Anyone following this blog back
even to 2007, knows that I am unapologetic when it comes to the subject of
biochar. Quite simply every acre of soil
on earth needs to be beneficiated with ten percent biochar to the depth of
rooting. There may be exceptions and I may
be surprised, but rapidly expanding research is step by step bearing this out.
This is a particularly important
paper, because it bears out that nitrogen is trapped by the biochar until it is
used, even in pastures. Optimizing it
all means achieving that ten percent mark which takes years at least and
decades if one is more leisurely about it.
Everyone is arguing the carbon
sequestration issue but that is irrelevant compared to the fact that this
protocol swiftly manufactures real living soils were none existed. Those soils retain nutrients naturally until
they are extracted by a living plant.
What more do you need to
understand?
Can Biochar Help Suppress Greenhouse Gases
by Staff Writers
Addition of biochar to the soil allowed for a 70% reduction in nitrous oxide fluxes
over the course of the study. Nitrogen contribution from livestock urine to the
emitted nitrous oxide decreased as well.
Nitrous oxide is a potent greenhouse gas and a precursor to compounds that contribute to the destruction of the ozone. Intensively managed, grazed pastures are responsible for an increase in nitrous oxide emissions from grazing animals' excrement.
Biochar is potentially a mitigation option for reducing the world's
elevated carbon dioxide emissions, since the embodied carbon can
be sequestered in the soil. Biochar also has the potential to beneficially
alter soil nitrogen transformations.
Laboratory tests have indicated that adding biochar to the soil could
be used to suppress nitrous oxide derived from livestock. Biochar has been used
for soil carbon sequestration in the same manner.
In a study funded by the Foundation for Research Science and
Technology, scientists at Lincoln University in New Zealand, conducted an experiment over
an 86-day spring/summer period to determined the effect of incorporating
biochar into the soil on nitrous oxide emissions from the urine patches
produced by cattle.
Biochar was added to the soil during pasture renovation and gas samples
were taken on 33 different occasions. The study was published in the
March/April 2011 issue of the Journal of Environmental Quality.
Addition of biochar to the soil allowed for a 70% reduction in nitrous
oxide fluxes over the course of the study. Nitrogen contribution from livestock
urine to the emitted nitrous oxide decreased as well. The incorporation of
biochar into the soil had no detrimental effects on dry matter yield or total
nitrogen content in the pasture.
Arezoo Taghizadeh-Toosi who conducted the study, says that under the
highest rate of biochar, ammonia formation and its subsequent adsorption onto
or into the biochar, reduced the inorganic-nitrogen pool available for
nitrifiers and thus nitrate concentrations were reduced. Such effects would
have diminished the substrate available for microbial nitrous oxide production.
"
Research work is ongoing and still required to determine seasonal
effects, and the effects of repeated urine deposition.
The full
article is available for no charge for 30 days following the date of
this summary.
1 comment:
Thank you for your updates and emphasis on what should be common practice with biochar. I am writing an LCA on manure as a fertilizer, and emission of nitrous oxide is one of the main arguments for limiting its application.
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