Ben Walter wrote:Something I've been experimenting with which will go a long way to improving our sandy soil is biochar. I'm growing a half acre of corn and sorghum on the property, half with and half without biochar. It's only been in the ground about 3 weeks but I can already visually see a difference. It is a bitch to make in any significant quantity, but I'm pretty sure that UF is going to come out in the next few years recommending it and that will drive a lot of business. A year ago you could barely find any online, and now there are already several places selling in bulk, it's still pretty expensive though. Biochar shows promise for holding water and soluble nutrients, as well as providing great pores for biology, esp. fungus.
Biochar is easy to make with a 55gal metal drum just find one with a threaded bung and put a pipe with wholes in it so it goes under the drum then fill with wood and light a very small fire under it. the gas from the wood with auto-cook the wood until done aka when there is no more gas in the wood. Biggest time sink is waiting for the drum to cool so make two and change back and forth. PM me if you want more info on how to make this drum. I do not know if 55gal of biochar is alot for you but add it up over a year with just one batch aday is very roughly 9855 gals a year so call it 9000gals to be safe. I use biochar to run a old style Japanese forge aka big hole in sand with a blower aka shop vac on blow setting.
