I have a few bags or Bio-Char (four 50 lb bags), when planting veggies, do I just add it to my soil and let it work, or do I need to charge it with, say compost, first then use it? Just trying to figure out how to best use the product, then get more down the road, thanks!
They say you’re supposed to soak it for a week unto several months. I soaked mine for three days after I burned wood in my trench. But I soaked it with chicken manure with like 20% chicken manure so I’m thinking even if the charcoal I made didn’t absorb enough I added enough compost that it won’t reduce my beets I’m growing.
My question about absorption. I watched Cody’s lab and he showed massive differences. Like store bought charcoal was maybe a 10 I think while biochar or charcoal made with high heat absorbed three times as much iodine or 30. But then activated charcoal was like 60-90 I think. So is it economically feasible and worth it for biochar makers to have a massive system and turn their charcoal into activated carbon to them Put out onto the fields since it’d triple the absorption capability. And since the amendment will last for centuries it’d have bigger long term Impacts if it can absorb three times more then regular biochar. I wonder if anyone has done an experiment with it and looked at the costs of it.
I have not been involved in any studies that would answer your questions but someone at the International Biochar Initiative should be able to help you.
Wheat was one of the crops grown on our demonstration field. It was grown in the first year of the biochar application so I expected very little from the results but was surprised that we saw some significant surges in the yield. The average yield in the surrounding fields was 32 bushels with surges up to 50. The demonstration field had surges up to 70 bushels per acre. This is a link to some of the studies done with biochar and growing wheat: twww.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Biochar+for+wheat+farming&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
