Here in the PNWet, it's pretty hard to burn biochar in between November and March, or so. It drizzles a lot and the days are very short. Hardly anything dries out, which makes for more smoke and not as much biochar end product. I usually burn biochar in between, say, April to October, but my climate is not the same as everyone else's. I am curious about yours.
I do mine now, in the winter. I guess it's spring now. That explains why we go 8 inches of snow yesterday....
I just use a propane tank with a weed burner to get er going. Once you have coals everything burns just fine. However I am burning to get rid of organic trash with biochar being a nice byproduct. I am not trying to save out every piece of carbon. I can get like a 50% increase if I burn in a trench.
Forgot to add: I do it now cause California likes to ban burning pretty suddenly once we dry out after the winter.
I just had my first biochar burn two days ago, April 29th. It had been so rainy that I don't want to try to burn wet wood. Too much smoke and not enough char. So now I'm starting my cycles of burning, crushing, inoculating/nutrifying, then implanting into the soil.
I burn the stalks or vines of invasive plants for biochar and they only die back in winter. But winter time is usually very windy to lit a pile of open fire. A few days ago, I finally found a calm day to burn a pile of small bamboo sticks. Now it's back into 20 mph wind for days non stop.
I have a truckload of material to burn. Or two, or three. I did several burns while there was still enough snow on the ground for safety.
But we're in a drought, and it's dry on the surface as well as down below. Fire bans everwhere, and with good reason. So, no char burns for me until we get some genuine rain.
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