An Alternative to Composting Manure - BIOCHAR
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ม.ค. 2021
- The round clumps in horse manure are very persistent and don't break down easily in compost. Could we convert them into biochar turning one form of carbon into another form of carbon? Biochar is a soil amendment that will increase the tilth of the soil, it will sequester carbon in the soil, and it may or may not favorably affect plant growth. If you want to see more biochar videos like this, let me know!
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This topic is right up my alley (because of my strong desire to have a more fungal dominant soil than not). They are finding that Biochar from animal manures are better at supporting fungal dominance than those made from hard woods.
That's my kind of experiment. I would probably throw some of that under an old apple tree and try growing fire/char-loving morel in it as well as dung-loving mushrooms.
Great video. After watching this I went on a 6 hour biochar TH-cam binge. Fascinating stuff!
If you use biochar right away, I highly recommend “nutrient loading” it in compost or nutrient dense biomass. Otherwise, the stuff might suck nutrients out of your soil for a season before you see that amazing nutrient retention for decades to come
Since horse manure is often free, this was a useful experiment! Thank you, Diego.
This is really cool. Glad you made this, think you! :)
I like how you’ve made biochar into a verb!
A great video, thank you. I especially enjoyed your analysis and "lessons learnt" at the end of it. I think you should you should continue, even if it is something you do in the back ground. A comparison of aged horse manure, in the garden, and aged horse manure bio-char might be a good project for a later date.
I wonder if this process could be used to treat pesticide tainted manure.
Good thinking
Yeah; there is also some kind of herbacide, in hay, that gardeners are afraid of. I wonder if it brakes them down!
Yes it would, as long as they are organic compounds at least. You won't get rid of heavy metals.
Aminopyralid has a melting point of 330°f. I cant find any info about flashpoint or pyrolysis, however photolysis breaks down half of aminopyralid over the course of 34.5 days. So the sun can break it down halfway in about a month, i would be interested to see how quickly a 1200°f fire would break it down completely.
Well, right off the bat, i have no doubt that it would make good bio-char, and if someone has nothing else to turn into char, this is excellent information, but i believe it would have better value un-charred and mixed with ground up biochar made from some thing harder to break down otherwise. The only manure i can imaging turning into biochar would be anything considered bio-hazardous like humanure.
I totally agree and would add dog and especially cat manure to that list.
Drying out the material would be an bit of a challenge though.
Nice experiment. I am looking for new, easy feedstocks for char. Sawdust WOULD be great except too dense too offgas well in my TLUD, I suspect. Trying to dry some wood mulch I get in bulk now. That should work ok and is already fairly small so easier to break up to use. Also saving my chicken/beef/pork bones to char.
Sawdust can be sprinkled into open pit burns to char, just don't suffocate the fire with it.
Small diameter retorts are an option as well.
With TLUD's you have to be careful about the moisture content. I didn't have much succes using graded wood chips in my indoor TLUD due to the moisture content even though I had dried it properly under the Mediterranean sun. The stuff just picked up too much moisture in storage again.
How long did you say you have to dry it first? Did I miss it? Thanks
TLUD's are much more sensitive to moisture in the feedstock so if you are going to use one of those then definitely make sure to dry the horse apples out thoroughly.
Personally I'd just compost them though because drying them out seems like a needless amount of extra work.
If you want biochar from gras then you could also burn straw or hay in that open kiln by layering it in thinly with a pitchfork. Make sure you add small amounts that are pulled apart enough so it won't smother the fire.
Since you have done more research on persistent herbicides than I have found anywhere, what is your opinion on remediation of the chemicals by this process? Does high heat, in your opinion, help break down the herbicides? Is the residue less harmful to plants? Thank you for sharing your experimentation.
I was thinking this but forgot to mention this at the initial view. Leaf blower to get the fire going again.
Try creating a biochar oven. Good biochar is made with heat not flames.
You just need a couple barrels and a cover with chimney
Yes, a TLUD. I just don't have one. You can make it either way.
Might be interresting to look up "making char-cloth" that uses a simmilar principle. We ran an experiment in school using (unused clean) paint cans tiny hole in the lid, if the pressure would rise too much it would pop the top and not turn into a steampowered grenade. We set that up straight into a fire and were able to get pyrolysis going. (we used it on wood scraps to see if we could effectively do it that way)
@@DiegoFooter don't bother with the barrel inside a barrel TLUD/retort combo, it's time consuming to set up and difficult to get consistently right. TH-cam is full of videos displaying this method as being a smoky mess.
True TLUD's on the other hand where all the input biomass ends up as biochar are another story and are absolutely amazing but they do require very uniform feedstock.
The biggest benefit is that true TLUD gasifiers can even be used indoors for heating and cooking provided the flames are contained in a bell and gasses vented outdoors.
Where did you purchase the cone kiln?
nice!
I wonder if the charring will break down the aminopyralids?
If you have good soil to begin with. Biochar want show much , or any improvement. But if you have beach sand, or heavy clay. It will work wonders
Will dog manure biochar? I have so much of it and it will not compost in freezing temperatures.
How would you dry that out in freezing temperatures?
Biochar feedstock needs to be dry, less than 20% moisture minimally but less is better.
Could you put them though a small wood chiper 👍
Very cool. Your biochar process is laim though. You need to step up that game. Put your manure inside a 5 gal metal bucket and put the bucket in your pit and burn around the barrel. Dont let the manure light on fire just cool off all the pyrolytic gasses. Your quality will go way up and you will lose less end product to ash.
Unfortunately I don’t have that type of set up. I do everything in a cone kiln.
@@DiegoFooter I see that so all you need is a metal container. Make it happen.
Burning manure is famously terrible carbon emissions, hence the carbon offset programs that provide clean stoves in developing countries. Would be cool if you could weight the materials and try make a carbon emissions assessment of this biochar experiment
So you can really make charcoal from manure?
I wonder if it would have worked better to layer the manure with wood layers. also wonder if the results would be better in a barrel retort.
A TLUD would have been better, at least I think.
The problem with layer is different burn rates in wood and manure. I think just adding it slower would have worked fine. Not dumping the dump on all once.
not in pyrolyser?
I was just thinking about this but for dog poop. My only concern is that one of our dogs is on prednisone medication. What do you think, would it be ok because it’s being burnt off?
Hello
I contacted the CDC about pathogens in dog poop. Bottom line. It's toxic. It was quite the conversation. But ultimately dog poop is not a good choice.
I wouldn't use dog poop in any form of compost, except anaerobic digestion. I would feel safe converting it to chart. The temperatures can reach 500 to 800C degrees. No toxic organisms are surviving that.
Prednisone is nothing but carbon hydrogen and oxygen so would completely disappear and result in safe biochar
Does it brakes down herbacydes found in hay?
Without knowing the contaminating herbicides, its melting temp and the temp of the burn, hard to be definitive but I would guess that much of it burned off as a gas.
Organic compounds don't survive the temperatures that are achieved during proper biochar burns.
Heavy metals will stick around though.
@@CarbonConscious Thanks
Wonder if this could work with dried sheep manure
In theory any organic matter can be made into char. It depends a lot on the moisture content. So... I say try it and find out; I think the chances are very good it will work.
Howdy neighbor! It looked like a lot of smoke, were there any concerns with having the fire dept called out or did it dissipate quickly?
Not a problem where I live.
Below are a few inquiries about pet poop. Ask yourself this question. Which has the most offensive odor? Dog and cat poop is very offensive to me. While horse poop...not so much. The diets are different and the digestive process is different.
Diego this is pretty cool. One thing that might need mentioning is wood type.
Hardwoods burn at a much higher temperature. So if a higher temperature is desired the use of hardwood might be the answer. Thanks again for your efforts.
The wood is only required to get the poop burning. It must burn or no pyrolysis happens. In this type of kiln, the fire is maintained to keep the top layer burning... and charring.
Good to know. Thanks.
Hardwood doesn't necessarily burn hotter, take pine for example, that burns hot as hell in an open pit burn.
Or fan leaves from palm trees.
Surface area is a much bigger factor in how hot things burn in my experience.
@@CarbonConscious thanks for your comment. Made me go looking for info. You are correct! As I understood the articles I read, the flame temperature varies little, but the total heat produced per pound of wood varies greatly, so it appears to be burning hotter.
The smoke is mostly just wasted fuel.🤔 Potentially if it was a low oxygen nearly sealed system. The gasses could be harvested to fire 🔥or even maybe fuel⛽ something else.
And still attaining the biochar as well.
Large structures could be heated and powered ⚡ in this way.
Kind of makes me wonder if they could make a methane digester. And then use the leftover materials after their squeezed for liquid fertilizer.
Take the solids that are dried and then convert them into biochar.
Just a thought.
Since one way to nutrient load biochar is by vermicomposting, and since the worms can only take small sized bites, and since the center of charcoal made from horse manure is basically "charcoaled" blades of grass - maybe this product is more appropriate to use in the worm bin than biochars made from wood.
maybe a good way to process herbicide tainted manure and straw
at that temp herbicides should break down, however it would be better to burn it in more controlled way so the straw doesnt turn to ash and to be 100% sure there arent raw chunks still containing herbicides inside
also since its tainted and no one wants to buy it it could be potentially free or very cheap source of carbon for biochar
I think it would work better if you finish with another wood layer. Very interesting idea though
bet this would work even better in a closed loop retort not in an open one like this
How did it smell?🤣
Actually a good question. Will my neighbor be grossed out by burning manure? Inquiring minds want to know!
@@The_True_ Manure smells the same as grass clippings. just a bit stronger. less so than cow pies.
You want dry manure from the field
NOT urine soaked manure from the stall.
Urine soaked stall manure will stink a lot more because the manure traps the urine
@@ForageGardener So when it burns it still just smells like grass? That's not so bad then.
@@The_True_ yeah pretty much. depends how wet it is. Grass can smell a bit funky when you burn it. If you were on an acre. no problem. A small lot in town. maybe that would upset the neighbors.
really depends on your neighbors. time of year. climate. how often you do it.
The people out here burn mountains of plastic and no one bats an eye
I am not a great judge. My sense of smell is poor. I would say low odor when not smoking, when smoking it had a funky smell.
Rabbit poop burns too :) lol
Done this with barrel kilen and kitty litter.
What type of litter was it? Pine, wheat, etc?
@@DiegoFooter just says plant material its pallets
Does the nitrogen locked up in the manure burn off during the charring process? Great experiment either way 👍
I don't think there is much nitrogen left in those pellets at the stage when I burned them. I could be wrong though. Any nitrogen in there would be removed in the burn.
Well made char has NO nutrients left in it... it is pure carbon, which makes it so valuable environmentally as long term (hundreds of years) carbon sequestration. This is also why no-till gardening is so important. Carbon is removed from the atmosphere by the plants and stored in the soil. For this to work best, you don’t pull up your plants at the end of the growing season, you just cut them off and leave the carbon-filled roots in the earth to decay.
@@garthwunsch thanks Garth. I agree completely. I guess the intention of the question was to highlight the potential loss of a valuable nutrient in the charring process, but Diego suggested there is likely not much in there to begin with meaning the opportunity cost of turning the dried manure into biochar is relatively small.
Having stable carbon in the soil is the best place for it so the more we can create biochar and amend our soils with it, the better as far as I'm concerned!
@@ammart1987 We're on the same page...apparently plants produce most of their own NPK etc. from sunlight. Our best effort is to assist the microbial life to make it plant available, and building microbe hotels is a cheap way to do that. It's an amazing and complicated process.
@@garthwunsch7320 biochar does contain more than just carbon
Bro... How could you not mention the ONE thing Every Single One Of Us Was Thinking???
How did it smell while burning? 🤔
😂😂😂
It didn’t really smell.
@@DiegoFooter . I'm kinda surprised by that. 🤔
Win some lose some?
Like any good char, take a bite out of it and find out if it’s tasteless!
How was the smell tho? :D
What about other types of butt nuggets? Would I be able to do this with dog butt nuggets?
Dog poop is toxic. The diet is different and the digestive process is different. Horse vs Dog. It's a great question.
I’m pretty sure it would be safe in the ‘end” :-) I don’t know what type of pathogen could survive that temperature. Would be a great experiment, and then have the results tested by a lab. Now I’m thinking about our two cat’s ‘end’ product LOL. It’s always bothered me to send it to landfill. If we didn’t have kitty litter to dispose of, we could easy go a month without garbage pickup. We’re allowed 40 lbs. per week in one bag.
Only issue would be the moisture content.
When it's properly charred the resulting char is safe enough to eat. Nothing survives 500+Celsius
Except prions perhaps, they are tough bastards :/
I also wonder what burning the horse manure does with the persistent herbicide question. Thoughts? I wonder if I could make biochar with rabbit manure? Smaller bits obviously, but no persistent herbicide concerns; I know the rabbits are fed organically.
I spoke to someone about this and it’ll be on an upcoming podcast. Burning will break all that down.
Do you have any serious scientific evidence that biochar is beneficial in gardening? Or is most of the evidence anecdotal?
Yes, there is a lot. BUT... it depends on what the benefits are you are looking for. If you read the description I briefly summarize my thoughts. I will have an upcoming podcast that goes into this.
There are universities studying biochar not so much in gardening but more in farming. The little bit that I have seen the studies are a bit all over the map. I think it comes down to feed stock, how it is used, soil type, soil condition, and the climate. Studies of biochar use in animals seem to be a bit more conclusive.
@@yuukpakpa I appreciate your effort. I have tried to find conclusive studies, but there seems to be a lot of contradicting evidence.
Plant benefits - mixed results, but also varying consistency in feed and method of production as well as aging in a lot of studies so hard to compare study against study. Long term carbon sequestration - yes. Loosen soil tooth - yes. Increase water holding capacity - more yes than no. Overall more positive than negative IF you don’t pay for it and enjoy making it. But not a proven game changer.
@@yuukpakpa I’ve been making biochar and after soaking it, I dump it in my chicken pen. They pick through it as desired. I’ve noticed in their manure. I have some experiments planned for it. I’m thinking it’s probably well charged having gone through the chicken.
char ok, but biochar ?
is it not supposed to be carbon that "exploded" internaly by pourring water that make bursting steam fracturing the carbon to multiply the surface area of the charr making it incredible habitat for certain type of life forms. I does not seems the manure will have the carbon density to have those steam fractured part do what burn wood would have done.
Perhaps i lack imagination only ! :)
Water isn't required to produce biochar, but some feel it is an important step.
Water turns the char instantly hydrophilic.
Char from a retort is hydrophobic initially because aside from not having been partially steam activated like water quenched char is it also tends to have a small amount of recondensed gassed on its surface. This is unavoidable because the last bit of gasses can not exit the retort and with all the feedstock shrinking by about 50% you always end up with a retort that had at least half it's volume being empty and thus ending up with gas that can't exit at the end of the burn.
Omg why are you holding horse shit in your bare hands?! Come on now....lol that has to smell terrible...