How does biochar affect specific plants?

As I've written in this forum before, the two plants I decided to put biochar near first were American persimmons and pie cherries.  They both seemed to prefer neutral to alkaline soil and we naturally have very acidic soil here. I thought that the biochar might make a difference.  Boy did it!  The pie cherry tree literally doubled in size after plateauing at a given size for the previous 7 years.  The cherries also doubled in size and quality.  2 different American persimmons became delicious instead of very marginal to eat.  The production on one of the trees multiplied by 4.  Naturally, I biocharred all of my other American persimmons and pie cherries.  They all had noticeable improvements, although the improvements generally were not quite as astounding as the first trees I noticed.  

Then I went and biocharred the rest of my yard.  Some of the plants have improved in how long the fruit will last.  Others have fewer diseases.   Some others have improved in production.  A few had noticeably improved flavor and production.  Were there any other plants that improved in a particularly noticeable way?

My medlar tree had been in my yard since before the millenium.  I liked the Royal Medlars, but I wasn't excited about them.  I had grafted another variety, Nottingham, eventually.  Over time, I found that I liked the Nottinghams much better than the Royal medlars. The tree usually fruited only in November for the first 20 years or so.  This year, I biocharred it heavily.  The quality of the Nottinghams is better than ever.  I never thought I would be so excited about eating medlars.   The tree has also grown greatly in size.  It is starting to crowd out my pawpaw tree, so I'm going to have to cut out some branches of the medlar this year.  The medlars have also lasted much longer.  Instead of being done in November, I am still eating them off the tree in January, and there are many fruit left to eat!

Are there any particular plants that you have noticed that have greatly improved after putting biochar near them?

Thanks,
John S
PDX OR

I have to admit I had no idea what a Medlar was or is and had to ask the Oracle of the Internet.
I have been adding charcoal and potash to my compost bin for years. I cannot say that it has improved the health or production of anything, but many gardeners I have spoken with love to get charcoal fines to spread around most of the vegetables they raise and swear by it as a basic amendment.

That makes sense. Charcoal is usually alkaline, and vegetables often like a more alkaline soil than fruit trees, and especially conifers do. That would help their soil in addition to the hotels for microbes idea.

John S
PDX OR

From your experience multiple plants benefit from biochar. It is very encouraging.  In acidic soil aluminum is more soluble and sometimes it can be toxic to plants. So biochar not only raises the pH but also mitigate the toxicity with its absorption property. Multiple trees aren't growing well in my acidic soil, except a few that are native and tolerant. I am considering digging holes and amending the soil with biochar for fruit trees grown from seeds. Otherwise they will be severely stunted or even fail to germinate.

I dig the biochar in around the dripline of the tree or bush to the depth of one spade.   My goal is to complete the process throughout my yard so that There is biochar within 3 feet or so of the entire yard. Then maybe I'll put it in more shallowly, under some wood chips.

John S
PDX OR

John I haven't searched through earlier threads of yours but just for clarity here, are you using crushed and "charged" (compost/nutrient saturated) char or just raw chunks of it?

Ben Brownell wrote:John I haven't searched through earlier threads of yours but just for clarity here, are you using crushed and "charged" (compost/nutrient saturated) char or just raw chunks of it?

John will answer in more detail I'm sure, but he uses crushed and inoculated char for his trees.  I would highly recommend doing the same.  If you use raw char, it will pull nutrients from the soil for some, maybe considerable, amount of time before it becomes charged enough on its own to be helpful.

Yes, Trace is right.

John Suavecito wrote:
Are there any particular plants that you have noticed that have greatly improved after putting biochar near them?

Thanks,
John S
PDX OR

I think I mentioned the trench I dug in my yard in a previous post that I planted a little guild around. Allium is planted all over my yard after I realized 10 years ago they're seemingly indestructible.

I threw a bunch of other stuff in that trench burn after it was done, mostly some food scraps, and then capped it with some mulch.

The green onions are still the biggest, most vibrant I've planted and I've probably got 50 plantings of green onion between our property and others, I just give them away to people into growing food or not. None compare to the one by my biochar trench and I don't think it's a coincidence. There is also garlic chive, hairy vetch, and an ever expanding area of crimson clover, which is now barely poking through the dead grass, but has spread several feet in every direction, I think because of the available biology in the general area. I had a pear tree seedling planted there, but I think it got blight when I brought in a pineapple pear from a local nursery and planted it two years ago maybe 30 yds away from the seedling. I've replaced the dead pear seedling with a plum sucker my uncle gave me that made flowers in it's second year. I think also because of the available nutrients around the area. The general area seems to be getting better and better every year and the most I do to it is add a little microbes when I remember a couple times a year(if that), or take a whiz on it after dark when my neighbors can't see me.

I have another trench I dug that I didn't mention, that's almost directly in the center of my garden. The trench was planted with a grafted apple that has since died (I'm done with grafted trees I think, another convo entirely) and instead of either pulling it or chopping it, I left it to just stay dead. I planted a southern bartlett pear seedling maybe 3 feet away from said trench a year ago, and had the foresight to take a picture immediately after planting, it wasn't even up to my hip and I'm not a big guy. I didn't go into my garden for months last year, but when I revisited it in the Fall, to my surprise that pear seedling was between 8-10 feet tall. It's hard for me to make sense of this since I've been planting seedling trees for 5-6 years, none of which have shown that type of explosive growth. I kinda couldn't believe it, but I'm sitting there staring at it and asking myself, what did I do? And how can I try and recreate this for future plantings? My hunch is add more biochar (and microbes).

I know this is anecdotal and people get upset when you can't make it sound scientific or whatever. I do have plans to post some pictures when I feel like sitting down and doing all that. Just wanted to add my experience as well in this thread. I find myself refreshing the 'growies' tab to see if there's any recent convo about biochar. My preference, even though I do like browsing the studies and archives, is to hear or see people using it currently and how it's affecting their plants. Thanks for starting this thread John I got a feeling people will come back to this one further down the road.

Those are great results Thombo!  I wish you continued success!

John S
PDX OR

Hi John,
I too have experienced noticeable improvements in my vegetable garden, particularly with tomatoes.
tomatoes seemed more disease-resistant, and the flavor became richer.

One result that is kind of on this topic is that particular varieties can thrive with biochar.  I hadn't had a lot of my winesap apples in the past few years until recently with the biochar.  They are on trees on which I have grafted many varieties, but these did particularly well.  They taste much better, they last longer (they are a great keeper apple), and the tree seems healthier.

John S
PDX OR

Most of our indoor tropical plants love our biochar soil amender. In particular corn plant, fiddlehead ficus, and monstera. It's got an NPK of 5-2-2 so it's pretty well rounded I think. One customer used it on her lemon tree and it doubled in size. Another said that her pitcher plant absolutely loved it.

I just remembered. I have a patch of curly mallow plants-leafy greens.  They grew ok for many years but got some rust.  After biocharring them, they grew more abundantly than ever before, and have had fewer diseases than ever before.  Pretty awesome result.

John S
PDX OR