Charcoal: ages-old practice meets the new age

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elkhound

elkhound

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theres a lot of interest the last bit in bio-char. i think its an item to keep in mind especially in building longterm fertility in garden and orchard. i have a new garden i am fencing in and bring into production. its my hope to get a trench dug and have a 'row' of a type of this terra preta soils and to compare it to the rest. one thing is its gotta be 'charged' to do any good starting out or it can lock up nutrients the first year. the amazing part of it or i think is amazing is how it catches fertility and holds it in place and preventing leeching of it. thats a huge boost overall.anyways heres an interesting article i thought some might like...


Charcoal: ages-old practice meets the new age

https://www.producer.com/2019/10/charcoal-ages-old-practice-meets-the-new-age/
 
My family has been using charcoal in relation to crops for generations. I know and have seen its benefits with my own eyes. When I was a kid we routinely used charcoal and wood ash around fruit trees, arbors and to some extent with chickens.

For the last 20 years are so dad and I had a 200 tree peach orchard. Pruning began in January. The limbs would be burned (producing charcoal and ash) then spread around trees. We produced hay and sometimes crops for the farmers market in between the tree rows in the orchard. There is definitely a big bump in quality of crops and the trees.

We didn’t do anything we called “charging”. @elkhound What are you referring to when you use that word?

I found the article very interesting but it references the EPA. I’m very leery of any report or study the EPA produces. There is almost always an agenda behind it.

I made high quality charcoal several years and sold it at the farmers market…

https://www.homesteadingforum.org/threads/useless-and-useful-teotwawki-skills.4772/

https://survivalblog.com/contest/

To make activated charcoal… traditionally its soaked in a chemical solution, (CaCl2 or ZnCl2 25%) (Calcium Chloride or Zinc Chloride 25%) for 12-18 hours.

I use red oak to make charcoal. It comes out highly pitted and can be used for water/air filtration and medicine as is. Sort of the poor man’s version of chemically activated charcoal.

As ancient man has demonstrated… special “chemically treated charcoal” and the special name “activated” is not necessary to enjoy the benefits of charcoal.

In this photo you can see sweet corn that has just come up between the rows of peach trees on the sides. We usually raked up pruned limbs in January into a big pile for burning then spread the ash/charcoal to selected areas... Don't hesitate to speak up if my old school approach will help your projects.

General farm 01 (15)_v1.jpg
 
You make charcoal by heating wood (or any carbon source) in an oxygen free environment. You use the gases given off to make Methanol. The charcoal is moved to an oven that heats it (again in an oxygen free environment) and spray super-heated steam (at 1500 F) through it. That makes activated charcoal. The carbon source of choice for activated charcoal is coconut shells.
 
When making charcoal I do not use the gases to make methanol. I burn them and use the heat to stabilize the operating temp of the retort. There are in fact as many ways to make charcoal as there are tools available to the individual making charcoal. Just as there are a multitude of ways to produce activated charcoal.

Tell me @SheepDog how do you make your charcoal? Do you have pictures of your equipment?
 
When I make charcoal I use a pit.
 
@SheepDog what is the size of your pit and the process you use for said pit, there are many pit techniques? Do you have photos? Is this on a scale necessary to sell charcoal on a commercial level or produce enough necessary so supply 30 acres in crops?
 
Peanut, I am interested in how big your retort is. Is it metal or glass? Do you run the gases through a tube into a burner? Are you making charcoal for artists, to burn in the grill, use it for black powder, for garden use or for a water/air filter? Do you know what temperature you use? How long does it take you to make 20 pounds?
 
i have been following a guy..steven edholm known as skillcult on youtube and hes been doing alot of trials doing char at 10% he is also doing some deep grow pits and trenches.there are an old technique in africa called zai and i think the zai method combined with char could put some serious worn out soil back into production fast.one thing skillcult is doing is burning piles in a trench. i will post a few videos to see what he is up to.

peanut charging is only adding some type nitrogen to it since it really doesnt have any on its own..to my understanding..so if theres not a bit extra it could or can bind up some nitrogen first season.its just tossing some commercial fertilizer with it or mixing in critter waste or what ever you have on hand and it goes into all the pores of char. thats reason it captures fertility so well is the pores..to my understanding anyway.

i have only dabbled with some char. i did find out one things...squirrels and chipmunks..but mostly squirrels love the stuff and literally stole all of it out of my test planters around home.

 
Elk, I find this a very interesting subject. 15 to 20 years ago when I began really looking into ancient uses of charcoal there really wasn't a lot of info on the net. I remember a tv show I saw that accidentally mentioned charcoal and folks who lived in Brazil long ago using it for soil enrichment. (treasure hunters were using rich soil deposits to track a treasure)

Ancient peoples knew what they were doing. Keep us updated on your progress. :)
 
Thanks again elk! I read the word Terra preta in the article this morning. My mind isn't as quick as it once was, it bugged me all day... trying to remember where I'd heard that before and the context. :oops: Charcoal and treasure hunters are a stretch. Thanks for the link.
 
We have the last couple of years added charcoal to our garden beds that we have crushed into smaller pieces and many farmers here add charcoal at the bottom of the holes they plant fruit trees in as both methods in the gardens and the bottom of fruit tree holes holds in the moisture in the soil and around the roots.

The general principle was based initially on analysis of rain forest floor soils which from the natural cycle of bush fires was dark and rich from the charcoal and ash created by the fires.

We create ours in our slow combustion fireplace and the potash gets spread around fruit trees and the charcoal around fruit trees and in the garden beds. The wood ash has benefits for lawns too when spread sparingly over them and from reading keeps it far greener. We also spread the potash in the vegetable gardens before planting new crops and water it in. All I can say is our vegetables always look green and healthy. We also trench compost our fruit, vegetable peelings, dried shredded leaves and crushed egg shells in the gardens for more nutrition and calcium content and use seaweed solution to condition the soil as well every now and again.
 
There is a company I used to rep for… Azomite. They have a product certified for the organic production of plants and animals. I sold about 2 tons a year for them, just enough to pay for what I used here on the farm. They pretty much dropped US sales except for a few large retailers to concentrate on SE Asia.

There is an ancient volcanic deposit in Utah that’s chelated, meaning ready for animal and plant use. Azomite is nothing but crushed volcanic rock that contains 80+ minerals and elements. The first year I used it was on my old garden that’s been in production since the late 1800’s. There was nothing left in that soil. Anything planted was destined to die a slow death from disease or insects.

Think of diseases and insects this way for a moment... They are just like a lion in Africa, they go after the weakest prey in the herd. If you get your animals and plants healthy enough to start... insects and disease stop being a problem. They go elsewhere.

The same thing happened to my gardens, cropland and pastures. Over the course of 8 years I put out about 10 tons of azomite, not nearly as much as I wanted but enough to make a huge difference to the soils that did receive it.

I’ve seen cattle walk through knee-deep grass to get to 3-inch grass growing in soil where azomite had been applied. I planted peas once to test deer. The deer ate the half of the patch with azomite in the soil before consuming the other half. There was an overall improvement in the health of my chickens for example. Hunters used to buy from me to treat the small patches of soil they planted for turkey and deer. They were bummed when I stopped selling for azomite.

There is another product I’ve wanted to try for a long time. Its produced by Sea Corp. https://www.sea-crop.com/ It’s a company in Washington extracting minerals from sea water. Its in concentrated form so its much cheaper to ship long distances than an equivalent amount of azomite. I know people who have tried it to very good results.

Just a couple of ways to really bump up the mineral content of your soil in a short period of time. One I have experienced firsthand. Farmers I know personally tried the other product. For what it's worth.
 
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I used to buy a ton of the pelletized version and a ton of the powdered version each year. I never made a cash profit but managed to sell enough to pay for most of what I used.

The green bags on the left are the pelletized azomite, the white bags on the right is the powdered azomite. I preferred the powdered azomite for the garden and crops... The pelletized version was easier to spread over pastures/hay fields.

Everything it touched was better, animal or plant. I still put a scoop of azomite in a 50lb bag of dog food and in chicken feed.

Shop (1)_v1.jpg
 
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