Craig Sams

We make biochar at commercial scale.  We get the temperature right to maximise the balance of pore sizes and pore availability (mycorrhizae and other microorganisms live in those holes) and we grind it and sieve it to makes sure it is best for whichever application it is used for (trees, grass/turf/vegetable growing) and we capture the off gases to make electricity rather than letting them add to the greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere.  And we do it a lot more cheaply because of the scale at which we do it.  We started out, back in 2008, with small scale kilns and sold our designs to farmers in Belize and in Malawi among other places, but generally you get better biochar at a lower price if you buy it from a competent manufacturer.  Craig Sams  Founder of Carbon Gold Ltd, www.carbongold.com

Biochar is not called biochar because of adding biological elements. It is called biochar purely to differentiate it from charcoal, i.e it is charcoal for use as a soil improver, not for barbecuing sausages

That doesn't mean it's not a good idea to inoculate biochar with compost tea, mycorrhizae or any other activating material, I'm just being pedantic about the definition. Biochar is just pure charcoal

When we (Carbon Gold) market it here in the UK we blend it with mycorrhizal fungi spores, wormcasts (a rich source of actinomycetes bacteria) and seaweed and we call it GroChar. There are more and more proprietary blends emerging, but biochar is just plain old charcoal that has been made at lowish temperatures and has definitely not been made with old rubber tires, plastic waste or wood that has been treated with preservatives or paint. It has to be clean feedstock.