Biochar Compost 2021

[indaswamp]

Friend is center director for a college research farm and they just got one of these they haven't used it yet waiting on more equipment to go along with it to arrive.
CharBoss
Should be interesting to see when they get it up and running

First thing I notice is the size of the wood chunks. wood no larger than 3"dia. is critical for good biochar. Wood acts as an insulator, so the temps. don't get as hot in the center of a larger diameter chunk of wood until the outside burns down, wasting wood that could otherwise be made into char. I am not familiar with how that unit works, but for a retort, all the wood should be of uniform size to ensure uniform burn to char, so all the tar resins, (or most of it) is burned off. It looks cool though, and might be a great unit for it's intended purpose of clean-up of forest litter and transforming it into char.

 

[indaswamp]

Might sound crazy, but I mix in 3# bone meal, 1/2 tsp. borax, 1/4 cup Epsom salt, 1/8tsp copper sulfate, along with 4 gallons of urine. Mix that up good, then I layer it in the compost. The urine brings potassium and nitrogen that the microbes use to clear out the tars and resins from the pores of the char, creating organic compounds that bond with the surface of the char. That's in one wheel barrel full of char....

 

[indaswamp]

When Biochar breaks down into small dust particles of 10,000-1,000 atoms, it mimics humus in the soil and can last for 1000 years in the soil....So the smallest fraction of the biochar is the most critical and important.