permaculture

[Koreen Brennan <koreenbrennan@gmail.com>]

Christopher,
How do you pulverize your biochar? I've seen a number of methods.

How much biochar did you use with your cacao trees vs compost?

We've been burning scrap wood in trenches or cone pits which is a really
fast way to do it. We need to make a lot of it fast for an install, and we
can dig the pit right where the brush is, and burn it on the spot. It takes
us 30 minutes to make 100 gallons. It's an efficient flame with very
minimal ash or smoke. We're using it in our compost toilets (pee only), and
then adding seaweed and compost to it for about one month, then putting it
into our tree systems. It's too early to say how it will do, but we are on
a dry sandhill in Florida that holds almost no moisture or nutrient so we
think this should be a godsend. We aren't pulverizing it because we don't
want the particles to be so small that they disappear into the sand into
the nether horizon like everything else does. We will get less use out of
each particle perhaps, but it will stay on the surface indefinitely, and
soil can build around it.  We'll report back after we've done this for a
few years! :-)

Feeding it to worms is one way we could pulverize it and keep it from
flowing into the sand - we'll try that too - we have a pretty big
vermicomposting system.

I know there are others who have been doing this in Florida for a while and
one orchard in particular that I've seen is quite lush and beautiful. But
more work is needed to really determine the best approach.

We use fallen branches and trees that needed to be cut down for other
reasons (like the one that fell on our greenhouse :-(  We figure that
turning the branches into biochar will only increase their use in the
ecosystem.  We're waiting for our bamboo to grow and meanwhile reaching out
to others for bamboo which makes beautiful biochar. We need to cover 2-3
acres with it, so will need a whole lot of woody material. I love the idea
of using it to create a wood gasifier - thank you Toby for sharing that
tidbit - would love to run our truck on that!!



On Tue, Jul 5, 2016 at 11:12 AM, christopher nesbitt <
christopher.nesbitt@mmrfbz.org> wrote:

> No, pulverizing it increases the effectiveness. You are making more
> surface, more edge, and more edge means more colonization by soil biota.
> Biochar, itself, is empty space. What we are looking for is how to colonize
> that space. Earthworms eating biochar, thats what you want.
>
> _____________________________
>
> Christopher Nesbitt
>
>
> Maya Mountain Research Farm
>
> San Pedro Columbia, Toledo
>
> PO 153 Punta Gorda Town, Toledo
>
> BELIZE,
>
> Central America
>
>
> www.mmrfbz.org
> www.facebook.com/MayaMountainResearchFarm
>
> On Tue, Jul 5, 2016 at 8:52 AM, Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > On Tue, Jul 5, 2016 at 1:12 AM, Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > It’s important to generate it as a by product, and not cut down trees
> or
> > > other biomass simply to turn it into biochar. Used in a forest fuel
> > > reduction program it makes a lot of sense; you’re already cutting the
> > wood,
> > > and it goes into the soil as long-lasting carbon.
> >
> >
> > Thanks for making it clear that biochar can be made efficiently and
> without
> > generating pollution with the right equipment.
> > Creating it as a byproduct is easily done when using woodstove heat in
> > winter. The older heavy duty stoves are ideal for this, Fisher, Virginian
> > and Timberline are in that category. If you pack the firebox with wood
> for
> > a long (but not smouldering) overnight burn charcoal will be generated as
> > lumps of partially burned firewood settle into the ashes and get covered
> > protecting them from high heat. When you clean the stove sift the ashes
> > through some kind of screen and put the charcoal into a metal garbage can
> > to store until it is used in the garden. Put the ashes around trees.
> > Pulverizing the charcoal might be a good idea before application on soil.
> > Take a small log as pestle and a 5 gallon metal can as mortar and turn
> the
> > biochar lumps into a powder and granule aggregate. I would be interested
> in
> > knowing if pulverizing the biochar reduces its effectiveness.
> >
> > LL.
> > --
> > Lawrence F. London
> > lfljvenaura@gmail.com
> > https://sites.google.com/site/avantgeared/
> > https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/116100117925365792988/+Avantgeared/posts
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-- 
Koreen Brennan
http://www.growpermaculture.com
http://www.permacultureintl.com
http://northamericanpermaculture.org