2018 Biochar workshop tour

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It is nearly two years since Dennis Enright and I completed a biochar workshop tour around NZ. We conducted five workshops (Cromwell, Nelson, Waihi, Waiuku and Gisborne) over a period of three weeks. Our plans to report on each workshop started well but faded badly as the end of the tour rolled into biochar activities at the 2018 National Fieldays. I had managed one other report from the Nelson workshop.

Our marketing for the workshop tour included a number of articles published in various trade journals & newsletters leading up to the tour. You can check out these articles via the ‘Archives’ tab to the right… starting in February 2018 through to May 2018.

Denis wrote the following report after the tour but I failed to get it posted at the time. It would be great to revisit these sites to update on any anecdotal impact… will keep you updated on this.

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Biochar case studies from Australia

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Samuel Robb and Stephen Joseph have pulled together some very interesting economic case studies that provide insight and guidance for biochar applications in NZ. Eight case studies are featured: beef (2); avocado; potato; cucumber; zucchini; golf courses; saline soil.

From the report…

Purpose
“This paper discusses practical uses of biochar and the end outcomes based on the early adopters in the field. This report is not a scientific paper and instead relays practical information regarding in the field end use examples, application methods, short and some long term outcomes and importantly financial information. It is meant for people that want to hear about the uses of biochar in the field, understand different application scenarios and what the outcomes were – we are hoping that these early adopter examples will inspire others to follow. This white paper is not the end of the story, and we hope to add many more examples in later revisions – maybe yours will be one. We’d be keen to hear your feedback, and if you have your own stories/ photos/ data of the use of biochar in field, green roof, agriculture, horticulture, cattle feed, the backyard vegie garden, Orchids or whichever the end use might be, we’d want to add them to this report for the next release. Please let us know.”

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/A-Report-on-the-Value-of-Biochar-and-Wood-Vinegar%3A-Robb/5f4c8eefbfd12ab68ea272abce3d3cb1bbcdfd16

BNNZ AGM postponement & Speaker Event cancellation

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CANCELLED

The preliminary announcement to the left was shared with the ABE newsletter list on 14 March. The BNNZ committee have decided to reschedule the AGM to 13 May and and conduct a remote event via Zoom. This will still require pre-registration and a landing page for this is currently being prepared.

BNNZ also hope to reschedule the speaker event for later in the year… more on this as events unfold.

Keep safe & keep communicating with your networks. This is a great time to create new networks… many folk have rejected social networks in the past. Maybe its time to revisit this view in these special times.

Northland cattle feed trials

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Early results from Parengarenga biochar feed trials look encouraging and impressive. These slides focus on animal worm burden and weight gain.

link to presentation

Comments from Prof. Stephen Joseph (Parengarenga advisor):

“The biochar is from wood produced in a retort at around 400-450C over an 8 hour period. “

“Again indicating you don’t need to have high temperature biochar to get positive results.”