The Biochar Journal: Kon-Tiki – the democratization of biochar production By Hans-Peter Schmidt and Paul Taylor A simple but ingenious invention finally allows each farmer and gardener, everywhere in the world, to produce for themselves a sufficient quantity of high quality biochar. With reasonable investment and some know-how of the charmaker’s craft, farmers can produce in one afternoon a cubic meter of high quality biochar. This democratization of biochar production will be a key strategy to closing the agricultural production loop for small farmers. https://www.biochar-journal.org/en/ct/39?fbclid=IwAR16P9pG_CDUZFm7LJdITDbkISbcQXOxSqXTrQJH3vg3KQg3KlyAkybSJiA
Lauren Hale graduated with a Bachelors of Science from North Carolina State University in 2007. During her time there she studied the use of bacteria to degrade pollutants such as gasoline additives and chlorinated solvents. In 2009 she began a Ph.D. program at the University of California, Riverside where she currently researches the suitability of biochar to deliver plant growth-promoting bacteria into agricultural soils. When she completes her Ph.D. she hopes to continue to work with biochar and beneficial microorganisms and microbial generated enzymes of environmental significance.
Wae Nelson was employed as a mechanical engineer in the aerospace and defense industries for many years, working both as a designer and as a manager in manufacturing. He then went on to publish a magazine beloved by local gardeners, Florida Gardening, and to pursue his passion for biochar — a diy, scalable technique to both improve horticultural yields and sequester carbon simultaneously. Wae Nelson was employed as a mechanical engineer in the aerospace and defense industries for many years, working both as a designer and as a manager in manufacturing. He then went on to publish a magazine beloved by local gardeners, Florida Gardening, and to pursue his passion for biochar — a diy, scalable technique to both improve horticultural yields and sequester carbon simultaneously.
How to make Biochar
Good simple explanation of what is biochar and how to make a kiln
Watch the whole day of the Biochar Workshop led by Bob Wells, soil scientist Jon Nilsson and Patryk Battle. Learn how to make biochar and its many beneficial uses including greatly enhancing soil life and fertility. Discover innovative ways to maximize its uses for dynamically carbon negative farming and gardening. Visit our website for workshops and many free resources for growing food organically at http://www.livingwebfarms.org
Visit our website at http://www.livingwebfarms.org for workshops and many free resources for growing food organically. Watch the whole day of the recent Biochar Workshop led by Bob Wells, soil scientist Jon Nilsson and Patryk Battle. Learn how to make biochar and its many beneficial uses including greatly enhancing soil life and fertility. Discover innovative ways to maximize its uses for dynamically carbon negative farming and gardening. To read the article in Cape Cod News and a great turnip recipe, click here. http://bit.ly/1jdsIX4
Biochar kilns
Cone kiln
This video features an Open Deep Cone Kiln which was developed at the Ithaka Institute. One of the main differences with this biochar method to most biochar stoves, is you get to see the fire. This aspect alone makes the process much more enjoyable.
The cheapest biochar kiln to be built for $300 to $500 in every village of the world. The most important step to biochar ubiquity.
Whole Village has recently begun creating biochar with the help of our new Kontiki. Biochar is wood pyrolyzed (burned without oxygen) and then inoculated with manure. A Kontiki is a cone-shaped tool that is ideal for creating the necessary burn needed to ensure pyrolysis.
Michael Wittman demonstrates how to make your own biochar in a prototype cone kiln in January 2014 at a community garden in Simi Valley, California.
What’s the best way to make charcoal / biochar from wet wood? This way! You could choose different kilns but these cones seem to work very well. And of course, keeping the design as simple as possible is half the fun.. As I say in the film, if you want biochar then quench with water, otherwise try soil or sand. Here’s Cody’s channel – he has an interesting experiment comparing a couple of charcoal kilns https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCu6m… The cnc plasma machine is by these guys – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCu6m… (it’s brilliant!) I’ll list these cone kilns for sale on our online shop… http://www.wayoutwestemporium.com/
Cone Pit
Biochar is a soil amendment that I have wanted to try in my gardens, but figuring out how to make it was a bit of a sticking point. But sometimes when you wait long enough, a simple low tech method will be developed, which makes it much easier to start.
How to make Biochar in a cone pit, quick, simple & for free!
Thorough documenting of my first run of biochar production using the incredibly simple ‘cone pit method’. Takes only a shovel and time to create a perfect ‘kiln’ in the earth. Excellent results, scalable, clean, effective. You can produce hundreds of gallons of beautiful charcoal per session with a number of pits and use very random and low quality feedstock!
Cone pit 3′ deep/4′ wide – I tried several times to make biochar and so far the cone pit is the only thing that has worked for my situation. Nothing special to buy or build.
We wondered, before going to the expense of building a steel wok like they use in Japan or at BlueSky or Zanjabil (estimated about $400 in costs to fabricate), what if we build a pit like Josiah Hunt but shape it like a cone kiln and use the type of layering technique that Michael Wittner demonstrated? That was our experiment, which we are calling Cone Pit method. We dug a cone-shaped pit — 54″ top diameter, 24″ bottom diameter, and 16″ deep. The burn began with a single match and some cardboard boxes, along with a few small, very dry bamboo sticks. Within a few minutes it had grown to fill the bottom of the pit and we quickly started adding more and bigger bamboo to the fire. We watched for signs of it going white — indicating ash formation, and then we would throw on another layer of bamboo.
John from http://www.growingyourgreens.com/ goes on a field trip to Josiah Hunt’s Farm to share with you what is biochar, how its made and why you should never use raw biochar in your garden or farm. In this episode, you will discover how biochar can be made in a pit with wood and then how it is processed into a mature biochar. You will also learn why you should not use fresh-made raw biochar, but how it should be matured before use for best result. Finally John will share the proper mixture of biochar to soil you should use in your garden or on your farm to get the benefits of adding the biochar to your land. After watching this episode you will be on your way to making the dark, rich, fertile terra preta soils that was discovered in South America that allowed the native people to flourish.
Cone pit trench
This uses the same concept as the japanese cone kiln for biochar production, but in a long format. The long dimension makes for a great savings in energy spent cutting wood if you are starting with long material. Even wood that is too long for the trench can usually be burned off instead of cut. Should be good for biochar production on ranches and homesteads with quantities of long material like poles, branches, bamboo, and and other long stuff, but could be adapted to smaller batches and smaller material by blocking part of it off. Pretty cheap and pretty versatile.
After a solid first pass of pollarding and clearing in the new orchard space, it’s time to clean up the branches and tops of trees that 1) can’t be laid up in piles as a component of hugelmounds or 2) can’t be easily woven into the living wall flanking the area. Using cone pit method biochar production, I’m able to process these tops at a rate on par with what a gas powered wood chipper could do. Modifying the basic shape of the pit to be somewhat more of a trench, I’m able to process branches with less modification. This system produces nearly pure charcoal at the end and can be used to improve soil texture and fertility dramatically. Plus, it’s a great way to stay incredibly warm when it’s 15 degrees out!
Other methods
Why I use two open burn methods for making biochar, trench and brush piles, compared to others. Conversion efficiency, accessibility and considering context
A simple and cheap method for making a biochar kiln
Cut-off 80 gallon drum – Super simple approaches to charcoal making for biochar and agricultural purposes. Experimenting with a number of styles of kilns in the pursuit of low/no cost, reproducible systems
Every brush pile is an opportunity to make easy soil building biochar, the most long lasting and useful soil amendment. It’s almost as easy as just burning the stuff to ash. No brush left uncharred!
How to make Biochar from locals in the Peruvian Amazon. http://youtu.be/KNFDOGWozKU This was filmed in the Peruvian Amazon showing how the locals are making char coal to be pulverized and added as a soil amendment called biochar.
Northern Thailand: In this video we show you how to make a basic Top Lit Up Draft Biochar Machine. Warm Heart have been teaching hundreds of farmers in the Northern Thailand how to make these machines in order to help reduce the smoke produced in the area.
The Biochar Kiln is a top-lit updraft (TLUD) design. The biochar process described is scalable for small acreage farms. The set up of four kilns is capable of producing one cubic yard of biochar in six hours. We use raw materials from recycled wood.
Viewable in Thai language only!
http://www.thebiocharrevolution.com/ This video takes us through an entire run of biochar production, using the Kon-Tiki kiln on Australia’s Gold Coast. Check it out and see what an awesome “stove” our biochar kiln is – how it works and how effective it is at producing biochar for your soil. We have published a series of articles on our blog which take you through the development of this kiln, including reflections on its inspiration, naming, construction, testing and use. The first article in this series can be found here: http://www.thebiocharrevolution.com/b… If you are really interested in the topic of biochar and how it can be used as an agent to help restore the earth from the ecologic issues we face today, you should have a look at our book, The Biochar Revolution which is available at our website here: http://www.thebiocharrevolution.com/S…
Other topics
Two months ago we started these trials. (Link below.) Something very interesting is happening and although it’s early days still, it seems obvious what it is — most of these plants like charcoal in the soil. Up to a point, at least. We’re using soil straight from the field (together with charcoal in varying amounts) and OF COURSE we planted the same number of seeds at the same time in each pot. There’s actually not much in charcoal that’s of benefit to plants — but it is a very special vehicle for adding nutrients. These were added when we made the charcoal into biochar by soaking it in a nutrient-rich tea. These results probably show how depleted the field soil is and how much it benefits from adding the nutrients. The difference in using biochar (instead of just nutrient tea) is that the biochar should be a much more permanent benefit to the soil. The soil structure is improved and the nutrients are retained within the structure of the charcoal so they shouldn’t be washed out so readily. This is a trial involving Perpetual (Cut-and-come-again) Beet, Radish, Grass, Tomatoes and Parsley. Other seeds types were sown but they were dropped from the trials because of poor germination. (Old seed? Seed didn’t like the charcoal? A mixture of the two?)
