biochar Archives - CharTerra

Biochar as an Ingredient for Animal Bedding prior to Composting

4 August 2021

Rob Lavoie

No comments

Categories: News

SoilMatrix Newsletter No. 18

The beneficial properties of biochar are greatly enhanced when amended into waste biomass such as manure and other agricultural or urban organic materials before being composted. The result is a compost that is teaming with beneficial microbes and charged with “controlled-release and stabilized” plant available nutrients.

In our very first newsletter (2017), we introduced the healthy plant-soil triangular relationships as described in this diagram.

Figure 1. Plant Roots, Nutrients, Moisture, Microbiology, and Soil matrix Triangular Relationship

Biochar for climate change mitigation (CO2 sequestration) and soil enhancement

4 October 2017

Rob Lavoie

No comments

Categories: Research

SoilMatrix Newsletter No. 9

October, 2017

Welcome back to the SoilMatrix Newsletter. This issue provides a short set of videos to demonstrate how much research is taking place around the world on the topic of using biochar as a soil enhancement agent and as a way to mitigate CO₂ emissions to the atmosphere by CO₂ sequestration in the form of carbon. This was one of the identified unknowns in our July Newsletter.

Click here to read the July SoilMatrix Newsletter

Most climate change measures such as driving an electric vehicle, switching incandescent light bulbs to LED lighting, installing solar panels, geological sequestration of coal fired power plant CO₂ emissions, and so on, are considered to be carbon neutral activities. In this edition of the SoilMatrix Newsletter, you will learn how using biochar to enhance your lawn and garden soil, or your farm soil or any soil, actually REMOVES CO₂ from the atmosphere by sequestering carbon into soils for 100’s to 1000’s of years.

The following series of short videos were made available by the UK Biochar Research Centre of The University of Edinburgh. They are evidence of the amount of effort being put towards answering questions relating to the use of biochar for soil enhancement and CO₂ emissions reduction.

What is Biochar? by Dr. Saran Sohi… Click here to view this video

The research hope for Biochar as a climate change mitigation and adaptation technology…

Click here to view this video

Current biochar research at The University of Edinburgh’s UK Biochar Research Centre, by Dr. Ondrej Masek… Click here to view this last video

My hope in sharing these videos is to demonstrate how a large number of researchers around our planet are now investigating both the benefits biochar has for soils and the effectiveness of long term sequestration of carbon in soils to mitigate climate change.

Thank you for your interest in this topic. We will see you at the end of October.

The Importance of Soil Carbon for Healthy Plants

4 March 2017

Rob Lavoie

5 Comments

Categories: Uncategorized

Spring is surely coming and no doubt you are already looking at seed catalogues and planning your gardening activities for the coming growing season. If you don’t mind me asking… What are your favourite seeds? Hit reply and tell me what you plan to grow this year. I am interested and as a thank you for reaching out to me I will send you a coupon for 50% off on your next BioChar order. Now on to our topic about soil carbon…

As I mentioned in our first newsletter, biochar plays an important role for soils that have lost organic carbon. Biochar also helps to maintain the organic carbon at a healthy level between additions of compost. In this newsletter I am sharing three informative links that I think will greatly add to your understanding of soil carbon: a BBC podcast, a vimeo video, and a PDF that provides further information about the benefits of biochar composting and related research references – currently a hot topic in the biochar field. Continue reading to view these items…

Blending AirTerra SoilMatrix biochar into Memorial University Field Trials.

SoilMatrix Garden – Summer 2016

10 August 2016

Rob Lavoie

2 Comments

Categories: News

Soil Matrix Garden – July 17, 2016

Probably one of the most rewarding activities on the planet – Gardening. Throughout the summer of 2016, AirTerra will be featuring the SoilMatrix Garden. Every two weeks a new photo of the garden will be posted to chart its progress. The soil for this garden was prepared with a 10% blend of SoilMatrix biochar (by volume) with 90% good garden soil from Eagle Lake. Blending was accomplished using a ground tarp that was pulled from side to side until the two ingredients were blended evenly (easer to accomplish with two people pulling the tarp). Items in the foreground were planted from seedlings grown in a small greenhouse. Items in the rows further away were planted from seed. For example, Karin is standing beside the peas planted from seedlings, which are now standing 6 feet tall. The peas planted as seeds are to the left in the second row of plants and they are catching up quickly!