BioChar Pot Trials -- Second Results (Even More Interesting!)
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- Опубліковано 22 сер 2024
- Two months ago we started these trials. (Link below.) Something very interesting is happening and although it's early days still, it seems obvious what it is -- most of these plants like charcoal in the soil. Up to a point, at least.
We're using soil straight from the field (together with charcoal in varying amounts) and OF COURSE we planted the same number of seeds at the same time in each pot.
There's actually not much in charcoal that's of benefit to plants -- but it is a very special vehicle for adding nutrients. These were added when we made the charcoal into biochar by soaking it in a nutrient-rich tea.
These results probably show how depleted the field soil is and how much it benefits from adding the nutrients. The difference in using biochar (instead of just nutrient tea) is that the biochar should be a much more permanent benefit to the soil. The soil structure is improved and the nutrients are retained within the structure of the charcoal so they shouldn't be washed out so readily.
This is a trial involving Perpetual (Cut-and-come-again) Beet, Radish, Grass, Tomatoes and Parsley. Other seeds types were sown but they were dropped from the trials because of poor germination. (Old seed? Seed didn't like the charcoal? A mixture of the two?)
Original set-up -
• BioChar Plant Pot Tria...
First results --
• BioChar Pot Trials -- ...
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I burned down a tree due to termite. In its place plants are growing wildly and happily within 1 month.
The faster growing plants show some yellowing...because they need fertilizer. biochar is not a fertilizer, but a different kettle of fish altogether.
thanks for doing the trials.
Exactly.. definitely in need of a NPK boost, mainly urea tho
Maybe what you used to Bio up the char was a certain ph and some plants loved it while others hated it?>
Alkali, from what I had learned the biochar adds some alkali, some plants love it, other do not grow well in it.
Seed Genetics can play a part also. Anyone that has planted seeds will know that not all of them will grow and some will grow at a different rate. I think a better experiment would be to start the plants at the same height then replant them in the biochar.
I'm curious, did you inoculate/charge the biochar before adding it to the soil, or just used raw charcoal?
Just what I was looking for
I'm not sure what this does, other than spark the interest to extend the trial over a large number of plants. Individual seeds will produce remarkably different results, even in the same medium. I'm not sure what you mean by "charcoal" because it has different meanings on different continents and cultures. However, these results would tend to support an extended experiment with perhaps 100 plants of the same variety under the different environments.
I would like to see this same experiment but with proper fertilization of the plants. Interested to see if the results would differ. I wonder with proper nutrients the 50% charcoal would fare better.
I found your channel not long ago and subbed right away! This experiment is so interesting, much trials and research needs to be done with biochar, as it's a wonderful way to sequester carbon making it carbon negative! Thank you for the beautiful and informative videos.
Greetings from Quebec, Canada!
sure does suggest some kinds of plants benefit from biochar and some don't. Did you wash and charge the char?
Fascinating! Thank you❤️
Very interesting!. I know you didn't add any compost to the soil but you did charge the charcoal with some kind of nutrients. It is hard to tell whether the differences are due to the charcoal or whatever you soaked it in. I think it would be good to repeat with plain charcoal, and add the same amount of liquid feed to each pot.
Yes, you're right Madeline. We soaked the charcoal in a tea of nutrients. The benefits are mostly down to those nutrients, I'm sure, but the charcoal is still vital because it is the vehicle that the nutrients arrive in, and continue to reside in.
Tea of nutrients? Is it really that complete? There are many different types and kinds of tea of nutrients. Have you checked yours with chemist and chemical engineer equipped with a spectroscope known also as a spectrogram in order to know if everything needed by the plants are present. Did you do the same thing with the soil? You got to be thorough just like our Soviet Era KGB SCIENTISTS who has a full range of ultrasophisticated engineering technologies and technical experts assisting and helping them and collaborating with each other since the 1950s, and the results of their work in the 1st decade of the 21st century are being released "GRADUALLY" to further iron out the kinks and resulting in the vast wheat and other grain harvests,
Biochar is a capacitor. It buffers water and fertilizer inputs, and leaks them out, when supplies are low. This should explain the results closely. If you were to meter your inputs consistently the actions of biochar would be redundant.
Very interesting experiment. I put a lot of charcoal in the bed where I sewed the tomatoes. The tomatoes have thrived.
If you think about it the charcoal added reduces the nutrients. It sucks it up and diluted them, but it also makes them more available and helps the plant grow. Biochar is meant for agricultural systems I repeat it’s meant for agricultural systems. Not for pots. Plant your cover over this and it’ll be transformed into the most beautiful soil possible.
Can you expound this please?
Hahaha the sound effects are killing me 😂
Some of the plants with 50% biochar looked like they were showing signs of excess salts in the soil. I read that letting the biochar sit in water over night and then draining the water will remove around 30% of the salt from the biochar.
Charcoal also has a very high pH value which will also hurt your plants
@@BigBodyBiggolo washing the char and charging with urea should solve this problem. All biochar is not equal as far as ph, so varied.
@@curiousbystander9193 oh i never knew that, i actually washed it and ph tested the water which had a ph of 10+ so it mightve even been cleaned afterwards.
I like to charge it with worm castings and benefitial fungi and compost tea.
Peace!
@@BigBodyBiggolo so you process and charging must neutralize the high ph of your char.....
How long do you ferment your char with the charging material?
@@curiousbystander9193 it has been a long time but if i remember correctly i think about 2 weeks.
Thank you very much.
It was very helpful.
It was easy to see how the % of the mixture changes the growth.
How to make a small amount of rice husk charcoal is uploaded.
I'd be grateful if you could take a look.
Very interesting, thank you for that wonderful experiment. I added some to my tomatoes
Just found this old video. Did you inoculate these? I would love to see new developments on this. Cheers J
so 12.5% is the most consistent of them all
interesting indeed.
thnx for sharing
cheers
Good experiment. More info like what pH & NPK they all needed would have been interesting to go along. But I can look it up for myself
So cool. VERY informative. Thanks alot!
U need to cook the char with soil for 2 weeks then plant after that a lite top dressing every couple of months and it will explode year round its a beautiful thing to watch every year it gets better and better
Great video
The BIG question (about tomatoes and radishes).
What is the yield of each plant in your trials and how big were the fruit/radishes compared to the untreated ones?
Just because a plant grows fast and big does not mean it produces well or produces bigger fruit/radishes.
Usually the bigger the plant the greater the yield because it has more surface area for photosynthesis and larger roots to take up nutrients.
our soil tends toward acidic here so we have always added wood ashes to the soil which as you know has a lot of bits of charcoal in it. it's at a lot lower rate though, like 2 liters per 100sq. ft. very interesting, what you're doing.
Was the char inoculated or just put into the soil? Biochar if not inoculated can pull nitrogen from the soil and in some cases aid in locking it out entirely. Also could be a cal/mag deficiency because of the more rapid growth, more likely magnesium before calcium.
Perhaps bio should be tested in varying soil types as they very in moisture holding
I do love the experimentation. Unfortunately it looks to prove....yet again... that small sample size yields random results 🙂
very interesting result. did you have replication for each treatment. then it will be sure that each % of biochar added is the best recipe for plants
G'day folk as always love all your vids, can tell you that the radish test and some others, when you got to 50% char the char actually began to filter as char dose resulting in nitrate or nitrogen deficiency and or other essential elements resulting in the nutrients being robed away from the plant and held or stored in your char. There's numerous deficiency resources out there however if you supplement the affected plants or supplement in proportion to char and a little and often you can achieve radical improvement and sorry I understand you just wanted to compare char effects only however that's the answer. Yes others are correct ph always comes first, side note first year supplementation can cut back in year 2 and almost stop as years go on as the char finds it saturation point and gives back previous years inputs. Again love ALL your vids your remarkable people please don't stop making videos ,, huge fan from down under ,, long live rose or rowe's hive methods
Interesting and confusing :-)
In the video you say "charcoal" but in the title you say biochar....which is it?
And if it is biochar...please tell us how yoy made it, what feedstock was used, roughly what temperature...did you charge it with anything?
thanks you just saved me a heap of time. did u treat the charcole with anything?
So many variables to consider, very interesting and thought provoking. Mrs. Tc
I am in the Philippines and I am going to grow veg in pots going for 100% rice husk biochar. First biochar and charcoal are not the same thing charcoal has some reins residue left to facilitate lighting a barbeque. Next the biochar is a great home for biological activity but this has to be charged up. Plants really don't like chemical fertilizers particularly in the tropics so I am going to process everything into compost tea including stuff that would not normally make its way into compost like fish heads. Soil in the Philippines is in really poor condition so I am going to just grow in pots.
wow very interesting, seems like different charcoal concentrations can be better or worse.
I believe overall planting in ground has the best overall outcome for most plants.
Testing in 5" pots I wouldn't do unless it's just the only way but I'd test in ground.
Believe I'll be Testing some and also try to learn as soils varies and mine is clay base so I've have a moisture holding and mineral makeup already.
Seems might be more helpful for the sandy and over worked loamy soils west of Mississippi or more into the Rocky Mountain Range
did you do any biochar tests?
Wow, nice educating Video !!!
So far in my bichar research, 10% biochar is the best.
Is this same as carbon active used in water filtration? I am thinking whetehr to reuse the carbon active that is change every year for my home water filtration system for planting, instead of throwing them away. Any thoughts?
It is the same carbon, but nutrients have been added to it, so it wouldn't be suitable as a filter
Hey Mr.Jack, I think you're talking about using used filter carbon in the garden. Activated carbon is fine in the garden and should do everything charcoal does. It's basically charcoal but with much greater surface area. My only concern would be that it contains everything it just filtered out of your water. So as long as you have no concerns that it's full of mercury or something you don't want in your garden, it should be fine.
Carrots may not have had enough P-K in the biochar.
Imho the 50% is better (though not practical IRL), it's just that it needs N most of all (since it wasn't charged) which is why plants are dying. If you waited a year or two the results for the 50% would be unbelievable.
Was there ever a third video to this trails ?
The question is, what kind of wood used in making the charcoal did you use? How did you make your charcoal for there are two ways of making it before you soak it into a nutrient rich tea? What kind of nutrient rich tea did you use?
Have a look in our 'Charcoal' playlist for more videos on this subject..
👍👍👍😊
Science!
wow
While I appreciate the efforts in conducting these tests and posting them on UA-cam, I don't think the would be helpful to an average gardener such as me. I have a relatively healthy compost-based soil. If I consider adding anything else but compost to my soil, I first have to be convinced that it is worth my efforts. That is, will adding BioChar to my soil give me any measurable, improved results. In this particular case, I'd like to see if BioChar offers improvements over my rather basic, healthy potting soil.
Because of potash/Potassium carbonate inside the charcoal?
thanks
Good on you for experimenting with this.
I sprinkle ash from my fireplace over our garden. Not sure if that is a similar thing
That will be contributing potassium which is most useful to the plant during flowering/fruiting/ripening.
Ash is mot similar to biochar but ash also has some charocal particles in...so its slowly adding charcoal in the soil that its slowly activated by soil life and becoming biochar.
Thank you, yes I’m seeing the importance of adding the Coal. Apparently this is where the healthy bacteria breeds.
The weedy Gardner on UA-cam, showed me How to make some magic juice from rice starch, whey and molasses.
Breaking down the compost bin materials quicker and also indulging in the aroma and release of ‘healthy bacterial farts’ into Into the biochar, seaweed, manure compost pile..
It feels exciting to make soil so quickly..
My daughter is a chef and brought home about 6 kg of banana skin. I put them in the wheelbarrow and have filled with water and put some of the molasses mix on top. It started fermenting the following day. Sounds like lemonade
very interesting and confusing 😁
Just follow the ancient methods used by the ancients in the Amazonian communities.
@@darthvader5300 I will use 25% for safty 😁
When you did not do science at school but you wish u did.
Wish someone would do one like this but for flowers, Zinnias, Petunias, for example
perhaps you could do one yourself. If you live in Ireland I'll give you some biochar
@@WayOutWestx2 I appreciate the offer! I am making some as we speak.
Just wanted to know what to expect.
excellent experiment. different plants like different things. maybe acidity and aeration. 😃
Yes, you're right - we really need to look at the make-up of the soil. So much to do!
was it charged biochar?
So carrots didn´t like it!
I think it is all about pH
When adding biochar did you add 5% to10% limestone rock dust powder and 5% to 10% gypsum rock dust powder to make it, the charcoal, PH-NEUTRAL which makes it non-acidic and non-alkaline? Did you also did the same to the soil after making it humusy (adding plant biomass-baed compost humus) and adding composite rock dust powders mixtures to it at a ratio of 5 kilograms to 10 kilograms per square meter at a depth of 6 inches to 8 inches and even deeper to 12 inches to 18 inches? Besides adding biochar, did you add 1 cubic decentimater of fermented plant biomass-based humus, journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/methane_pain.html, (a cube 10 cm on a side in height, width, and lenght) to 1 cubic meter of biochar afater adding the 5% to10% limestone rock dust powder and 5% to 10% gypsum rock dust powder to make it, the charcoal, PH-NEUTRAL which makes it non-acidic and non-alkaline in order to bio-activate it, plus adding a cubic decentimeter of composite rock dust powders mixtures to it? And adding enough water during the mixing process to make it moist and activate the biogeochemical processes to make it a living biogeochemical biochar full of life? And adding 1 heaping tablespoonful of peat innoculated with nitrogen-fixing rhizobial bacterial innoculants and mychorrizal fungi innoculants to be pre-mixed with the 1 cubic decentimater of fermented plant biomass-based humus? Comfrey makes a good plant
biomass-based humusy fermented compost, it is the best and most superb of them all! In the Amazon jungle they added charcoal to soil still containing a little of the remaininf and original plant biomass-based humusy compost and that's the key!
How did you charge your biochar before mixing with a soil? What did you sue to charge it?
Water from the duck pond
@@WayOutWestx2 Thank you. For how long?
Hello! Do you put 50% of charcoal and 50% of soil in a pot?
That was the point of the trials - to see which works best. I think we found about 25% was the best? But you might like to check?
before making the soil bio-coal should be charged like a battery. pure coal has a high absorption capacity. He pulls out of the soil all useful and deprives the plant of nutrition. coal should be kept in compost pile for a long time.
Youre really talking about lump charcoal.
for grass....i dont know why we do this
nice joke,nice couple
Was the charcoal inoculated?
Yes - or it wouldn't work
Seems like you failed with the charcoal.
HOW it was prepaired? Charged with WHAT? And WAS inoculated?
Nothing should had died in biochar soil.
we didn't fail at all. We just keep making it better and better
@@WayOutWestx2
Answer the questions :/
But you ask in such a rude way.
@@WayOutWestx2
I am rough person. Now tell me.
(i am tired for COVID-19 panic)
Just follow the ancient methods used by the ancients in the Amazonian communities.
I'm not sure how drinking a concoction of hallucinogenic plants will help. But I'm willing to give it a go. It's just so hard to find a good shaman these days.
the 50% might be affecting the Nitrogen Cycle?
how ever I grow in 100% here via aquaponics so dunno
Because there is something more - living soil. Like worms and mites...
I say your soil has inconsistent nutrient levels. Charcoal or biochar has no nutrients within. All nutrients were destroyed during burning process. What charcoal and biochar does,is retain water and water soluble nutrients better than soil,that is where the benefits in charcoal comes. If your charcoal is presoaked in a heavy nutrient solutions it will retain those nutrients,even after a heavy rain,most of the nutrient will remain in the charcoal,because it accumulates like an air filter.
Charcoal and biochar are bad for the environment,as they increase carbon pollution. You can get greater benefits and no pollute the air; with simply composting woodchips or wood ground into dust. Wood dust compost much quicker than wood chips,but both retain their naturally nutrients,that would otherwise, be lost to biochar processing.
+Keepskatin That's pretty much what I said, isn't it? Except you're quite wrong about carbon pollution - charcoal locks it up in a stable state in the ground, while composting it releases it back into the atmosphere.
WayOutWest Blowinblog This article explains what biochar is the risk and the very few benefits.The risk outweigh the benefits heavily. It causes more harm than benefits. These people are certified and qualified.Read the article.
permaculturenews.org/2010/11/18/beware-the-biochar-initiative/
+Keepskatin I'm afraid you're way behind in your research. I read that years ago and the technology for making charcoal has moved on a lot since then..
WayOutWest Blowinblog Prove it
+Keepskatin Happily! I am working on my own version of an enclosed kiln system, where all the gases/particles are burned off before they leave the kiln chimney. It's really exciting technology. Look it up
"Horse for course."?
Hi, how can I get some of your charcoal, I'm happy to pay for it and all shipping costs?
Hi Luane, No problem if you live in Ireland, but if you’re somewhere else it could be a problem. Where are you?
@@WayOutWestx2 I am in USA(:
It's charcoal, why call it biochar?
biochar is charcoal that's been split open with steam and then innoculated with microbes
What kind of biochar was it?
Ratna S Homemade from local softwood trees
how was the biochar activated?
never mind I just read the description. nutrient rich tea.
Is charcoal same as biocha?
Biochar is charcoal with microbes added
mmmmmHHHHHHMMMMMMMMM.
Thanks for trying. This very poor scientific method.
+duffland09 No it isn't
WayOutWest Blowinblog I love that you are thinking about it. The answer to life is not 42.. It is Humus. X)