From what I understand about biochar is it is meant to change the soil over time. Creating a living soil that can change virtually any soil into that beautiful dark soil we love to see. With humic it can be a faster “fix” but it still is not about an immediate miraculous change. It’s about creating an environment that will keep getting better over time as long as there are roots in the ground
I'd like to see an untreated vs. fertilizer vs. biochar vs. humic vs. fertilizer humic vs. fertilizer biochar vs fertilizer humic biochar. Basically is all this just the nutrients or does humic or biochar do something special even beyond what fertilizing does. Organic material clearly helps plants, but do plants with adequate nutrition benefit from humic or biochar. That's what I want to see. Humic and biochar are very expensive. It makes no sense to pay that premium if fertilizer alone can do about as much as those products in conjunction with fertilizer.
The best way I've heard it explained, humic and biochar add no nutrients to the soil. All they do is make it to where over time, you need to add less and less nutrients to get the same effect. Plus the biochar stays in the soil for thousands of years. Native Americans used biochar in Central America for their agriculture and if i remember correctly, they dug 20 ft deep with rich black soil.
I second this-from this experiment, you could easily conclude that the biggest difference was from just adding the fertilizers after testing and not from the biochar or humic acid. Would be good to know if that is the case.
@@AmericanNuke54Terra pretta is definitely not biochar. Those central American Indians were putting down crude oil substances in their gardens. Only possible explanation.
Very interesting, I might look into using biochar and humic acid in the sections of my lawn that are very poor performing. After running some soil tests first, of coarse, And that's what I love about this channel, you really dive into the science and chemistry of what's actually going on. I'm sure these tests take a long time to set up, I can't wait to see what's coming.
Loved the idea and the information the experiment provided but shocked that the control wasn't treated with fertilizer as well. By not treating the control with fertilizer, it negated the purpose of the control. It is widely known applying fertilizer will generate a growth response. Basically, the controls became the humic acid with fertilizer and the biochar with fertilizer and the experiment changed to what affect does combining the two amendments HA and biochar have on growth and performance. It would be beneficial to repeat the experiment using fertilizer in the control.
Hey SoiLab, you definitely should respond to the issue in Eugenie's comment. I re-watched the video to hear if you said you also added the fertilizer to the control. If you didn't, she is totally correct. If you did, then it's an excellent, valid experiment. Well, either I missed it or you didn't mention it either way -- very frustrating. I hope you're still reading these comments 3 mo after you posted this video, bc I sure as hell want to know that I didn't just waste my time watching an invalid experiment.
This is very true. If you are trying to ascertain if Humic and or Biochar have an effect then they should be the only things that change in each experiment. So all other things should be equal, including fertiliser. So the control must have the fertiliser that the other 3 tubs had, otherwise the experiment is invalidated, because the increased growing effects might have nothing whatsoever to do with the Humic or the Biochar and may come 100% from the fertiliser.
Thanks for sharing this. There are a lot of conflicting opinions on humic acid and biochar and it's great to see this scientific approach. I watched part II already and it supports the findings of these visual observations.
Make video on Biochar + Mycorrhiza. It is being said that Mycorrhiza houses itself in biochar instead of plant roots and it turns parasitic (instead of being symbiotic) and starts sucking nutrients from plants, leading to undesirable effects.
I just came across your channel and this video. I had to stop it at 2:38. I’m a permaculture design instructor. These soil amendments that you’re using will only show you 100% results positive or negative in living soil in a full garden environment with biological process is happening. Such as the mycelium growth and soil, moisture retention and pH balancing. If you had a full outdoor garden of a variety of plants that are all beneficial to each other using those soil amendments, you will see these things increase in size in a way that you will not imagine being such, a size. for example, if you had six fruit trees and two 4 x 8 beds and a handful of potted plants, this would give you a better test result for each of the types of plants you could grow with the soil amendments. If you only add the acid in biochar to, a soil that has no nutrients and no chance to grow any mycelium. You’re not gonna see much of a result from your bio chart. It needs food and microorganisms to complete the entire ecosystem underground. This is why your results are hitting & miss. if you take some soil samples and take them to the local so testing lab in the city, they could tell you exactly what you have going on in your test buckets. I know I have no videos to prove my point, but there’s plenty of Permaculture design videos on RU-vid that discuss the full food chain of the microorganisms underground along with the entire growth cycle in process. I hope this is helpful. I meant no disrespect just an observation that I seen in this video that was not fully explained nor was it fully tested in a full capacity. Lab testing certain things is fine to see if they’re sustainable for certain plants, but you still have to have the rest of the soil biology in order to see if it actually will do as it is said to do.
makes sense as humic is not a fertilizer. humic is similar to biochar as it makes nutrients available and also holds onto water and nutrients to be used as the plants need them.
I appreciate the results. I have also added the mycorrhizal fungi to the soil for better roots. Can this influence the results when the test goes longer to show the root development? I notice that the plants are healthier with the fungi added when some of my neighbors garden is starting to suffer in the heat my keep going.
Howdy! I live in the DFW North Texas area and our St. Augustine Grass has developed Take All Patch/ Take All Root Rot. this fungal disease is very hard/ almost impossible to control. Fungicides have very little affect to no affect at all. Talking with Texas A&M, they have suggested to use Sphagnum Peat Moss to lower the pH level in the soil. Because our soil is made up with mostly clay, our soil tends to be or on the alkaline side. With these soil amendments you have used, do you think it can help recover the St. Augustine quicker with less usage of Sphagnum Peat Moss?
Humic acid and bio char is just a carbon source that work over a period of time, creating microbiological processes that make nutrients in available form to plants. Your ‘charged bio char means fertilizer added so it doesn’t retain it, so…
I bet most your benefit is coming from aration from the biochar here. does not look like proper potting soil so drainage is probably your weak point here. is there drainage holes?
*The more Oxygen used to make Bio-Char the more POT-ASH is made. Potash is HIGHLY alkaline as Pot-Ash and Animal Fat is how the pioneers made Soap 150 years ago!! The Humic acid may simply be Neutralizing the Pot-Ash within the Poorly made Bio-Char. The Bio-Char machine I built uses 5800 Watts of electric power at 240VAC for 2 hours and it's totally air tight so the pH of my Bio-Char is right at Ph 7.2 (More like activated Carbon) - When I made Bio-Char the old way buy burning wood in an open flame and then smothering the glowing amber's the pH was 10.9 when mixed with water which burns the roots of most plants. I'd try mixing your bio-Char with sulfur or sulfuric acid or just make the Bio-char in a 99% anaerobic atmosphere (no air!!!) to keep the pH of the Char as neutral as posible.*
A better test would have been adding ferts to the control. Obviously the plants/grass are going to fall short without ferts. That way you would know exactly how much the amendments are really working. This test is flawed for that reason
I'm pretty sure the test is flawed from the start. Why not use a clone of a plant instead of planting genetically variable radishes? Tomato would be a great option.