Biochar Trial 2 - Design [Draft]

Empty Planting Trays on Rack

Fine Wet Processed Charcoal Settling in Flask

Bamboo Feedstock

Softwood Chip Feedstock

Charcoal Production in Woodgas Stoves

Charcoal Grades

Char Measurement

Amended Pots Prior to Mixing

Pots Mixed and Seeds Sown

 First Watering: 8/11/08

Growth After 9 Days

Wheat and Peas Seperated to Avoid Shading

Some design features below:
Exploring interaction effects of feedstock type, soil, char application
rate, crop species, char size, fertilization, and mycorrhizal fungi.
No repetition (n=1), this loses the ability to assign a statistical
significance level to results, but allows more interactions (96 unique
combinations, 96 pots) to be tried given limited resources.

Charcoal produced in WoodGas stoves.
Char yield 12-18% (char mass/air dry biomass mass) (ie not adjusted to conventional dry weight yield unit, yet).
Fine Char - Blended and sieved to 230 mesh (<63 micron).
Coarse Char - Blended and sieved to between ~24 mesh - 8 mesh.
Fertilizer - 4-4-4 NPK Organic (bone meal, feather meal...)
Potting Soil - Potting Mix
Sandy Soil - Mixture of Horticultural Sand and Sandy Loam from Central Valley

Pots arranged in random spatial order (to randomize light/watering variation). Trays rotated to limit effects of light/watering variation.
Automatic drip emitter watering. Pots grown in enclosed cage outdoors.

Blocks - ( 8 pots/block)
    Fertilizer {Yes,No}
    Plant {Wheat, Pea}
    Soil {Sandy, Potting}

Blocks - (12 blocks * 8 pots/block = 96 pots)
    B1 -    Char (0 g)
    B2 -    Char (1 g, Pine, Fine)
    B3 -    Char (1 g, Pine, Coarse)
    B4 -    Char (1 g, Bamboo, Fine)
    B5 -    Char (1 g, Bamboo, Coarse)
    B6 -    Char (5 g, Pine, Fine)
    B7 -    Char (5 g, Pine, Coarse)
    B8 -    Char (5 g, Bamboo, Fine)
    B9 -    Char (5 g, Bamboo, Coarse)
    B10 -   Char (0 g) + Mycorrhizae
    B11 -   Char (5 g, Pine, Coarse) + Mycorrhizae
    B12 -   Char (10 g, Pine, Coarse)