Biochar on the Farm: What Is It? What Are Its Benefits? How to Use It

[@itsno1duh]

Love your set up and reasonable practices! perfection is the enemy of good enuff! Love the idea of those piggies having a sanitary learning pen too. Let's grow!

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Thanks and thanks for watching. I appreciate it.

[@1337farm]

Great video. I have hopes of doing this. I dug a cone shaped hole to make my charcoal in but have not had the chance to try it. Glad to see your process!

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Thanks, I plan to do some better videos and detailed instructions, but thought that I’d put this one out there.

[@jerrybates5766]

always enjoy your videos I'm getting on the bio char train for sure! do you have any videos on grooming pastures with a coulter type thing?

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

No I do not. What type of Grooming do you mean?

[@arthursmallz8723]

This is Great farming practice

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Thank you for watching! It’s rather time consuming but it is worth it!

[@arthursmallz8723]

@@DowdleFamilyFarms No very educational especially for in Africa Zambia going into farming. Need to do farm wisely and gaining knowledge

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Great deal. Thanks for watching.

[@joshuapersaud1659]

Great Video I love these help ideas, it helps some many others Please upload more itdeas like these please.

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

We are working on videos about different ways to improve soils on a smaller farm scale without expensive, heavy equipment so the principles can be put into place in a home yard, in a garden, or a farm. Thank you for watching!

[@cisco5400]

Great info, thx!

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Glad it was helpful!

[@boatwrightfarm]

Very interesting I need some of this 🤔

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

It can be time consuming, but it is really great in pig pens and other areas where there is a lot of manure that will eventually be composted. Thank you for watching.

[@charlescoker7752]

Some videos say to light from the bottom. And add wood as it starts showing ash. I have used a 55 gallon drum. Seems the wood at the bottom does not burn. If you add the wood on top to soon. I see you just fill up the burner, and light from the top.

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

An upright 55 gallon drum is good to use but it is also difficult because of the tall sides. If you have something more shallow, like a 55 gallon drum on its side or my old fuel tank burner, you can light from the top and let it burn down. Then when it is charcoal you can add more fuel as I do. It takes a bit of trial and error. However, once you figure out how your vessel burns you do not have to spend nearly as much time actively managing the fire.

[@charlescoker7752]

@@DowdleFamilyFarms Some say it needs to be ground to pea gravel size, an allow to soak in different fertilizers for no shorter than 2 weeks. I have watched 2 videos. They used a chipper shredder to grind up the charcoal.

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

The size of the charcoal depends on your application. In an ideal size it would be smaller than pea gravel. However, for putting in our pastures, pig pens, and other places it’s not a big deal for me. Our livestock eat much of mine which also eliminates any need for crushing. It is best to let the biochar charge or absorb nutrients before using it. Otherwise it can inhibit growth for a while. Again, in my applications the biochar is absorbing excess urine and manure from pigs.

[@sarahwelton4068]

How do you drain the quench water?

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

My plan is to weld a drain on the bottom that I can plug with a galvanized piece of pipe. However, for now all I do is pick it up and turn it over with the tractor.

[@gilshelley9183]

Where are your test results?

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

We have not had it tested yet.

[@paulblankenship7865]

The char will help heal and deworm your pigs too right?

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

The charcoal/biochar does help detoxify the animals. People say that it will deworm them, and it may help, but I dont think it is a complete way of deworming pigs. Thank you for watching!

[@jerrybates5766]

using a tool like wavy coulters nand mole plows to break up compacted pastures

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Yes, the problem with mold board plows is that they create a plow line at the cut that roost struggle to penetrate. I'm finding that warm season cover crops do an outstanding job of breaking up compaction and they do it cheaper, though it takes longer.

[@michaelripperger5674]

At :52 - what are peanut holes ?

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Sorry, peanut hulls. It's the shell of the peanut, similar to the shell of pecans that you crack open to get the nut inside. The automatic subtitles did not get my southern accent right! I have been correcting the subtitles my recent videos, but haven't gotten to some of these older ones yet.

[@FoodForestLiving]

Will u make a video about how to make it properly? To keep smoke down? Do u have a tamper?

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Thank you for watching! I plan to make a video in the next week or two about how to make biochar cleanly. I do not have a tamper.

[@noahapatoff1902]

Biochar is not a nutrient source. biochar is a very pure carbon that is in the shape of wood fibers and their fore is porous. Those pore spaces are hydrophilic, which means they hold onto moisture. And that is what promotes the growth of soil life.

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Indeed.

[@zanepaxton7452]

The real potential for Biochar is that it’s a “Condo for Microbes”. A handful of Biochar has the surface area of a football field which provides the habitat for beneficial microbes. Merely charging it with fertilizer is an extra step. Why do that when you can just add fertilizer directly? The highest benefit of Biochar is inoculation with beneficial bacteria, Protozoa, nematodes and mycorrhiza for ongoing soil health. Keep in mind that chemical fertilizers kill off the beneficial microbes. UC Davis did a lot of research to demonstrate that charging Biochar with chemical/mineral fertilizers didn’t beneficially increase crop yields at all (for that reason). The beneficial Protozoa and nematodes eat the bacteria and poop out superfood for plants. The mycorrhiza symbiotically extend plant roots to produce bigger and healthier plants, especially perennials. There are risks of inoculating Biochar in animal pens in manures is because of the potential of propagating anaerobic pathogens. Ideally, Biochar from animal pens should be hot-composted to at least 130F to kill off pathogens and weed seeds. Horse manure is famous for being loaded with weed seeds! But you should be commended for starting the soil remediation journey!

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Thanks for watching and commenting, I appreciate it! Agree with you on inoculation with chemical fertilizers. We do not, but we do add the biochar in our pig pens. Then we end up composting it periodically. It is amazing how well the compost turn out. Frankly, I’m not the best composter. Many other people are much better than me. I set up the piles periodically to make it easier and. Do not manage it as well as I could. However, for our purposes on the farm, it works out ok. Bio char works out ok on a small scale, but I have found our warm season cover crop mix to the most effective soil remediation tool on a large scale. It’s labor intensive to make enough compost and biochar to apply to dozens of acres!

[@zanepaxton7452]

@@DowdleFamilyFarms scaling it up is indeed the challenge! Cover crops would add good nitrogen and carbon. The interesting issue for raw Biochar is that if it isn’t inoculated then it’s basically absorbing nutrients out of the soil for the first year or two so it’s 2-3 years before you see benefits. There is a guy that creates large quantities of Biochar in pits and above ground trenches that “doesn’t bother” with inoculation because of the scale issue.

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Scaling up the inoculation is not a big deal for me because of the number of livestock on our farm. The biggest issue is the production. It takes several hours of pretty intense work to produce 200 gallons or so of biochar for me. If I had a pretty standard small size feed stock like trimmings from saw logs, it could be simplified, but its still a good bit of time consuming work. That’s why I tend to make it periodically. Kim Wilson (i think this is who said it) said it takes them about 8 people about a day to prep the material from forestry debri for theirs, which is about what I find in my preparations as well.

[@michaelripperger5674]

Is that an old propane tank that you cut the top off ?

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

It’s a diesel fuel tank used on farms. Propane tanks should work but they are often too small.

[@briankubik5041]

Should use a manure tea...

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Manure teas work well, but its a lot easier and requires less labor to put in in the pig pen and let them inoculate it directly. Then it goes into the compost.

[@briankubik5041]

@@DowdleFamilyFarms yes when you put out the fire instead of just plant water put the tea to it swamp water tea. Cheapest tea you can make. We add charcoal to our chicken coop, getting pigs this next spring and will be using charcoal for sure just thought if you wanted straight feed to the charcoal soak up that tea we use it in our teas to keep that smell down best we can.

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Ill give that a try. Thanks.

[@supplies4reptiles228]

where do you get your info ,you need to read upon the differences of the two seriously false information.

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

What are you claiming is false information?