Biochar to resist droughts

Biochar is often claimed to absorb 6 times its weight in water.  As the droughts seem to get worse every year, biochar may end up being quite commonly used and necessary for farmers and gardeners.  Corporations are buying up water rights across the globe, starting in small towns and signing up huge future contracts, so they can sell the water back later at a much more expensive price, to the original places that sold the contract to them.  Biochar may end up being crucial for farmers and gardeners as droughts increase and water prices soar.  

This is of course, in addition to carbon sequestration and nutrient retention and distribution.

John S
PDX OR



https://biochar.groups.io/g/main/topic/92941313

https://www.wakefieldbiochar.com/biochar-water-retention-capacity-demo/

This was covered a week or so ago I believe.
Its an interesting topic.

I have plans to bake a gallon of of my pasture dirt at some point to see how much moisture it can hold vs biochar (see my last test in the link below).  The question is, how moist to start with?  Maybe I should flood both, soil and biochar, and allow to drain for 24-48 hours then test.  My intuition is that my silty pasture soil can hold quite a bit of moisture.  I’ve been making biochar and adding it to my soil primarily for nutrient retention (and the alkaline + small amounts of PK it holds) over water retention.

It’d be interesting to test biochar against wood chips as well.  They sure seem to soak up the water.

Not an issue where I live, but it would be interesting to start a thread on just how far you could push water retention in a place where water rights prohibit it; mulch pits, conservation strips, micro structures etc.  The irony of water rights is that infiltration helps stabilize flows yet is prohibited by some (many?) water rights arrangements.  

This is an interesting issue, Gray.

In my experience, wood chips soak in a lot more water when they have rotted a bit.  Old wood mycelium is like a sponge. New wood chips are really hard and not too porous.   I think that biochar and wood chips are so complementary.  The biochar provides the micro hotels for microbes, the water retention, and the electric pathway for nutrients, but the wood chip mycelium is the connection that distributes phosphorus and other nutrients, through the plant signaling mechanisms, as explained by Suzanne Simard, UBC professor.

John S
PDX OR