Gray Henon

If you don’t have a “kindling cracker” (wedge with a sharp edge up that can be mounted on a log), get one.  Reduces wood down to smaller sizes in a hurry.  Much safer than a maul or axe for the last split or two. We split logs down to 5-6 inches with a maul then any further with the cracker.  Lots of versions online, but if you are handy with a welder, easy enough to make.  I made 3 of them for us to process biochar material.  Also made a few for gifts.

I vote “yes” for a bamboo forum.

In general, yes, trees retain soil moisture.  One of the driving reasons I planted trees in my pasture was water retention.  However, a few tree species are known for robbing other plants of water.  Willows, eucalyptus, and poplar are a few.  

calbo collier wrote:So Gray, it appears the film left us with an uncertain message.  The last speaker definitely said that if the energy from the pyrolysis is captured, then it is a viable enhancer - but most farm/independent creators are NOT capturing the energy from pyrolysis - what is your take?  I know you're probably the number one biochar person I read on this site. Ta.

It certainly saddens me to watch what is probably a winter’s worth of home heating go up in smoke with every batch of biochar I make.  I have ideas for what is basically a mini retort woodstove to utilize the waste heat, but the volume of biochar produced would be low compared to my piles and add to my daily chore list.  

I have seen videos of small town scale biochar/biomass energy plants in Japan, but can’t find much info on them.

I would image that it would not be that difficult to add augers similar to the Tigercat carbonizer in the video to existing biomass energy plants, they probably already have them for ash.  There just has to be a good market for the biochar as they would be sacrificing some energy production.  Biomass plants may also burn things such as tires or railroad ties, which would obviously contaminate the biochar.

More detail on the trees w/biochar trial that showed no improvement would be interesting.  I think a lot of biochar trials are probably on the short side.  

Tigercat carbonizer runs around $500k.  It would be interesting to see how fast it is compared to a tub grinder.  Helene left an incredible amount of woody debris in the area.  Much of which is being ground into mulch.

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Back in January, we charred a bunch of bamboo we used for feed, then got snow/ice that hung around for a while and impeded spreading,  Finally got it spread today.  In the meantime, the bamboo pile has grown to enormous proportions.  Hope to burn again soon.

Cotton duck pants seem to hold up better for me than jeans.  I am cheap so I buy Dickies instead of Carhartts.  You have to look closely though, there are. two different weights of canvas.  

I burn the bones in the woodstove, then spread on my property.