Tomatoville® Gardening Forums - View Single Post - Biochar enhances yield and quality of tomato under reduced irriga

Cole_Robbie · February 23, 2015

It's just charcoal. My family has always spread our wood stove ashes on the garden, which would usually have bits of charcoal-looking burnt wood in it.

http://permaculturenews.org/2010/11/...ar-initiative/
A report published in 2007 presented results on crop yields over four seasons [35]. Researchers at the University of Bayreuth in Germany, and EMBRAPA Amazonia Occidental Manaus in Brazil carried out a field trial near Manaus on cleared secondary forest with 15 different amendment combinations of chicken manure (CM), compost (CO), forest litter, chemical fertilizer (F), and charcoal (CC) applied once on rice and sorghum, and followed over four cropping cycles (see Fig. 2).
Chicken manure gave by far the highest yield over the four cycles (12.4 tonne/ha). Compost application came second at about half the yield, but was still four times higher than chemical fertilizer. The control, leaf litter (burnt and fresh), and charcoal treatments gave no grain yields after the second season, and were discontinued.

In combination with compost, charcoal amendment decreased yield by about 40 percent compared to compost alone, and only improved yield in combination with chemical fertilizer. The charcoal was derived from secondary forest wood bought from a local distributor, and applied at the rate of 11 tonne/ha. This corresponded to the amount of charcoal C that could be produced by a single slash-and-char event in a typical secondary forest on the dry iron-rich soil of central Amazonia.
The highest yields for all treatments were obtained at the first harvest, and except for chicken manure, yields declined rather sharply by the second harvest.
A second fertilization with chemicals was applied after the second harvest to all remaining treatments, but that did not improve the yields.

Plants fertilized with chicken manure had the highest nutrient contents followed by plants that received compost and/or chemical fertilizer. Chicken manure significantly improved the K and P nutrition compared to all other treatments, while charcoal applications did not show a significant effect on nutrient levels. Most importantly, surface soil pH, phosphorus, calcium and magnesium were significantly enhanced by chicken manure. Plots fertilized by chicken manure had pH higher than 5.5 and increased cation exchange capacity.

February 23, 2015	#4
Cole_Robbie Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2012 Location: Illinois, zone 6 Posts: 8,407	It's just charcoal. My family has always spread our wood stove ashes on the garden, which would usually have bits of charcoal-looking burnt wood in it. http://permaculturenews.org/2010/11/...ar-initiative/ A report published in 2007 presented results on crop yields over four seasons [35]. Researchers at the University of Bayreuth in Germany, and EMBRAPA Amazonia Occidental Manaus in Brazil carried out a field trial near Manaus on cleared secondary forest with 15 different amendment combinations of chicken manure (CM), compost (CO), forest litter, chemical fertilizer (F), and charcoal (CC) applied once on rice and sorghum, and followed over four cropping cycles (see Fig. 2). Chicken manure gave by far the highest yield over the four cycles (12.4 tonne/ha). Compost application came second at about half the yield, but was still four times higher than chemical fertilizer. The control, leaf litter (burnt and fresh), and charcoal treatments gave no grain yields after the second season, and were discontinued. In combination with compost, charcoal amendment decreased yield by about 40 percent compared to compost alone, and only improved yield in combination with chemical fertilizer. The charcoal was derived from secondary forest wood bought from a local distributor, and applied at the rate of 11 tonne/ha. This corresponded to the amount of charcoal C that could be produced by a single slash-and-char event in a typical secondary forest on the dry iron-rich soil of central Amazonia. The highest yields for all treatments were obtained at the first harvest, and except for chicken manure, yields declined rather sharply by the second harvest. A second fertilization with chemicals was applied after the second harvest to all remaining treatments, but that did not improve the yields. Plants fertilized with chicken manure had the highest nutrient contents followed by plants that received compost and/or chemical fertilizer. Chicken manure significantly improved the K and P nutrition compared to all other treatments, while charcoal applications did not show a significant effect on nutrient levels. Most importantly, surface soil pH, phosphorus, calcium and magnesium were significantly enhanced by chicken manure. Plots fertilized by chicken manure had pH higher than 5.5 and increased cation exchange capacity.