Biochar and its Inoculation with Pig Slurry - Is it Possible?

Hi everyone,

As a city person, I have a very limited opportunity to undertake/verify various procedures that interest me, and the inoculation of pig slurry is one of them.
Unfortunately, even though I live on the outskirts of a relatively small city (1 million inhabitants), I am quite sure that my neighbors would somewhat object to verifying the ability of biochar to absorb substances important for its inoculation, specifically from pig slurry.

Moreover, I am fairly certain that even a pig, to whom I would surrender the garage as a pigsty and the garden as a run, would not thrill them too much.

However, since some of you might have greater opportunities than I do to verify this matter and make the results available to the local community,
I would like to hereby invite you to eventual cooperation.

This concerns, of course, primarily those members of this community who already have a pig in their care and would be interested in processing the endless stream of its excrement in some way, which graces you and your neighbors and with which you do not really know what to do.

If it succeeds, you will obtain, on one hand, a great fertilizer for your lands, that is, biochar charged with nitrogen and other useful substances, and on the other hand, you will gain the opportunity to resell such charged and, of course, completely odorless biochar to interested parties.

Your pig can thus become the most important income-earning member of your family and not just an endless eater and producer of that smelly slush, which can thus be transformed into a desired product. (HAHAHA)

So I am not claiming that it will succeed, but those who do not try will not find out. Right?

If anyone is interested, write. I will explain the details here below afterward.
The conditions are: a pig in your possession, if possible understanding neighbors, and most importantly, the desire to try something.
I have a plan, of course, which should work out, but it needs to be verified that it will be functional.
HOWGH !

Charcoal has an incredible ability to absorb odor (and nitrogen).  For that reason alone, it is worth adding to a pig pen.  And there is no doubt that a prolific microbial community exists in a pig pen that can occupy the pores in the charcoal turning it in to biochar.  Some pigs I have had over the years would consume the raw charcoal, and others not so much.  I’d start slow and work up if they seem to be eating much of it.

Gray Henon wrote:Charcoal has an incredible ability to absorb odor (and nitrogen).  For that reason alone, it is worth adding to a pig pen.  And there is no doubt that a prolific microbial community exists in a pig pen that can occupy the pores in the charcoal turning it in to biochar.

Well said, I agree.

On a related note, I had a chat with a dairy farmer last year, wondering how he dealt with liquid manure in an area that also had multi-million dollar vacation estates and such. He used direct injection into the soil, now the norm, but what he said stuck with me: "If you can smell it, you have allowed your fertilizer to evaporate into the air." I did not think in the moment to ask if char/biochar might be an additive to his injection system, capturing more ammonia in the soil and also mollifying his neighbours. I would be willing to bet that it would have a positive impact.

You might be interested in the Korean Natural Farming KNF system, as described here:

https://naturalfarminghawaii.net/learn-natural-farming/odorless-pig-technology/
The video is long and everything in the frame of the presentation


In the original system, biochar is used at the bottom layer.

These look like great strategies to raise pigs and avoid the smell.
John S
PDX OR

Frank Strie in Australia does a manure slurry quench and has spoken very positively about the results.
Here's a video of him doing it:

Welcome on board, Korina Stark. Excellent first post!

I can imagine "manure slurry quench" works pretty well...also imaging the smell isn't the best!