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“Pilot three involves a 12-month field trial of biochar on kiwifruit orchards – biochar is a carbon-rich material known to improve soil nutrient availability, sequester carbon and improve soil drainage and aeration. While biochar has been used with other crops, this pilot will assess whether it will help improve kiwifruit orchard soil characteristics and therefore possibly improve vine productivity and fruit quality.”
Dylan does a deep dive on practical biochar applications along with some great permaculture education.
The bio for the above story does not specifically mention biochar but a G-Scholar search on Prof. Condron pulls a lot of historic research conducted at Lincoln, mostly around the interaction of biochar with N. I’ve filtered the results with a search on ‘biochar’. A lot of the early work at Lincoln continues to be referenced in thousands of other biochar publications.
2019 Impact of biochar coated with magnesium (hydr) oxide on phosphorus leaching from organic and mineral soils M Riddle, L Bergström, F Schmieder, D Lundberg, L Condron, …
2016 Research and application of biochar in New Zealand MC Arbestain, JR Jones, LM Condron, TJ Clough
2014 Biochar does not affect soil N-transformations or microbial community structure under ruminant urine patches but does alter relative proportions of nitrogen cycling bacteria CR Anderson, K Hamonts, TJ Clough, LM Condron
2014 Biochar and fertiliser applications influence phosphorus fractionation and wheat yield M Farrell, LM Macdonald, G Butler, I Chirino-Valle, LM Condron
2013 Impacts of greenwaste biochar on ammonia volatilisation from bauxite processing residue sand CR Chen, IR Phillips, LM Condron, J Goloran, ZH Xu, KY Chan
2013 A review of biochar and soil nitrogen dynamics TJ Clough, LM Condron, C Kammann, C Müller (nearly 1000 sights)
2012 A wood based low-temperature biochar captures NH3-N generated from ruminant urine-N, retaining its bioavailability A Taghizadeh-Toosi, TJ Clough, RR Sherlock, LM Condron
2012 Biochar adsorbed ammonia is bioavailable A Taghizadeh-Toosi, TJ Clough, RR Sherlock, LM Condron
2011 Biochar induced soil microbial community change: implications for biogeochemical cycling of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus CR Anderson, LM Condron, TJ Clough, M Fiers, A Stewart, RA Hill, …
2011 Biochar incorporation into pasture soil suppresses in situ nitrous oxide emissions from ruminant urine patches A Taghizadeh‐Toosi, TJ Clough, LM Condron, RR Sherlock, …
2010 Biochar and the nitrogen cycle: introduction TJ Clough, LM Condron
2010 Unweathered wood biochar impact on nitrous oxide emissions from a bovine‐urine‐amended pasture soil TJ Clough, JE Bertram, JL Ray, LM Condron, M O’callaghan, RR Sherlock, …
2008 Biochar amendment of urine-treated New Zealand pasture soil induces unique shift in active bacterial but not archaeal ammonia-oxidizer communities JL Ray, JE Bertram, TJ Clough, LM Condron, M O’Callaghan, …
Dr Peter Winsley’s latest WordPress article on biochar is timely. Hopefully it will draw plenty of discussion there.
A search for ‘biochar’ on Peter’s WordPress page pulls 12 articles since 2019. His connection to biochar advocacy goes all the way back to his 2007 with his much sited paper “Biochar and bioenergy production for climate change mitigation” when he was Director for Strategy Development at MAF. There were very few biochar related publications to refer to in 2007. NZ had an early lead on biochar back then with Dr Peter Read being linked to the origins of the term ‘biochar’ and the creation of NZBRC.
It does feel like we have dropped the ball!
I see I’ve posted stories here on Carbonscape since 2014 (& BNNZ FB). This looks like a big story but repeating my FB comments “CarbonScape roots in biochar gets a mention here. Claiming up to -5TCO2e /T of anode produced? How do they do that? Its a shame they don’t have the ambition to keep production in NZ & add value to wood here but I guess they are ruled by investors.“
