mycelia + biochar

Has anyone tried this yet??? Seems like a damn good idea to me to start off soil that is basically sand.

I haven't tried it but I like the idea. With biochar, make sure you soak it in compost tea or something. I think a progressive version of this might work best in sand. For example, Put a ton of leaves down, then wood chips. organic matter will start to live in the sand. We planted stuff on the ORegon coast and it died of thirst during the summer, due to the fast drainage of the sand. Yes I know amazing with how much rain they get. Once leaves and wood chips have been in for a year, microorganisms will start to thrive, then worms, Then maybe a year later, I would try a wood chip type of shroom, like stropharia, blewit, or hypsizygus ulmarius for a few years, adding wood chips and leaves heavily every year. I would start with biochar maybe in the third year. Then you will have enough in the ground to start to get a polyculture of trees in the ground to be laying regular, diverse leaves. As Paul says in the podcasts, the carroty or tree goodness in the soil will start to grow positive mycorrhizal fungi, and soil food webs of bacteria in the exudates. That's what I would do.
John S
PDX OR

I've never tried this in a controlled environment, but when I move the mulch in my raised bed, pieces of biochar are oftentimes pretty well colonized by mycelium.

This guy made it by accident, I posted it elsewhere:

https://permies.com/t/17990/fungi/shitake-biochar#154167

I've not only tried it, I do it every day. My routine goes as follows:

Clean out the roost area of the chicken tractor, put the scrapings in a 1 gallon bucket. Fill the bucket with water, cover it, let it sit in the sun all day. Next day, empty stinky manure water into a 5 gallon bucket, add a couple more gallons and drop the aquarium bubbler into it. (In a couple hours, the anaerobes are killed off and the stink becomes a sweet, earthy smell) Next step is to inoculate this brewing bucket: I take recently collected mushrooms and whiz them up in a big plastic cup of water with the immersion blender and into the brewer it goes. If I'm fresh out of mushrooms, well then I have to settle for a couple good scoopfuls of leaf litter.

Day 3 is when the biochar gets added. For my 5 gallon brewing bucket, I use about a cup of biochar. I whiz it up with water using the immersion blender, making sure the resulting liquid is ink black with no floating bits. Then into the brew bucket it goes. I usually let this sit a couple hours before applying it, and I apply it anywhere and everywhere -- as a root drench, foliar application, on top of mulch, under mulch, I want spores+charcoal everywhere.

John Elliott wrote:I've not only tried it, I do it every day. My routine goes as follows:

Clean out the roost area of the chicken tractor, put the scrapings in a 1 gallon bucket. Fill the bucket with water, cover it, let it sit in the sun all day. Next day, empty stinky manure water into a 5 gallon bucket, add a couple more gallons and drop the aquarium bubbler into it. (In a couple hours, the anaerobes are killed off and the stink becomes a sweet, earthy smell) Next step is to inoculate this brewing bucket: I take recently collected mushrooms and whiz them up in a big plastic cup of water with the immersion blender and into the brewer it goes. If I'm fresh out of mushrooms, well then I have to settle for a couple good scoopfuls of leaf litter.

Day 3 is when the biochar gets added. For my 5 gallon brewing bucket, I use about a cup of biochar. I whiz it up with water using the immersion blender, making sure the resulting liquid is ink black with no floating bits. Then into the brew bucket it goes. I usually let this sit a couple hours before applying it, and I apply it anywhere and everywhere -- as a root drench, foliar application, on top of mulch, under mulch, I want spores+charcoal everywhere.

You really do this? and it works? I am going to try this.

You really do this? and it works? I am going to try this.

I don't have rigorous experimental data with controls, but it seems to work. I notice less insect pests. I notice more skinks, anoles, and toads. And this week for the first time, I am seeing little itty-bitty frogs. This neglected piece of hardpan is slowly coming around. I've been here four years and the first year I couldn't grow anything; now there are things that are actually beginning to thrive.

Here is a group that might help with answers.

http://biochar.bioenergylists.org/node/1835

Ken