Biochar and natural farming

toleratethis

Upstream wrote: »

She has a recipe for no turn compost that I think she will pass on to the group at some stage so I'd be interested to see that.

Which group? I'd be interested too, no turn sounds great.

Water John

I presume the NOTS Biological Farming Conference attendees. I'm not very good at the attachments here, so Id say one of the others here will post it.

Say my name

First attempt at biochar.
And it went fairly well if I do say so myself.













The whole operation took 60 minutes from first light till last of the quench water went in. And only 2 ft of miscanthus used in an 8 x 4 x3 bale in a roughly 1100 litre capacity kiln.

Yep so that's over. Tis simple out.

Panch18

Say my name wrote: »

First attempt at biochar.
And it went fairly well if I do say so myself.













The whole operation took 60 minutes from first light till last of the quench water went in. And only 2 ft of miscanthus used in an 8 x 4 x3 bale in a roughly 1100 litre capacity kiln.

Yep so that's over. Tis simple out.

So whats the plan for it? Incorporate it with the dung and spread with the side spreader? or what are you doing with it?

Say my name

Panch18 wrote: »

So whats the plan for it? Incorporate it with the dung and spread with the side spreeader?

I'll put that on the slats and into the slurry tank.
I'll have the quench water to spray on the grass as a foliar feed for later.

endainoz

Say my name wrote: »

I'll put that on the slats and into the slurry tank.
I'll have the quench water to spray on the grass as a foliar feed for later.

The quench water is what you drain off?

Very interesting stuff, I'm very new to this but find it fascinating. Will you throw that straight into the slatts as it is now?

Also one last silly question: what minerals in particular are you hoping to improve in the soil by adding bio char into your slurry?

Panch18

Say my name wrote: »

I'll put that on the slats and into the slurry tank.
I'll have the quench water to spray on the grass as a foliar feed for later.

Would you not be worried about blocking up the vacuum tank? For me that would be a more natural fit with dung

Also how much do you plan on spreading? My totally uneducated guess would be that to have an effect on say an acre of land you would need to apply a very significant amount of it on that acre? how much do you reckon an acre would need to have an impact?

Say my name

Panch18 wrote: »

Would you not be worried about blocking up the vacuum tank? For me that would be a more natural fit with dung

Also how much do you plan on spreading? My totally uneducated guess would be that to have an effect on say an acre of land you would need to apply a very significant amount of it on that acre? how much do you reckon an acre would need to have an impact?

You could throw it on the dung heap. Ah that's the first batch of hopefully many batches. And I do hope to use with dung.
But for now that'll do for the tank.

Ah it shouldn't block the tank it's an open tank fairly watery and this biochar batch breaks up no problem.

The best solution is to use with animal manure so the thinking should be how much biochar do I need to optimize the nitrogen capture from a given amount of animal manure rather than thinking I need so much per acre. Treat the manure. It'll build up over time.

Say my name

endainoz wrote: »

The quench water is what you drain off?

Very interesting stuff, I'm very new to this but find it fascinating. Will you throw that straight into the slatts as it is now?

Also one last silly question: what minerals in particular are you hoping to improve in the soil by adding bio char into your slurry?

I'll throw it evenly over the slats as is now.
I'm able to drain the quench water back into an ibc tank by just lifting the kiln with the loader. It takes an ibc to quench it so whatever much I'll get back?

Mineral wise: it'll catch and hold onto nitrogen, phosphorus and sulphur. So those would be nice not to have leaching from the manure/slurry and soil.

Castlekeeper

Is that an on-farm mini-crematorium ...

Well done on the project, must be great job satisfaction in seeing it work out.

Say my name

Castlekeeper wrote: »

Is that an on-farm mini-crematorium ...

Well done on the project, must be great job satisfaction in seeing it work out.

Well if don't hear from me it probably is..

Ah bloody brilliant to be at it. Especially when I was obsessing about it so much. But then I wouldn't have got the kiln I wanted or exactly known what to do.
And this is such a simple way to be at it.
The next step will probably be to see if can use IMO's with it. Roll on Kilkenny.

Water John

Could you spread on the dung under the cattle during the winter? Well done BTW.

jimini0

Say my name wrote: »

Well if don't hear from me it probably is..

Ah bloody brilliant to be at it. Especially when I was obsessing about it so much. But then I wouldn't have got the kiln I wanted or exactly known what to do.
And this is such a simple way to be at it.
The next step will probably be to see if can use IMO's with it. Roll on Kilkenny.

Well done. You have been on about bio char for so long. I was wondering when you would get on with it. Looks like a nice set you have. Don't suppose you have a tutorial video?

Say my name

Water John wrote: »

Could you spread on the dung under the cattle during the winter? Well done BTW.

Yep. And thanks.

Check out the pdf links and slides from their demonstration days.
http://wilsonbiochar.com/

Say my name

jimini0 wrote: »

Well done. You have been on about bio char for so long. I was wondering when you would get on with it. Looks like a nice set you have. Don't suppose you have a tutorial video?

In fairness now all the other kilns you'd see are crap and require a bit of labour just made for the smallholder and even a kiln sold in this country by a char group was a rip off. So I'm happy enough I waited. I do have other work to do as well on farm.

This is a similar procedure to it.

https://youtu.be/U1aQZw08fSE

jimini0

Say my name wrote: »

In fairness now all the other kilns you'd see are crap and require a bit of labour just made for the smallholder and even a kiln sold in this country by a char group was a rip off. So I'm happy enough I waited. I do have other work to do as well on farm.

This is a similar procedure to it.

https://youtu.be/U1aQZw08fSE

I have a nice pile of bushes from recent job. I really want to go the bio char route. I have an old bath that I might try it in might not work out. Seen a video a while ago of it bein done in a bath

Say my name

jimini0 wrote: »

I have a nice pile of bushes from recent job. I really want to go the bio char route. I have an old bath that I might try it in might not work out. Seen a video a while ago of it bein done in a bath

It'll cost you nothing anyway.
Good luck with it.

Say my name

Here's an interesting website by Dutchman Walter Veldman about biochar and going back on his use of it over the past few years with pictures and harvest figures.
* He was mixing it with cattle manure maybe a few more little things. But it's definite on the cattle manure.

I hope everyone's phone has a translate option..



https://www.greenwavebiochar.nl/

Say my name

Research into biochar use of reducing emissions from cattle slurry by TEAGASC and NUIG.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0111965

endainoz

Might be worth watching ear to the ground tonight, looks the be a report on a Clare Farmer doing a sort of bio char method with burning rushes.

blue5000

jimini0 wrote: »

I have a nice pile of bushes from recent job. I really want to go the bio char route. I have an old bath that I might try it in might not work out. Seen a video a while ago of it bein done in a bath

I've made some in a bath with Timfromtang. We used ash lengths about 2'' thick. First light 3 small separate fires in the bottom of the bath, then spread out the red hot embers along the bottom of the bath. Add fresh wood in layers just as white ash begins to form. We got about 180 litres of charcoal after about 5-6 hours. It was quenched with water because we were using it for blacksmithing, I suppose for bio char you could quench it with cattle slurry.

Ideally you'd want to be cutting the heavier stuff into blocks nearby so you could keep an eye on the bath at the same time.

The bath was sitting up on two blocks and wrapped with rockwool to insulate it a bit.



We were at Woodford smelting festival, some of us have weird hobbies:D

blue5000

Found another pic, the wood needs to be packed tightly in each layer so air doesn't get down to burn the charcoal underneath.

_Brian

blue5000 wrote: »

Found another pic, the wood needs to be packed tightly in each layer so air doesn't get down to burn the charcoal underneath.

Wow
I thought it needed to be in an oxygen starved container ?

blue5000

By keeping the fire burning on top oxygen doesn't get down to the charcoal at the bottom. BTW you need to block the drain hole:(

Say my name

blue5000 wrote: »

By keeping the fire burning on top oxygen doesn't get down to the charcoal at the bottom. BTW you need to block the drain hole:(

Now if the drain hole was just plumbed to a liquid tank or slurry tank..for quenching.

And then rachet strap the bath to pallet forks on a loader to bring wherever you want it and to empty it.

_Brian

So for example with one burn in that bath, and say the char is inoculated with slurry.
How much ground would that be useful for ?

Say my name

_Brian wrote: »

So for example with one burn in that bath, and say the char is inoculated with slurry.
How much ground would that be useful for ?

I don't think there's any hard and fast rules. You could have some going with one ton per acre and others 15t per acre.
Whatever it is it's one less gram of carbon floating around in our atmosphere.
Any amount no matter how small helps cations and anions and electrons move easier in the soil. Basically bring up your CEC.
And new soil carbon forms around any little bit applied. And any new soil carbon means more nitrogen available for plants.

timfromtang

Hi all,
I was just testing out a new search engine called Ecosia (they use profits to plant trees!!!!) and did my usual biochar search.
As usual the wikipedia entry is close to the top.
I read it again and was ASTONISHED at how more extensive and more informative it is opposed to the last time I looked.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar


all the best
tim

timfromtang

Greetings all
Later this year I will be pyrolising a LARGE volume of ash sticks and sawmill waste (mostly larch) to produce biochar for addition to a problem acid soil section of our forestry and 3000 kg of charcoal for the furnace festival this year. I intend to sieve the resulting char and use the particles larger than 15mm for the furnace festival and the fine material to make the soil amendment my patch of forestry needs.
I expect to be processing 24-40 tons of material to do this.


I would welcome interested parties who wish to learn about the process.
Folk will be welcome to visit on the burn days to participate and learn.


I'll be using a pit to pryolise in.
I expect it will take about 4 burns to process this volume.
Burns will take about 5-8 hours to complete.

I will post here more details closer to the time.


all the best
tim

Say my name

Ho hum..:):)

davidk1394

Whats the benefits of it and why did you decide to cary out this project?

Say my name

davidk1394 wrote: »

Whats the benefits of it and why did you decide to cary out this project?

Long lasting carbon storage in the soil with the benefits of holding onto nitrates and phosphorous and providing accommodation for more soil life and increasing the cation exchange capacity of the soil with the long term aim of reducing purchases of those blue bags in the picture there.

Why? I was bored.

Earnshaw

Say my name wrote: »

Ho hum..:):)]]

What's in the IBC tank?

webels

Great information here say my name. Is that a tipping skip you use for the burn?

timfromtang

Earnshaw wrote: »

Say my name wrote: »

Ho hum..:):)]]

What's in the IBC tank?

I'd guess water for quenching.
tim

Say my name

webels wrote: »

Great information here say my name. Is that a tipping skip you use for the burn?

No it's a specially made pyramid kiln just with the addition of Euro brackets for the loader.
I got the dimensions for it from open source plans on the net. I used the dimensions from the 1100 litre kon tiki cone. You'll get that with Google on images.
This even though it's a pyramid not a cone still just holds 1100 litres. Just the right size for quenching with a 1000 litre ibc tank and for the loader. It's just the right size for it all. Made with 5mm steel.

Say my name

Earnshaw wrote: »

Say my name wrote: »

Ho hum..:):)]]

What's in the IBC tank?

It's water. I can use any liquid biology or nutrients to quench though.
I'll use some compost extract on a few quenches but I haven't enough at present with the dry weather and any I had I sprayed direct on the grass with the sprayer.
But anyway this is going in the slurry tank and out with the tanker.

Say my name

There's an interesting talk/webinar on the soil food web and biochar here.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Permaculture/comments/fyntmt/rapid_soil_building_for_emergencies_and_beyond/?utm_source=ifttt

Biochar is from 40 mins in.
But it's interesting from the start on the soil food web.

Say my name

Interesting article on using biochar and lactic acid to treat manure and slurry.
Korean natural farming uses lactic acid to treat manure.
The article also says silage juice can be used. But probably only if it's lactic acid coming from it.

https://www.biochar-journal.org/en/ct/29

Castlekeeper

Say my name wrote: »

Would you have any idea what the perfect carbon : nitrogen ratio of a fertilizer should be?

Compost is 20:1
Microbes themselves are 8:1

So would 8:1 sound right and that leaves nitrogen available to the plant.

Might as well move this over here I think?

I think the whole point if adding molasses or any available carbon source us to help mitigate against soil carbon loss from the N application stripping it out during breakdown. The rate I've seen for that purpose is 25l/ ha, any excess molasses will just function as a food source for soil bugs.
I just add some to feed any bugs in soil or maybe in my mix.

Say my name

Not sure if this movie/documentary was already mentioned on this thread.

But I see it mentioned elsewhere as free to view from Earth day which has past up to the 1st of May.

It's called "Dirt Rich" the movie.. Over 1hr 27mins long so not a dinner time watch.

https://vimeo.com/290375721

Say my name

I actually got some CAN fertilizer delivered today with a carbon source coating it (seaweed powder or carbonate or something?). I'll use that instead of the protected urea products that are being pushed here.
This CAN + seaweed in trials last year gave the same yield as CAN but with 20% less used as CAN.
I'm in derogation so hopefully this will cover the protected urea requirement.

Castlekeeper

Say my name wrote: »

I actually got some CAN fertilizer delivered today with a carbon source coating it (seaweed powder or carbonate or something?). I'll use that instead of the protected urea products that are being pushed here.
This CAN + seaweed in trials last year gave the same yield as CAN but with 20% less used as CAN.
I'm in derogation so hopefully this will cover the protected urea requirement.

I'd say you'd want to get that cleared or else the docket fixed.

Say my name

Castlekeeper wrote: »

I'd say you'd want to get that cleared or else the docket fixed.

I'll have to find out anyway. Not a fan of protected urea.

Say my name

Coleus cutting growing in 100% miscanthus biochar.



Carbon capture occurring twice (well three times if the grass underneath is included) in that picture.

Substitute the oil plastic pot for a clay or bioplastic pot and life would be complete.

Water John

Eamon Ryan wants your number.

Say my name

Water John wrote: »

Eamon Ryan wants your number.

Ah now. I didn't know it was a western facing window sill at the time..

If he is around.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42773-019-00019-0

Say my name

Not sure if ye already subscribe to their YouTube channel.
They have over 191k subscribers. So chances are ye do already. :pac:

Way out West. A couple farming a smallholding in the west of Ireland.

They have been making biochar. The clip here shows them making pyramid kilns and biochar.

https://youtu.be/2EFVEjBVh48

Danzy

Say my name wrote: »

Not sure if ye already subscribe to their YouTube channel.
They have over 191k subscribers. So chances are ye do already. :pac:

Way out West. A couple farming a smallholding in the west of Ireland.

They have been making biochar. The clip here shows them making pyramid kilns and biochar.

https://youtu.be/2EFVEjBVh48

Yeah, am subscriber, they do nice vids, watched one today about a gate they made. Nice craftsmanship

Say my name

This was an interesting post about using biochar and fym to make bokashi- large scale, farm scale.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3388452434545424&id=985448954845796

On the same Facebook site. Denis gives an interview/podcast about his business and how he wanted to set this business up with an emphasis on employing people instead of where he was in his previous life as a sole worker.