Fwd: [biochar] Re: biochar + composting research-tssw reply

[David Yarrow]

an excellent, insightful, focused analysis and action plan.  

lloyd is leading the way in ontario canada.  

let's get going......

or rather, let's get growing.....

~dy

Begin forwarded message:

From: Lloyd Helferty <lhel...@sympatico.ca>

Date: June 9, 2011 9:39:31 AM EDT

Subject: [biochar] Re: biochar + composting research-tssw reply

This article was my "wake up call".
 I read it on the day it was first published and it absolutely floored me.
That was 2004. Nearly 7 years ago.
  I spent about four more years desperately looking around for that technology that might have a small chance of providing humanity a way of continuing to feed ourselves.
  I had already been studying the "Peak Oil" story and attending "Post Carbon Toronto" meetings since 2001 (I learned about Peak Oil only a few weeks after 9/11 as I was poking around the internet trying to understand what had happened to turn our whole world upside down -- I soon subscribed to FTW (From the Wilderness) and remained a subscriber for the next few years).
  I already had grave fears about the consequences of Peak Oil, even before I read this article.

  I had at first thought Peak Oil was all about not being able to affordably travel overseas or on vacation to the Bahamas and that gas prices would inevitably rise to double, triple, quadruple... but after reading this article I nearly went into shock, because now it was all about our ability to feed ourselves -- and the real shocker was realizing that it is North American industrial agriculture that is actually the most vulnerable (whereas in the 'majority world' that is not "addicted" to fossil fuels and still has significant numbers of 'peasant farmers' and not-so-modern agriculture, they will probably not notice quite as much...)

"Our prosperity is built on the principal of exhausting the world's resources as quickly as possible, without any thought to our neighbours, all the other life on this planet, or our children." - Dale Allen Pfeiffer

  But of course, history is challenging that assumption somewhat since China and many other 'developing nations' have industrialized so quickly and brought so many farmers off of the land and into the cities that they are now also quite vulnerable to the same trends (perhaps luckily for them they may still have a generation of elders who remember and can teach their children about farming, although their methods might not be as sustainable as we might think).

  I was not surprized at all to see the uprisings in North Africa that came as a result of food price increases. The people living in those lands are extremely vulnerable, except for the forty-three percent [43%] of the MENA region’s population that is still rural and is producing some food for the urban sector.  But with more than fifty percent [50%] of the food consumed in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region being imported, making it the largest food importing region in the world, it is no surprize that the non-oil producing countries in the region had an uprising first.

  I think that more and more people here are coming to recognize the impending crisis, however.
  Finally...

Thomas Friedman wrote today about the "Great Disruption" in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/08/opinion/08friedman.html?_r=2&src=me&ref=general

"You really do have to wonder whether a few years from now we’ll look back at the first decade of the 21st century — when food prices spiked, energy prices soared, world population surged, tornados plowed through cities, floods and droughts set records, populations were displaced and governments were threatened by the confluence of it all — and ask ourselves: What were we thinking?" - THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, The Earth Is Full, June 7, 2011

  I have almost no doubt that he is right in his predictions.  The writing is on the wall and has been for quite some time.
(I had expected it to come a few years ago. The 2008 recession was likely a prelude to much worse to come.)

  It was about three [3] years ago that I came upon "Biochar" and thought that this was certainly an interesting technology. The more I looked into it and did the research and read and talked to people about it the more I realized that this Biochar stuff has huge potential to get us (at least partially) "where we need to go with agriculture and climate and energy" -- the "triple win" of Biochar certainly has huge appeal in this respect.

  And while I don't for a second believe that Biochar is the be-all-and-end-all of "sustainable agriculture", I do believe that it will likely need to play a critical role, because despite all of the talk about doing something about carbon (CO2) emissions, I honestly don't believe for a second that humanity has the capacity to do anything about the situation we have put ourselves in with respect to runaway climate change.
 (CO2 emissions rose 1.6 billion tons in 2010, the highest since record keeping began. Total CO2 emissions last year were 30.6 billion tons globally, up 5% from the previous record set in 2008.)
This trend will likely continue: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/

[Yesterday we hit record high temperatures here in the Toronto area, with temperatures reaching 33C (~92F) - it felt like 41C (106F) with the humidity. (We had a "heat alert" and "humidex advisory" and a UV index of 8, or "very high". 24C (75F) is closer to the norm for this time of year.) -- We can't say that Canada is much of a "cold" country anymore...
note: There was also "Record ozone thinning in the Arctic" this spring and it is expected to continue through the summer, along with the higher-than-average summer temperatures.]

  I think that it is likely that the only way that humanity will be able to reduce the CO2 emissions from the atmosphere will have to be through the use of Agriculture to sequester carbon -- over the long term, but it will likely only start really happening after fossil fuels become so expensive that few can afford to use them anymore. (Of course, not very many people I know actually want to use them right now, but we have been compelled to do so because of our massive [and ongoing] infrastructure investments [mostly in transportation] that compel us to continue utilizing fossil energy -- mostly in the form of liquid hydrocarbons (oil), natural gas and coal.)


 But at the point we actually start to reduce the CO2 emissions, it is likely that we will already be struggling to maintain our economies and struggling to feed ourselves.

  It seems like a rather bleak scenario, but given that Canada and others are still continuing to invest heavily in Tar Sands, and the US (along with many other countries) are also considering the ongoing new investments in "unconventional oil" plays around the world -- including in the Arctic** -- I don't expect that we will be significantly reducing our dependence on fossil energy anytime soon. The new "boom" is already in full swing.
    ** Development of tight-oil projects will delay investments in more costly and challenging Arctic fields, but they will come since there are doubts over whether the unconventional production volumes can be sustained, given the rapid decline in individual wells.

"Armed with new drilling technology and eager to reap the rewards of oil’s high prices, companies are tapping complex geological formations, and the crude is flowing, adding Manitoba to Canada’s list of significant oil-producing provinces... Drill crews are being deployed across Western Canada and the United States, tapping new formations or, in many cases, reworking old ones that were first brought on stream in their grandfathers’ time...the quiet revolution is in tight oil...  the big story is, "it is not even close to being drilled to its potential”..."


(Conventional [dark] vs. Unconventional [light] hydrocarbon "reserves".)

Lloyd Helferty, Engineering Technologist

  Principal, Biochar Consulting (Canada)
  www.biochar-consulting.ca
  603-48 Suncrest Blvd, Thornhill, ON, Canada
  905-707-8754; 647-886-8754 (cell)
     Skype: lloyd.helferty
  Steering Committee member, Canadian Biochar Initiative
  President, Co-founder & CBI Liaison, Biochar-Ontario
    Advisory Committee Member, IBI
  http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1404717
  http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=42237506675
  http://groups.google.com/group/biochar-ontario
  http://www.meetup.com/biocharontario/
  http://grassrootsintelligence.blogspot.com
   www.biochar.ca

Biochar Offsets Group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=2446475
"Necessity may be the mother of invention, but innovators need to address problems before they become absolute necessities..."

On 2011-06-08 6:01 PM, rongre...@comcast.net wrote:

Lloyd:
    How about putting much of this into the ongoing "biochar" list thread - called "lies" ?   Reference to Yarrow's lettuce trials would be helpful.  I just read the Pfeiffer article - and think we need to be talking that language also.

Ron

----- Original Message -----
From: "Lloyd Helferty" <lhel...@sympatico.ca>
To: "Ted Wysocki" <tswy...@hotmail.com>
Cc: "Gerrie Baker" <gba...@rideau.net>, "Judith Gillan" <jgi...@smallfarm.org>, "jon spiegel" <jonathan...@itoconsultinggroup.com>, st...@ecs.umass.edu
Sent: Wednesday, June 8, 2011 1:53:01 PM
Subject: Re: biochar + composting research-tssw reply

"Wood ashes, Biochar, and food waste compost can make even beach sand fertile and productive."

This is a message that needs to be taken to Christina Figueras, head of UN Climate Conference (that just started in Bonn...).

This is exactly why I (and many others) believe that Biochar could also be key to "Greening the Deserts" (of, for instance, the once "Fertile Crescent" ~ now almost completely infertile... along with so many other places that are "desertifying").

"Iraq sits along a stretch of land once so productive that the whole region — which included present-day Syria, Iran and Jordan — was known as the Fertile Crescent. In ancient times, the area led the world in agriculture and technology. It's hard to reconcile that history with the reality of today, when the term "Infertile Crescent" would seem more appropriate."

This, along with some of the "Permaculture" techniques for water conservation and complementary cropping, could really make Biochar a strong force for the creation of sustainable agriculture and sustainable soils ~ and would hopefully allow mankind to overcome the most pressing yet (most) un-talked about issue that we have to deal with in the coming Century: Food production.

For me, Biochar is not about "geoengineering".  It's about being able to feed 7... 8... 9 billion people.
During the last COP meeting in Cancun, during a side event, Luc Gnacadja, executive secretary of UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), stressed that,

 "Desertification is threatening the lives of more than 1 billion people in 100 countries, and may lead to the deterioration of more than 44 percent of global farming systems."

This will be brought about by two primary factors: unsustainable exploitation of land and climate change.

Who has not yet read "Eating Fossil Fuels" by Dale Allen Pfeiffer ?

"The most frightening article FTW has ever published.. the most serious implication of Peak Oil and Gas."
"Today, virtually all of the productive land on this planet is being exploited by agriculture. What remains unused is too steep**, too wet, too dry or lacking in soil nutrients."

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html

P.S. Even in Canada, one of the many potential impacts across Canada that would arise from a sustained increase in temperature due to Climate change would likely be drought and desertification in the Canadian Prairies.

**P.P.S. I have an 'out there' theory about "Mountaintop Removal" (coal mining): That this is a way of levelling the mountains to overcome the "too steep" problem. There are many who predict that a new "breadbasket" will be created in the Eastern half of North America as the climate warms ~ except that those darn (steep) mountains are "in the way"... (of 'efficient' agriculture).
  Of course, like "re-greening" the deserts, even with biochar it will take massive rehabilitation efforts (and probably many decades) to re-establish productive soils in these barren landscapes.

  Lloyd Helferty

 
Lloyd, Gerrie,
David Yarrow's pictures are impressive, and we foundseveral years ago  a similar trend, We however were using  one part of 50/50 Blend of biochar/ Compost, with 4 parts poor soil ( sand with 20% clay ).
 
Optimizing the ratios of biochar, compost and soil will take more  time and study.
And I leave that to a younger more energetic individual.
 
Clean wood ashes used over the millenia, are one of the original fertilizers  supplying Potassium, Calcium , Magnesium and trace minerals to the soil.
Every home , that relied on wood  for heating and cooking alwaysn ample had a source of fertilizer for the garden.
 
This in combination with fresh manure ( source of Nitrogen, Phosphorus ) should supply all the nutrition that a plant may require.
 
Fresh ashes are highly alkaline, and could harm living plant and animal tissue. It can be used as a lime-ing agent to raise the pH of acidic soil. Or be mixed with Powdered Gypsum, or sulfur dust or the Black earth under the peat moss. If the seeds sprout and the worms move into this mix,.... then it is neutral enough.
Wood ashes, Biochar, and food waste compost can make even beach sand fertile and productive.
Hope to be able to do this also at Godbout Quebec, in July.
Lloyd,.... Thank You for giving me Jean-Claude Bacie contact info, we hope to see his operation at Rimouski early July.
I look forward to working with him on Biochar. 
 
Best regards,
Ted.
 

---

Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2011 12:35:51 -0400
From: lhel...@sympatico.ca
To: gba...@rideau.net
Subject: Re: biochar + composting research

Gerrie,

  Very interesting that you would say this, because I just talked with someone here in Ontario who was saying that the high char ash from, for instance, "Wood Ash Industries" might not be very good for soils.
I've personally never tried the stuff, however, so I could not comment further.

  Lloyd Helferty

On 2011-06-07 4:09 PM, Gerrie Baker wrote:

I can assure you his results are valid.  Any place in the garden where there is a dump of wood ash with chunks of biochar there are more worms and a flourish of growth.  This can be compared to looking at the top of the soil in a barnyard - where there is a cow paddy there is rich growth surrounding it.  You could have fun by randomly burying biochar and covering it with a consistant seeding and just observe the results and I am certain if you dug up the area of most bountiful growth you would find beneath the surface the hidden pockets of char loaded with microrganisms.  It is good that this is becoming respected and better known.  Cheers, Gerrie

Regards, Gerrie Baker, aka The Worm Lady

Dedicated to delivering organic waste solutions through education and demonstrations of worm composting habitats indoors and outside.  Focused on converting garbage to gardens and encouraging people to grow their own healthy nutritious food and beautiful edible flowers.

The Worm Factory
874 Grady Road, Foley Mountain
Westport, ON  K0G 1X0

613-273-7595

www.thewormfactory.ca

On 02/06/2011 12:56 PM, Lloyd Helferty wrote:

Jim,
  I would suggest you investigate David Yarrow's "Lettuce Seedling Trials" from the summer of 2010.
He did some lettuce seedling trials in Accelerator trays with several types of biochar in the greenhouse at Saratoga Apple in Schuylerville, NY.
The results of his explorations were, in his words, "extra-ordinary and unexpected—all dramatic demonstrations of biochar's value in soil to enhance plant growth vigor and vitality".

http://www.carbon-negative.us/trials/
The first test began in late June, with composted chicken manure and an unusual fly ash "biochar" from NH (60% carbon fly ash).



Note that the BEST ratio of Soil:Compost:Biochar was 0:8:1 (better than 0:4:1, 0:1:0 and much better than 1:1:0)
Thus, a ratio of 8:1 Compost to Biochar resulted in his "fantastic" growth results... No soil required!
Many more such experiments need to be done.

  It is likely that David now has many more trial results to show / share.  Best to talk with him to get the details.
So far in my investigations these were some of the best results I have seen in terms of the effectiveness of Biochar with Compost.

  Please note, however, that Biochar is not the same as Biochar, which is not the same as Biochar -- in other words, "Not all Biochars are created equal", which essentially means that one likely cannot accurately predict the results they get from any particular trial with any particular soil and compost and Biochar mixture without some significant understanding of the Biochar characteristics, soil characteristics and plant/microbial/fungal/soil dynamics.  Right now it is mostly all about "Trial and Error" until we are able to establish a significant permanent database that allows us to see some trends and extract some data from it that will point to combinations that have a (significantly) "increased likelihood of success".

  Lloyd Helferty

On 2011-06-02 12:40 AM, jkbo...@comcast.net wrote:

Hi Lloyd,
 
Art Donelly sent me your recent posting on the upcoming composting training.
 
Art and I are from Seachar in Seattle. We are in process of writing a commentary piece for Biocycle magazine about biochar, but more specifically trying to get folks in the composting side to get more interested in a combined compost/biochar product.
 
We are making good progress on the piece, but are looking for a well established example of folks either actively doing replicated scientific stduies on a mixed application's effect on soil productvity, or research on the  addition of biochar at the front end of composting and the possible benenfits that could create.
 
At Seachar we did a one year test with a biochar + compost, but alas our plots varied so much in character, that the noise was too great to see any effects even for compost alone. 
 
Any pointing in the right direction would be most appreciated. Thanks.
 
Jim