Biochar and natural farming

blue5000 wrote: »

But it's only 15-20 % efficient on a DM basis.

Indeed, it is low efficiency, however if you are using your own woody waste as feedstock why would you care unduly? you'd be making in the region of 200kg of biochar of the correct quality for adding to animal feed each burn. Its hard to see biochar becoming available commercially at less than €1/kg, currently available from some producers for €1.5/kg.
Getting rid of a pile of woody waste on farm and producing 200-400 euro worth of biochar in a days work seems like a good deal to me.


As an addendum traditional charcoal production has about a 14% yield on a dry matter basis.
My own Exeter charcoal retort about 20-25% efficient.



tim

Conference Day....let's see if these Organic Boys can teach us a thing or 2 about soils....

Say my name wrote: »

Keep us poor people who had tractor break downs last week and have only got their tractor back and are installing feed barriers today and bringing heifers in for the winter informed.

Jaysus if you don't want to go just say it , we don't need all the excuses haha

Say my name wrote: »

I had good ones though.

I'd be there in a shot though really. Hopefully it's filmed for later release.
That dinner menu looks fairly posh too.

Food was fab....

Conference is absolutely brilliant. The standard of presentation is amazing..

Will give run down some other time as a few problems with beer build up at the moment and need to get the backlog cleared

Water John wrote: »

Well Alps, if you have mixed the grape and the barley you'll regret it. I presume both are organic, that might help with no hangover.

Well met another boardsie and decided to change it up again.....like a multi species sward

Gonna throw some fashion of a report on the Biological Farming Conference during the week. It's going to come in bets and starts, as I get a chance, so apologies in advance.

This was my first introduction to Biological Farming or indeed Organic production, and coming from the higher side of intensive dairying would have thought that my approach would have been shunned somewhat by the attendees. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

This was a real mix audience. A massive cross section of production systems, age group more late 30's to 50's (more mid range than our standard) surprised with the weighting of dairy farmers, but for some reason i would have thought more women would have been present.

The presentations were purely Biological, with very little emphasis on organic per say ...there was no condemnation or destain whatsoever towards conventional or high input, either from the presentations or the questions and made for a really comfortable, engaging few days for everyone.

The quality of presentations was amazing, and the technical detail that the speakers could switch on when questioned, was from a scientific or chemical background, quiet incredible.

So too was the conversation after dinner on Monday night. What a mix of farmers, from so many different systems ,organic dairy farmers growing 11 tonnes, to beef lads pulling on inputs and costs, to tillage lads renewing organic matter with rotations and cover crops.

Too much to take in in 2 days, but there was a huge amount here for everyone, and with contacts made, will utilise in what way we can to improve our lot in our system.

More later

Ps....no mention of biochar however

My composter / mineral pump at work. No labour or energy costs involved.

Say my name wrote: »

It inhibits an enzymatic pathway in many bacteria and parasites in the soil and as bacteria need to multiply or die every four days. Antibiotic.
Monsanto registered it as an antibiotic in the early days.

It'll only leave/favour bacteria that are the strongest and most resistant to antibiotics in the soil.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/lifestyle/2018/10/herbicides-like-roundup-are-driving-antibiotic-resistance-nz-study.html

how roundup works is it attacks the cell wall and breaks it down so it might hit gram positive bacteria

Minister Bruton announcing plans to reduce CO2 tomorrow. Maybe its a unfair stat but 13t CO2/person Ireland, 8t CO2/person UK.
Hope it has some positive ideas not just tax.

Say my name wrote: »

Over in the motors forum they're a bit worked up over potential plans of mixing biodiesel with diesel to the rate of 10%.
Seemingly a lot of diesel cars could be kaput if so.

Over in the children and toddlers forum they're delighted with potential plans to increase our birthrate to bring us in line with the UK.

Christ - when will this stupidity end!!?? They might as well mix the diesel with Orangutan blood!!

Good article by Thomas Hubert in last week's IFJ on methane. Shows this area needs further research and a wider understanding of its role and mitigation. Belching cows may be shouldering too much of the fair burden, need more facts. This doesn't mean we don't move to minimise.

Say my name wrote: »

Unfortunately Water John. The Irish eejits in government and from that people's assembly have influenced policy thinking and media reporting in this country in that farming is 'the big bad wolf' in this whole carbon debacle.
It lets themselves off the hook of course to continue their motorway driving, latte drinking, two foreign holidays a year lifestyle.
There's no other industry in Ireland that captures carbon but sure the mushrooms don't want or need to know that.

We've wasted alot of time and money on this - thats assuming you think climate change is all about us and not quiet natural. In any case simple things like bog restoration, passive homes etc. make alot more sense economically/environmentally than attacking livestock farming or making our energy bills some of the highest in the EU!!

Documentary on TG4 now about soil health.

Just spotted this in the Journal -

https://www.farmersjournal.ie/soil-will-it-run-out-419612

Edit - a small bit I pulled from it -

Soil degradation

Brennan explained how soil is being degraded faster than it is being replaced. Brennan also stressed how soil is not renewable source, at least not in a human lifetime.

In the US, soil is degrading 10 times faster than it can be replaced while in China degradation is running 40% ahead of replenishment. Around 25bn tonnes of top soil is being lost every year and cannot be replaced easily.


Globally, 33% of soil is estimated to be degraded to some degree, with only around 60 years' worth of topsoil left according to a recent UN FAR report.

Fiona explained that by international standards, Irish soils are performing relatively well, but that we shouldn’t become complacent.

Water John wrote: »

Minister Bruton announcing plans to reduce CO2 tomorrow. Maybe its a unfair stat but 13t CO2/person Ireland, 8t CO2/person UK.
Hope it has some positive ideas not just tax.

When it comes to reducing carbon footprint, two cherries i suggest are,



1. "storing more carbon in our soils "


biochar, (preferentially produced using an energy recovery system to replace a portion of fossil fuel use)


Forest management practice (continuous cover management stores a significantly larger carbon fraction in biomass and soil over time, clearfell management can lead to soil erosion and large releases of carbon from biomass and soil at clearfell)


Grazing land mangement (......I have limited knowledge here and will allow others to contrbute if they wish........)


etc


2. "capturing more sunlight and increasing biomass volume"


Biomass stores carbon, is made from carbon, etc... a field of grass can capture and use only a fraction of the sunlight that a forest can. The height of the canopy allows light to be harvested at different intensities all the way to the forest floor, when it comes to collecting sunlight for photosynthesis forest are super efficient.

a field of grass is habitat for a wide variety of organisms in and on the soil, however a forest can support a much greater variety and volume of living organisms.


just my opinions of course


tim

Suckler wrote: »

Just spotted this in the Journal -

https://www.farmersjournal.ie/soil-will-it-run-out-419612

Edit - a small bit I pulled from it -

Soil degradation

Brennan explained how soil is being degraded faster than it is being replaced. Brennan also stressed how soil is not renewable source, at least not in a human lifetime.

In the US, soil is degrading 10 times faster than it can be replaced while in China degradation is running 40% ahead of replenishment. Around 25bn tonnes of top soil is being lost every year and cannot be replaced easily.


Globally, 33% of soil is estimated to be degraded to some degree, with only around 60 years' worth of topsoil left according to a recent UN FAR report.

Fiona explained that by international standards, Irish soils are performing relatively well, but that we shouldn’t become complacent.

Its one the planets many natural resources like marine fisheries etc. that is taken totally for granted by too many with increasingly disastrous results:(

If you look at a typical Irish landscape with all its hedge rows and cattle grazing in the fields, could we really be doing any more to trap carbon, apart from maybe planting the whole lot.