Bio-Char???

[Philosofarmer]

Fellow farmers/gardeners,

I have recently been researching Bio Char as long lasting soil amender. I have some clay soil that I am trying to get some carbon into and have been doing the "no till" thing for a while with good success but I want to take things to a new level and inject some serious carbon into this clay soil of mine. Bio-Char seems to be all the rage these days. Anybody used Bio-Car in their soil? I have an outdoor wood stove which I could lay a batch in, fire it till the char was just right, and scoop out when complete into a metal drum and wet it down (tamping and wetting as I fill the drum). The advantage to this is that I would simultaneously benefit from the heat from the process of making it. My woodstove heats my greenhouse and my house plus my hot water. Seems like something that I could make by just being more deliberate about my wood burning process and is a bit of a no brainer on the manufacturing side, but wanted to see if anybody on the forum had any experience making it and actually using it in their soil. I don't have a huge garden area, so it seems like I could add it deep into the soil behind a subsoil/ripping plow (maybe using a large pipe behind a subsoil ripper which would be bringing air and all kinds of other good stuff deep down even without the BChar. I know that there has got to be someone who has some experience with this stuff.

As with other projects (Bloody Butcher Corn etc. ) I will try to remember to update the thread with any progress or updates good/bad/ugly for others who might be interested.

 

[MacEntyre]

Good read on using bio char and composted wood chips:

Intuitive Biochar: Making Low-Tech Biochar/Compost Blends - biochar-international

biochar-international.org

I haven't used bio char, but I use composted wood chips a lot. Our seasonal amendments are potting soil used in planting seeds and seedlings, inserted into the base, which is composted wood chips. I'd like to eliminate the store-boughten potting soil. The combination of composted wood chips with worm casted bio char could be just the thing.

 

[GymB]

So a new name for charcoal?

Easy to make from wood scraps, I've done it repeatedly in a largish ammo can, gasket removed, inverted in a fire. Burn time isn‘t critical, but since O2 exclusion is imperfect the stuff will turn to ash it you leave it in a big fire overnight.

 

[foopid stucker]

well maybe not exactly bio char, but I just took the grindings of a pine tree stump (very muddy dirt and all) and lumped it into a smoldering pile in the hole, it burned for days, hoping to reduce its acidity and see if it will grow grass better than the horrible clay in my yard. ( I did inject some air into it at times with a small blower) the fact my front yard is mostly pine trees is no benefit either. I hope to learn something.

 

[Philosofarmer]

Good read on using bio char and composted wood chips:

Intuitive Biochar: Making Low-Tech Biochar/Compost Blends - biochar-international

biochar-international.org

I haven't used bio char, but I use composted wood chips a lot. Our seasonal amendments are potting soil used in planting seeds and seedlings, inserted into the base, which is composted wood chips. I'd like to eliminate the store-boughten potting soil. The combination of composted wood chips with worm casted bio char could be just the thing.

Thanks for the link. Good information here. I think I will load up a batch and figure out the run time per full batch of wood. Adding some compost, worms and having the boys donate their urine might be just the ticket to get things "primed."

Again, I think I know how to make it just hoping someone has been using it. And yes

So a new name for charcoal?

Easy to make from wood scraps, I've done it repeatedly in a largish ammo can, gasket removed, inverted in a fire. Burn time isn‘t critical, but since O2 exclusion is imperfect the stuff will turn to ash it you leave it in a big fire overnight.

it sounds like people use the terms interchangeably but some avoid charcoal because of any association with the stuff you grill with.

 

[REELDOC]

Better check your soil acidity, ashes might increase the ph.

 

[LeeMajors]

We used a wood stove to heat when I was a kid. We spread the ashes and whatever fell through the grates over the garden. We had 2 acres we used for garden space and would rotate 1 acre per year. While composting and fertilizing the other.

I grew up real close to the Kingsford plant and there was a royal oak plant close as well. Grandpa would get the leftover charred scraps by the dump truck load and spread over his fields with a manure spreader truck.

Worked very well then and works now, it's just finally getting put to use, and all the NEW ideas that aren't new. It's like common sense skipped a generation, and a FEW are starting to develop a bit again.