Biochar around apple trees?

I have finished putting biochar in around the driplines of my pie cherries and American persimmons. It had a huge impact. Now I am starting to put it in around my apple trees. Has anyone noticed a difference in quality, production, or health of the trees when you put them around your apple trees?
Thanks,
JOhn S
PDX OR

Excellent! I'm curious. Are the results you see from the initial application or a longer term? I know that you inoculate your char quite heavily. Do you think there might be an ititial "fertilizer" boost, followed by a slow but long term improvement of soil fertiliy?

This is a great question, Douglas, and one that I think that everyone on this forum wants to know about.  Of course we would all love to have double blind, placebo controlled laboratory experiments about this in many different climates, with many different procedures of making biochar.  However, since corporations and governments  aren't bankrolling these ideas, I will give you my observations and anecdotes with an n of 1.

The biochar installations have made a tremendous difference in the pie cherries.  At first, it was steady growth after a  previous plateau before biocharring.  Most of the trees have had a steady increase in the size of the tree, quantity of cherries, and the flavor and quality of the cherries.  I used to prefer the flavor of the neighbor's Montmorency cherries to mine, but now I have noticed that mine have a much better flavor and are larger.  I think that this is related to the ability to use minerals in biochemical reactions, but I'm not sure. It may also be related to the ability to store and use water during our dry summers.   I chose pie cherries as one of the first trees to experiment on because the data suggested that they prefer neutral to alkaline soils, and we have naturally acidic soils.  The biochar is somewhat alkaline, because it will have a percentage of ash in it.  I believe that it also lets the tree direct the soil more toward what it wants through exudation of fluids that create habitat for certain microbiology.  This has been established through the work of Elaine Ingham and Bryant Redhawk.   I would say that the difference is greater on the newer trees, and it has happened over about a 4-5 year span. The improvement has neither slowed down nor stopped.

Another type of tree in which there has been great growth has been in the American persimmons.  This was another one that I chose because I had read that the tree prefers neutral to alkaline soils, and we have acidic soils naturally.  On some of the trees, the flavor improved somewhat, but the size of tree and quantity of fruit, didn't seem to noticeably improve. This was on my better tasting fruit: the Garrettson and the Early Golden.  On the Prairie Star H-118, it only fruited as a small tree after the biochar was placed near the dripline. The flavor is outstanding.  On the Szukis and the NC-10 Campbell's early, the flavor improved dramatically.  Before, they weren't really worth eating.  Very blah.  Afterward, the Szukis is delicious and the NC-10 tastes good.  The Szukis and the NC-10 both became  much larger trees, with much more fruit as well.  

In general, my impression is that the inoculation of the biochar led to a steady improvement is size of tree, flavor, and quantity of fruit for most trees.  I think that the inoculation stopped the loss of growth and temporary decrease in all of the growth that has been documented in so many other trials.  My data on this issue seems to fit well with what others have noticed in their biochar installations.

I have inoculated one apple tree a year ago, but it is 100% biennial, with no apples on the down year, so it is hard to measure any improvement.  Gold Rush ripens here in Late October and November traditionally, so I haven't tasted it to notice a difference in flavor.  I also biocharred another apple tree, but I just finished a week ago.  No difference is usually detectable for the first year, and sometimes can be seen in the second year.  I am curious to hear about anyone else who has biocharred their apple trees.

John S
PDX OR

A few years ago, before I knew anything about permaculture or biochar, I dug up the soil in a fire pit and used it to fill in some holes around a plum tree. The next year it grew like crazy!

That's great info Steve.  I haven't put any on my plum trees because they already grow astonishingly well here. I might try it later on them.
JOhn S
PDX OR

The International Biochar Initiative is an organization promoting the use of biochar. There is a section in it called Soil Health that explains some techniques:

https://biochar-international.org/soil-health/

Apparently, biochar is a pretty big deal in Japan and it is mixed in with EM (effective Microbes.)

I was glad to see them using some of the same techniques I use in my permaculture orchard.

"Biochar should ideally be applied to an area of soil that tree roots will eventually utilize to
take up nutrients, i.e. the “drip line”. The drip line refers to the area you would get, once
the tree has reached its mature size, if you drew a circle on the soil corresponding to the
size of the tree’s crown. To apply biochar to the entire drip line it is necessary to work it
into the soil beyond the tree’s planting hole, and this is not always possible. Here we
describe different ways of applying biochar when establishing trees.
4.4.1 Surface application
For tree establishment, it may be possible to broadcast and incorporate or band apply
biochar over the entire planting area, and add more biochar in planting holes. Before or
after tree establishment, biochar could also be applied by traditional and subsurface
banding or top-dressed over perennial vegetation in orchards, but care should be taken to
minimize root damage and soil compaction. More data on appropriate application rates for
planting area treatment and planning hole application are needed, but this technique has
been used to study biochar effects on the growth of oil palm in Colombia (D. Molina,
Cenipalma, pers. comm.) and Costa Rica.
4.4.2 Localized applications  
Nursery seedlings grown in biochar containing medium and transplanted in the field could
benefit from biochar early on, but roots will usually grow outside the biochar amended
area. Alternatively, if the soil outside the transplant medium is very inhospitable for plant
roots (for example of very high or low pH), roots can seek to restrict themselves to the
transplant medium, resulting in unstable trees with poor root structures. Biochar can be
applied in trenches radiating out from the base of established trees (“radial trenching”) or
in holes dug at some distance from the base of the tree (“vertical mulching”); biochar
could also potentially be applied to soil using “air excavation tools”. These tools use
pressurized air to deliver compost under the soil surface and reduce compaction.
Alternatively, the soil around tree roots can be excavated and biochar applied before
covering with soil. This treatment has been shown to benefit valuable old trees in Japan.
(Japan Biochar Association)"

John S
PDX OR