I watched a video on YouTube from Amy Smith of MIT about making charcoal. Biochar is a great thing to add to garden soil and/or compost. I just tried it this morning and it took an hour to make charcoal. I put this into my compost to absorb nutrients. By this summer it will have become infused with nutrients and will release them slowly when I add the compost to the garden. Easy to do, not very dirty and you can use virtually any material that is made of carbon. Actually straw, twigs, branches, etc.
My farm facebook page is Old Fart-a-muit where I describe it in more detail and will post a video.

We made many batches of charcoal a couple years ago. We would grind the charcoal into powder and inoculate it with compost tea from vermicomposting. This biochar was then added to our compost where it eventually reached our gardens and potted plants. I have a lecture on the subject that I've delivered to several master gardener groups around Texas, and I've been planning on taking my lecture and making a tutorial article for ATP.

dave said:We made many batches of charcoal a couple years ago. We would grind the charcoal into powder and inoculate it with compost tea from vermicomposting. This biochar was then added to our compost where it eventually reached our gardens and potted plants. I have a lecture on the subject that I've delivered to several master gardener groups around Texas, and I've been planning on taking my lecture and making a tutorial article for ATP. :)

Did you film your lecture? If not, could you? Also, how did you grind your charcoal? Just bought some charcoal but many of the chunks are pretty large. I live in a condo and don't have many tools - was thinking of taking a hammer to some of the larger chunks. I would love to see much more attention paid to this subject on the site!

I would love to see your lecture as well!

I just started making some of my own biochar. Not sure on the results yet. I get mine down to the size of 1/4 or smaller. Mixes into the soil nicely.

I am thinking of making some larger batches as I have plenty of material to char. Possibly to share with friends and maybe post some on eBay and see what happens. The problem is I do not know what people want. Do they want the chunks? A finished product? And what size?

I would love some comments on this.
Thanks

Just thought I would share a picture of some homemade processed biochar next to some perlite for comparison.




I tried to make it similar in size for the ease in mixing with soil.

Seed2Bloom said:I just started making some of my own biochar. Not sure on the results yet. I get mine down to the size of 1/4 or smaller. Mixes into the soil nicely.
The problem is I do not know what people want. Do they want the chunks? A finished product? And what size?

From my reading, it is my understanding that the smaller the better - gives more surface area to the biochar. Although I have to use a hammer to crunch mine up, so my pieces are about 1/4" at the smallest. I did purchase some that was pretty much powdered, but it is not very economical for me to purchase, so back to my hammer I go.

I am going to keep improving my production and my processing and post my results here.

It looks like nice product there. I would guess screening to a uniform size (range) as maybe you have done would be a good quality measure.
What makes it BIOchar and not just charcoal?

Biochar is charcoal that has been "charged". Soaked in compost and other stuff. It absorbs it all, then releases it slowly into the soil. Also keeps carbon out of the air so great for the environment. Besides compost, I soak mine in pickle juice, molasses, a little fertilizer, a bit of flour, and some other stuff. Different people use different things. - Go to YouTube and watch some of the videos there. Biochar can last 100 years in the soil, or longer. It was heavily used in the Amazon by the natives, and the great effects are still there. Once in the soil, the soil is then called Terra Preta.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Edited for correction: Bio-char is charcoal produced from plant matter and stored in the soil as a means of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

I liked this presentation:

Impacts of Biochar Additions on Soil Microbial Processes and Nitrogen Cycling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

thanks, cwhitt, I will take a look

Just a little update.



In the spirit of Thanksgiving I decided to use a old roasting pan used for small turkeys.




Filled pan with scrap wood.

Roasted with open flame in wood stove heating my greenhouse.




Very well chared.




Finished product 1/4 inch and smaller.

I am a little disappointed with all the dust that was created in the process.

cwhitt said:Edited for correction: Bio-char is charcoal produced from plant matter and stored in the soil as a means of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Is this commercial bio-char produced in some miracle mode that takes no energy, produces no unwanted residue , and is produced some how from material that does not need or produce the elements , without destroying reduced forests, these paranoid scientists are so paranoid about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

For your garden, it IS a bonus but all the wonders of bio-char out side of simple garden used are theories.
Slash and char of the Amazon reduces carbon over slash and burn but HEY the Amazon is still disappearing and the oxygen it produces is disappearing with it.
Wow, we still eliminate the Amazon while producing less carbon those plants need to live.

Not very many years ago Switch Grass was going to be the latest greatest bio-fuel save the Earth scheme, well guess what; when real world farming of Switch Grass was applied it was not better to worse that the Corn it was supposed to replace.

The whole carbon Chicken-Littels shtick is rather sad as their is ZERO proof , only theories pushing this scam.
If you want an eye opener, read what happens to scientists who challenge a theory that has the consensus approval of "world leading " scientists, especially if they are correct.
Pretty similar to what happened to those who challenged Stalin, only they were not killed, but they fore ever found a job not related science.
There are on-line articles out there about the ostracized scientists who challenged theories that had consensus especially when they were correct.

As I said, bio-char for your garden is a very good thing, over think it beyond that and I think there is a bridge in Brooklyn, NY for sale cheap.

Very interesting, but I'm not sure anyone here is trying to over think anything - just discussing the concept and trying to figure out how each of us can best garden and do our bit to help the environment a bit. Not necessarily to save the Amazon, but just to do our own little bit in our own gardens.
Looks to me that @Seed2Bloom just did a great job. (S)he used his existing scrap wood, put it in an old roaster and into his existing greenhouse stove. In that enclosed roaster, I don't think he created very many emissions.
If each of us took care to protect their own little bit of world, we would not now even need to save the Amazon.

Between my BBQ woodsmokers and my interest in soil and the Ultisol clay I share in common with the Terra Preta earth gardeners that were famous in the ancient Amazon, I studied biochar enough to get my mind around some salient details related to carbon added to soil.

I could suggest that the term "rice grain" be used for size for example. It is a popular size for distribution via a spreader. I can suggest that the magical energy used to make high temp biochar is actually just the wood gases released after the inititial heating, turned back into the fire, turbocharging the heat levels with methane and natural gases as a fuel.

I could suggest that regular charcoal and biochar have a lot in common but something different is that charcoal is relatively low energy pyrolysis so organic compound remain, clogging surface area, and it takes a process called oxidation to reveal the skeletal carbon forms so desired by gardeners. This oxidation takes years, and more than we have to live in some cases, so heat is our friend when making char. I can say that the biochar holds oxygen like crazy, and so is wonderful for clay, but younger soils with biomaterials in them already benefit little. My favorite idea now is upon starting to spend the money ($600-700) for a big sack of high quality rice grain biochar and add to it over time with the smaller batch production we would manage ourselves.

Its cool stuff, but only worth the effort if you have the need in your soil type.

@Dirtmechanic Excellent suggestions! I am always eager to learn more, so THANK YOU! I have clay soil and am always interested in anything that will improve it, and the environment. Tell me more about Ultisol - I have never heard of it.

USDA soil taxonomy has six hierarchical levels that are named order, suborder, great group, subgroup, family, and series.

Personally, I found the real trick is to understand the sub type, which is directly related to the local environment.

My clay us of the udult sub type, which is to say we are humid and the rain leaches all the alkaline materials so our base pH is 5. On the surface where more oxidation and composting is occuring, its 5.5 pH.

Extensive soil surveys have been completed and are on the web. They are so detailed in some cases, that by entering my address, I can view the demarcation line separating the soil type in my front yard from that of the hill upon which my home is built, which is a chirty clay.

These baselines set core understandings of general ideas such as biochar, liming, fertilization needs.

Its a lot of reading but worth it. Here is a link about Ultisols. Ulti means ultimate, last one standing. Its the oldest, most finely ground clay. My soil samples in soapy water never settle.

https://www.uidaho.edu/cals/so...

cwhitt said:I liked this presentation:

Impacts of Biochar Additions on Soil Microbial Processes and Nitrogen Cycling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

I watched that video and a couple others. A couple weeks ago I was really excited about biochar. I ordered a bag to run my own tests. However, I wanted to see what studies have been done on long term impact to the soil/environment. Sort of discouraged by the few studies that I've found. Haven't found anything that's not several years old. Biochar was 'reintroduced' over 10 years ago. Would be nice to see some results of what impact adding the biochar has had. I've watched enough videos from universities to understand that the feedstock, processing type, original soil type all play a role, but I haven't found enough studies to confirm this is safe long term. I saw one study that said biochar was applied to a corn field with devastating results. Then three years later the crop production was through the roof. Well the study didn't say if the applied biochar was activated or raw. I found a really good research paper that I should find again and post here. I hadn't finished reading it but the paper wasn't a long term study which is what I'm really trying to find.