Biochar Water

Hola to all...

I charge my Biochar in a 5 gallon bucket with added fish emulsion and rain water... I add it to my plant holes with some of charged charcoal and a little water... I add composted soil and dig in the plant with great success... my question is in 2 parts:

1. Can I reuse the water with fresh charcoal?

2. Is the water left over good for spraying plant leaves?

Thanks... Willderrness

1.  I don't see why not.  Water is water.  If there is any microbial life in the water, it should transfer those microbes to the new batch of charcoal, which is the goal.  If not (no microbes in the water), at least there shouldn't be any chlorine in the water which would kill microbes in the compost that you add.

2.  This is just my opinion, but I don't see anywhere in nature where foliar sprays naturally occur.  If permaculture is a design science that mimics nature, I don't think you're not going to find anything like that in a natural setting.  But you can always water your plant with that water.

Best of luck.

Hi William,

I wouldn’t use that water for foiler feeding. There is a difference between fish emulsion and fish hydrolyze. Fish hydrolyze is ok to foiler feed, because of how broken down it is, by the process in which its made. I've used fish hydrolize in compost tea foiler feeding with great success. Fish emulsion is a different story, as emulsion isn't broken down to the same degree, and is stored in anaerobic conditions, meaning it can cause issues like disease on leafs. Thats just from my experience though, when I ran out of hydrolize and tried Emulsion in my aerated compost tea for foiler feeding. Emulsion is better for root feeding, in my opinion and experience.

Hope that helps!

Marco Banks wrote:
2.  This is just my opinion, but I don't see anywhere in nature where foliar sprays naturally occur.  If permaculture is a design science that mimics nature, I don't think you're not going to find anything like that in a natural setting.  But you can always water your plant with that water.

Best of luck.

What about fog and dew? There's also the natural setting of a human garden where we seem to have been spraying plants for a long time. Many plants sure seem to like being sprayed as well. I wouldnt see any reason why it wouldnt be a great idea to spray your garden with the water but I would avoid sunny days because my experience with fish emulsion is that there can be some phytotoxicity

Be careful, char is very basic. Anything sprayed on the foliage can kill te leaves. The soil has organic acids that buffer the pH, the leaves won't. I would do a small application to test, but I expect the pH to be caustic.

I pour the biochar water  on the roots of my plants that prefer a soil that is more alkaline: Persimmon, cherry, olive, fig, etc.  I do foliar feed compost tea, but I think that biochar water is a different thing.
John S
PDX OR