Mixing Biochar With Bokashi Bran For Kitchen Bokashi Bin

Hello

Disclaimer: I know nothing and am learning. Please be kind and forgive my ignorance.

I am new. So glad to have found your website. I am hoping to learn alot of great things here.

Here is my question. I am struggling to find and adopt a successful method to charge my biochar. I made an ACT with worm castings, fish emulsion and kelp/seaweed. All organic. Let sit in the bubbling mix until all biochar sank. Added to super soil and experienced some problems with the grow. Many things may have contributed to the issues but I wish to rule biochar out.

So, I recently started learning about Bokashi and wish to start using the method regularly. I ordered two Biorfe bokashi bins as a kit. My questions are the following:

1) Should I first treat the biochar with DTE Water Soluble Solution Grade fertilizer that include the basic NPK and other beneficial micro nutrients. If so how...should I add the recommended amount of soluble fertilizer to the RO water per DTE instructions and for how long should it soak in the mixed solution...until it sinks? The product's from DTE include AGMino 14-0-0, Fish Bone Powder 4-20-0, Langbeinite 0-0-21.5, and Gypsum and Calcium 96. My only reason for considering this is to make the char ready for the microbes that will populate the biochar after it is full of food.

2) Should I then mix the biochar with worm castings, molasses and some Great White, or Recharge, EM-1 etc.in an effort to populate the biochar with microbes. How long should it soak and what is the best mix of beneficial microbes etc.?

3) Should I just add equal parts biochar with the Bokashi bran that I use in the bins? Should I let the process take whatever time it takes to fill bucket and then ferment for the recommended time, then add to super soil to complete process, while adding TERAGANIX Compost Activator to the super soil mix and allow the process to complete over the next 4 to 6 weeks. This process is time consuming and only inoculates a small portion of biocharvat a time.

5) What ever you think...I am open to suggestions. I really want to do this correctly. I have two cubic feet of wonderful biochar that I will use in the super soil I am making or amending.

Thank you all so much!!!

Great question. There are many effective ways of charging your biochar.  In general, there are liquid methods and dryish methods.  With liquid, you nutrify quickly, but you need to make sure you aren't just leaving your biochar in an anaerobic situation, like a stagnant pond.  I use the liquid method, but I drench it once a day for a week, so it is fully oxygenated all the time except for the drench.  Compost tea is great, but remember, it has oxygen flowing through it.   When you leave your char sunk in AACT, it is no longer AACT.  I would spray it onto the char and use it as one of the nutrients in a liquid drench.  I wouldn' t   mix in synthetic NPK in the "soup".  I think natural ingredients that are nutritious will do a better job of feeding food along with micronutrients.  Your liquid mix sounds good, but you might want to drench it once a day for a week, to make sure the nutrition is in there.  Did you crush your biochar?

Dryish methods work well too.  Mixing it with compost and animal dung over time works very well.  It usually takes longer than liquid nutrification, but it can serve more than one purpose. For example, get rid of smell, use the animal manure, and nutrify your char.

John S
PDX OR

My apologies as I  think I need to mention that when I charged my first batch of biochar using ACT, I meant that the whole time the tea was brewing, using the hi-pressure bubble snake, the biochar was also in the tea...bubbling. I did this to feed and breed microbes whilst charging the biochar all during an intense bubble bath, if you will. I maintained an average temperature of 72 degrees and bubbled for a little over 36 hours.

So, at least now you know the full story.

Regarding your wet method...I  am a little confused. Would you please elaborate? Recipe or ingredients, how you wet it and are you then draining the solution etc.

Thank you sir, much appreciated.

Yes, if you're still bubbling, it still works. Great clarification. One issue with compost tea is that you're adding the microbes, but not really any food to go with them.  They could die out quickly if you don't fix that in short order.  

I and many people add nutritious ingredients that they can get cheaply and are mostly natural. I add whole wheat flour, ag lime, old rotten wood mycelium, compost, rotten fruit, sea weed, worm castings, and urine.  I usually soak it for an hour or two to start.  It sucks up a lot of the moisture.  Then, I just quickly drench it once a day, as I said, for a week in the mixture. Pour in, pour out.  I've already crushed it at this point.  Then I dig it into the garden.  

John S
PDX OR

My apologies again!!!

I use worm castings, calmag, Recharge, fish emulsion and kelp/seaweed. Also add in some molasses and sometimes some guano.

Hope that clarification made some sense.

Thanks

Hey bud, I just read your response to a different post...

Not charging or insufficient charging has been shown to temporarily decrease the benefit of biochar.   One problem with liquid inoculation is that if you put the char under liquid for any length of time, it becomes anaerobic.  Now you are developing all of the microbes that lead to disease.


So my method won't work because the char is sunken and microbes are dead?

Just wondering.

Did you read my response to you? I pour it in, then pour it out.  It's called drenching.  It's only under water for about 3 minutes out of 24 hours. It's aerobic for 23 hours, and 57 minutes.

John S
PDX OR

I did read your response and was NOT debating you, in fact I was stating that my method would fail cuz of the char sinking to bottom of bucket...essentially drowning. I was only asking if you agreed. Meant know disrespect. Geez, sorry man.

I didn't feel you were debating me. I just couldn't figure out what you didn't understand.  I'm not sure exactly why it didn't work, but I was giving you some possible ideas.  If it was only for a few minutes, it wouldn't be about going anaerobic.  It may be because they weren't really colonized. You didn't answer the question about crushing the biochar.  

JohN S
PDX OR

Didn't crush, as I purchased from BAS. Already to go, just gotta charge a d innoculate.

Maybe some of these other people will have some good ideas.
John S
PDX OR

Paul Luuh wrote:Not charging or insufficient charging has been shown to temporarily decrease the benefit of biochar.   One problem with liquid inoculation is that if you put the char under liquid for any length of time, it becomes anaerobic.  Now you are developing all of the microbes that lead to disease.

So my method won't work because the char is sunken and microbes are dead?

Personally, I say relax. I'm not convinced there is a perfect method. Just experiment, observe, and adjust.

I live in a fairly dry locale, and these days I deliberately force compost piles and biochar soaks to go anaerobic. For a little while -- long enough to make things break down instead of becoming a static moldy mess. And then they drain out, and come up for air. Or more to the point, they are dumped on top of my sand/silt soil which is already ridiculously aerated, and magical things seem to happen. When the plants suddenly thrive, you're in the zone. My 2c.

Thanks to all. Hopefully some day there will be a proven method. I did not realize there was so little information backed by scientific research to determine the biochar is indeed beneficial or not when placed in your soil, based off the method used to prepare the char.

In other words...we know it's beneficial, once it is charged and inoculated CORRECTLY. The mystery is, what is that method or methods?

I mean no disrespect and truly thank everyone in this discussion, but I don't want to experiment and wait, only to document the failures over the years, until I solve the mystery, whilst my garden suffers through the data collection and analysis.

With all the knowledge and information on biochar that I have found, not one was definitive and conclusive, while backed by scientific research that their method produced beneficial biochar, instead of a magnet pulling all nutrients into it.

That's all I am saying. I'm not saying anyone in this discussion is right or wrong. I'm not mocking or dissapointed with anyone. I'm just not done trying to find the answer.

I really thank everyone.

I would be a little skeptical about the biochar that you bought.  I just don't know if you are starting with good stuff.  

There are people all over the world making this stuff.  It has been made for thousands of years, often, semi-accidentally.  Each system has to be applied to their individual land and lifestyle.  It's definitely not a one size fits all phenomenon.  There is a ton of research on it, but it the trials are done in a particular location, and the knowledge is exploding.  That's not a problem with biochar.  That is actually a critique of our method of science.  Not everything in life occurs in long, double blind placebo controlled laboratory experiments.   That being said,  I don't know if I've ever actually heard from someone who developed biochar carefully and was not enthusiastic about the results.  I have heard from people who realized that they didn't have the time or energy for it, and I get that.  

John S
PDX OR

Yea, I don't know...that's why I'm here asking.

I bought biochar from the Build A Soil website. I was led to believe they are a reputable source. In addition I purchased a other cubic foot from Bliss. Another so-called reputable resource, I imagine.

From my observations they are both very similar in quality. Again, I am not an authority and have based my opinion on my research.

So, yea...I don't know.

Seems that there is some confusion, regarding my inquiry. I get that this is a 1000s years old naturally occurring organic process, that happens in nature without human intervention.

But I don't have two years for this process to effectively take place. Nor do I possess the resources to waste on failed crops, wasted time and resources such as seeds, fertilizers, etc.

If possible, I am just looking for a proven method to effectively charge and innoculate my biochar. One where I possess a level of confidence that will enable me to effectively grow plants without the added confusion of whether or not my biochar is stealing food from my soil and ultimately my plants.

Again, I am not calling anyone out or disagreeing with anyone to the point of aggravation. Just continuing to peel back the layers of biochar charging and inoculation.

So sorry for any confusion.

I read about biochar and was excited about it, but I didn't really start making it for 3-5 years.  I just couldn't figure out a solid way for me to realistically make it until I saw that video that I showed earlier in this thread.  I still had to figure out a bunch of stuff, but that's what this forum is about. I've changed tons of things after listening to these other people, trying stuff and figuring out how to do it better and better.   I would guess that it will work for you in some way, but you need to decide when you're going to feel ready to tackle it.

JohN S
PDX OR

I think soak time matters. My biochar tends to be on the large side, so it gets a soak in stinky inoculant for a long time before I use it -- weeks typically. And then it's applied along with compost and other nutritious soil stuff, not just on its own. This definitely works.

I mix biochar with bokashi bran to help compost food waste in insulated tumbler (Jora).  It works really well. I let the compost tell me (odor, moisture, which bugs are revelling in it at the time) if I need to bulk it with more browns or more greens or adjust coarseness of feedstocks. FWIW, I don't find that using biochar and/or bokashi in this way needs any special effort in anticipation of N lockup risk, or bokashi running out of anything.

I am an enthusiast of this mix. About 10 years ago, at Biochar School in Sonoma County, my friend Gloria and I scored a good quantity of bokashi biochar. Since then I make batches for myself. I still have a little of the original Simran BB, and it is still the bomb years later.

The biochar for the original was made by Josiah, and Simran combined the biochar with effective microorganisms (EM) and oat bran and then skillfully tended the composting windrow. The compost was hot temperature-wise, still cooking when classes started, and was cool by the time school was over. I am so impressed with this BB combination in my garden beds, it has convinced me that anytime we have an opportunity to combine EM with biochar plus EM's food (bran in this case), it's a beautiful thing, I always learn something new. I very much encourage your home research into this. Hands on is the way.

My personal favorite theory as to why EM+biochar has turned out to be such a good combination for our home is that, once the oxygen is depleted by composting microbial respiration, that my Josiah-style biochar is the kind that can "poise" the compost redox in EM's bioelectrical comfort zone. Accurate paradigm or not, it's not important. There a symphony of different things, physical, biological, timelines, happening in these environments besides redox poise in play. Plenty of room for everyone's ideas when it comes to biochar and how/why it works.

Interested in the Bokashi mix as that was the original post. How do I successfully mix biochar with the bran when I am using the Bokashi bin and my food scraps?

When one bin has fermented for the required 2 weeks, how do I then mix in more biochar, when I place the fermented scraps into a soil factory?

Here is what I am talking about.

I read that a user took Bokashi bran and mixed biochar with it in an effort to charge and innoculate the biochar.

Also other users placed a layer of biochar in the bottom of both the bucket with a drain and a bucket without a drain (two differen types or methods to ferment, one has a drain and the other does not), in an effort to charge and innoculate the biochar.

This got me thinking.

I make organic super soil with the typical amendments such as, coco coir, worm castings, organic dry amendments, rock dust, perlite etc.

I am starting a Bokashi method by which I will take the amended soil and instead of cooking it off outside, by placing in typical large pile with frequent turning to allow the microbes to break it all down, and waiting 3 months to complete, I am adding the finished and fermented Bokashi (2 weeks fermenting) mix to that same soil in bins that you can get at Lowes or Home Depot and are generally able to hold many many gallons of soil. I also have EM-1 Compost Activator at my disposal.

My thoughts are that either way the biochar would be charged and innoculated. I would think it possible to just collect the moisture from your Bokashi bin and add it to a separate bucket of biochar, as I have read users doing this as well.

The issue is that I DONT KNOW! I am only guessing at the outcome of any methodology.

So, anyone want to jump on this pile of compost?

It would be great to think that I could solve the problem of effectively amending my soil with it having been properly cooked or fermented, or whatever, whilst at the same time charging and inoculation the biochar. With the end result being a well balanced supr soil in a timely manner. But alas, good things come to those who wait.

So, anyway...no malice here and thanks.

Sounds like a good plan to me.
John S
PDX OR

Hey Paul! Welcome to Permies.

I agree that it seems amazing that this stuff is used all over the place for ages and there is no definitive info about it. It boggles the mind. I imagine part of that is that everyone's situations are so different it's almost impossible to make flat comparisons, unless we're talking about lab testing, which is great except--- the outcomes differ in every home/farm setting that's not a lab.
I also use molasses in my bokashi starter (which I make myself). I find there's a lot of authoritarian sort of talking about bokashi but also a loooooot of variations that work just fine. Same with biochar. Personally I'd mix it in when I'm improving the soil in my beds, like let it soak in the leached out fluid the way i would do it with comfrey tea, urine, or some other liquid, but I don't think it is set in stone.
From what I gather, you want to activate the biochar before applying it into the soil- mixing it with the bokashi bran doesn't seem to make much sense to me as then I'm going to be putting that bran into my bokashi barrel. Seems like it would make sense to just let that liquid (which is teeming with microbiota) leach out and then soak your biochar in it, like mentioned above.

I hope you do it, keep records and observations, and let us know how it works out for you. Good luck!

PS I do a second breakdown of my bokashi just the way you describe, in a large trash can with soil. It works great. Hopefully you've seen some of the other threads about bokashi, if not have a peek around, lots of us are having fun with bokashi (and making it ourselves without having to buy stuff).

Paul, any updates? I am particularly interested in how biochar affects the pH of the final bokashi...I've heard just 5-10% by volume can bring it up to near neutral from its typical 3-4 pH.