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Post by MikeH on Sept 12, 2014 10:50:14 GMT -5
I have a burn barrel that I use to get rid of scrap ends of PT wood. I decided to burn some of the remains of raised beds and noticed that the barrel seemed to be filling up even though the flame wasn't roaring. When the scraps were gone, I decided to hose the barrel. When the hissing stopped, I turned it out on the driveway. I had about a half barrel of charcoal and a few bits of unburned wood. I've done a burn since and got the same results. Up to this point, I've not gotten too far into biochar because of knowing where to start. There are just too many how-to experts - www.youtube.com/results?search_sort=video_view_count&search_query=biochar. Given how well my two burns went, I guess I don't need to get youtube fancy. |
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Post by littleminnie on Sept 12, 2014 21:13:58 GMT -5
Can I do it in situ? What crop would benefit the most? I was thinking of my next year's everbearing berries.
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Post by paquebot on Sept 17, 2014 22:13:50 GMT -5
Can I do it in situ? What crop would benefit the most? I was thinking of my next year's everbearing berries. No! Done in a burning barrel and then rinsed washes out the ashes, which are highly alkaline. and leaves only unburned carbon. In situ would have that alkalinity being absorbed by the soil. You'd then have to work your tail off to bring the pH back down to where plants can survive. Martin |
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Post by steev on Sept 17, 2014 23:55:54 GMT -5
Depends on the general pH of your soil; there's a reason why farmers lime their fields. While a burn pile might temporarily over-alkalize a small area, that alkaline ash is highly leachable, though beneficial in the short run, if spread around, through raking and tilling, just as you'd want to do with the biochar.
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Post by paquebot on Sept 18, 2014 23:01:31 GMT -5
Farmers who add lime to their fields have taken soil tests and know what is needed. I am surrounded by some of the most productive farmland in this state. The last confirmed spreading of lime which I saw was Christmas Eve 1949. (I was riding with a cousin and we got stuck in a snowdrift!) No lime needed here in soil which already is slightly alkaline.
Martin
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Sept 18, 2014 23:25:21 GMT -5
No liming for me either, because my soil is derived from limestone!
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Post by flowerweaver on Sept 19, 2014 5:16:00 GMT -5
Same here! Joseph Lofthouse I know you don't like to use outside inputs--do you do anything at all to lower the pH of your soil? Or in working with landraces are you developing plants more tolerant of the alkalinity? |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Sept 19, 2014 10:53:57 GMT -5
flowerweaver: On my farm I don't use outside inputs other than gasoline for the tractor/mower and meat/food for the farmer. My mother had one tree that was constantly chlorotic... The pH was way too high around the tree. I tried everything I could get my hands on to change the pH of the soil. Eventually the tree died. I have likewise tried with the replacement tree. I succeeded temporarily for a few weeks. The tree sent up a multitude of new shoots, consumed all available nutrients and ended up worse off than before. I make sure that no organic matter leaves my garden unless I am paid a fair price for it. People are constantly trying to get free cornstalks. I don't allow my garden to be depleted in that fashion. If they want corn stalks they are going to be pricey, because they represent next year's fertility. Part of the reason that I love landraces is because they can deal with the soil exactly how it is. I can't afford the chemicals, and their effect is at best temporary.
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Post by steev on Sept 19, 2014 11:08:20 GMT -5
Having worked for Chevron Ortho, Home and Garden, I think too many of those chemicals aren't temporary enough.
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Post by littleminnie on Sept 19, 2014 21:35:34 GMT -5
Well that sucks. I have alkaline soil. I just bought 50 lbs of sulfur on Tuesday. I am getting ready to send in my soil test soon, but it will still be over 7 I am sure. I had no idea the biochar would sweeten the soil.
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Post by reed on Sept 22, 2014 5:48:54 GMT -5
I have never heard of biochar before, sounds interesting. Sometimes I burn brush and leaves in the garden to try to slow down the leaf diseases my tomatoes always get. I always let it burn to fine ash so there isn't little chunks of charcoal left. Is that backwards? Should I instead leave them there, maybe even spread them out and bury them with compost or dirt while they are still burning?
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Post by reed on Sept 22, 2014 6:09:56 GMT -5
flowerweaver: On my farm I don't use outside inputs other than gasoline for the tractor/mower and meat/food for the farmer. Do you not even use any kind of (organic) insecticides? I'v always tried to do that but sometimes cabbage worms just get so bad I have considered using that Bt stuff. Also five or six years ago those Brown Stink bugs showed up from Asia or Europe or who knows where and they completely destroy all the squashes. It happens so fast and there are so many of them I can't pick them off. This year I had one squash plant they didn't bother quite as much so it made good seeds before they killed it. I'll plant those seeds but still. |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Sept 22, 2014 8:47:02 GMT -5
I don't apply any kind of -cides to my garden neither naturally derived nor synthetic. I used to use diatomaceous earth and BT on the cabbage. I stopped using the diatomaceous earth because of the health hazard due to inhaling the dust. BT became too expensive for me and I began to rethink my relationship to industrialized-agriculture. I prefer to use DNA to deal with pests. For example, in my garden cabbage moths are a non-resident species that migrates north on monsoonal weather patterns, so I can grow perfectly bug free cabbage if I plant a variety that matures early in the season before the start of monsoonal weather. I can also grow later maturing cultivars that have a tightly fitting leaf structure, so that the bugs can eat the outer leaves without getting inside the head. Then I just peel the head until the bug damage is gone.
I am totally enamored with survival-of-the-fittest gardening. If the Brown Stinkbug shows up in my garden it may eat 99% of the squash, but some variety of some species will likely survive long enough to produce a few seeds. The survivors will become the parents of a Brown Stinkbug resistant strain of squash. This approach requires genetic diversity among the squash. I'm currently growing 5 species of squash. There is a tremendous amount of diversity within each species.
My garden is an ecosystem. There are always lots of predators around to eat pests, so it's hard for any particular bug to reproduce extravagantly. I "cultivate" parasitic wasps by providing food and nesting sites.
This year I am working on developing a skunk resistant strain of sweet corn. I could have trapped or shot the skunks that ate my sweet corn this year, but I decided to take my typical approach of using DNA. The skunks completely devoured 2 patches of sweet corn, but one patch had about a 15% survival rate. I am intending to repeat the skunk-resistant selection process again next year. If I pay proper attention I might be able to detassel some of the non-resistant plants before they shed pollen.
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Post by flowerweaver on Sept 22, 2014 8:47:32 GMT -5
reed I'm not the most experienced with biochar, but from what I've read the benefit of adding charcoal (as opposed to ash) is that the chunks are very porous and help the soil retain moisture and air pockets encouraging root growth, which is helpful if you live in an arid climate like I do, but maybe not helpful if you are growing in a water-retentive soil like clay. littleminnie doesn't 'sweetening the soil' mean to raise the alkalinity (as in liming a field)? Here we are so alkaline we do add the elemental sulfur to try to bring down the pH, and we have also experimented with hand drenching around mature plants with a greatly weakened vinegar solution, which seemed to really help. Now if we can only figure out how to add an in-line device that can do this for us... We add biochar to make the poor soil more water retentive, and unfortunately a bit of ash comes with that. For fields that need even lower pH we add copious amounts of used coffee grounds we pick up weekly over the year from large city coffee shops. I am able to get 3-5 five gallon buckets worth each time I go to town. The coffee grounds also attract my honeybees--I wonder if my honey is caffeinated! Joseph Lofthouse other than the used coffee grounds we mostly amend our fields with donkey and chicken manure from our own animals. We do have to bring in outside hay, but we buy from a reputable dealer and have had no trouble so far. I do know of one local who got some horse manure that ruined his garden for several years because the horse had consumed hay that had been over-sprayed with weedkiller.
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Post by littleminnie on Sept 22, 2014 12:46:11 GMT -5
Yes I said it would suck for my soil to be furthered sweetened by biochar
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