The Big Biochar Experiment
An article in a magazine caught my eye the other day, scientists were looking for gardeners to take part in an experiment, the Big Biochar Experiment to be precise. I’d heard a bit about biochar but didn’t know much so out of curiosity I took a look at the website. Several days later I now have a bag of biochar soil conditioner in my kitchen waiting to be used on my allotment.
So what is biochar? Well it’s the result of heating plant material, known as biomass, in a closed container with little or no air allowed in. As the plant material is broken down half of the CO2 that the plant absorbed during it’s life is released but crucially the other half is trapped within the remains of the burning process. The potential importance of this is huge. Currently a large amount of waste from agriculture, forestry, saw mills and paper making facilities is burnt or sent to landfill. When this waste decomposes all of the CO2 trapped in the material is released into the atmosphere contributing to the rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. To be able to reduce this figure by half would make an enormous difference to the global need to reduce CO2 levels. Unlike other plant material, say that put in compost heaps, the carbon stored in biochar breaks down incredibly slowly, over the course of hundreds and even thousands of years.
However, this is not the only advantage of biochar and this is probably the bit that is of most interest to food producers, whether that’s on an allotment or on a farm. So far, trials have shown that biochar improves the structure of soils, aids the breakdown of pesticides, increases yields and improves root development. Biochar does this because it’s particles have a high surface area. This creates areas in the soil where beneficial fungi and other organisms thrive, it improves the water and nutrient holding capacities of the soil and raises the soil’s pH which is important as most soils gradually become more acid over time.
The use of biochar is not new though. Humans have been creating biochar for millions of years. We know how the ash and charcoal left after forest fires improves the fertility of the soil and in the Amazon early settlers created the highly fertile Terra Preta soils with a slash and burn technique. Despite this knowledge studies into the benefits on European soils are only in their early stages and this is where the Big Biochar Experiment comes in. The team of scientists behind Oxford Biochar Ltd, a not for profit organisation, want to see if biochar can be used effectively in a sustainable way. It is the first major experiment on the use of biochar in gardens and on allotments. As yet the scientists don’t have enough data to assess fully the potential benefits of biochar. And this is where us gardeners can help. To take part all you have to do is register and you will receive your own bag of biochar soil enhancer. You then create a bed 1 metre by 1 metre as a control and then 1 or more 1 metre by 1 metre beds where you incorporate the biochar. The seeds you sow in all the beds must be the same, sown at the same time and the same density. Then as the summer goes on you need to record the germination rates, health of the plants and yields. You then send this data to the scientists where they will collate and study the information. The scientists are still looking for more volunteers for the experiment so if you’re interested go to the Big Biochar Experiment where you’ll find more information about the potential benefits, how to register and what is involved in the experiment.
So now all I have to do is work out where I’m going to put the biochar and then the experiment can begin.
wellywoman 
Very interesting – thanks for sharing this. I’ve signed up….now to decide what I’m going to grow for the experiments. Beans perhaps….or maybe peas….or tatties…decision, decisions.
Hi Pen, Good to hear you’ve signed up too. Looking forward to hearing how you get along. Have a good weekend.
It will be interesting to see how the experiment proceeds.
Interesting. I don’t think I’m organised enough to take part in a controlled experiement though. I’ll be interested in your findings though.
Hi Jo and Bridget, Mmmm I will have to make sure I stick to the instructions. Will keep you posted on my findings. Have a good weekend.
Thanks for that I’ve now signed up. I’ll use it when I make my foot (now metre) square garden in June.
Sue, Glad to hear you’ve signed up too. Hopefully we can compare notes through the summer. It does sound like a great product. Have a good weekend.
Welly, you constantly amaze me with your findings; this one is brilliant and I’ll be heading over to the bio char website as soon as I’ve typed this. I have a two metre area where strawberries struggled last year. This year I’m clearing it for sweetcorn so a perfect site for this experiment and I’m intrigued as to how it will work. Anything that improves my soil will be welcome: I’m gardening on London clay covered by a few inches of topsoil (hence all my raised beds). For this, I send you a big Friday hug! Thank you, Caro x
Caro, thanks for the hug! If the findings are correct biochar should be brilliant stuff for people gardening on clay. It should help those with sandy soils as well by holding onto water and nutrients. It sounds almost too good to be true. Hopefully it isn’t. Have a good weekend.
on a global scale, you could grow large forests of trees just for charcoal, then as long as you bury the charcoal as biochar instead of burning the charcoal as a fuel, you would be sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere and locking it away into the soil.
you would be creating carbon sinks which would help to lower CO2 concentration levels.
That would be a waste of beneficial resources. There is enough biological waste to do the job without growing a crop just for bio-char. Actually, there are ways of creating bio-char that do not release any carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. the gases and oils created can be used as a source of power. The creation of bio-char produces more power than that used to make it! All of our organic waste(including sewage) could be transformed into bio-char and used to replace oil, coal, and nuclear power, to create all the power we need. Used in agriculture, correctly, it would not only act as a carbon sink ( here I am talking about bio-char made from sources other than sewage, this can be used on non food crops) but a filter and also helps to retain moisture in the soil. The correct way to use bio-char for gardening and farming is initially inoculate it with beneficial bacteria and other microbes by drenching it with a manure, or compost tea before adding it, or mixing it with your compost and then incorporate that in your garden. It will only work on organic soils as adding any chemicals will kill the bacteria that make their home in the bio-char.
Ken Bourne.
BC Canada (Ex-Sussex yokel!)
Interestng! I’d like to know how the experiment works
Nadezda
Sounds like good stuff WW. Will be most interested to read how your experiment proceeds and may volunteer too when I have read more. Will let you know if I do 🙂
Thanks for that. Have signed up too!
I talked to a man last week that uses natural charcoal in his garden – he promises most everyone will get results. It will be fun to see how much difference you get in your experiment!
Most interesting, I shall follow how you, and others, get on. xx
Fascinating, though I think I will stick with my compost and the ash from the wood burner. (The latter is probably pretty close to biochar, considering that I get a fair bit of charcoal in the ash tray of the wood burner…)
I look forward to hearing how it works out!
As above I use ash from the fire on the fruit beds and under fruit trees. The more research into these techniques the better. Keep us informed. Christina
Fascinating experiment, will look forward to reading about your results! We also add all the ash from our woodburner to help to break up the clay soil and the chimney sweep is only too happy to give us any soot that is on his van, they both certainly make the soil a lot easier to deal with.
Interesting. We also make use of our wood ash, but I am tmepted to take part in the experiment. Thank you for bringing it to light 🙂
Hi Mo, We use wood ash too the only problem with wood ash is that the nutrients are lost from the soil quite quickly. It is great stuff to add to the compost heap though apparently the worms love it.
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Really interesting…just wondering how you got on?
It hasn’t been a great year to do such an experiment. I’ll be sending in my results soon. I’ll keep you posted.