Biochar and natural farming

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I was listening to Dr Elaine Ingham the last day, she wasn't so complementary about biochar! But, one use she did see for it was as an aid to relieve compaction which I thought was interesting.

There's such complexity to char and not that people don't really understand it.
If you make it the wrong way it won't work.
If leave tars and pac's on it it won't work.
If you don't break open the pores you're not making the best char.
If you don't mix it with manure it won't work.

But if you get your head around those simple facts it's the greatest thing that the planet and soil has encountered.

Mix it with your organic material and you won't look back. The soil will become better every year.

Have a look at the biochar Facebook groups. Albert Bates and Dr Claudia Kammann.

If you were in the locality I'd show you paddocks that received dairy washings with char in them. Tis good stuff!

If you've slurry. Mix it with slurry.

If you've dung. Mix it with dung.
You could add it dry to the bedding. But I've no experience with it dry and you might be coughing up your lungs in years to come.

It'll act the very same as dung spread in a field when added to slurry in that it lasts.
The future of slurry applied should be black slurry.
The problem you'll get is accessing enough material.

But slurry is easiest as you have the equipment for spreading and it's being treated.

There's another than me at this a lot longer than I even though I never met the man.
It should be an absolute match with organics.

https://www.independent.ie/business/farming/forestry-enviro/can-this-home-produced-farm-product-cut-beef-emissions-by-up-to-20pc-39549824.html

Panch18 wrote: »

Interesting stuff

Have you photo's of your kiln? Good idea to have it on the loader

Next one I'm getting made will just be longer with same capacity to take a pallet board without cutting. And a lid just to try dry char.

Here's a study I read a while ago of a Swedish farm using a German biochar burner for drying corn and heating the house and using the char on the farm.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652620349179

How soil builds carbon is from exudates.
What this means is the roots of plants exude a substance.
This substance is sucrose? or sugar.
They exude sugar because they need the help of bateria and fungi to access food.
The bacteria and fungi feed on the sugar and in return break down and make available all the elements in the soil in a way that the roots can digest them.

Think of the soil and bacteria and fungi as your stomach. The bacteria and fungi break down the food and make it available to your gut linings. The roots in the soil are the gut linings.

The bacteria and fungi are born, fed, live and die. It's their dead bodies and the crap and piss from living that is the soil carbon.

When you apply artificial fertilizer (nitrogen) it's a salt based solution. This makes plants work harder to access nutrients and these nutrients are usually only from the farm management. It switches off/or slows down the relationship with the bacteria and fungi and thus no sugars are being fed back to bacteria and fungi as the plant is getting fed by the bag. Less bacteria and fungi mean less carbon is made in the soil.

Bacteria and fungi are also damaged by tilling the soil, having sunlight on soil, no plant cover, fungicides, herbicides and pesticides. All these mean less carbon is made and stored in soil.

Biochar is carbon dioxide taken in by plants, turned into carbon in the living plant to support the plant structure, that plant then is cooked at a high temperature to leave that carbon in a very pure form that bacteria and fungi are unable to eat and digest.
Instead they take up residence inside the pores of the biochar where they form colonies in the char and themselves are not subject to the normal kill or be killed life in normal soil. The biochar increases the biodiversity of bacteria and fungi. Carbon then forms around the char in the soil from this extra bacteria and fungi living in the char from those that do venture out.

Extra carbon in soil means more nitrogen and phosphorus is captured by the carbon and not leached down and off.
But too much carbon is not the be all and end all either and plants don't do well if there's an abundance of carbon. Plants are fine in warm countries with an abundance of carbon as the respiration of soil leaves behind sodium that makes the plant work that bit harder to access nutrients. If you're in a country with a lot of soil carbon, a lot of rainfall, cold conditions with not much evaporation, your plant won't do well.

As you can see it's all a balancing act.

NcdJd wrote: »

OK really appreciate the time and effort posting that man. I think I've got the idea. So the occasional short drought is not a bad thing say in the likes of grassland ? As I know with irrigation salnization can be an issue.

So my next question is if I was to reseed a field with native grass types would I get away without having to spread fertiliser on it every year ? I know the local farmer beside me has meadows going back probably hundreds of years and he never applies fertiliser to them. But he does not have big stocking rates. Was thinking of spreading manure and add the biochar to it if this little partnership comes off im working on.

The occasional short drought is ok in grassland if they've good carbon amounts built up. That grassland will power away growing.
It's the grassland that hasn't got the same carbon built up as the other and is applying artificial nitrogen freely that'll have the double whammy of not having the carbon and having increased sodium content in the soil that'll shut down the plant from growing.

My plant above in the thread in 100% biochar/carbon was treated with sea minerals. That carbon won't degrade like a natural carbon in soil but it behaves in the same way as the sodium was needed to grow a plant (well) in it.

Biochar with animal manure. Yes.

But don't forget you need a eye on making money too. Not just for the sake of doing it. But it's ok if it's a hobby too.
It's the partnership is making me think you see a business when it might not be.

There's some farmers getting away with no fert applied with these new multi species swards but I've only seen them (online) for the first year and they looked to have had black good carbon soils to start off with anyway.

Actually this popped up on my feed.

It's samples of soil and one engineered soil made from biochar that were sent up to the international space station to see how they perform up there.

https://www.prweb.com/releases/history_in_the_making_bio365_soil_being_tested_on_the_international_space_station/prweb17589275.htm

Might interest ncdjd and a few others. Link to the bio365 company is in the link.

Probably should update the progress on the JMS applications.

Grass is looking good from it.

Top two pics received it first. Bottom two about three days later. It's a positive anyway.









15 acres in total got an application.

yosemitesam1 wrote: »

Did you leave any areas as a comparison?

I have fields beside those for comparison.
But they'd all their own variables.
There's a field beside the bottom two pics which got seaweed + molasses in October and gran lime which is good too and grazed earlier but it looks like the jms ground has caught up with it. That gran lime ground will get straight jms.
Then there's a bit across a laneway that got fym which is not too bad but lacking colour. So it'll get jms plus seaweed.

Then I've fields beside the top two which were grazed in the last few weeks. But they're tough sods anyway.

To me the jms has made the ground a bit more free draining than before and the tracks from spraying in the unfavourable conditions for traveling but perfect for jms have largely disappeared.

If I can jig around a bit with housing for brewing and depending on weather I hope to cover the farm with it ..based on this little trial.

Finishing up on one of the paddocks in the jms anaerobic biota trial.

It's a few days since they were out last.

What surprised me was the growth in those few flooding wet days. Jms seems to like floods..