I've been struggling with bushfire management, and also an avid composter, and just learned 4 weeks ago about biochar, inoculation and proper usage. I've just been given the keys to the sports car of soil improvement and turbo-charging my garden. I can finally find a use for the sticks and branches that don't compost easily. Awesome, $0.02
Biochar should be incorporated into environmental recovery strategies! We could rebuild the food forests that once existed throughout the Americas. Take back much of the space the car has stolen from us, and rebuild our environment, as well as our society. We can make a society with advanced technology that also lives in harmony with nature, because we are nature. We can learn from the mistakes of the past, and build a better future where humanity finally escapes the cycle of building advanced civilization only to suffer massive collapse.
Biochar is charchoal that's been inoculated with LIFE = BIO. Terra Preta was a mix of organic matter, charcoal, humanure, and pottery chards that likely were bioceramic - it was made from more than charcoal and it hasn't been fully replicated. The shards are always overlooked and sometimes the BIO part of biochar is overlooked but it's crucial as it will sap soils of humus if soil biology is not added before adding it to the soil. You can spray compost tea or simply mix the biochar with compost before adding. He describes the destruction of current soil nutrient structures and humic substances (leaching) when adding charcoal... that's NOT a great idea. It "works" but there are much better ways. To say you can leach the soils of nutrients has no consequences overlooks many members of the soil food web - by simplifying things, plants can be made more vulnerable and certain nutrients can become less bioavailable. Always keep the BIO in Biochar - we can always ADD to the land, we don't need to leach/destroy the indigenous microbiological consortiums to do so. We can instead add more diversity and habitat at the same time.
Activated charcoal's cation exchange capacity to trap minerals and other compounds is used up in literally a matter of days. Anyone who has owned a fish tank in their life knows this, the activated carbon needs to be replaced each week because in around 3 days or so it's used up. Then you are left with just the macro porous structure of the charcoal which holds water and fertilizer and whatnot that isn't locking it away. So your concerns seem a bit unfounded. It will get colonized with local microbial life wherever it is placed so that isn't really a concern either. Seeding it with microbs unless say you want to use it in potting soil I would assume. Also I thought one of the biggest draws with it is the fact it is a extra excess carbon source for the plant beyond taking in CO2. What I want to know is how available the carbon is to the plant.
I don't agree to your idea that adding biochar to stabilize soil it's not a good idea ! Biochar it's crystalized porous carbon that is the most know stable humic substance ( persistent for millenium"s ) , is CEC it's unmatched ( graphite like electric conductivity) and that it is why it's used in filtering biohazard or chemical contamination . This organic structure it's bunker for life that stimulates and house biodiversity ! I suggest you to learn the science behind that before you judge !
Reread my comment - none of what you suggest is contradicted by what I said BECAUSE you're calling it BIOchar which implies you've ADDED LIFE, so that's my point ;) If you read the actual past published literature on the subject you'll find early on biochar was KILLING SOILS and HURTING FORESTS: WHY? Because it was Pure CHAR they used not BIOCHAR. Luckily today we have a more sophisticated view... except for throwbacks of misinformation like this spurious TED talk. I promote, teach, and write about BIOCHAR and it's amazing properties, but CHAR is not the same. Always good to read the actual published science - just going off blogs and UA-cam comments will not give you enough info.
@@MattPowersSoil Does the Char need to be an activated Charcoal before it is innoculated with whatever source is used to make it biochar. Making activated Charcoal is an additional step. Then another step is needed to make it Biochar.
You are my hero Wae Nelson!! We are making chars from organic waste in municipal settings. We are also having great results with remediation depending on the feed stock we use. I would love to tell you about it!
Guess this is something that is handed down through the generations. My family has known about this as far back as we can remember. They were dutch farmers though. It goes through our compost piles and comes out squishy.
Yes squishy and clingy. sometimes in sheets. I imagine it at the bottom of leaky dams, over time working better than clay to seal the dam floor. I've heard it said that a 1% increase in humus in soil can increase the holding capacity of water 170,000 litres per hectare. Zounds!
@@DursunX - In fact for millennia Humans used fire. Ashes were traditionally dumped in the garden! In fact only in "modern" times we, collectively, stop doing this! In favor of electricity. ;-)
This cristalysed carbon material remain stable for millennia ! Anybody that want to bring back the carbon in soil this is the ultimate technic ! "Stable humus"
Been using charcoal. For at least 50 years...started with making charcoal for sketching and took out the choice pieces and left rest on garden where I had made the charcoal.
I dug a hole near each of 5 fruit trees today and put pallet wood coals, a few cups of fertilizer and an oak log. The roots will find it and get what they want for years to come.
So in in other words, if I use the char & ash from my wood heat stove I'm off setting any smoke. Thanks gov't for telling me that I may never replace my grand fathered real wood stove. I will maintain my wood stove and hope it makes biochar for my kids for years. The ash & char has sweetened the soil here for 25 years.
@@yesthisisdonut I only dump in strategic places & cycle those. This year I just put in my gravel driveway. I keep it far from my orchard and berry plants.
Careful with the charcoal too, the first year, it will sap nutrients from your plants. And with ash, it depends on the acidity of your soil, how much you can use.
@@yesthisisdonut Ash is potassium also known as pot ash! Too much of it firms the soil and stops water seeping deeper,but used correctly and tilled into soil so it doesn't bind up in clumps works great for plants that flourish on potassium ie. ( Brassicas ) - Cabbage, Cauliflower, Broccoli etc.
What this really need. Is to be understood, before turning into another "fix all" internet trend! Like so many others, that neither fit geography or conditions. But keep being ridiculously spread as the saving formula! Better keep this in mind. As a general rule of thumb, BURNING tends to not be a positive thing... That's a good starter point! ;-)
I make charcoal from Bamboo by burning them in open fire as fast as possible as hot as possible. Then when flame go I put water on it. Does that give same quality charcoal as when burned with no air ? Wld love advice
When air(oxygen) is present, you will get ash more than biochar. The porous structure of the cells in bamboo will be lost if you burn it. I would suggest trying a method where you put some of the bamboo in a fireproof container (tin can or other) poke a hole in the can for the gases to get out and put the can withnthe bamboo you are burning. Afterwards you can compare the structure of the two bamboos.
@@TheTgranber THank you for suggestion ! The thing is that 'my' running bamboo is about 8 m long with uncountable side branches. makes it virtually impossible to burn in any form of container unless spending much time cutting each bamboo to pieces. The charcoal looks fabulous though the way I burn it and a seedling nursery loves it. Can I get it checked for its qualities?
There are some labs that (for a fee) will check your biochar for its properties. I don't know what region you are from, but the international biochar initiative IBI (biochar-international.org) has set up specific standards for certifying biochar. I use a shredder to cut my material (mainly old christmas trees) into wood chips. The chips will then be chared in a open kiln similar to the kon-tiki style kiln.
Nothing has ever come close to warding off bugs, fertilizing my plants, and rehabbing neglected ones as wood vinegar made out of bamboo. It feels like a cheat code for plants.
I have studied soil science for years and never heard the term " Wood Vinegar." I imagine there going to be some fermentation going on somewhere, but I'd love to hear more about wood Vinegar and see how it's made.
@@and__lam1152 - They were also well known for Human sacrifices and even, well documented, cannibalism activities... So might be a good idea to slow down on the wishful "dream" societies! LOL 😂
I have been enthusiastic about biochar, ever since I first read about it almost decade ago (in "1491 New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus" by Charles C. Mann). This year I used biochar as a soil improver in my chilli garden. Unfortunately, things are not true just because you want it. Sometimes it feels naive to be enthusiastic about anything. I should be too disillusioned to be enthusiastic. I wonder if biochar really work in the temperate climate I live? See, recently I happened to see a four-year study from the University of California, Davis (Griffin et al., 2017) where unfortunately biochar could not live up to the hype. Then it was easy to find other scientific articles with similar message about biocol as a soil improver in temperate climate (Jeffery et al., 2017; Bonanomi et al., 2017). Note the above is about temperate climate, not tropical. And note that I as a layman don’t know if those articles should be trusted or not. I honestly write this hoping someone should explain to me that it works, even in temperate climate. Griffin, Deirde E., et al. 2017. Short-lived effects of walnut shell biochar on soils and crop yields in a long-term field experiment. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment Jeffery, Simon, et al. 2017. Biochar boosts tropical but not temperate crop yields. Environmental Research Letters Bonanomi, Giuliano, et al. 2017. Biochar as plant growth promoter: better off alone or mixed with organic amendments? Frontiers in plant science
It's just a way to increase the surface area of your soil...if your soil sucks to start with this will definitely make it worse...if you have healthy living soil this gives it more places to live I.E. more fertile soil. Hope this helps
Hello I recently started reading Albert Bate’s newest book BURN. He has written about BioChar (which is not charcoal, as this man keeps saying!) In my experience with using BioChar in my garden, it has to be charged with nutrients, microorganisms and water for 24hours or more before being used in the soil. The results are very satisfying, and have been cumulative. Sequestered carbon is the goal, so we must use BioChar others ways, besides agricultural to help the planet. There are ways of using the byproducts of making it - heat, oil and BioChar itself. Like charcoal, it is an air purifier, it can be used in building materials,etc.
Johanna Perkins What’s the difference between this and charcoal? The Wikipedia article (I know, I know...) just says biochar is an application of charcoal.
@Sammyjo ya but it can be done differently, like he was saying, the US(& other countries that are not mainly rainforests like in SE asia) could make biochar on a massive scale instead of BS like growing massive amounts of gmo corn/soy to make processed foods/animal feed for livestock(reducing carbon emissions even more)
Look up deep integration, drilling down 6 to 12 inches. Videos will explain more, I've done it using compost and results have been good so far. I have thick red clay, sticky in winter and like concrete in summer. Good luck, it does take work.
There are tools for that. U can even get ones u can pull behind while walking, using a small tractor, or even a horse. Or, start building top soil by making your own. A large composting bin and horse manure with lots of worms and plant material can make tons of your own soil. Spread on top and each year u can add more, just make sure u are controlling for erosion. Furth3r, some animals and plants are good for making soil better before planting.
natives with tap roots can be helpful if you have time. Plant cover crops of native nitrogen fixers and tap rooted weeds. Let them grow deep then cover with cardboard, then thin layer of compost to inoculate then woods chips on top. Biochar can be applied at any stage.
Adith Prajwal - First thing you should keep in mind is that Biochar BY ITSELF won't do nothing regarding soil compaction. In fact by itself it won't improve nothing! Something that most can't grasp. In fact add it as is, and for a couple of years your crops can dwindle or simply die! Remember: - It only puts out, the results of whatever it's put in! For real soil improvement better start with someone like Dr. Elaine Ingham. Check her work right here on YT. There more but she's the famous one! ;-)
First you have to charge it or it will slowly steal the Nitrogen from your soil, after that you should add it between 5 to 20% by volume (well mixed into the soil).
7:11 How does biochar remove CO2 from the air? The tree removed the CO2 from the air to make itself. This guy makes it sound like turning the tree's wood into biochar further removes CO2 from the atmosphere.
I agree without supporting evidence those are very strong claims to be making considering burning is included in the process of producing biochar. Also as said your comment cutting of trees which were already capturing Co2. Surely just leaving them alone would have been more effective. However in a productive agriculture system biochar's usefulness is unquestioned.
@@marxagarden I don't think anyone's cutting down trees to make biochar, but there's always an abundance of fallen branches that are very useful for making charcoal. However, the wood in a tree is never fully "captured" because it will always decay and go back in to the atmosphere when the tree falls. What's sequestered is the carbon that is pumped into the ground as sugar (c6h12o6), which is done by younger growth much more than old growth trees. One can make the argument that trimming branches (and the branches that naturally trim themselves) both reduces long term emissions by turning it into charcoal instead of decaying, and allows more light for lower level plants to sequestor more carbon.
@@marxagarden Well, if someone wanted charcoal through "distillation of wood" (what we called it decades ago in high school chem class) then it can be done instead using heat from nuclear means, or solar furnaces and be very free of carbon gas release. So, it's possible.
@@safreedinternational6461 - Good, aerobic compost can be one. Commercial versions also available (bottled). To the OP: No there isn't. Charcoal/Biochar is (theoretically) an empty media. A blank canvas if you will! In principal it has nothing, but the carbon structure to support... add your own word! As such it will "capture" almost everything it comes in contact with. Carbon molecules tend to easily associate with "everything"! Example: CO2 Reason why it's also commonly used as a filter media! ;-) With this said. It's so important to make it contact "good stuff" we want. As it is to keep it away from stuff we DON'T want! Example: "Good" biology vs bad biology/diseases. Fertilizer compounds vs heavy metal contamination... and so on. Another important feature is the fast capture vs slow release! Of the result of whatever was put in there. Another example: Filters must be changed in a timely fashion. Otherwise will slowly release whatever was initially captured! BTW that's one more reason why charcoal/filter media MUST be properly disposed! ;-)
Imagine if the area where it was created was actually a mass graveyard. A space where a previous civilization buried their dead after a massive war or other cataclysmic event
Saying that biochar is the only effective way of capturing carbon is just wrong. Any type of mulch mad of carbon rich material (straw, thin wood, dry leaves,..) will effectively do the same. By deteriorating in a living soil they're used tu create humus, which is essentially a carbon based complex. Charcoal acts like a simili humus which is very stable in time. I think it all boils down to the specific situations. In a very degraded soil, charcoal can be beneficial as it can improve it very quickly, giving it a headstard to regeneration. But in the long run, mulching is the way, as it's easier and more energy efficient.
Not quite. Mulch doesn't necessarily create "humus" (well, partly), most of it will be eaten by bacteria/fungi/plants as OM and eventually go into the air, a lot of it the same year, whereas biochar takes up to a few thousand years to fully decompose. Also, biochar is a one-time application (because it almost doesn't decompose) whereas mulch has to be added every year because it gets eaten constantly and as I mentioned a lot of it gets released back into the air or washed away with the rain when it's in liquid form.
A piece of charcoal the size of a pencil eraser has 9000 square feet of surface area in it??? That sounds a little far fetched. Not knocking the overall concept here. (Comment made around 3:20). It’s quite inspiring and plausible in general.
WaterspoutsOfTheDeep the real question is did people in the Amazon make biochar like he’s proposing, or just burn the forest repeatedly? Like you were prolly just freaking out about.
@@Gregasaki Well they had to burn the forest repeatedly otherwise their cities and farmland would be overtaken by the forest extremely fast as is still the case in that region and still done to this day. So I wouldn't doubt if that alone would account for the content in the soil after hundreds of years. On the other hand their communities were known for having people with specialized roles, and after awhile it isn't out of the question that they would catch on that the charcoal is what's helping the soil and then started having people specifically do it. So this is probably one of the few cases where the posibility is there given the extremely fast rate of plant growth giving free easy access material and the method/knowledge of the biochar coming naturally to the people out of nessecity. So it's not like they were some geniuses like some make them out to be regardless.
Gregasaki - Surprisingly, that is actually correct! With some technical processing, the surface area can be even increased to about 32,000 sq ft / 3,000 m² per gram. Then it is called activated charcoal, which is routinely used in many industrial applications. It sounds counter intuitive at first, but think about a sponge, natural or artificial. Look at it closely, it has obviously more surface area than something like a blob of clay of the same size. Technically, it is an open cell foam. (Styrofoam is an example for a close celled foam). Charcoal is a rigid foam, the foam cells where the biological cell walls of the wood before. Charcoal has only partly open cells, so some parts of the surface is just not reachable from the outside. Making activated charcoal just destroys enough or the cell walls that all surfaces can be reached, while preserving as much as possible otherwise. The surface can be measured: Many gasses like to stick to surfaces, so putting the coal into a suitable gas like carbon tetrachloride vapor will absorb some of it. How much can be determined from the weight difference, or by heating it and analyzing what comes out again. Other methods are putting it into iodine solution, which looses its color as the iodine sticks to the inner surfaces, and seeing how much iodine can be cleared up with it. The surface area can directly be observed with a strong microscope. It's impressive, but not magic!
See the Sheperdess' video on What Climate Alarmists Don't Want You To Know. It's about how Regenerative Agriculture with plants and animals pulls carbon and methane out of the air, at the same time producing things we all need. It's God's design. Biochar is also amazing. David The Good, Skillcult, and LiveOnWhatYouGrow all have great videos on making it. Also the Low Tech Magazine has an excellent article of the benefits of copice and pollarded woodlots (used for eons to provide food, animal fodder, firewood, building material, (also medicine likely), etc. And how it's sustainable. Could also use it to make charcoal (aside from biochare for gardens, activated charcoal can be good for water filtration and medically as well).
Why do I feel as though someone has just tried to sell me snake oil? I'm confused - how is biochar carbon negative? The production process (pyrolysis) requires that wood is heated and volatiles (containing carbon) are released. Even if all the harvesting and heating is done electrically, this is still not as environmentally friendly as say, potassium and phosphorus recycling from sewage. Wae Nelson also talks about carbon sequestration. I am unclear as to how carbon is sequestered. Any plant growing in fertile soil, biochar or not, is sequestering carbon. The biochar is not singularly doing this. Can anyone clarify things for me please?
If wood is left to rot once fallen, or if it is burned to ashes, the carbon contained is returned to the atmosphere as co2. However, when wood is turned into charcoal and buried the carbon is removed from the atmosphere for a long time (in the Amazon digs I understand the found charcoal to be many centuries old). So the carbon, originally taken out of the atmosphere by the tree, has been removed from the cycle. In my understanding this removal makes buried charcoal carbon negative.
During the burn process the kilns used to produce biochar are burning under low oxygen conditions, thus the char is formed under high heat(the heat is in top of the burn) and the majority of the char forms at the bottom of the burn. The water and volatile gases are burned off, leaving pure carbon behind in the form of bio char. Bio char takes EONS to break down.
Just grow trees the fastest for a given environment. Place trunk in trench and burn. When most of the all the Volatile gases have been burnt off, wet and cover with soil. When the ambers are cold add manure and green waste until the charcoal is charged. Plant a row of trees alone the trench. Repeat.
Grass converts co2, cow eats grass, cow poops manure. So I don't think biochar is the only simple way to convert co2 to carbon in the soul. BTW I like biochar too, but cows are doing it every second of everyday on grass.
This is true in silvopasture, where leaves and other carbons soak up the manure. but high concentrations of cow poop release lots of co2 and even methane into the atmosphere. This was true when bison roamed around, but not in the livestock industry we currently have. Another system is when plants pump sugar and other compounds into the ground (called exudates) to feed soil microbes and get nutrients in return
Manure will vanish in a year or two, activated Biochar's practically eternal, charcoal doesn't decompose ever... In the Amazon, Terra Preta's mined to sell, but if you leave a couple of feet it will grow back in twenty years
“Carbon negative”? When you cook wood to creat biochar, charcoal in a kiln, CO2 emissions result from the wood or coal you burned in order to do this. Yes, it’s great for plants.
Wood will be burnt somehow. If we keep forest unburn then will be burnt someday and that will be a lor of damage to the forest. just like what happened is Australia, California, Amazon. Envermentalist suggest preburn to limit the damage. So biochar shold be good in this situation.
7:10 This next comment is blatantly false. The most economical way to remove carbon from the air long-term is through minimum tillage and polyculture in agriculture. The name of the game is soil health.
Removing carbon from the atmosphere isn't something we should be doing in the first place. CO2 in the atmosphere is a fraction of a percent and doesn't cause global warming. The historical global CO2 and temperatures going back thousands and thousands of years have established this. Increased CO2 actually helps green the planet and improve crop yeilds and 100 years ago before the industrial revolution the planets CO2 levels were getting so low they were almost into critical levels for plant health. The carbon tax is just extortion.
This technic it's the only one know that it's CARBON NEGATIVE and economically viable . What you talking about it's the H2O cycle that need to be fixed to ( 95 % of greenhouse gases it's water ) via agriculture modern technics and planting back forests . The fossil extra carbon injected in the atmosphere need to be pulled back in the soil NOW ARTIFICIALLY because the photosynthetic organisms are not enough anymore to do their roles because of us ! the carbonic acid is corroding the earth .
@@WaterspoutsOfTheDeep do you really belive this? Please Chek out the IPCC findings. They are eye opening. Consider that they are a supranational panel of scientists from all around the world with very different national interests. But all of them agree that the global warming is factual.
I think it needs to be activated before putting it in the soil ! Otherwise it draws nutrients out of soil. Many videos to show the process of activating
The real equation is: Charcoal + Activation with microbes = Biochar. It does not have to be in the ground to be Biochar. I have some Biochar stored in the garage that has not yet been in the ground.
You can just buy 100% hardwood lump charcoal ( I get the red bag) from any grocery store or Walmart it's basically big pieces of biochar and only needs to be crushed and activated with microbes. It probably cheaper than a bag that says biochar, your paying for the name and hype of biochar
Uptown: False. Biochar and charcoal are made using two very different methods. biochar is made suing a method called pyrolysis. Pyrolysis is a very complex process. The material to be converted is place in an oxygen free container and heated on the outside to drive off all moisture and all gases. Charcoal is made by burning it and using a method that deprives SOME of the oxygen, but not all of it. They are two different things.
Keeping it flat. NO, it couldn't! Without elaborating, that's pretty much it! In desert conditions, the absence of MOIST, organic matter and supporting BIO above and below the soil. Like trees, grasses, etc. It's a good tell tale! ;-)
I wish he went into more depth cause I would have liked to have gotten a better grasp on it. Another thing insist was addressed is the downside of making charcoal. One must burn woody material...emitting pollutants in the air. Ever see what western U.S looks like when california is burning. Lol it doesnt seem phesibile for everyone to just start making fires to make harvest charcoal. What does make sense is the occasional fire and save the charcoal
…the Amazon, the largest jungle and biosphere in the world with the largest and most diverse environment known to humans, has bad soil? … then what kinda soil does the Sahara desert have?
The Amazon has bad soil because the nutrients are leached out by incessant rain, hence it is known as a rain forest. The nutrients are retained in the living organisms in the ecosphere formed by the trees themselves, which is why clearing forest for farming is so disastrous.
All of the carbon from that organic material came from the air. Some of it goes back to the air during burning. Some of it is turned to the charcoal, which will stay as charcoal for hundreds of years. If that organic material was just left to naturally decay 100% of the carbon would go back to the air.
what happens if charcoal absorbs nuclear radiation? anti-radiation or even keep radiation longer? which if a disaster occurs all farmers must dispose of their charcoal that has been planted for decades at a very high cost.
“The charcoal that is there is carbon that was in the air originally”. What! Charcoal is from the organic material that you burn, not from CO2 in the air. You don’t remove CO2 from the air when you make charcoal, you add CO2.
Plants take co2 from the air and in combination with water make wood. Wood burnt incomplete makes charcoal pure carbon and carbon dioxide also . Charcoal if not burnt does not rot .
Biochar is charcoal that is meant for the soil. It can be charged or not charged. The stuff that they sell for BBQ is partially charcoal plus a lot of chemicals.
@@georgecarlin2656 : False. Biochar is NOT charcoal! Biochar is created in a heated vacuum chamber, where the heat source never actually touches the material being treated, that removes ALL volatile oils and ALL volatile gases. Charcoal does not have ANY of the volatile gasses or oils removed. They are two utterly different things. Goodbye.
@@wrongfullyaccused7139 No, it's the same thing. You clearly have no clue what you're talking about. I've been doing biochar for years and watched hundreds of hours of videos of all kinds, I even have videos on creating, charging it and showing results.
@@wrongfullyaccused7139 the term "biochar" was coined a few decades ago to differentiate charcoal used elsewhere from the one meant for the garden. Even sellers of biochar know that they're selling charcoal and openly say so. Terra preta was created with charcoal which we call biochar. You're really misinformed.
It is hard to believe 1 gram of charcoal has 9,000 square feet of surface area. Grind it up as fine as possible. And see if it covers 9,000 square feet. I think somebody everybody thought had credibility made this statement, and everybody runs with it!
You can't grind it as fine as the pores are small... Just because you don't think it's possible for something so small to have such a large surface areas, doesn't mean it isn't true
If you stretch all capillaries in human body and stack them in lengths, you get 60000 miles. Imagine a very thin pencil and draw with it very tiny and short lines very close together. You may get many lines just in a single inch of length. Now think of those lines as tiny rectangles and count for the area, you may get high numbers. But to answer your question... If you grind charcoal to individual atoms of carbon, you'll get 5.01875 X 10^22 atoms per one gram of carbon. Assuming the diameter of the carbon atom is 3 nm, you can spread all the atoms so they touch each other in a square. The square root of 5.01875 X 10^22 X 3 nm = 672 m, or 2204.72 ft would be the length of one side of that square. That's 4860790.278 sq.ft. The point is, that you can have large areas in small objects because they're porous. It's like if you have a brick, you cut it in half, you have more are per the same brick. Cut it again, more area. Pulverize it and you'll have huge area. So yeah, I haven't checked the credibility of the statement, but it looks reasonable to me given what we know about charcoal.
I've been reading how biochar can improve the health of my lawn, but I'm not convinced that CO2 in the atmosphere causes the Earth's temperature to rise. But it does cause an increase in plant harvest yields. Check out lecture videos at Heartland Institutes' website for additional information.
I can’t believe he just said “bio char is carbon negative”. Trees are carbon negative. Trees trap that carbon. Thats why they burn so well. You have to harvest trees and burn them to be scalable. That in itself is the same issue we had at the turn of the Industrial Revolution isn’t it? I’m no eco-warrior, but more charcoal doesn’t seem like the answer.
absurdly lowbrow. human agriculture has depended on charcoal since the first slashburns. charcoal acts as a nutrient battery, and will actually reduce soil fertility until it is fully charged by absorbing and holding nutrient ions until equilibrium is approached.
There is not and never has been a shred of evidence that human carbon emissions have negatively affected the global climate, so that part of this talk is simply silly. On the other hand, adding charcoal to the soil, and maybe a lot of organic material to compost with it makes plenty of sense.
I've been struggling with bushfire management, and also an avid composter, and just learned 4 weeks ago about biochar, inoculation and proper usage. I've just been given the keys to the sports car of soil improvement and turbo-charging my garden. I can finally find a use for the sticks and branches that don't compost easily. Awesome, $0.02
Been using it since 2014 it's organic miracle grow... my yard is ridiculously huge, I 1/3 my plants every 2 years they come back twice the size
Love this!!! What is wrong with Humanity that we don’t make our existence taking care of the earth and each other? We have been given
Paradise.
Thank you very much sir .
Finally a simple straightforward explanation of what Biochar is .
Some people make it so complicated.
I've been using bio char in my garden since 2016. Amazing material indeed.
Hi where do you purchase for yourself?
@@kiransharda you can make it . its burnt wood
@@kiransharda Walmart (or) Dollar Tree carries Royal Oak Charcoals made from natural hardwood. This is an amazing "safe" options to get started.
Been making it and mixing in compost piles for yrs. Got my burn pile technology down to a science. :D
Biochar should be incorporated into environmental recovery strategies!
We could rebuild the food forests that once existed throughout the Americas. Take back much of the space the car has stolen from us, and rebuild our environment, as well as our society. We can make a society with advanced technology that also lives in harmony with nature, because we are nature. We can learn from the mistakes of the past, and build a better future where humanity finally escapes the cycle of building advanced civilization only to suffer massive collapse.
I'm so glad somebody gave a TED Talk about this!
Biochar is charchoal that's been inoculated with LIFE = BIO. Terra Preta was a mix of organic matter, charcoal, humanure, and pottery chards that likely were bioceramic - it was made from more than charcoal and it hasn't been fully replicated. The shards are always overlooked and sometimes the BIO part of biochar is overlooked but it's crucial as it will sap soils of humus if soil biology is not added before adding it to the soil. You can spray compost tea or simply mix the biochar with compost before adding. He describes the destruction of current soil nutrient structures and humic substances (leaching) when adding charcoal... that's NOT a great idea. It "works" but there are much better ways. To say you can leach the soils of nutrients has no consequences overlooks many members of the soil food web - by simplifying things, plants can be made more vulnerable and certain nutrients can become less bioavailable. Always keep the BIO in Biochar - we can always ADD to the land, we don't need to leach/destroy the indigenous microbiological consortiums to do so. We can instead add more diversity and habitat at the same time.
Activated charcoal's cation exchange capacity to trap minerals and other compounds is used up in literally a matter of days. Anyone who has owned a fish tank in their life knows this, the activated carbon needs to be replaced each week because in around 3 days or so it's used up. Then you are left with just the macro porous structure of the charcoal which holds water and fertilizer and whatnot that isn't locking it away. So your concerns seem a bit unfounded. It will get colonized with local microbial life wherever it is placed so that isn't really a concern either. Seeding it with microbs unless say you want to use it in potting soil I would assume. Also I thought one of the biggest draws with it is the fact it is a extra excess carbon source for the plant beyond taking in CO2. What I want to know is how available the carbon is to the plant.
I don't agree to your idea that adding biochar to stabilize soil it's not a good idea ! Biochar it's crystalized porous carbon that is the most know stable humic substance ( persistent for millenium"s ) , is CEC it's unmatched ( graphite like electric conductivity) and that it is why it's used in filtering biohazard or chemical contamination . This organic structure it's bunker for life that stimulates and house biodiversity !
I suggest you to learn the science behind that before you judge !
Well said sir
Reread my comment - none of what you suggest is contradicted by what I said BECAUSE you're calling it BIOchar which implies you've ADDED LIFE, so that's my point ;) If you read the actual past published literature on the subject you'll find early on biochar was KILLING SOILS and HURTING FORESTS: WHY? Because it was Pure CHAR they used not BIOCHAR. Luckily today we have a more sophisticated view... except for throwbacks of misinformation like this spurious TED talk. I promote, teach, and write about BIOCHAR and it's amazing properties, but CHAR is not the same. Always good to read the actual published science - just going off blogs and UA-cam comments will not give you enough info.
@@MattPowersSoil
Does the Char need to be an activated Charcoal before it is innoculated with whatever source is used to make it biochar. Making activated Charcoal is an additional step. Then another step is needed to make it Biochar.
You are my hero Wae Nelson!! We are making chars from organic waste in municipal settings. We are also having great results with remediation depending on the feed stock we use. I would love to tell you about it!
Could you detail your process here? Do you use a sealed oil drum? How is it heated?
Guess this is something that is handed down through the generations. My family has known about this as far back as we can remember. They were dutch farmers though. It goes through our compost piles and comes out squishy.
Yes squishy and clingy. sometimes in sheets. I imagine it at the bottom of leaky dams, over time working better than clay to seal the dam floor. I've heard it said that a 1% increase in humus in soil can increase the holding capacity of water 170,000 litres per hectare. Zounds!
Amazing how the same techniques are learned all around 🎉🎉❤ humans are amazing in small groups as 150 😁😁
ive been using the ash from my barbecue for years.
great results and heals soil pH imbalance 👌
Marten Dekker yep. my ash is full of un-incinerated bio mass (charcoal). 👍
@@DursunX - In fact for millennia Humans used fire. Ashes were traditionally dumped in the garden! In fact only in "modern" times we, collectively, stop doing this! In favor of electricity. ;-)
This cristalysed carbon material remain stable for millennia ! Anybody that want to bring back the carbon in soil this is the ultimate technic ! "Stable humus"
Been using charcoal. For at least 50 years...started with making charcoal for sketching and took out the choice pieces and left rest on garden where I had made the charcoal.
Ps...just built compost on pile of burn or put char into bottom of trench and covered with ckn, bunnies droppings and compost....
I’ve heard of it, it’s one of the reasons I grow great cannabis.
Yo we can isulate houses with hemp amzing
I was wondering if it s good for Canabis plant.
I dug a hole near each of 5 fruit trees today and put pallet wood coals, a few cups of fertilizer and an oak log. The roots will find it and get what they want for years to come.
yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we love biochar
So in in other words, if I use the char & ash from my wood heat stove I'm off setting any smoke. Thanks gov't for telling me that I may never replace my grand fathered real wood stove. I will maintain my wood stove and hope it makes biochar for my kids for years. The ash & char has sweetened the soil here for 25 years.
im a bit late but be careful with ash. ash is very very basic, it can quickly ruin soil.
@@yesthisisdonut I only dump in strategic places & cycle those. This year I just put in my gravel driveway. I keep it far from my orchard and berry plants.
Ash is good for low pH soils... I don't think it'd work for high pH soils
Careful with the charcoal too, the first year, it will sap nutrients from your plants. And with ash, it depends on the acidity of your soil, how much you can use.
@@yesthisisdonut Ash is potassium also known as pot ash! Too much of it firms the soil and stops water seeping deeper,but used correctly and tilled into soil so it doesn't bind up in clumps works great for plants that flourish on potassium ie. ( Brassicas ) - Cabbage, Cauliflower, Broccoli etc.
❤ thank you for the information you share 😊
😊 Great film!😊
Biochar has worked well in my garden. I'll keep using it
Yes, this needs to be screamed from the mountain tops!
Farmers are scared of change, and nobody else cares as long as food is on the shelves
What this really need. Is to be understood, before turning into another "fix all" internet trend! Like so many others, that neither fit geography or conditions. But keep being ridiculously spread as the saving formula!
Better keep this in mind. As a general rule of thumb, BURNING tends to not be a positive thing... That's a good starter point! ;-)
I make charcoal from Bamboo by burning them in open fire as fast as possible as hot as possible. Then when flame go I put water on it. Does that give same quality charcoal as when burned with no air ? Wld love advice
When air(oxygen) is present, you will get ash more than biochar. The porous structure of the cells in bamboo will be lost if you burn it. I would suggest trying a method where you put some of the bamboo in a fireproof container (tin can or other) poke a hole in the can for the gases to get out and put the can withnthe bamboo you are burning. Afterwards you can compare the structure of the two bamboos.
@@TheTgranber THank you for suggestion ! The thing is that 'my' running bamboo is about 8 m long with uncountable side branches. makes it virtually impossible to burn in any form of container unless spending much time cutting each bamboo to pieces. The charcoal looks fabulous though the way I burn it and a seedling nursery loves it. Can I get it checked for its qualities?
There are some labs that (for a fee) will check your biochar for its properties. I don't know what region you are from, but the international biochar initiative IBI (biochar-international.org) has set up specific standards for certifying biochar.
I use a shredder to cut my material (mainly old christmas trees) into wood chips. The chips will then be chared in a open kiln similar to the kon-tiki style kiln.
Some of the best Carbon Filtering Material is made from Bamboo...
Great speech! Thank you.
Well put 👍🏽
Nothing has ever come close to warding off bugs, fertilizing my plants, and rehabbing neglected ones as wood vinegar made out of bamboo. It feels like a cheat code for plants.
I have studied soil science for years and never heard the term " Wood Vinegar." I imagine there going to be some fermentation going on somewhere, but I'd love to hear more about wood Vinegar and see how it's made.
Sometimes i think ancients were MORE educated that us today....
Then you're wrong.
They certainly knew their land better
They drank Ayahuasca so definitely way smarter than supposed 'civilised' Western society
@@and__lam1152 - They were also well known for Human sacrifices and even, well documented, cannibalism activities...
So might be a good idea to slow down on the wishful "dream" societies! LOL 😂
@@crpth1 OK boomer .... thanks for projecting
I have been enthusiastic about biochar, ever since I first read about it almost decade ago (in "1491 New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus" by Charles C. Mann). This year I used biochar as a soil improver in my chilli garden. Unfortunately, things are not true just because you want it. Sometimes it feels naive to be enthusiastic about anything. I should be too disillusioned to be enthusiastic. I wonder if biochar really work in the temperate climate I live? See, recently I happened to see a four-year study from the University of California, Davis (Griffin et al., 2017) where unfortunately biochar could not live up to the hype. Then it was easy to find other scientific articles with similar message about biocol as a soil improver in temperate climate (Jeffery et al., 2017; Bonanomi et al., 2017).
Note the above is about temperate climate, not tropical. And note that I as a layman don’t know if those articles should be trusted or not. I honestly write this hoping someone should explain to me that it works, even in temperate climate.
Griffin, Deirde E., et al. 2017. Short-lived effects of walnut shell biochar on soils and crop yields in a long-term field experiment. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment
Jeffery, Simon, et al. 2017. Biochar boosts tropical but not temperate crop yields. Environmental Research Letters
Bonanomi, Giuliano, et al. 2017. Biochar as plant growth promoter: better off alone or mixed with organic amendments? Frontiers in plant science
It's just a way to increase the surface area of your soil...if your soil sucks to start with this will definitely make it worse...if you have healthy living soil this gives it more places to live I.E. more fertile soil.
Hope this helps
Hello I recently started reading Albert Bate’s newest book BURN. He has written about BioChar (which is not charcoal, as this man keeps saying!) In my experience with using BioChar in my garden, it has to be charged with nutrients, microorganisms and water for 24hours or more before being used in the soil. The results are very satisfying, and have been cumulative. Sequestered carbon is the goal, so we must use BioChar others ways, besides agricultural to help the planet. There are ways of using the byproducts of making it - heat, oil and BioChar itself. Like charcoal, it is an air purifier, it can be used in building materials,etc.
Johanna Perkins What’s the difference between this and charcoal? The Wikipedia article (I know, I know...) just says biochar is an application of charcoal.
@@johannaperkins2699 biochar is just a fancy name people gave to charcoal with filled pores
@Sammyjo ya but it can be done differently, like he was saying, the US(& other countries that are not mainly rainforests like in SE asia) could make biochar on a massive scale instead of BS like growing massive amounts of gmo corn/soy to make processed foods/animal feed for livestock(reducing carbon emissions even more)
Bom dia!
Quanto aplicar de biocarvao?
Does the burning to make biochar releases carbon (carbon dioxide), heat, and most of the organic matter?
What if my soil's compaction is very deep? How do i apply biochar on lands where roots cannot grow deep enough because of compaction?
Look up deep integration, drilling down 6 to 12 inches. Videos will explain more, I've done it using compost and results have been good so far. I have thick red clay, sticky in winter and like concrete in summer. Good luck, it does take work.
There are tools for that. U can even get ones u can pull behind while walking, using a small tractor, or even a horse. Or, start building top soil by making your own. A large composting bin and horse manure with lots of worms and plant material can make tons of your own soil. Spread on top and each year u can add more, just make sure u are controlling for erosion. Furth3r, some animals and plants are good for making soil better before planting.
natives with tap roots can be helpful if you have time. Plant cover crops of native nitrogen fixers and tap rooted weeds. Let them grow deep then cover with cardboard, then thin layer of compost to inoculate then woods chips on top. Biochar can be applied at any stage.
Adith Prajwal - First thing you should keep in mind is that Biochar BY ITSELF won't do nothing regarding soil compaction. In fact by itself it won't improve nothing! Something that most can't grasp. In fact add it as is, and for a couple of years your crops can dwindle or simply die!
Remember:
- It only puts out, the results of whatever it's put in!
For real soil improvement better start with someone like Dr. Elaine Ingham. Check her work right here on YT. There more but she's the famous one! ;-)
Broadfork
How much charcoal needs to be added to the soil?
First you have to charge it or it will slowly steal the Nitrogen from your soil, after that you should add it between 5 to 20% by volume (well mixed into the soil).
@@georgecarlin2656 thank you
Nice!
Anyone using biochar for underfloor heating, then using the ash in the garden? Would like to hear from you. Thx.
7:11 How does biochar remove CO2 from the air? The tree removed the CO2 from the air to make itself. This guy makes it sound like turning the tree's wood into biochar further removes CO2 from the atmosphere.
Because the organic material does not decompose traditionally and does not burn releasing a lot of CO2.
I agree without supporting evidence those are very strong claims to be making considering burning is included in the process of producing biochar. Also as said your comment cutting of trees which were already capturing Co2. Surely just leaving them alone would have been more effective. However in a productive agriculture system biochar's usefulness is unquestioned.
@@marxagarden I don't think anyone's cutting down trees to make biochar, but there's always an abundance of fallen branches that are very useful for making charcoal. However, the wood in a tree is never fully "captured" because it will always decay and go back in to the atmosphere when the tree falls. What's sequestered is the carbon that is pumped into the ground as sugar (c6h12o6), which is done by younger growth much more than old growth trees. One can make the argument that trimming branches (and the branches that naturally trim themselves) both reduces long term emissions by turning it into charcoal instead of decaying, and allows more light for lower level plants to sequestor more carbon.
@@marxagarden Well, if someone wanted charcoal through "distillation of wood" (what we called it decades ago in high school chem class) then it can be done instead using heat from nuclear means, or solar furnaces and be very free of carbon gas release. So, it's possible.
@Dingi Because the wood decomposes and releases its carbon. Biochar takes a very very very long time to break down, so the carbon stays sequestered.
How did the people of the Amazon “ charge” their biochar. ?
Is there humic acid or fulvic acid in charcoal
Not unless it is added or absorbed into it
What are easy sources of humic and fulvic acids
@@safreedinternational6461 - Good, aerobic compost can be one. Commercial versions also available (bottled).
To the OP: No there isn't. Charcoal/Biochar is (theoretically) an empty media. A blank canvas if you will! In principal it has nothing, but the carbon structure to support... add your own word!
As such it will "capture" almost everything it comes in contact with. Carbon molecules tend to easily associate with "everything"! Example: CO2
Reason why it's also commonly used as a filter media! ;-)
With this said. It's so important to make it contact "good stuff" we want. As it is to keep it away from stuff we DON'T want!
Example: "Good" biology vs bad biology/diseases. Fertilizer compounds vs heavy metal contamination... and so on.
Another important feature is the fast capture vs slow release! Of the result of whatever was put in there.
Another example: Filters must be changed in a timely fashion. Otherwise will slowly release whatever was initially captured! BTW that's one more reason why charcoal/filter media MUST be properly disposed! ;-)
Imagine if the area where it was created was actually a mass graveyard. A space where a previous civilization buried their dead after a massive war or other cataclysmic event
Saying that biochar is the only effective way of capturing carbon is just wrong. Any type of mulch mad of carbon rich material (straw, thin wood, dry leaves,..) will effectively do the same. By deteriorating in a living soil they're used tu create humus, which is essentially a carbon based complex. Charcoal acts like a simili humus which is very stable in time.
I think it all boils down to the specific situations. In a very degraded soil, charcoal can be beneficial as it can improve it very quickly, giving it a headstard to regeneration. But in the long run, mulching is the way, as it's easier and more energy efficient.
Not quite. Mulch doesn't necessarily create "humus" (well, partly), most of it will be eaten by bacteria/fungi/plants as OM and eventually go into the air, a lot of it the same year, whereas biochar takes up to a few thousand years to fully decompose. Also, biochar is a one-time application (because it almost doesn't decompose) whereas mulch has to be added every year because it gets eaten constantly and as I mentioned a lot of it gets released back into the air or washed away with the rain when it's in liquid form.
TL;DR
Terra Preta
😃👍
A piece of charcoal the size of a pencil eraser has 9000 square feet of surface area in it??? That sounds a little far fetched. Not knocking the overall concept here. (Comment made around 3:20). It’s quite inspiring and plausible in general.
No he got that number right. However the vast majority of that surface area is unusable the bigger the size the charcoal piece is.
Shad Oria don’t buy it
WaterspoutsOfTheDeep the real question is did people in the Amazon make biochar like he’s proposing, or just burn the forest repeatedly? Like you were prolly just freaking out about.
@@Gregasaki Well they had to burn the forest repeatedly otherwise their cities and farmland would be overtaken by the forest extremely fast as is still the case in that region and still done to this day. So I wouldn't doubt if that alone would account for the content in the soil after hundreds of years. On the other hand their communities were known for having people with specialized roles, and after awhile it isn't out of the question that they would catch on that the charcoal is what's helping the soil and then started having people specifically do it. So this is probably one of the few cases where the posibility is there given the extremely fast rate of plant growth giving free easy access material and the method/knowledge of the biochar coming naturally to the people out of nessecity. So it's not like they were some geniuses like some make them out to be regardless.
Gregasaki - Surprisingly, that is actually correct! With some technical processing, the surface area can be even increased to about 32,000 sq ft / 3,000 m² per gram. Then it is called activated charcoal, which is routinely used in many industrial applications. It sounds counter intuitive at first, but think about a sponge, natural or artificial. Look at it closely, it has obviously more surface area than something like a blob of clay of the same size. Technically, it is an open cell foam. (Styrofoam is an example for a close celled foam). Charcoal is a rigid foam, the foam cells where the biological cell walls of the wood before. Charcoal has only partly open cells, so some parts of the surface is just not reachable from the outside. Making activated charcoal just destroys enough or the cell walls that all surfaces can be reached, while preserving as much as possible otherwise. The surface can be measured: Many gasses like to stick to surfaces, so putting the coal into a suitable gas like carbon tetrachloride vapor will absorb some of it. How much can be determined from the weight difference, or by heating it and analyzing what comes out again. Other methods are putting it into iodine solution, which looses its color as the iodine sticks to the inner surfaces, and seeing how much iodine can be cleared up with it. The surface area can directly be observed with a strong microscope. It's impressive, but not magic!
See the Sheperdess' video on What Climate Alarmists Don't Want You To Know. It's about how Regenerative Agriculture with plants and animals pulls carbon and methane out of the air, at the same time producing things we all need. It's God's design. Biochar is also amazing. David The Good, Skillcult, and LiveOnWhatYouGrow all have great videos on making it.
Also the Low Tech Magazine has an excellent article of the benefits of copice and pollarded woodlots (used for eons to provide food, animal fodder, firewood, building material, (also medicine likely), etc. And how it's sustainable. Could also use it to make charcoal (aside from biochare for gardens, activated charcoal can be good for water filtration and medically as well).
You can even dig a trench in the ground to use for charcoal production. Quench it with a garden hose
3:48
Why do I feel as though someone has just tried to sell me snake oil? I'm confused - how is biochar carbon negative? The production process (pyrolysis) requires that wood is heated and volatiles (containing carbon) are released. Even if all the harvesting and heating is done electrically, this is still not as environmentally friendly as say, potassium and phosphorus recycling from sewage. Wae Nelson also talks about carbon sequestration. I am unclear as to how carbon is sequestered. Any plant growing in fertile soil, biochar or not, is sequestering carbon. The biochar is not singularly doing this. Can anyone clarify things for me please?
If wood is left to rot once fallen, or if it is burned to ashes, the carbon contained is returned to the atmosphere as co2. However, when wood is turned into charcoal and buried the carbon is removed from the atmosphere for a long time (in the Amazon digs I understand the found charcoal to be many centuries old). So the carbon, originally taken out of the atmosphere by the tree, has been removed from the cycle. In my understanding this removal makes buried charcoal carbon negative.
During the burn process the kilns used to produce biochar are burning under low oxygen conditions, thus the char is formed under high heat(the heat is in top of the burn) and the majority of the char forms at the bottom of the burn. The water and volatile gases are burned off, leaving pure carbon behind in the form of bio char. Bio char takes EONS to break down.
Does this mean I can add charcoal to my lawn to help promote growth?
I'd suggest you add it to your compost or the beds of your chickens, pigs, etcétera so it becomes activated
Just grow trees the fastest for a given environment. Place trunk in trench and burn. When most of the all the Volatile gases have been burnt off, wet and cover with soil. When the ambers are cold add manure and green waste until the charcoal is charged. Plant a row of trees alone the trench. Repeat.
Is Wae Nelson alive now? Everything is past tense. I want to buy something already made to make biochar if possible.
Grass converts co2, cow eats grass, cow poops manure. So I don't think biochar is the only simple way to convert co2 to carbon in the soul.
BTW I like biochar too, but cows are doing it every second of everyday on grass.
This is true in silvopasture, where leaves and other carbons soak up the manure. but high concentrations of cow poop release lots of co2 and even methane into the atmosphere. This was true when bison roamed around, but not in the livestock industry we currently have. Another system is when plants pump sugar and other compounds into the ground (called exudates) to feed soil microbes and get nutrients in return
Manure will vanish in a year or two, activated Biochar's practically eternal, charcoal doesn't decompose ever... In the Amazon, Terra Preta's mined to sell, but if you leave a couple of feet it will grow back in twenty years
“Carbon negative”? When you cook wood to creat biochar, charcoal in a kiln, CO2 emissions result from the wood or coal you burned in order to do this. Yes, it’s great for plants.
Wood will be burnt somehow.
If we keep forest unburn then will be burnt someday and that will be a lor of damage to the forest. just like what happened is Australia, California, Amazon.
Envermentalist suggest preburn to limit the damage. So biochar shold be good in this situation.
1:51
Regen farming is also carbon negative. There’s a farm in Georgia which proves this forget the name
7:10 This next comment is blatantly false. The most economical way to remove carbon from the air long-term is through minimum tillage and polyculture in agriculture. The name of the game is soil health.
Removing carbon from the atmosphere isn't something we should be doing in the first place. CO2 in the atmosphere is a fraction of a percent and doesn't cause global warming. The historical global CO2 and temperatures going back thousands and thousands of years have established this. Increased CO2 actually helps green the planet and improve crop yeilds and 100 years ago before the industrial revolution the planets CO2 levels were getting so low they were almost into critical levels for plant health. The carbon tax is just extortion.
This technic it's the only one know that it's CARBON NEGATIVE and economically viable . What you talking about it's the H2O cycle that need to be fixed to ( 95 % of greenhouse gases it's water ) via agriculture modern technics and planting back forests . The fossil extra carbon injected in the atmosphere need to be pulled back in the soil NOW ARTIFICIALLY because the photosynthetic organisms are not enough anymore to do their roles because of us ! the carbonic acid is corroding the earth .
@@WaterspoutsOfTheDeep what should we do with Terratones of carbonic acid then ? You're arguments are coming from industrial lobby's propaganda !
@@WaterspoutsOfTheDeep do you really belive this? Please Chek out the IPCC findings. They are eye opening. Consider that they are a supranational panel of scientists from all around the world with very different national interests. But all of them agree that the global warming is factual.
@@erector5953 What carbonic acid? The acid rain pandemic is long over you realize that right?
3:48 Charcoal + put in ground = Biochar
If you're going to be mixing burned filth with rotting filth one can at least give the activity a somewhat dignified title.
10dogs2cats1donkey ..... Did I offend you?
I think it needs to be activated before putting it in the soil ! Otherwise it draws nutrients out of soil. Many videos to show the process of activating
The real equation is: Charcoal + Activation with microbes = Biochar. It does not have to be in the ground to be Biochar. I have some Biochar stored in the garage that has not yet been in the ground.
You can just buy 100% hardwood lump charcoal ( I get the red bag) from any grocery store or Walmart it's basically big pieces of biochar and only needs to be crushed and activated with microbes. It probably cheaper than a bag that says biochar, your paying for the name and hype of biochar
Agree so long as no petrol fuel has been added to it. None of that "easy start" type of charcoal, only the pure charcoal.
Uptown: False. Biochar and charcoal are made using two very different methods. biochar is made suing a method called pyrolysis. Pyrolysis is a very complex process. The material to be converted is place in an oxygen free container and heated on the outside to drive off all moisture and all gases.
Charcoal is made by burning it and using a method that deprives SOME of the oxygen, but not all of it.
They are two different things.
They have real wood charcoals you can make into this the ash left over.
Could it be used to turn desserts into eldorados
Keeping it flat. NO, it couldn't! Without elaborating, that's pretty much it!
In desert conditions, the absence of MOIST, organic matter and supporting BIO above and below the soil. Like trees, grasses, etc. It's a good tell tale! ;-)
So an ice cream sundae can make Cities of gold , interesting
the farmers could have the infrastructure to make this happen
god bless this man!
God is fiction.
Meanwhile this is my business here in Kenya
Biochar = Charcoal + Aged Manure
I wish he went into more depth cause I would have liked to have gotten a better grasp on it. Another thing insist was addressed is the downside of making charcoal. One must burn woody material...emitting pollutants in the air. Ever see what western U.S looks like when california is burning. Lol it doesnt seem phesibile for everyone to just start making fires to make harvest charcoal. What does make sense is the occasional fire and save the charcoal
On the key needs of plants he forgot to mention air...
this guys got no torso
No teeth
❤❤💚❤❤❤❤❤
Plant more trees
charcoal still have tar in, normnally agricultural biochar has not tar anymore...
👋👋👋
Not once mentioning u have to activate biochar by peeing on it an letting it sit for awhile or somethin along those lines..
1st comment❤
@Marten Dekker hush...
Who is this guy and what authority does he have on this topic?
…the Amazon, the largest jungle and biosphere in the world with the largest and most diverse environment known to humans, has bad soil?
… then what kinda soil does the Sahara desert have?
The Amazon has bad soil because the nutrients are leached out by incessant rain, hence it is known as a rain forest. The nutrients are retained in the living organisms in the ecosphere formed by the trees themselves, which is why clearing forest for farming is so disastrous.
I'm a 5th generation farmer and this is absolute BS...
Making biochar by burning organic material which causes CO2 emissions? I am not sure if this can be called a carbon negative solution
All of the carbon from that organic material came from the air. Some of it goes back to the air during burning. Some of it is turned to the charcoal, which will stay as charcoal for hundreds of years. If that organic material was just left to naturally decay 100% of the carbon would go back to the air.
what happens if charcoal absorbs nuclear radiation? anti-radiation or even keep radiation longer?
which if a disaster occurs all farmers must dispose of their charcoal that has been planted for decades at a very high cost.
If our farms are facing massive amounts of radiation, wouldn't we have much larger problems to worry about than charcoal?
“The charcoal that is there is carbon that was in the air originally”. What! Charcoal is from the organic material that you burn, not from CO2 in the air. You don’t remove CO2 from the air when you make charcoal, you add CO2.
Plants take co2 from the air and in combination with water make wood. Wood burnt incomplete makes charcoal pure carbon and carbon dioxide also . Charcoal if not burnt does not rot .
Biochar and charcoal are two different things.
Biochar is charcoal that is meant for the soil. It can be charged or not charged. The stuff that they sell for BBQ is partially charcoal plus a lot of chemicals.
@@georgecarlin2656 : False. Biochar is NOT charcoal!
Biochar is created in a heated vacuum chamber, where the heat source never actually touches the material being treated, that removes ALL volatile oils and ALL volatile gases.
Charcoal does not have ANY of the volatile gasses or oils removed.
They are two utterly different things.
Goodbye.
@@wrongfullyaccused7139 No, it's the same thing. You clearly have no clue what you're talking about. I've been doing biochar for years and watched hundreds of hours of videos of all kinds, I even have videos on creating, charging it and showing results.
@@georgecarlin2656 ; In Pig's eye. I will take Gardener Scott's word and those of other actual scientists over yours.
Future posts ignored.
@@wrongfullyaccused7139 the term "biochar" was coined a few decades ago to differentiate charcoal used elsewhere from the one meant for the garden. Even sellers of biochar know that they're selling charcoal and openly say so. Terra preta was created with charcoal which we call biochar. You're really misinformed.
Why do all these professors etc talk about all these healthy things, but themselves look very unhealthy. Dr Berg looks like he does what he suggests.
It is hard to believe 1 gram of charcoal has 9,000 square feet of surface area. Grind it up as fine as possible. And see if it covers 9,000 square feet. I think somebody everybody thought had credibility made this statement, and everybody runs with it!
You can't grind it as fine as the pores are small... Just because you don't think it's possible for something so small to have such a large surface areas, doesn't mean it isn't true
If you stretch all capillaries in human body and stack them in lengths, you get 60000 miles.
Imagine a very thin pencil and draw with it very tiny and short lines very close together. You may get many lines just in a single inch of length. Now think of those lines as tiny rectangles and count for the area, you may get high numbers.
But to answer your question...
If you grind charcoal to individual atoms of carbon, you'll get 5.01875 X 10^22 atoms per one gram of carbon. Assuming the diameter of the carbon atom is 3 nm, you can spread all the atoms so they touch each other in a square. The square root of 5.01875 X 10^22 X 3 nm = 672 m, or 2204.72 ft would be the length of one side of that square. That's 4860790.278 sq.ft.
The point is, that you can have large areas in small objects because they're porous. It's like if you have a brick, you cut it in half, you have more are per the same brick. Cut it again, more area. Pulverize it and you'll have huge area.
So yeah, I haven't checked the credibility of the statement, but it looks reasonable to me given what we know about charcoal.
1 oz of gold can be spread enough to cover a football field.
LOL...please do some research before posting.
I've been reading how biochar can improve the health of my lawn, but I'm not convinced that CO2 in the atmosphere causes the Earth's temperature to rise. But it does cause an increase in plant harvest yields. Check out lecture videos at Heartland Institutes' website for additional information.
"but I'm not convinced that CO2 in the atmosphere causes the Earth's temperature to rise"...could you expand on this statement, please?
I can’t believe he just said “bio char is carbon negative”. Trees are carbon negative. Trees trap that carbon. Thats why they burn so well. You have to harvest trees and burn them to be scalable. That in itself is the same issue we had at the turn of the Industrial Revolution isn’t it? I’m no eco-warrior, but more charcoal doesn’t seem like the answer.
We don't harvest trees to make biochar.We use waste products which would otherwise rot or burn.
One example would be saw dust from a saw mill.
hopefully we transition to biochar instead of chemical fertilizers & pesticides
*facepalm*
absurdly lowbrow. human agriculture has depended on charcoal since the first slashburns. charcoal acts as a nutrient battery, and will actually reduce soil fertility until it is fully charged by absorbing and holding nutrient ions until equilibrium is approached.
This guys lungs are biochar. Breath a little quieter darth vader
the man likely has emphysema. give him a break, i didn't even notice
H Kone .....or asthma or sinus issues. You’re right. Give him a break.
@@winebox on second thought Hugh probably just wanted to crack a joke, linking char in his lungs with his breathing. I guess it didn't pan out.
DOESN'T WORK.
There is not and never has been a shred of evidence that human carbon emissions have negatively affected the global climate, so that part of this talk is simply silly. On the other hand, adding charcoal to the soil, and maybe a lot of organic material to compost with it makes plenty of sense.