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Biochar

Biochar 002

Biochar

This Biochar product is produced in New Zealand from pine residues. It is a great soil amendment… it’s not a fertiliser but has a massive impact on the soils ability to hold nutrient and water and helps to promote stock health.

What is Biochar?

Here is a definition found on Wikipedia:
Biochar is charcoal used as a soil amendment. Like most charcoal, biochar is made from biomass via pyrolysis. Biochar is under investigation as an approach to carbon sequestration to produce negative carbon dioxide emissions. Biochar thus has the potential to help mitigate climate change via carbon sequestration. Independently, biochar can increase soil fertility of acidic soils (low pH soils), increase agricultural productivity, and provide protection against some foliar and soil-borne diseases. Furthermore, biochar reduces pressure on forests. Biochar is a stable solid, rich in carbon, and can endure in soil for thousands of years.
Click here for a more detailed explantaion.

How is our Biochar made?

The feed stock is plantation Pine and Douglas Fir; the Fir is only about 10%. It is mainly wood waste with a bit of bark residue, hence the presence of clunker.

The boilers run at 700 degrees. The biomass is heated in the chamber and the gases are burnt and the particles flare; and once it exits the combustion chamber it is quenched and creates the char. There are two boilers one produces a higher carbon content than the other.

Biochar is great for vege gardens (spread one heaped handful per m2). This Biochar has not been activated/inoculated so best not to spread too much at any one time. Biochar has a liming effect on soil so good for sweetening acid soil and breaking down heavy clays. Biochar can be used as a mulch, mixed with compost, worked into the soil or spread on paddocks.

Biochar is available in 40 litre bags.

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