Kon-Tiki cone kiln

This video has Hans-Peter Schmidt and Dr Paul Taylor  demonstrating the Kon-Tiki at the Ithaka Institute in Switzerland.

I visited Hans-Peter in Switzerland on 25 July. He was kind enough to take me on a tour of their composting facility, vineyard and the facilities associated with the Ithaka Institute.

The composting facility includes biochar trial mix designs (photo link). The benefits of adding biochar were anecdotally evident in adjacent compost piles. Leachate from heavy rains showed colorful algal blooms in non-amended compost while biochar amended compost showed no sign of algae.

I’ve posted previously about the cone kiln.  

I also visited Marc-Etienne Favre at La Coulette near Lausanne. Included among his agriculture business activities are commercial composting, biochar soil amendment production and distribution facilities… an exemplar for successful biochar business development in NZ (photo link).


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