14,000 gallons of biochar for 1/2 inch on an acre?

I've rounded, but does this sound right?  Incorporated into the top 10 inches or so would give you around 5%, right?

1 acre is 6,272,640 square inches and you want half an inch in volume so we can just divide the area by half for 3,136,320 then convert to gallons which turns out to 13,577.14 and if you round up you get 14,000 gallons.

That checks out.. I don't think whether in the top 10 inches or down to bedrock matters if you are calculating volume at 1771 x 1771 x 0.5 since it is only for half an inch across the whole acre....

wait a minute....lets do the math with cubic acres instead of square acres..

So to get how many cubic inches are in a square acre you get the square root of 6,272,640 and cube it to get: 15,709,976,839 so that is the volume of an acre in cubic inches. 5% of that is 785498842 cubic inches or 3,400,427 gallons. The total height is 2504 cubic inches but we are only interested in the top 10 inches.



Screw it, its late I'm tired so I googled a "topsoil calculator" and 1/2inch on an acre is 2 cubic feet which in gallons is 14.96104 rounded to 15 gallons. How this magic calculator gets to that math I have no idea, I would probably figure it out eventually but area to volume conversions hurt my brain.



15 gallons of biochar..  yay


But if you ordered 14,000 gallons before you saw this...send pics. XD

14,000 gallons is close enough:

1 gallon of stuff = 231 cubic inches
1 acre = 43560 square feet = 6,272,640 square inches
6272640 / 231 = 27,154 gallons to cover 1 acre with 1 inch of stuff
27,154 / 2 = 13,577 gallons to cover 1 acre with 1/2 inch of stuff

I feel for you guys lumbered with imperial measurements.

1 acre = 4000 m2

0.5 inch = 1.25 cm = 0.0125 m

4000 * 0.0125 = 50 m3 = 50,000 l

1 gallon = 3.7 l

50,000 / 3.7 = 13,513 gal

Looking at this again in the morning with fresh eyes.

Imagine 14,000 1 gallon milk jugs on a 1 acre piece of land lets say a milk jug takes up 8 square inches in area, you would end up with 14% of that acre covered in full milk jugs, could the contents of those jugs spread out cover the remaining 86% with half an inch...probably..

visualizing this now 15 milk jugs of biochar would not put a dent in 1 acre...maybe I should have just stuck with my initial math, I have no idea what that topsoil calculator was doing to get 15 gallons.

Boy I hate using imperial measurements.

T Simpson wrote:

Boy I hate using imperial measurements.

Feel free to start a (non-violent) revolt! Being Canadian, I'd be *much* happier if my big neighbor to my south got with the program and went metric!  

Only three countries in the world still use those outdated measurements, the untied states, Myanmar, and Liberia. Metric is the international scientific standard. And it makes the math so much more straightforward.

But you're in the ballpark, so at least for this, it still works. I wonder how many people rupture things trying to wrap their brains around imperial measurements and their conversions.

-CK

Haha, don't sweat it T Simpson. I had a covid-brain math moment in another thread. And yes, it involved conversions between systems.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Haha, don't sweat it T Simpson. I had a covid-brain math moment in another thread. And yes, it involved conversions between systems.

hehe I had it right but my brain last night was like "you should double check this using only volume and make it all complicated" XD

Thanks for confirming my math.

Well, I've made 100 gallons so far, only 13,000 and change left to go...

We know what you'll be doing for the next decade or so. Keeps you off the streets, at least.

;-)

I did similar math, which made me looking for larger and larger biochar kilns, which then made me look at efficient material handling systems, which then made me decide it was a full time job to make it farm scale (90 acres in my case).  

I talked with Royal Oak, the largest hardwood charcoal producer in the US, they used to sell charcoal filtered to 5 different grain sizes.  One of their sales guys from their HQ said they stopped selling it in February 2021 as the demand for briquettes has outstripped supply so everything is pressed into briquettes (lockdowns and out of business restaurants = more home BBQ).

I was able to find a local independent charcoal producer who had test results from people using his product for biochar and was able to buy the "fines", the stuff that is sifted out from their lump charcoal, for $120/ton.  Their feedstock is oak, they have a good afterburner, and they cook it at high temp so carbon percentages are very high.

I quickly added some used panels to the trailer to hold fine material and last week transported two loads, now have 5 tons to start mixing with compost/mulch.

Sam Thumper wrote:

I was able to find a local independent charcoal producer who had test results from people using his product for biochar and was able to buy the "fines", the stuff that is sifted out from their lump charcoal, for $120/ton.  

Jeepers! At that price I could cover my entire field and then some!

Nice find!!!

Sam Thumper wrote:I did similar math, which made me looking for larger and larger biochar kilns, which then made me look at efficient material handling systems, which then made me decide it was a full time job to make it farm scale (90 acres in my case).  

I talked with Royal Oak, the largest hardwood charcoal producer in the US, they used to sell charcoal filtered to 5 different grain sizes.  One of their sales guys from their HQ said they stopped selling it in February 2021 as the demand for briquettes has outstripped supply so everything is pressed into briquettes (lockdowns and out of business restaurants = more home BBQ).

I was able to find a local independent charcoal producer who had test results from people using his product for biochar and was able to buy the "fines", the stuff that is sifted out from their lump charcoal, for $120/ton.  Their feedstock is oak, they have a good afterburner, and they cook it at high temp so carbon percentages are very high.

I quickly added some used panels to the trailer to hold fine material and last week transported two loads, now have 5 tons to start mixing with compost/mulch.

Very nice! Can you give the rough demensions of your trailer?  There is a potential industrial source nearby I might explore someday, but right now my objective is to clean out a wooded area to make it slightly more silvopasture(ish).  I am also exploring the "absorption" rate of untilled pasture, in other words, how fast can the worms and dung beetles incorporate biochar without leaving an excessively thick layer on top of the soil.  Which begs the question, how much is too much when surface spread?

Sam Thumper,
It sounds like you've got an amazing deal right there.  Inoculate it, and you're gold.

John S
PDX OR

Gray - 12'x6.5'.  I had 2 ft wood sides made from spaced 2x8's, to these I screwed 4'x8' wood panels on their side to give it 4ft sides and used some scrap lumber to stiffen it.  a year ago I would have made nice sides that would last, but with the lumber cost now I used what I had laying around that I didn't need to buy.  I then tarped it tight, as it is light enough to mostly blow away.  It nicely carried 5,000 lbs which is about all my little truck can handle.  According the test report "Control Laboratories,   www.biocharlab.com"  the density is 16.3 lbs/cu ft.

Ellendra - I certainly plan to use it large scale, I'll have to experiment to figure out the method that will work best for me.    


The place where I bought it "Timber Charcoal" in Timber Missouri, they have semi trucks that bring in roughly 20 big bundles of edge slabs cut off oak logs at a pallet factory.   Each bundle is ~2000 lbs, the truck weighs in, they unload it with a fork lift and when they are ready they drive the bundles into the kiln with the fork lift.  I think I saw they have 3 kilns (each maybe 20ft x 40 ft in size) (guessing a little).The wood is green/wet and they take it to ~1000F, so the owner said 6 tons of green/wet slabs produces 1 ton of charcoal.  The owner said they have had people ship it all the way to Alaska and they have had lots of research and interest in their product for biochar...but things kind of petered out and steady sales never developed.    They are ~25 miles from me and I'm labor/time constrained so it was a natural choice, I'll plan on getting a batch each spring in order to inoculate with mulch for the following spring.  

Based on some research they are doing in Australia I tried feeding it to my cattle so their digestive system will inoculate it and spread it all in one.  I've been slowly watching my dung beetle population increase, there is some research that they do well with the biochar in the dung patties and will bury it for you.  So I mixed in the charcoal, kelp, black strap molasses and water.  The cows ate some, but were not very keen on it.  I'll need to experiment with the recipe...I don't want to just drench it is molasses and have them eat too much.  

My primary application is to amend production elderberry beds and food forest plantings.  The next larger city to me grinds yard waste, ages it over the winter and loads it into your trailer (every wednesday) for free, so I've been picking up a load a week.  The possibility of pesticides/fungicides gives me pause, but I've slowly applied it different places and seem to see positive results.  My plan is to lay down layers of this mulch/compost with a front end loader, while wetting it with a hose, and then shovel on top charcoal, make piles of it with alternating layers and let it sit till next spring.  For pastures I'm hoping I can then use an old manure spreader to spread it thin and mob graze the cattle through to grind it down.  For elderberry beds, food forest plots and garden beds we will likely just shovel it into place.  

Any comments, thoughts or suggestions are welcome.  Thank you

Actually I do have a question/thought, perhaps John S or others will have some ideas.  

This past winter I did three Johnson Su bioreactors to try to make fungal dominated compost.  They are basically static compost piles with vertical air shafts to keep them aerobic without the turning that destroys fungal hyphae.   My results were not very good, I think I didn't keep them moist enough, my material handling was not very efficient, and although they were 4ftx4ft x 6 ft tall they froze solid and I think they were too high as they compacted.  They had mushrooms growing on it in the fall, but this spring examination under a the microscope found no hyphae or nematodes, we only found small bacteria.

I'm wondering if I can make this biochar/mulch pile and the layers of char will keep it aerobic without turning.  Anyone have experience with this?  

Sam Thumper wrote:Actually I do have a question/thought, perhaps John S or others will have some ideas.  

This past winter I did three Johnson Su bioreactors to try to make fungal dominated compost.  They are basically static compost piles with vertical air shafts to keep them aerobic without the turning that destroys fungal hyphae.   My results were not very good, I think I didn't keep them moist enough, my material handling was not very efficient, and although they were 4ftx4ft x 6 ft tall they froze solid and I think they were too high as they compacted.  They had mushrooms growing on it in the fall, but this spring examination under a the microscope found no hyphae or nematodes, we only found small bacteria.

I'm wondering if I can make this biochar/mulch pile and the layers of char will keep it aerobic without turning.  Anyone have experience with this?  

I've got an experiment running where I am composting carp carcasses in uncrushed biochar.  It has completely eliminated the stench that was present when I did the same with wood chips.  I believe that the char is not only absorbing odor, but the granular structure is also helping to maintain aeration.  

Sam-
I have a question for you about your compost pile that didn't show fungal hyphae in the spring. Did it have enough fungal food in it? I'm thinking small sticks, wood chips, evergreen leaves, reed stems, anything organic and relatively hard to break down.  I am also interested to see what others may suggest.

Another unrelated idea: if the char fines dust is blowing away in the wind, many have watered it down to prevent that.  I water down my char as I'm crushing it between the panels of plywood in my driveway and it has helped decrease the amount that leaks out and blows away.

JOhn S
PDX OR

John,

It was all landscape waste that is mostly branches that they grind, it produces a range of chunk sizes up to several inches long.  High carbon, low nitrogen.  

Approximately 30% will be eastern red cedar with is rot resistant, so I did wonder if it has anti-fungal properties persist into the compost stage....but where I've shoveled it raw (prior to composting) to side dress elderberry beds I see mushrooms sprout, so I discounted that hypothesis.  

Yeah I was figuring I needed to get a sprinkler out there and just water for a while and have one person just spraying things as we make the mulch/char layer cake

Yes many people won't put  cedar, black walnut or black locust into their compost piles for that reason.  I would separate it from the other stuff, because, like you said, they have a lot of long-lasting anti-fungal agents built into their systems. You can put them into their own pile and they will eventually turn into usable organic matter, but it will take a long time.
John S
PDX OR

I have a lot of cedar and I'm going to chip it up for use in my paths for that very reason.

That is a great use of those, Trace.

Another use would be fence posts.

My brother and I made "baseball bats" out of them and hit chunks of wood as the "baseball".  It was pretty fun.

Unfortunately, now I'm supposed to be a responsible adult most of the time.
John S
PDX OR

I hear you and agree.  But I have no way to separate things, it is not ideal, but rather is a time/money/quantity/quality trade-off.  

Pro:  Free landscaping waste, high carbon, ground up and aged to be halfway between mulch and compost, loaded for free, unlimited quantity

Con:  34 mile drive one way. no control over the input; more cedar than I'd like and undoubtedly small amounts of treated wood and traces of chemicals.    

Last year I got and spread ~120 cu yds of this "free" material.  Two years ago I bought compost and had it delivered, $1,600/50 cu yard load; I'd imaging with the surge in gardening and inflation it would currently cost $2,250/50 cu yards.  

I'd contacted the electric coop to try to get them to dump their ground tree waste at my property, this would have less chemical residue (being mostly forest rather than landscaped), but would still have cedar.  They tried once and told me they wouldn't be back unless I built a pull through driveway to give better access.  I've looked at tractor PTO chippers (and used to own one) but when you look at size/cost/labor/output it is not that cost effective to produce bulk quantities.  

I'll speak up about my "cedar" experiences:
1. If you live in a "cedar landscape" all the microbes, bugs etc needed to decompose cedar are around, so it's *much* less of an issue than if you live on a property with no cedar.
2. Yes, putting fresh cedar in a bed/hugel you plan to plant right away is a bad idea - I didn't do so, but I know someone who did and ended up ripping it out.
3. Cedar chips sitting in a pile with lots of rain all winter, then used to mulch a path the next spring, will grow great weeds by the following spring with no trouble at all! By the year after the weeds, you can throw that "mulch" - now more like "soil" - on top of your raised beds and most plants will do just fine.

In a dry climate, this whole process may take longer!

Makes sense to me, Sam. Sometimes we just do the best we can with our current situation.  I think we all have some of those.
John S
PDX OR

Jay - Good info. thank you