I leave the top of the hole open (do not cover with dirt) By not covering you're giving the roots access to air which is quite important, especially in clay soils. Also, and rain that falls direct access to your dry fertilizer which produces great fertilization right at the critical root zone. I too have seen remarkable results. It is not a coincidence 😊
I'm an arborist who's been singing the praises of biochar for 3 years now. It's been 4 years now, I'm curious how this worked out. I prefer radial trenching and backfilling with amendments and might be something worth looking into for the future. The problem with using an auger is that the soil stays just as compacted. It is very important to properly load up the biochar instead of using it naked. You can buy it already mixed with humates and stuff in the states. The issue with what you did here is that charcoal can hold 11 times its weight in water. That was not nearly enough. If you do this again, make sure it's loaded up properly and mix everything together with some store bought horticultural soil, fill a piture at the wheel barrow and pour it in. That way you don't have these layers. Also, if you can find a way to get mycorhzae in there, you need to do that. It's worth it's weight in gold and I urge you to look into the science. Here's something cool about it- it's what the whole movie Avatar is based on. A cheap and good source is a pail of PHC (brand) Mycor Tree Saver. It only takes a little bit mixed into soil and when it's wet, the cultures come alive and use the biochar sort of like a trellis.
Naked biochar out competes the plants for nitrogen in my understanding and likely other nutrients also. He would have offset the nitrogen deficiency with his NPK fertilizer partially. Also the vast majority of each trees roots were not disturbed and therefor would not have direct access to the charcoal. The exterior layer would have very quickly become activated by the soil micro organisms and the entire column would have become wet from the water gradient in the soil. I strongly suspect now the the roots have wrapped around each column of biochar with many infiltrations and the mycorrhizal hyphae into all of the tiny caverns inside of the biochar. I am curious how much the physical outward spread of the biochar itself is occurring (if at all).
I have awful dirt in Arizona, it would be wrong to call it soil, I have amended the planting hole pre planting, now I mulch with tree service chips, alfalfa pellets, but back to char, I pulled the mulch aside, spread about 5 gallon pail uncharged char, recovered it with the mulch, after another 4-6 inches alfalfa pellets, you can use cubes, even hay, my trees really took off, liking it, now I foliar feed, as we are stupid high PH, and my feeling is there is no 1size fits all, just be honest and feed those kids too.
if you charged biochar then drain off charged liquids let biochar drain and dry on screen you can handle it better and for bonus you have a charged liquid tea for free!!
Doable Drawdown: Slash-and-Char Instead of Slash-and-Burn: As a side note for the not so distant future, replacing ‘slash-and-burn’ with ‘slash-and-char’ could be encouraged “thru the nascent carbon trading market that sponsors carbon sequestration projects and could supplement the subsistence farmer’s income while building up a more sustainable agriculture and slowing deforestation.” Note: After reading about using ‘slash-and-char’ (that produces soil amending, crop boosting biochar) instead of ‘slash-and-burn’ (that leaves only ash), it’s obvious that slash-and-char is the desirable field clearing method. “It sequesters considerable quantities of carbon in the safest and most beneficial fashion, as opposite to the negative effects of the slash-and-burn. Switching to slash-and-char can sequester up to 50% of the carbon in a highly stable form.” There are two problems. One is the labor intensitivity of doing so (at least initially / in the long run though, it pays huge dividends), and the other is that biochar is NOT a fertilizer. Indeed, it’s like a sponge that retains organic matter, nutrients and moisture to prevent their loss. Fresh char made from organic waste first absorbs nutrients from the soil, then later begins releasing what it has kept from leeching away. It works best in acidic soils like tropical rainforests. The practice allows annual cultivation of the same fields, rather than slash-and-burn practices necessary to eke out crops on new land every few years. Given a stable location for agriculture and soils made fertile by char, a steady food supply is possible. One big advantage with slash-and-char is that you’re not cutting down forests to produce char. You’re merely preventing the almost complete wastage of the biomass that slash-and-burn would have resulted in. [I do not support purposely raising, logging trees to create biochar.] Search: wikipedia biochar Though I haven’t made biochar ‘per se’, I had a lifetime of experience hand clearing and burning brush and trees in the monte of south Texas. While living on my ranch, I also burned our household trash - which I did using a pit. Burn trash, backfill with dirt from the new pit dug next to it, repeat. As I watch videos of biochar being made and in thinking of how subsistence farmers around the world are ruining their topsoil using slash-and-burn, it occurs to me that if they’d use hoes to scoop long, very shallow depressions with minimal sloping, stack their detritus in them instead of into big piles on level ground, and then burn - they could easily shovel the dirt back into the depression and onto the now smoldering wood. I can visualize how I’d do it; but, it’s hard to describe. After a few years of doing it and laying the successive trenches side by side, as the years went by and tilling proceeded over the years, experience would teach one what more was needed to refine the technique. For example, I don’t know how long it is before crop yields would be boosted after introducing char to the soil, though I believe that once the char is imbued with the nutrients that it has kept from being washed away that the yields will remain higher in perpetuity. I would hope that there are individuals and organizations already engaged in developing the production and use of biochar in areas like the Amazon - I just haven’t read about any as of yet. Note: Though the Amazonians who made Terra Preta famous were wiped out by diseases that the Spaniards with Orellano spread and, thus, their techniques were lost, I’m guessing that some of the NGOs in the Amazon today could work with the indigenous people to revive the methodology / especially in this new age of finding doable carbon drawdowns. This includes ‘regenerative farming’ and the use of biochar. samslair.blogspot.com/2018/10/el-dorado-biochar-and-conquistador.html?m=1 samslair.blogspot.com/2019/09/amazonias-subsistence-farmers-why-and.html?m=1
Curious if you have an update as well. Read some studies that contradict the opinions on here about charging (ie best to use straight BioChar with no ammendments), so curious which route to use. Happy growing!
I leave the top of the hole open (do not cover with dirt) By not covering you're giving the roots access to air which is quite important, especially in clay soils. Also, and rain that falls direct access to your dry fertilizer which produces great fertilization right at the critical root zone. I too have seen remarkable results. It is not a coincidence 😊
It’s been 9 years ago…..how are the trees doing?
Any improvements In production over the years now?
I'm an arborist who's been singing the praises of biochar for 3 years now. It's been 4 years now, I'm curious how this worked out. I prefer radial trenching and backfilling with amendments and might be something worth looking into for the future. The problem with using an auger is that the soil stays just as compacted.
It is very important to properly load up the biochar instead of using it naked. You can buy it already mixed with humates and stuff in the states. The issue with what you did here is that charcoal can hold 11 times its weight in water. That was not nearly enough. If you do this again, make sure it's loaded up properly and mix everything together with some store bought horticultural soil, fill a piture at the wheel barrow and pour it in. That way you don't have these layers. Also, if you can find a way to get mycorhzae in there, you need to do that. It's worth it's weight in gold and I urge you to look into the science. Here's something cool about it- it's what the whole movie Avatar is based on. A cheap and good source is a pail of PHC (brand) Mycor Tree Saver. It only takes a little bit mixed into soil and when it's wet, the cultures come alive and use the biochar sort of like a trellis.
Naked biochar out competes the plants for nitrogen in my understanding and likely other nutrients also. He would have offset the nitrogen deficiency with his NPK fertilizer partially. Also the vast majority of each trees roots were not disturbed and therefor would not have direct access to the charcoal. The exterior layer would have very quickly become activated by the soil micro organisms and the entire column would have become wet from the water gradient in the soil. I strongly suspect now the the roots have wrapped around each column of biochar with many infiltrations and the mycorrhizal hyphae into all of the tiny caverns inside of the biochar. I am curious how much the physical outward spread of the biochar itself is occurring (if at all).
@@ArmwrestlingRevolt no roots wrapped around in columns found in terra preta
@@ppac301 Can you elaborate please? Thanks
I have awful dirt in Arizona, it would be wrong to call it soil, I have amended the planting hole pre planting, now I mulch with tree service chips, alfalfa pellets, but back to char, I pulled the mulch aside, spread about 5 gallon pail uncharged char, recovered it with the mulch, after another 4-6 inches alfalfa pellets, you can use cubes, even hay, my trees really took off, liking it, now I foliar feed, as we are stupid high PH, and my feeling is there is no 1size fits all, just be honest and feed those kids too.
Have you tried making compost and adding the biochar to it? I have heard lots of good things about doing it that way.
Addicted to overlay music.
Fantastic. Thanks for the information. Any updates in 2020.
if you charged biochar then drain off charged liquids let biochar drain and dry on screen you can handle it better and for bonus you have a charged liquid tea for free!!
You do a control group to see if what’s what.
how are they growing now.
8 years latter.?
I like your style!
Doable Drawdown: Slash-and-Char Instead of Slash-and-Burn:
As a side note for the not so distant future, replacing ‘slash-and-burn’ with ‘slash-and-char’ could be encouraged “thru the nascent carbon trading market that sponsors carbon sequestration projects and could supplement the subsistence farmer’s income while building up a more sustainable agriculture and slowing deforestation.”
Note: After reading about using ‘slash-and-char’ (that produces soil amending, crop boosting biochar) instead of ‘slash-and-burn’ (that leaves only ash), it’s obvious that slash-and-char is the desirable field clearing method.
“It sequesters considerable quantities of carbon in the safest and most beneficial fashion, as opposite to the negative effects of the slash-and-burn. Switching to slash-and-char can sequester up to 50% of the carbon in a highly stable form.”
There are two problems. One is the labor intensitivity of doing so (at least initially / in the long run though, it pays huge dividends), and the other is that biochar is NOT a fertilizer. Indeed, it’s like a sponge that retains organic matter, nutrients and moisture to prevent their loss. Fresh char made from organic waste first absorbs nutrients from the soil, then later begins releasing what it has kept from leeching away. It works best in acidic soils like tropical rainforests. The practice allows annual cultivation of the same fields, rather than slash-and-burn practices necessary to eke out crops on new land every few years. Given a stable location for agriculture and soils made fertile by char, a steady food supply is possible.
One big advantage with slash-and-char is that you’re not cutting down forests to produce char. You’re merely preventing the almost complete wastage of the biomass that slash-and-burn would have resulted in.
[I do not support purposely raising, logging trees to create biochar.]
Search: wikipedia biochar
Though I haven’t made biochar ‘per se’, I had a lifetime of experience hand clearing and burning brush and trees in the monte of south Texas. While living on my ranch, I also burned our household trash - which I did using a pit. Burn trash, backfill with dirt from the new pit dug next to it, repeat. As I watch videos of biochar being made and in thinking of how subsistence farmers around the world are ruining their topsoil using slash-and-burn, it occurs to me that if they’d use hoes to scoop long, very shallow depressions with minimal sloping, stack their detritus in them instead of into big piles on level ground, and then burn - they could easily shovel the dirt back into the depression and onto the now smoldering wood. I can visualize how I’d do it; but, it’s hard to describe. After a few years of doing it and laying the successive trenches side by side, as the years went by and tilling proceeded over the years, experience would teach one what more was needed to refine the technique. For example, I don’t know how long it is before crop yields would be boosted after introducing char to the soil, though I believe that once the char is imbued with the nutrients that it has kept from being washed away that the yields will remain higher in perpetuity. I would hope that there are individuals and organizations already engaged in developing the production and use of biochar in areas like the Amazon - I just haven’t read about any as of yet.
Note: Though the Amazonians who made Terra Preta famous were wiped out by diseases that the Spaniards with Orellano spread and, thus, their techniques were lost, I’m guessing that some of the NGOs in the Amazon today could work with the indigenous people to revive the methodology / especially in this new age of finding doable carbon drawdowns. This includes ‘regenerative farming’ and the use of biochar.
samslair.blogspot.com/2018/10/el-dorado-biochar-and-conquistador.html?m=1
samslair.blogspot.com/2019/09/amazonias-subsistence-farmers-why-and.html?m=1
Curious if you have an update as well. Read some studies that contradict the opinions on here about charging (ie best to use straight BioChar with no ammendments), so curious which route to use. Happy growing!
Search for "Biochar Inoculation with Dan Hettinger" on the Living Web Farm channel.
update?
Charged biochar with a chemical fertilizer? It’s not biochar. It’s chemchar.
Coincidence? Maybe.....
moral of the story, get your bio char down asap, preferably before planting
The appropriately charged biochar was too wet and messy, so I put in plain charcoal and let it suck the life out of the soil, that should do it. 🙂↔️😤
Sounds like you need to compost your trees with a sheep
Edit the video, discard the music, then I will listen to it again.