years with good compost typically already have gained most of the nutrient and water retention benefits that biochar on poorer soils would provide and they will see little crop improvement. However, one thing that biochar will do that compost applications can't is provide what's known as recalcitrant carbon. This is carbon that is highly resistant to microbe/fungal breakdown. A good chunk of the carbon in compost is broken down into carbon dioxide gas as the compost completes its journey to humus. This is one of the reasons why in tropical areas where biological activity is very high all year long that the amount of organic matter in soils is actually pretty low and conventional agriculture techniques can wreck a soil in these areas in very few years.
I love how you break things down to a chemistry level, followed by explanation in layman’s terms. Appreciate you taking the time for sure!!!
are we the only nation in the world that "Have to Purchase hundreds of dollars of medium" Just to Grow Crops.....Manure and Biochar it seems to work quite well with others...the only thing i see is the fight with fungus and such.......!!!!
hi @ R. Ran We use the biochar that we can make out of scrub brush or prunings. Free is always a perk for us. Haven't had any bad fungal issues yet though.
Could not understand all three of your ingredients: worm castings, rock dust and ........
Hi @Leon Bolton we use worm castings, Soft Rock Phosphate or Cal Phos and a basalt rock dust or you could use azomite as well. Hope this helps & thanks for watching!
It’s not how it’s done
Thanks for watching!
Please sharpen your knives.
Ok, will do. Thanks for watching
I'm sorry - if I live till I die I'll not get ised to "their" pronunciation of "Compoast."
Hi @Brian Kane....Yeah, we Yanks have an unusual take on the Kings English....😉
What does "get ised " mean?