Biochar: The science behind the hype
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 ต.ค. 2024
- Presented on April 5, 2013, by Kurt Spokas - USDA-ARS Soil Scientist
Abstract: Biochar (a form of black carbon) has been recently heralded as an amendment to revitalize worn-out/weathered soils, increase soil carbon sequestration, enhance agronomic productivity, and enter into future carbon trading markets. Soil application has been the assumed target for biochar. Biochar has been shown to occasionally cause immense benefits to both crop yields and soil fertility when added to degraded/weathered soils, but simultaneously has a documented history of negative to negligible agronomic impacts. Past research, as far back as the 1800's, has demonstrated that biochar has variable properties, which spans the full spectrum of black carbon residuals. Thus, suggesting that biochar is not a panacea for all soils. The mechanisms behind these biochar impacts are complex with multiple potential hypotheses. This presentation will summarize on-going research into the mechanisms behind the mitigation potential for N2O emissions and the role of biochar in improving water quality through nitrate and agrochemical sorption/reactions. With population expansion and the finite area of tillable ground, improving nonproductive soils with biochar could be a vital key to future global food production, food security, and energy supplies.
Download slides: hdl.handle.net/...
As an USDA/university supported project they *edited subtitles* = also a *transcript* is available (on youtube). - Plus there are *slides* (see description box and my comment with clickable link directly to the pdf). - Many uploaders enable automatic transcript, but this was actually editet by a human !
Which means you can have the subs, or read the text in the transcript box while watching. And you can even easily EXTRACT the transcript TEXT from the youtube video:
3 dots under the video window (to the right), the box will open. In the box (top, right again 3 dots) you can chose with or without time stamps. (If you chose without time stamps it will not be part of would you copy and paste).
Mark with mouse. (* see below for tricks how to do that easily).
Open a text or word document and paste the text into it with STRG + V (or right mouse click and using cotext menu).
OR you use the menu to select: *Paste Text Only*
*
Note the form your cursor / arrow takes: if it is an arrow, and you click it will jump to the timestamp in the video, which is often practical, but not in case you aim for text extraction.If you move it to the right side but still within that transcript box you will be able to place your _cursor_ in the text. That way you can also mark only parts of the text in the usual way. (pressed left mouse)
For Marking All:
If you go to the very top of the box, to the line with "transcript", click there (left mouse click) and you will have your usual blinking cursor - you know that, you have it when you write or edit a text doc.
then press the SHIFT key on your keyboard, _stay on it_ and then press the Arrow Down key (on the right side of the keyboard). That key alone moves your cursor to the end (within that box), same as if you would place a left mouse click (which is more effort for the longer text: you would have to scroll in the transcript box while still pressing the SHIFT key).
But since the SHIFT key is pressed it will MARK from the former position to the new cursor position instead of only jumping from the old to the new position.
That Keep-the- SHIFT- key-pressed-additionally trick works in all Microsoft programs, and likely also other programs. (Multiple selections with STRG. SHIFT often gives you the function: From _here to there_).
STRG + A for Mark All would also work (or right mouseclick and using the context menu options) - although that will mark (and therefore copy / paste) the whole site: the comments, the youtube recommendations with images, the avatar pics of commenters, plus also the transcript box IF you have opened it before.
You can do that and throw most of the pasted content away after you have it in a text document.
Just make sure that you paste "content only" in that case because the normal pasting will also paste a lot of pics (the thumbnails) and that can take a while.
Our people in the field knew about this way back in the 1950s and 1960s and started a project to quietly purchase it site after site after site and marking it with an identity number.
A sample is taken and is used to innoculate a mixture of rock dust powder 25% and food grade activated carbon made from bituminous coal or with food grade activated carbon made from charcoal made from naturally and organically grown wood that was converted into charcoal by using both the ancient method and the modern pyrolysis method 25% and humusy soil 50%.
Bio-activation of the charcoal is also done by mixing it with humus made by the complete fermentation of wetted wood to moisten it and let it ferment until it is fully fermented into humus. The water used is pre-mixed with rock dust powder and dissolved to saturation point inorder to make it efficient in fully fermenting the pulverized wood biomass into humus.
The rest is placed on top of a well prepared land of ordinary soil by removing a calculated layer which is double the thickness of the layer of terra preta soil to be placed on it. For example if the total terra preta soil on a given area will be 12 inches thick then an area with a depth of 24 inches will be excavated and then deep tilled with bio-activated rock dust powder made by pre-mixing rock dust powder with fully fermented humus first before deep tilling it into the surface of the excated area. Then the original terra preta is added to it and compost mixed with water containing dissolved rock dust powder to saturation point is added to it.
Both processes are all successful in the Krasnodar region of Russia. And it was quietly applied to the private plots of the Russian Federation to make them permanently fertile and highly productive with higher yields with the highest quality nutrients dense crops for food and for medicines to treat all kinds of cancers, tumors, diseases, infections, fungi, and so forth and so on.
How can "food grade" carbon be made from bituminous coal ? Its like 5-10% ash content and some of that ash is typically heavy metals....
@@Zonkotron It is being made by your American company called Colgan Company. In Russia we use all kinds of coal which is processed first in a LTC Karrick Retort before it is further processed in our own Russian version of a thermal depolymerization process and then it is converted into food grade activate carbon.
It's a main ingredient to healthy soil, fish hydrolysate, lactobacillus, compost tea, and at times a little kelp or seaweed juice. This tonic will help any soil in bad health, but the biochar is the key in keeping it there. As far as feedstock, Temps, porosity , I think it's more hype than science necessary. The Amazonian had no lab to test theirs. I don't test mine, cooked in open flame cap barrels, with plenty of heat. I use any and everything carbon. Works fine for me in my yard and garden, and it does work folks. It really works. But like I said it's a combination of things to help the soil. Try the above cocktail for your soil, let the biochar keep it there, and grow your soil builders. It's good stuff.
When assessing the advantages to carbon sequestration, is the improved ability to grow boimass taken into consideration?
Like, making biochar may have a slight net negative impact on ghg levels, but the affect of the product enables a lot extra plant mass and production, then the biochar when viewed holistically creates a net carbon sink.
Not just any black carbon or charcoal is biochar. Biochar is carbon that is extraordinarily porous which allows it to be colonized by microbes as well as absorb water and nutrients that would otherwise be washed out of, or through soils. Poor quality char has these pores clogged with tars and oils that prevent or reduce the effective structure that is crucial to being inoculated with beneficial microbes. It is the microbes that produce nutrients available for plants to utilize so the more surface area of the biochar, the more microbes present to affect soil fertility.
Please consider making an updated version with better sound quality. TIA for your consideration.
see my comment regarding slides, and transcript.
Great biochar video
Can you clean up the sound...alot of bass makes understanding a bit difficult other than that good info
As an USDA/university supported project they edited subtitles = also a transcript is available. - Plus there are slides (see description box and my comment with clickable link directly to the pdf). - Many uploaders enable automatic transcript, but this was actually editet by a human !
Which means you can have the subs, or read the text in the transcript box while watching. And you can even easily EXTRACT the transcript TEXT from the youtube video:
3 dots under the video window (to the right), the box will open. In the box (top, right again 3 dots) you can chose with or without time stamps. (If you chose without time stamps it will not be part of would you copy and paste).
Mark with mouse. (* bee below for tricks how to do that easily).
open a text or word document and paste the text into it with STRG + V (or right mouse click and using cotext menu).
OR you use the menu to select: *aste Text Only*
*
Note the form your cursor / arrow takes: if it is an arrow, and you click it will jump to the timestamp in the video, which is often practical, but not in case you aim for text extraction.If you move it to the right side but still within that transcript box you will be able to place your _cursor_ in the text. That way you can also mark only parts of the text in the usual way. (pressed left mouse)
For Marking All:
If you go to the very top of the box, to the line with "transcript", click there (left mouse click) and you will have your usual blinking cursor - you know that, you have it when you write or edit a text doc.
then press the SHIFT key on your keyboard, _stay on it_ and then press the Arrow Down key (on the right side of the keyboard). That key alone moves your cursor to the end (within that box), same as if you would place a left mouse click (which is more effort for the longer text: you would have to scroll in the transcript box while still pressing the SHIFT key).
But since the SHIFT key is pressed it will MARK from the former position to the new cursor position instead of only jumping from the old to the new position.
That Keep-the- SHIFT- key-pressed-additionally trick works in all Microsoft programs, and likely also other programs. (Multiple selections with STRG. SHIFT often gives you the function: From _here to there_).
STRG + A for Mark All would also work (or right mouseclick and using the context menu options) - although that will mark (and therefore copy / paste) the whole site: the comments, the youtube recommendations with images, the avatar pics of commenters, plus also the transcript box IF you have opened it before.
You can do that and throw most of the pasted content away after you have it in a text document.
Just make sure that you paste "content only" in that case because it will also paste a lot of pics (the thumbnails) and that can take a while.
Good video but the music was loud and obnoxious. What purpose does it serve?
Genesis Biochar organic soil conditioner could be part of the solution. It is mostly carbon and can last for a thousand years.
Its 7 years later any updates on what makes good or bad biochar?
The United States Biochar Initiative will have the latest info on biochar: biochar-us.org/.
@@4ISTC thx for update. A remake will also be great! Thx
Good day. Is sawdust a good material for making biochar?
Fire will likely gobble all..
Yes.
See rice husk carbonized, sawdust should be about same. Anything carbon can be used.
Horrible sound quality unfortunately
Biochar lecture by Kurt Spokas - bad sound quality. There are slides you can download AND they ADDED subtitles. It shows that it is an USDA supported project, for the hard of hearing etc.
Subs means you can also chose to see the transcript (with our w/o time stampes) and copy and paste that into a word / text document. It is not an automatic transcript but one that they edited (Bravo !).
So that should compensate for poor sound.
with the transcript it is even better, for future reference, and to get the information faster.
Biochar acts like a magnet holding iron filings.
Plants scavenge off those 'filings' (nutrients).
Now once the 'filings' are scavenged off, I suspect you need to 'recharge'
the biochar with a top dressing of compost and maybe rock dust.
Once plants take the nutrients, where will the biochar obtain replacement nutrients from (adsorption)?
Microbes need to eat something as well.
Any thoughts?
Terra preta soils seems to grow if plant leaves and plant biomass are returned to feed the microorganisms living in the powdered charcoal. Terra preta was invented by the Amazonian Indians in South America and discovered by the Spanish Conquistadores and was almost forgotten and accidentally rediscovered and applied in the U.S in the 1900s 44:11 to 45:45 th-cam.com/video/0Os-ujelkgw/w-d-xo.html Rock dust th-cam.com/video/xh3749rxFCw/w-d-xo.html
I agree with kwo dell that in a agricultural setting the porous nature that provides
a refuge for microbes, water holding and cation exchange capacity is more
important than the carbon sequestering. A definition that relies on intention to
say what a substance is is faulty. PS too much time was spent on the definition.
It's black carbon between 2/10s and 6/10s O to C, some blurring of the line with
fossil fuel black carbon, mostly referring to plant residues that hold most of their
original structure. Done.
You lost me at "we as scientists"
We, as scientists...
Punctuation matters.