Kitchen Garden Forum

I have to agree with Johnboy's scepticism. From what I've read I'm sure that biochar is an effective soil additive, but then so are charcoal, seaweed, leaf mould, animal manure and composted waste which I regularly add to my garden. I don't really need anything else.

The cynic in me says that Oxford University have probably manged to get funding for this on the basis that they will involve the gardening 'community' and then there's the trump card: helping to combat climate change.

As Johnboy commented re pH, wiki says

Biochar can be used as a soil amendment to improve yield, but only for plants that require high potash and elevated pH,

It would therefore seem to be sensible that the experiment specify which seeds are planted, or even supply them. As it is, if people plant whatever they happens to come to hand, unless they get a large number of participants the results will be inconclusive at best and possibly even misleading.

Like others, I do feel that there is a certain bandwagon effect going on here. And as a sort of aside see
http://thegwpf.org/the-observatory/4299-a-new-lower-estimate-of-climate-sensitivity.html

Colin

I followed the gwpf link and was quite disappointed.

They say


"The Global Warming Policy Foundation is unique. We are an all-party and non-party think tank and a registered educational charity which, while open-minded on the contested science of global warming .........."


However The only links they have in their sidebar are

IPCC --- Click here to view flaws in the process
and
False Alarms --- Click here for a list of false alarms and erroneous predictions


There are no references to any of the pro climate change studies and discussions so this is not a particularly open-minded organisation.


edited to correct italic

Sorry Mika if you are disappointed. Try reading the actual link. Yes - the GWF is obviously not pro-warming - or rather it is not pro CO2 warming in the way that the BBC and others are. I always think it is worth looking at the science rather than just believing - and that is rather more complicated than the likes of Hansen would have us believe. If you think that we can actually measure the global temperature to anywhere near the sort of accuracy that is claimed..

But we are going off-topic.. apologies to moderators.

You can buy some with 70% off the price through NSALG offer here
http://www.takesumi.co.uk/Home.html

There are some great links in thread which a kind member has pointed me towards from my first post on burying carbon and our findings.

We have been using this method for several years now with very good results, the other ingredients we used was our own composts, which should last without much else for a decade or so. We use a closed first of ground up charcoal between each plant or seed potatoe, every second year, the carbon also helps to retain water being h-scopic, our soils is very fine dark river silt and it helps reduce watering.

We collect the unburnt embers from the stove each morning and grind them up into fine granules and leave any par burnt wood in there too, the finer the better for the best results. If we are having a sizable bonfire, we can collect usable carbon by covering the fire in a pit like the ancients, starving it of oxygen and doing a regulated burn.

We also use many carbon neutral sorces from old dead standing elms that still litter our area and have made many tools from wind blown timbers every year, as the years go by the savings soon mount up.