Haard

Charcoal, Agriculture and Climate Change
Richard Haard, Ph. D, Fourth Corner Nursery, Spring Catalog, March 10, 2008

Here is a global issue – our atmospheric carbon cloud. This emerging method for mitigating carbon emissions by burying charcoal needs advocates in order bring sequestration into play along with reductions of carbon emissions. It will take work on all fronts to reduce the carbon in our atmosphere including this rediscovery of
Amerindian agriculture – Terra Preta

Let us first consider the difficulty of conducting farming in the humid tropics of Asia, Africa and South America. In this environment it is very difficult to maintain productive fertility of a farming tract for any length of time because of rapid decomposition rates of organic matter. These Oxisols (a soil classification) are naturally low in calcium and potassium while phosphorus is tied up in a complex with Aluminum mostly unavailable to plants.

Without continuously adding manure, com¬post or chemical supplements this soil type becomes non-productive in 2-3 years and must be turned back to revert to forest for 10 to 20 years before farming can be supported again. Even with this nutritional support 10 years would be a maximum cropping cycle before an extended fallow period.
After recovery of the land the farmer then slashes and burns the accumulated vegetation and repeats this cycle. Hence the term Slash and Burn (Swidden) agriculture. Now prominent scientists are advocating a replacement with a new kind of agriculture - Slash and Char. A growing system that also has advantages in the temperate zone.

See attached file.

See other contributions by Richard Haard

Charcoal in agriculture: Numerical Data
Rich Haard, Propagation Manager, Fourth Corner Nurseries, Bellingham, Washington, January 11, 2008

This is addendum to my earlier report of

Charcoal in agriculture: Experimental research at Fourth Corner Nurseries Richard Haard, Fourth Corner Nurseries, Bellingham, Washington, January 3, 2008

posted recently at
http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/haard4cncharcoalreportjan07

I have been looking at the data sets of the soil analysis we conducted on the plots on June 25, 2007 and October 30, 2007. The first soil samples were taken about a month after project setup and planting and the last was at the end of the growing season. I sampled with a hand held soil coring device, and took samples uniformly in each 17 foot long test bed. They were dried and screened to remove lumps and pieces of wood/charcoal etc.

We sent the samples to the soil lab and had a standard soil test run with for organic matter, major, minor and trace elements, Cation exchange capacity (CEC) and associated base exchange percentages for K, Mg and Ca.

There were a few anomolies in the data set that should not be surprising as there is no reason to expect a 500 long by 4 foot wide section of a farm field be uniform in analysis. In addition, without doubt there is sampling error. One of the control samples read abnormally high the first reading and then fell into the same pattern as the other control plot. This is the reason why control ranking is skewed in the data set. Otherwise the data is remarkably consistent and I feel I have learned something about using compost and charcoal.

I obtained a program to plot on an x,y and z axis any three items for each treatment plot. I chose to look at Organic matter, CEC and Phosphorus. It gave me a cute 3D image that ranked the data sets on all three parameters at once.

Item by item there were changes from June to October. In all of the plots soil Phosphorus ranged from 5 to 8 (PPM) in the spring and from
7 to 12 in the fall. Organic matter also increased from 3.4 to 6.5 (% ) spring and 4.1 to 7.5 in fall. the CEC also changed 10.8 to 15.3 (MEQ/100g), spring and 9.3 to 13 in fall.

The rankings shown by this program indicate synergistic effect of compost and charcoal. Charcoal1 tended to score higher as is expected since it is a fine powder.

(Cm= compost, F=Fertilizer,C1= John's Charcoal, C2=Larry's Charcoal,C=
Control)

If we take all 4 readings (duplicate sets taken twice) as averages, the 3 way comparison, (of OM, P and CEC) , sorted things out this way

Cm+C1 > Cm+F+C1 > Cm+C2 > Cm+F+C2 > C > Cm+F > F+C1 > Cm > C1 > F > C2
> F+C2

Relative rankings 1 to 24 were averaged showing this spread

22, 22,16.5,15.5,13.5,12.5,12,11.25,10.5,8.5,7,6

This indicates to me there is a synergism between the compost and charcoal.

I'm looking forward to more data next season from the same plots

Best Wishes

Rich Haard, Propagation Manager, Fourth Corner Nurseries, Bellingham, Washington

Charcoal in agriculture: Experimental research at Fourth Corner Nurseries
Richard Haard, Fourth Corner Nurseries, Bellingham, Washington, January 3, 2008

Greetings

I just finished over the last few days organizing images and data from my charcoal experimental plots. I am presenting a new set of posters showing root systems of the native shrub, Lonicera involucrata or black twinberry that I used as an experimental subject in these treatment plots this summer.

This will be the last of a series of piecemeal postings about my findings on the terrapreta reading list. In time, I will prepare a summary of what I have accomplished this year, the shortcomings, what I feel I have learned from this work about using charcoal and my plans for continuing this experiment for 2 or more growing seasons.

Quick background - my employer, Fourth Corner Nurseries is a bare root native plant nursery. We grow more than 350 kinds of plants for environmental restoration and landscaping purposes. Our farm is 60 acres in 2 fields. Shown here is our east field. Formerly, I have been trying charcoal as a soil additive for several years and this season I attempted a controlled experiment. It did not go without a hitch.

What I established this year was a series of 28 - 17 foot long treatment blocks that are a pair of treatment sets consisting of untreated soil, charcoal only, fertilizer only compost only and combinations of charcoal, compost, fertilizer. In each treatment block 3 kinds of plants were installed: a native shrub, Lonicera; a native perennial - Aster subspicatus; and a vegetable - swiss Chard.
All were selected for their heavy nitrogen consumers and all production was removed from the plots, roots and tops, then the plots replanted and cropped again without further fertilizer, compost or charcoal.

The most detailed measurements accomplished this year is 2 sets of soil chemical analysis completed at a University laboratory. Plant response measurements this year, for several reasons was only visual observation. This set of posters I am presenting today shows subtle but interesting and positive additive effects of compost and charcoal.
Further analysis will be presented at a later date.

How it went. Early April while the plants were still dormant I took 2 year old bareroot Lonicera seedlings trimmed tops and roots and planted in peat/perlite mix in 4X4 inch containers. At these same time I planted
sprigs of Aster in the same manor. After the plants had firmly rooted into the containers and our field soil had warmed, I prepared a growing bed in our normal propagation field ( Field 13, row 8). The growing bed is about 4
feet wide and 500 feet long. I divided this into 17 foot beds with separate treatments in a systematic way. Here is charcoal 1, a fine powder that was donated by JF Waste energy systems. Here is charcoal 2 a lump and powder mix that
Larry Williams and I made with a top draft earth covered mound. I am using the lump charcoal because I can observe microbe utilization over time as Larry has been studying for several years.

Here are the charcoal test beds are they appeared before rototilling. In this image furthest is compost only, then compost/charcoal1,then compost/charcoal2,then compost/charcoal 1/fertilizer and so on in a systematic pattern repeating again in a second duplicate set on the north end of the field. In discussing these tests I sometimes discuss each set separately, are are called south set and north set.

Here are the plots immediately after rototilling. Note that the charcoal does not appear to be uniformly dispersed. After harvest with the
lifter-shaker charcoal is better mixed in the soil. Each bed received about 30 gallons of charcoal. Fertilizer and Compost were applied at rates normal for our farming practices.

We planted the plots in mid May and by late June they looked like this and this and this .

By the end of August the Swiss
Chard had matured and we had our first harvest. Yields were impressive but no trends specific to treatments were noticed.

Here you can see our plot method for measuring yields of swiss chard and also how the separate treatments, Lonicera, Aster and swiss chard have grown together making assessment of total production rather difficult.
In late October I conducted a survey of the Lonicera component of the research plots. It was the end of the growing season but before the frost defoliated the plants.

Here is how the plots looked. My first look at the data that showed a subtle but encouraging trend of improvement from the use of charcoal 1.

In this set of images notice that the treatments with compost when combined with charcoal tended to be larger.
The same trend is also noticed in the compost/fertilizer/charcoal combinations. By mid November we were ready
to lift all the plant material from the plots, examine the roots and fall replant with a single species crop for next year. Here we have our lifter shaker harvesting the plants, Lonicera with charcoal staining roots and Rena picking up the plants. Later we replanted with our 4
row seeder and reseeding with another native shrub species, Oemleria cerasiformis, chosen because it too is an agressive nitrogen consumer.

Finally the posters I have prepared to compare top growth and root growth in each of the treatment sets. I have organized the images according to groups of treatments as follows: The links are to the larger size images for better viewing. Edit note root images were created 11/15 not 10/25

First Groups 1 and 2 the control sets that received no treatment or had charcoal only
Roots
Field View

Next Groups 3 and 4 fertilizer sets Edit Roots is labeled as Groups 1 and 2
Roots
Field
View

Next Group 5 South end plots compost set
Roots
Field
View

Next Group 6 North end plots compost set
Roots
Field
View

I think these findings will be encouraging information for John Flotvik and many thanks for his donation of charcoal from his pyrolyser and thanks again to Larry Williams , his thoughtful work and helping when it is most needed.

I am looking forward to another season of data from this set of test plots. Comments, ideas, criticism, discussion whatever are appreciated as I am now preparing my season end report.

Richard Haard, Fourth Corner Nurseries, Bellingham,Washington.

Copyright January 3, 2008
Permission for distribution of these materials and images is granted for entire text and images only so long as the author and initial place of publication;"http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/" is
cited. Individual images may be used by permission only from author.

CEC and % base saturation
Richard Haard, Jim Joyner, December 13, 2007

Greetings As an extension of my conversation with Jim I am forwarding this farm in-house conversation on % Base saturation. Noteworthy is a interesting trend of higher Mg % saturation where I treated with charcoal powder 4 growing seasons ago. The following information from this Clemson University Soil scientist is a good way to get a working understanding of CEC and base exchange and how we might use it to manage soil nutrition here.

WHAT IS THE USE FOR THE CATION EXCHANGE CAPACITY (CEC)AND THE PERCENT BASE SATURATION ON THE SOIL TEST REPORTS?

It is interesting also as an indicator of functional activity of charcoal in soil higher CEC did not show up in our block tests this year. The literature however indicates there is a weathering process and combination with soil organic matter < in the tropics> that brings on this activity. Also Cornell researcher Janet Thies showed continued rinsing and incubation improve CEC of charcoal in soils.
In our soils we are extremely low in the clay component. Across the farm, both the charcoal research plots our CEC is running about 10 to 13 MEQ cation/100g soil. This for a sandy soil is actually not bad as it is probably influenced by our organic matter content which is running 4 to 6 % In the west field where we currently have very high pH (7.1) and soil calcium (21-2700ppm) the CEC is about the same but the % of base saturation for calcium is the highest on the farm , (almost 90%).
The base saturation is the faction of the CEC that is occupied by basic cations. For us we need to look at magnesium availability in our soil. If we look at magnesium levels in our soil and % base saturation we can see that many of our readings are troubling. All fields tested are running 88 to 100 to 100ppm with several exception discussed later. These are classified by the lab as 'medium' . Converting this to pounds per acre/7 " depth we multiply ppm X 2 gives us levels of 176 to 200 lbs. of magnesium per acre. (not bad).
Looking at the % base saturation however we see that our levels of available Mg is at or below the minimum desired. Although background levels of Magnesium are adequate we need to determine if we are having magnesium deficiency in the fields
In the fields tested Mg % saturation at E 13/5,6 are quite low ( 6.0,5.7), W 6/6 is low at( 7.4,7.0) and our 2007 charcoal treatment sets is also low but showing an interesting trend of improvement over the season. Not all of our fields are low however. Interesting is that where the % saturation of magnesium is high the % saturation of calcium is low and visa versa. The trend does not seem to correlate with pH either.
In any case fields E1,2,and 3 have good readings for Mg % saturation (73%) and does E 11/7-11. (31-33%) The latter which has been suspect for nutritional problems (not magnesium). (Note that field 1 has charcoal from an old burn pile on the north end and field 2 had a 4' strip of charcoal powder applied 4 years ago whose exact location is unknown at the moment. )
Most interesting of all are analysis of sections of field 4 that I applied a tote of John's charcoal powder 4 years ago. This is the highest Mg % saturation measured (90.8%) and may be the result of this charcoal treatment. The controlled block study should answer this question over then next few seasons. Equally interesting is the lowest Ca % saturation occurs when the Mg % is highest. This must be competition for sites on the soil colloids.
Comments and questions are welcome
Rich H, 4CN, Bellingham, Wa

Biochar Trials at Fourth Corner Nursery
Richard Haard, Fourth Corner Nursery, Bellingham, WA, December 6, 2007
Hello All - For your interest

I submitted to Tom for posting [attached] some initial soil analysis data from my charcoal block study. In am just beginning to compile a report on this work. When it is posted you will see soil analysis results averaged for each replication(2) for 2 dates , April and October. Listed are pH, Buffer pH, OM, Nitrate, Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC) and base exchange components, % Potassium, % Magnesium, % Calcium. Other soil analysis was taken but not presented here.

Keep in mind this is a 2 to 3 year study and no additional additions or treatments will be done other than continuous cropping and harvest of all growth, tops and roots, at our bare-root native plant nursery. It is my attempt to emulate Christoph Steiner, et al research in Manaus

Long term Effects of manure, charcoal and mineral fertilization on crop production and fertility on a highly weathered Central Amazonian upland soil

http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/node/442

Our test was compost, charcoal (two sources) mineral fertilization and control and permutations as was done in experiment above. We're in the moist mild climate of the Pacific NW, USA on a sandy loam soil. It naturally carries very high levels of potassium and calcium found also in unfarmed soil.

I have never tried this kind of intensive soil testing before and am still learning about season to season changes and how to interpet the data. I am working now on photosets taken at harvest time and these will be posted as well as a concise statement on the experiment terms and what I think the results represent.

Rich Haard -
And thanks to Larry Williams for his work with me on this project and his critical comments.

Growing plants with charcoal
Richard Haard, Fourth Corner Nurseries, Bellingham, WA, June 27, 2007

Select image to enlarge
This is an image of our charcoal as soil additive study at our nursery. Shown is one of our test subjects a local native shrub that we propagate and sell for riparian restoration projects. Black Twinberry, Lonicera involucrata. This plant was a 2 year old seedling, bareroot harvested and stems clipped to 6 inches before planting in the test bed 7 weeks ago.

Azotobacter Question and Answer June 2007
Richard Haard, Four Courner Nursery, Bellingham, Washington, June 11, 2007

Question by Sean Barry:
RH ". . .Learning about potential for enrichment culture of Azotobacter and trying to measure available nitrogen in this situation."

Here you mention promoting the growth of nitrogen fixing Azotobacter. I have always been interested in the possibility of inoculating charcoal with mycorrhizal fungi.

Charcoal Experimental Plots
Rich Haard and Larry Williams at Fourth Corner Nurseries, Bellingham, Washington, May 6, 2007

Making charcoal at 4CN for our experimental study.
Richard Haard, Larry Williams, Fourth Corner Nursery (4CN), Bellingham, WA April 13, 2007

Charcoal Making
Rich Haard, Fourth Corner Nursery, Bellingham , Washington, March 31, 2007

Terrapreta interest group

Here is a set of images about our charcoal making project this weekend. It is a smothered pit method, first time for myself . We did open the lower end of the pit after 5 hours and take out about 40 gallons , then we put the unburned wood back in and recovered. We will be looking at it again in about 18 hours.