Field trials

Bear Kaufmann. Initially posted April 7, 2008. Updated August 5, 2008.

Images showing trial preparation and radish germination
(Select image to enlarge in Gallery.)

Materials/Methods

Char was Lazzari Brand mesquite BBQ char (due to availability), crushed and screened to 1/8".
No nutrients were added to the char itself or to the soil.
Soil was FoxFarm OceanForest Potting Soil.
Sand used was horticultural sand.
No mycorrhizal fungi were added.
Mixtures range from 0-100% sand, soil, and char in ~16% increments by volume. 90 pots total. 28 combinations with 3 pots each + 6 additional pots at 33%/33%/33% composition. Pots were placed randomly within the tray. Tray was rotated 180° occasionally.
Plants were watered daily by a drip irrigation system.
Plants were removed from pots ~1 month after first watering. Soil was rinsed from roots and roots were patted dry with a towel. Wet weight of roots+shoots was measured (Acculab VI-3mg, 0.001 g precision).

Figure 1. Box Plots Showing Effect of Composition Across Three Transects

Figure 2. Pictures of Radishes at Important Compositions

Results

Plant growth was stunted even for the best preforming plants, likely due to the small pot size. Leaf color varied across different compositions.
A mixture of 33% charcoal and 67% soil had the best growth (176% of pure soil). Aside from mixtures around this level (Figure 1b), high levels of charcoal showed a generally negative effect on plant growth (Figure 1c).

Discussion

The positive interaction effects of charcoal and soil (Figure 1a,1b) are interesting. Assuming charcoal itself provides no integral nutrients to the soil (eg. nitrogen), increasing amounts of charcoal reduce nutrients available from the soil mixture. The effects at 33% char/67% soil, however, show beneficial effects. This could be explained by increased mineralization rates caused by the charcoal causing soil nutrients to be more available to plants. Beyond 33%, the Cation Exchange Capacity of the charcoal may have held the nutrients produced by mineralization, making them less plant available. Since the charcoal was not amended/soaked in a nutrient bearing solution it likely had a low Base Saturation leading to adsorption of nutrients as they became available. Other potential explanations for increased growth along the soil/char transect include alterations to pH or limiting nutrients (eg potassium(?)) provided by the charcoal. The speculative mineralization/CECi model could also explain the effects seen along the sand/char transect. Here, since the sand lacks organic materials and bound nutrients for soil microorganisms to make plant available, the increasing unsaturated CEC may have made any nutrients less plant available.

Author: Bear Kaufmann bear@ursine-design.com

In Our state We are having 70% Forest .Mainly Pine forest in every summer it is cause of forest fire . We face huge loss of trees, properties and life too.This is cost to Forest department . We develop the method to convert pine needle into CHARCOAL BRIQUETTE. Which use as cooking fuel. Now they are not cutting the tree for fuel.Save the forest use this method. This low cost method. for rural area. Apart of that it is produce local emplyment. Get the chrcoal with cutting tree.Like  LANTANA,PINE NEEDLE.

Improving wheat production with deep banded Oil Mallee Charcoal in Western Australia
Paul Blackwell1, Syd Shea2, Paul Storer3, Zakaria Solaiman4, Mike Kerkmans5, and Ian Stanley6
Agchar Initiative Conference Terrigal New South Wales. April 29 - May 2, 2007

SUMMARY
• There can be benefits to wheat income from deep banded oil mallee charcoal in the low rainfall areas of WA; the trials on acid sandy clay loam and acid sand in 2005 showed up to $96/ha additional gross income at wheat prices of $150/ha; especially when applied with mineral fertilisers and inoculated soil microbes. Much of the yield improvement can be explained by better grain survival, associated with reduced drought stress.

• There were encouraging effects of charcoal on arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) colonisation. Banded oil mallee charcoal improved AM colonisation of wheat roots by 3 fold, when used with mineral fertilisers and AM is inoculated with the seed in the acid sandy clay loam with a low population of indigenous AM. Early phosphorus uptake was not improved by AM colonisation; P supply from the soil and applied fertiliser was already adequate.

• AM colonisation in spring was related to effects of charcoal application on grain survival in inoculated mineral fertiliser treatments. This infers AM hyphae may have improved water supply to reduce drought stress and loss of grains in these treatments.

• The true economic value of oil mallee charcoal will be clearer when the cost of charcoal production and application is better known and long term effects of charcoal, especially with inoculated AMs and mineral fertilisers is better understood. The potential to achieve a commercial return from the sequestration of charcoal as an offset for carbon
dioxide emissions in broadscale agriculture will also help calculate true economic value.

• More research is worthwhile on the long term effects of incorporated charcoal in a range of soil conditions and seasons, from various sources and how low the banded charcoal rate needs to be to encourage better yields from mineral fertiliser with inoculated AM.

INTRODUCTION
Oil Mallees are the first native woody perennial species to be promoted as a commercial crop in the lower rainfall areas of the southwest land division of Western Australia, primarily stimulated by the need to ameliorate salinity caused by the clearing of native vegetation for agriculture (Bartle and Shea, 2002). Mallees are hardy plants that are well suited as a perennial crop through their ability to re-sprout from the large lignotuber after the above
ground mass has been lost through fire or harvesting. In 2000 a group of Oil Mallee growers from Kalannie (300 km NE of Perth, Western Australia) began producing eucalyptus oil for the Australian market (see the Oil Mallee Association www.oilmallee.com.au ). Integrated processing of mallee biomass to produce electricity, activated carbon and eucalyptus oil in a central processing facility has been the main emphasis of industry development since the late 1990’s. Western Power, Enecon and the Oil Mallee Company have successfully developed a ‘test of concept’ Integrated Wood Processing (IWP) plant at Narrogin. Bell and Bennett (2002) estimated that the NPV of the net benefit to landowners of planting mallees in a local catchment area to supply a 5MW IWP would be about $6.2 million over 20 years. Charcoal is a valuable by-product of such IWPs and a possible by-product of farm based distillation of eucalyptus oil.

It has become well recognised in Japan and some other parts of Asia that charcoal from forestry products and rice hull can stimulate indigenous soil microbial activity (Ogawa, 1994; Nishio, 1996). Charcoal has especially encouraged arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) which can help supply phosphorus symbiotically to many agricultural crops (Ogawa et al., 1983) and rhizobia, which can fix nitrogen from the atmosphere to supply leguminous plants (Nishio and Okano, 1991). Field experiments in Indonesia (Yamato et al. 2006) showed charcoal made from tree bark applied at 10 L/ha could increase the yield of maize by about 50%, to 15 t/ha, when added to 500 kg/ha of NPK (15:15:15) fertiliser on an acid highly weathered infertile tropical soil; associated with increased AM fungal colonisation. Lehmann and Rondon (2006)
also identify numerous benefits of bio char to plant nutrition and microbial activity in the humid tropics. Benefits of charcoal to soil microbial activity have also been recognised in temperate forest environments (Zakrisson et al. 1996; Pietikainen et al. 2000).

Charcoal seems to assist microbial activity by having a porosity that provides a favourable microhabitat, weak alkalinity and by being a substrate unfavourable for saprophytes (Saito and Marumoto, 2002). AM fungi easily extend their extraradical hyphae into charcoal buried in the soil and sporulate in the particles (Ogawa, 1987). Postma et al. (1990) show evidence that rhizobia in pores <50 _m are protected from predation by protozoan predators; this
could be an important microhabitat property provided by charcoal in soils with low clay content.

Encouragement and establishment of AM fungi in Western Australian soils has encountered many challenges. “The objective of identifying procedure for managing mycorrhizal fungi is more appropriately restated as managing conditions to suit the growth and activity of beneficial populations of mycorrhizal fungi” (Abbot and Gazey, 1994). Introduced AM fungi can suffer competition with indigenous AM fungi and be ineffective for crop phosphorus supply due to high levels of background soluble P (Gazey et al. 2004). Australian native grass species can also be much more efficient at accessing insoluble forms of phosphate than introduced wheat varieties; whose rhizosphere colonies can be very different (Marschner et al. 2006). This may be an adaptation to the low clay content environment of many Australian topsoils; low clay content reduces the amount of small pore space to help some microorganisms prosper. Charcoal in suitable amount and form may provide the missing microhabitat in WA topsoils to help introduced AM fungi and other microbes survive and colonise introduced agricultural crops.

One commercial fertiliser company (Western Mineral Fertilisers; Tenterden WA) has developed products which minimise the abundance of readily soluble phosphorus to encourage symbiotic and other processes of inoculated soil microbes. Zeolite was initially included and intended to provide enhanced ion exchange capacity, and also a micro habitat
within the zeolite pores; however the pore volume may not be sufficient. It was a reasonable hypothesis that charcoal addition may improve the microhabitat further than the use of zeolite.

The opportunity to test hypotheses about charcoal effects on soil and use of soil microbes to improve crop nutrient supply came about in 2005. There was an intensive research effort to examine the efficacy of very wide rows of wheat on shallow soils in the low rainfall areas east of Geraldton (Blackwell et al. 2006; Blackwell 2007). With some support and encouragement from the Oil Mallee Company and Western Mineral fertilisers we developed the following experiments using no-till methods for crop establishment and very wide rows to minimise drought stress. Attempts to follow the long-term effects at Pindar failed due to a very dry winter season in 2006.

See complete paper attached and at:http://www.oilmallee.com.au/pdf/Improving_wheat_prod.pdf
See oral presentation at:
http://www.iaiconference.org/images/Blackwell_-_Improving_Wheat_Production_with_Mallee_Charcoal.pdf

1Department of Agriculture and Food, Geraldton WA, 2 Oil Mallee Company of Australia, 3Western Mineral
Fertilisers, 4University of Western Australia, School of Earth and Geographical Sciences, 5Oil Mallee
Association of WA, 6 "Bungadale", Kalannie , WA

Terracarbona.com - A New Website for the Promotion of Biochar Research and Experimentation
Chris Braun. February 27, 2008

A new website for the promotion of biochar research and experiments was born !
http://terracarbona.com

You can there discover several biochar-related projects, most of them still in active development . If you are performing biochar soil amendmend trials yourself, your contribution to CharDB or to the Field Trial Portal would be highly appreciated!
And if you haven't done it so far but would like to start experimenting, you can also find useful resources, links and contacts to help you.

This website is still in its infancy and any constructive comment, critic, question, advice... is very important for further development ! For that you can use the devoted forum:
http://z15.invisionfree.com/CharDB/index.php?showforum=2

Thanks for your contribution!

Sincerely yours,
Chris
terracarbona@bionecho.org

CharDB 1.0 released!
Cristelle Braun, January 19, 2008

Hello dear biochar testers!

The first release 1.0 of CharDB is now available at:
http://bionecho.org/terrapreta/chardb/index.php

You will now be able to register your biochar soil amendment trials in a uniform format "CharML" that should facilitate comparisons between the different entries. This will hopefully lead to interesting new conclusions and a better knowledge on the fascinating world of biochar!

Please send any comment, critic, suggestion...to:
chardb@bionecho.org

Your feedback and comments will guide further development of CharDB and CharML!

Sincerely yours,
Chris
brauncch@gmail.com

Charcoal in agriculture: Experimental research at Fourth Corner Nurseries
Richard Haard, Fourth Corner Nurseries, Bellingham, Washington, January 3, 2008

Greetings

I just finished over the last few days organizing images and data from my charcoal experimental plots. I am presenting a new set of posters showing root systems of the native shrub, Lonicera involucrata or black twinberry that I used as an experimental subject in these treatment plots this summer.

This will be the last of a series of piecemeal postings about my findings on the terrapreta reading list. In time, I will prepare a summary of what I have accomplished this year, the shortcomings, what I feel I have learned from this work about using charcoal and my plans for continuing this experiment for 2 or more growing seasons.

Quick background - my employer, Fourth Corner Nurseries is a bare root native plant nursery. We grow more than 350 kinds of plants for environmental restoration and landscaping purposes. Our farm is 60 acres in 2 fields. Shown here is our east field. Formerly, I have been trying charcoal as a soil additive for several years and this season I attempted a controlled experiment. It did not go without a hitch.

What I established this year was a series of 28 - 17 foot long treatment blocks that are a pair of treatment sets consisting of untreated soil, charcoal only, fertilizer only compost only and combinations of charcoal, compost, fertilizer. In each treatment block 3 kinds of plants were installed: a native shrub, Lonicera; a native perennial - Aster subspicatus; and a vegetable - swiss Chard.
All were selected for their heavy nitrogen consumers and all production was removed from the plots, roots and tops, then the plots replanted and cropped again without further fertilizer, compost or charcoal.

The most detailed measurements accomplished this year is 2 sets of soil chemical analysis completed at a University laboratory. Plant response measurements this year, for several reasons was only visual observation. This set of posters I am presenting today shows subtle but interesting and positive additive effects of compost and charcoal.
Further analysis will be presented at a later date.

How it went. Early April while the plants were still dormant I took 2 year old bareroot Lonicera seedlings trimmed tops and roots and planted in peat/perlite mix in 4X4 inch containers. At these same time I planted
sprigs of Aster in the same manor. After the plants had firmly rooted into the containers and our field soil had warmed, I prepared a growing bed in our normal propagation field ( Field 13, row 8). The growing bed is about 4
feet wide and 500 feet long. I divided this into 17 foot beds with separate treatments in a systematic way. Here is charcoal 1, a fine powder that was donated by JF Waste energy systems. Here is charcoal 2 a lump and powder mix that
Larry Williams and I made with a top draft earth covered mound. I am using the lump charcoal because I can observe microbe utilization over time as Larry has been studying for several years.

Here are the charcoal test beds are they appeared before rototilling. In this image furthest is compost only, then compost/charcoal1,then compost/charcoal2,then compost/charcoal 1/fertilizer and so on in a systematic pattern repeating again in a second duplicate set on the north end of the field. In discussing these tests I sometimes discuss each set separately, are are called south set and north set.

Here are the plots immediately after rototilling. Note that the charcoal does not appear to be uniformly dispersed. After harvest with the
lifter-shaker charcoal is better mixed in the soil. Each bed received about 30 gallons of charcoal. Fertilizer and Compost were applied at rates normal for our farming practices.

We planted the plots in mid May and by late June they looked like this and this and this .

By the end of August the Swiss
Chard had matured and we had our first harvest. Yields were impressive but no trends specific to treatments were noticed.

Here you can see our plot method for measuring yields of swiss chard and also how the separate treatments, Lonicera, Aster and swiss chard have grown together making assessment of total production rather difficult.
In late October I conducted a survey of the Lonicera component of the research plots. It was the end of the growing season but before the frost defoliated the plants.

Here is how the plots looked. My first look at the data that showed a subtle but encouraging trend of improvement from the use of charcoal 1.

In this set of images notice that the treatments with compost when combined with charcoal tended to be larger.
The same trend is also noticed in the compost/fertilizer/charcoal combinations. By mid November we were ready
to lift all the plant material from the plots, examine the roots and fall replant with a single species crop for next year. Here we have our lifter shaker harvesting the plants, Lonicera with charcoal staining roots and Rena picking up the plants. Later we replanted with our 4
row seeder and reseeding with another native shrub species, Oemleria cerasiformis, chosen because it too is an agressive nitrogen consumer.

Finally the posters I have prepared to compare top growth and root growth in each of the treatment sets. I have organized the images according to groups of treatments as follows: The links are to the larger size images for better viewing. Edit note root images were created 11/15 not 10/25

First Groups 1 and 2 the control sets that received no treatment or had charcoal only
Roots
Field View

Next Groups 3 and 4 fertilizer sets Edit Roots is labeled as Groups 1 and 2
Roots
Field
View

Next Group 5 South end plots compost set
Roots
Field
View

Next Group 6 North end plots compost set
Roots
Field
View

I think these findings will be encouraging information for John Flotvik and many thanks for his donation of charcoal from his pyrolyser and thanks again to Larry Williams , his thoughtful work and helping when it is most needed.

I am looking forward to another season of data from this set of test plots. Comments, ideas, criticism, discussion whatever are appreciated as I am now preparing my season end report.

Richard Haard, Fourth Corner Nurseries, Bellingham,Washington.

Copyright January 3, 2008
Permission for distribution of these materials and images is granted for entire text and images only so long as the author and initial place of publication;"http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/" is
cited. Individual images may be used by permission only from author.

Biochar Trials at Fourth Corner Nursery
Richard Haard, Fourth Corner Nursery, Bellingham, WA, December 6, 2007
Hello All - For your interest

I submitted to Tom for posting [attached] some initial soil analysis data from my charcoal block study. In am just beginning to compile a report on this work. When it is posted you will see soil analysis results averaged for each replication(2) for 2 dates , April and October. Listed are pH, Buffer pH, OM, Nitrate, Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC) and base exchange components, % Potassium, % Magnesium, % Calcium. Other soil analysis was taken but not presented here.

Keep in mind this is a 2 to 3 year study and no additional additions or treatments will be done other than continuous cropping and harvest of all growth, tops and roots, at our bare-root native plant nursery. It is my attempt to emulate Christoph Steiner, et al research in Manaus

Long term Effects of manure, charcoal and mineral fertilization on crop production and fertility on a highly weathered Central Amazonian upland soil

http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/node/442

Our test was compost, charcoal (two sources) mineral fertilization and control and permutations as was done in experiment above. We're in the moist mild climate of the Pacific NW, USA on a sandy loam soil. It naturally carries very high levels of potassium and calcium found also in unfarmed soil.

I have never tried this kind of intensive soil testing before and am still learning about season to season changes and how to interpet the data. I am working now on photosets taken at harvest time and these will be posted as well as a concise statement on the experiment terms and what I think the results represent.

Rich Haard -
And thanks to Larry Williams for his work with me on this project and his critical comments.

Update on Biochar Trials in Hangzhou, China

Robert flanagan, SAFFE, Hangzhou, China, August 28, 2007

Ready to Eat in 59 Days

Bamboo Biochar Trial 2006 China
Robert Flanagan, SAFFE, China, July 2007

This is a trial we started last year using bamboo charcoal as a soil amendment. Last year we sent Cornell University soil samples last year and hope to continue this research with them in the future.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7-cq_w1VVY

Rice Planting Experiment With Charcoal Enriched Soil
Jochen Binikowski buddelbini@yahoo.de May 18, 2007

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2FMy9gIuws&NR=1

Experimental rice Planting Project
5 paddys at 5 x 4 meters each prepared with rice husk charcoal

Jochen Binikowski buddelbini@yahoo.de

www.buddel.de/kft/index.htm