Urine and other inoculants for biochar

Biochar is biomass that has undergone pyrolysis. That’s a long and short of it. It’s nearly 100% carbon nanotubes. It’s public housing for nutrients, bacteria, and mychor. If you put it in the ground and garden over it before it’s been charged, it is going to leech all the nutrients, bacteria, and mychor* out of the surrounding soil and kill or stunt your plants. At the very least, pee on it before you incorporate it into your soil or compost. And I’m kind of truncating that advice. Pee in a container. Leave it for a while. Mix it 1 to 10 with rainwater. And then charge your biochar with it.

Jim

*mychor - my abbreviation for mycorrhizae (my-kor-RYE-zuh).

Charging with urine is good.  Charging it with other stuff is better.  Anything nutritious and inexpensive is good.  I use whole wheat flour, seaweed, ag lime, compost, rotten fruit, rotten wood, worm castings as well as urine, but your cheap nutritious stuff might be different. I live by the ocean, I have an orchard, raise red compost worms and I cultivate mushrooms on logs.  

JohN S
PDX OR

John,

Urine is an awesome “biocharger” but, yes, I have charged mine with a lot of different amendments. My favorite and the one that has done the best is Paul Morris of Planet Healers, “Super Brew." He sometimes calls it "super powerful brew."

Jim

This superbrew is  similar to what people add to compost tea.
John S
PDX OR

Lots of fuss over filling carbon micropores with inoculant... I mix charcoal into my garden soil and add water. If I want to get really creative, I make a bucket of compost tea (with or without urine) and use it to water my plants. Or simply amend the soil with compost and, again, add water.
Nutrients and microbes follow the wet stuff. If it takes a while for the charcoal to 'charge', the nutrients already present in my healthy soil carry the load.

Many people don't charge it at all.  That's fine if you've got enough land that you can let that section deteriorate for two years before using it and then trying to recover afterwards.  I find it so easy to charge the biochar, that it's easier to charge it first than to wait years for recovery.  Of course, I have a small growing area and no sections to forget about for a few years.  Most Americans live in suburbs or cities where we don't have unlimited land.

John S
PDX OR