I soak my biochar is aerated worm castings tea, i like to also add some extra things like rock dust, rabbit or chicken poo alfalfa after i drain the tea and its still quite wet to absorb the extra material. I soak for about 10 days in the tea before draining and adding additional material which i just stir in well. I let the mix sit for atleast another week and its ready to use. I have only made it a few times now just before each summers growing season but the results have blown me away. The yeilds and the production of everything grown with the biochar increased. Everything grew better with the biochar than other fertilizer methods. I grew vegetables and marijuana with it. I am a organic grower and the biochar has become my favorite input. One tiny tiny peace of char the size of a pea has more surface area than q football field. It hold nutrients and minerals bacteria and fungi, home for protozoa areathopods etc.. it does so much its a maricle. It makes a little amount of nutrients go a long way and holds and releases for many years. Bennifishal bacteria and fungi are the work house of growing the biochar is a millions of homes for them it encourages them to breed work be happy giving you the best results possible. I got the biggest tomatoes, grew the fattest most stinky marijuana and the tastiest also. Im sold on biochar. Thanks for the great video your system for making biochar is amazing simple and effective. I love lactobacillus serum its a great input and easy to make. Anyone interested chris trump has some great videos on RU-vid. Cheers from NL Canada alot of Irish settled here many years ago we have similar dialect as you folks here in many parts some more than others.
I use urine for the first soak but I also make large quantities of lactobacillus culture from milk for a second soak. I’m also planning on running the charcoal under my chickens. The more the merrier. Greetings from central New Mexico, USA! I’m in the desert southwest and I’m trying to turn my property into an oasis.
Good luck, I know it can be done using terrain features to catch water and cover crops to hold it. That requires a certain amount of soil spread over the mostly sand terrain though, I think you can use compost in place of topsoil. Im sharing so ylif you hadnt thought of this you can add it to your playbook. What methods are you using? Let us know how it's going.
If you use a biogas digester you can add it to some soil and use the effluent from the digester to inoculate it. The effluent is basically a liquid fertilizer full of microbes that break down organic matter and release the nutrients into the soil.
I think you have one of the most efficient methods I've seen. Passively productive, dig it I'm going to try a variation of this, as soon as I can produce some biochar this fall (California!)
If your soil is acid, small amounts of woodash should get you a more pH neutral soil, but there are some heavy metals warnings around about overusing it. Along with charcoal I add small amounts of crushed basalt and bentonite clay to my slow compost heap, just to make certain that there are no mineral deficiences and to improve the water holding capacity of my very poor sandy soil. The other night I just watched a YT presentation by German researcher Glaser (he studies terra preta for over 20 years now) wherein he showed the results of a meta analysis of many hunreds of studies into terra preta. Along with many other results he found no negative effects of its usage and on average the studies showed a crop yield increase of 10 percent. Hope this helps, stay safe, best wishes, greetings from Holland
That must be why they say it is the third year before you start seeing results from putting it in the soil. Like you said it takes two years before the Biochar releases the nutrients into the soil. So the third year. Is what you are waiting for.
Wasn't it that if you put charcoal directly into the soil it actually absorbs the soils nutrients and locks it up for two years before releasing it back out again?
I always use urine. I produce 2-3 gallons a day, so it's a good use for it. I found that 5 gallons of char will take about 6 gallons of urine initially, to soak it all in and remain damp. Keep adding a gallon at a time depending on temperatures, to keep it moist for a month or so, and you can add it as a mixable amendment. This time, I'm adding wood ashes as well, to get the benefits of the minerals in the ash. Love the dialect! I'm guessing a northern county, to the east of the 'Derry?
I am a new grower. I was not sure how to use the commercial biochar that I had purchased. I was told that it is already activated. As they are calling it biochar and not charcoal, I have to assume that this is correct. They told me to put it into my compost , or add compost to it and let it sit for at least two weeks before using it. At this stage, if added to the soil after two weeks or so, will it fail to release the nutrients for two years as some people are saying, or will it release the nutrients right away?
Would a JADAM liquid fertilizer work well to activate biochar? If so, what would be the best plant matter to make it from? Also, can you mix and match what you inoculate it with?
Any biological activity which allows the biochar to absorb the nutrients and microbs will do the job. It's just a function of time more than anything. Stick in compost, in a worm farm, soak it in compost tea. Just need to do the experiments on which method leads to less nutrient tie up in the initial application.
