Lately, I’ve become impassioned with high-performance agriculture as an alternative to more harmful agricultural practices such as genetic engineeringand chemical-dependent conventional farming.
High-performance agriculture also presents us with poran excellent route to renewing and restoring our environment as a whole, as well as combating desertification, or the turning of lands into desert. I am particularly excited about the use of biochar as a tool to improve soil health.
What Is Biochar?
Producing biochar involves slowly heating biomass (wood and other plant materials) in a low-oxygen environment, such as a kiln. This type of charcoal can do a number of things:
- Help return much of the depleted carbon to the soil
- Improve overall soil quality
- Raise soil’s water retention ability
- It may also help “filter” toxic chemicals in the soil, much like carbon-based water filtration systems can filter toxins out of your water
When put back into the soil, biochar can stabilize the carbon in the soil, in the form of charcoal, for hundreds or even thousands of years. It serves as a type of ‘coral reef’ of the land, where it’s porous and massive surface area provides a great benefit to soil microorganisms
The introduction of biochar into soil is not like applying fertilizer; it is the beginning of a process. Most of the benefit is achieved through microbes and fungi. They colonize its massive surface area and integrate into the char and the surrounding soil, dramatically increasing the soil’s ability to nurture plant growth.
