Page 22 - May-June 2020 Vol38 No1
P. 22
STATEWIDE Provided by Aries Clean Energy
BIOCHAR: Multiple Springtime Uses
Spring’s arrival can be a good time on poorer soils and is use as a soil amendment with the
to review what people are saying about in regions where it intention to improve soil functions and
biochar. It’s growing in popularity and is difficult to build to reduce emissions from biomass that
much is published about it weekly. a deep organic soil would otherwise naturally degrade to
Biochar often is used as a soil amendment, layer. Promising ag greenhouse gases.”
due to its carbon rich properties making it markets for biochar
great for your plants, lawns, and gardens. must necessarily While biochar’s primary application is
But did you know that it also finds uses focus where the a soil amendment, Tom Miles, IBI board
other than agriculture? economic impact is member and principal of T.R. Miles
Soil and plant enhancement higher than the cost Technical Consultants Inc., says there are
of biochar. at least 55 documented uses of biochar
“Biochar can and should be used as listed in various articles. “It can be used
a soil enhancement because its carbon In drought- in cement, or as a filler in plastics, also
properties capture and hold water that challenged areas wallboard, building products, or added
leads to deeper roots and increased where farmers pay to anaerobic digesters to improve gas
growth,” said Dr. Forbes Walker, Professor for water, biochar production at dairies,” he says. http://
of Biosystems Engineering and Soil can help improve biomassmagazine.com/articles/16814/
Science at the University of Tennessee, water management. fighting-climate-change-with-ancient-
Knoxville. Walker and his students have In certain types of technology
been using biochar from an Aries Clean perennial agriculture,
Energy plant on several test sites across biochar use can The Biochar Journal reports that
the state of Tennessee. get trees into fruit biochar is much too valuable for it to
or nut production be just added to soil without using it at
Full results have not been published, but earlier. As certain least once for other beneficial purposes.
early results do show a positive difference types of biochar can Basic uses include: drinking water
when biochar has been added to a field reduce plant uptake filtration, sanitation of human and kitchen
or a crop. https://ariescleanenergy. of metals, biochar wastes, and as a composting agent. All of
com/article-biochar-opportunities- use could mean the
knock-agricultural-research-may-open- difference between
tennessee-biochar-market/ being able to market
your products (or
Work by UT graduate student Nastaran not) when farmers find they have toxic
Basiri Jahromi has demonstrated that soils. https://ariescleanenergy.com/article-
hardwood biochar can replace part of the biochar-if-you-make-it-will-they-come/
growing media used to produce container Other applications
plants in Tennessee. Her work looked at
using up to 25 percent biochar in a pine- In a recent Biomass Magazine article,
bark growing medium to improve the editor Ron Kotrba writes that biochar,
water holding capacity and greatly reduce which has been used for millennia, is
irrigation needs. gaining significant market traction for
its versatility in dozens of applications
The results show that — for hydrangeas and its primary environmental benefit
grown in a greenhouse — 32 to 72 of sequestering carbon indefinitely. “In
percent less water was needed. https:// more technical terms,” describes the
ariescleanenergy.com/article-biochar- International Biochar Initiative, “biochar
opportunities-knock-agricultural- is produced by thermal decomposition of
research-may-open-tennessee-biochar- organic material (biomass such as wood,
market/ manure or leaves) under limited supply of
oxygen, and at relatively low temperatures
Kathleen Draper, U.S. Director, Ithaka (less than 700 degrees Celsius).
Institute for Carbon Intelligence, wrote
in a recent article that one of the original “This process mirrors the production
markets for biochar was agriculture. This of charcoal, which is perhaps the
still remains a large market, though the most ancient industrial technology
economics can be challenging in certain developed by humankind. Biochar can be
farming scenarios. distinguished from charcoal—used mainly
as a fuel—in that a primary application
The impact biochar has on soils and
different crops is inconsistent, as it tends
to have a greater yield-boosting impact
22 TPW May/June 2020
