Allotments 4 All
Allotment Stuff => The Basics => Topic started by: plotstoeat on November 19, 2015, 21:19:31
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Has anyone used Biochar? I would love to hear of your experiences. I believe it is an attempt to produce something similar to terra preta, the ancient fertile black soil. http://commonsensehome.com/biochar/
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This is the first I have heard of this but a bit of a search around makes interesting reading. Will be interested in the results of the University research over the last two years.
http://www.bigbiocharexperiment.co.uk/
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Thanks for the link Davey. Might be fun to join the experiment! I wonder if we could make an approximation of biochar? Can't wait 100 years though!
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I have looked at this many times but not tried it!
http://www.holon.se/folke/carbon/simplechar/simplechar.shtml
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And this!
http://www.katanabuilders.com/katanablog/charcoal/
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The thing that gets me (not in a good way) is the evidence that the amerindians used to just burn waste in a fairly random manner and bury the partially carbonised result to produce this incredible soil. They probably didn't worry about the few % of tars etc. involved as long as the plants survived and evidence from communal city gardens confirms that mild contamination can't affect fruit & seed at all, and only affects leafy stuff by rain-splash.
On the other hand we have the companies making money hand-over-fist from those newbie gardeners with more money than sense - how else could they sell "cleaner" charcoal ( I have my doubts) at many, many times the cost of barbecue charcoal?
A great idea with potentially massive cheap and cheerful benefits hijacked by bottom-feeding spin doctors preying on fashion victims. :BangHead:
Cheers.