Generally, soil is slow to warm up in the spring, especially a clay soil under mulch. So, at the time of year when there is the most
water available in my high plains desert climate, the cool soil temps are slowing things down. I like the idea of using
biochar to heat things up, and I was wondering if I could make the practice easier and more uniform somehow. I though that if I mixed up some Fish oil (a sticker/ spreader) with finely crushed biochar, I could apply a darkening coating to the mulch/ soil surface, which would stick instead of washing away. I could make it more multifunctional by using pulsing agents (stuff to get the sleepy soil life into high gear in the spring.
The Holistic Orchard has a lot of stuff on this.) This
should have a really synergistic effect on the soil life.
The possible problems I can see would be:
The sprayer clogging up. I could smash the charcoal up really fine to avoid this. Do you know of which, if any, sprayer models would cope with this?
Permanent black stains on anything the spray touches. So, I wouldn't wear any clothes I cared about, and would stay away from anything valuable.
Is there anything else I am forgetting about?