Unlocking the Potential of Biochar: Improving Soil Health

The use of biochar for soil nutrient retention and improvement is thought to have originated over 2,000 years ago in the Brazilian Amazon. Pre-Columbian Amazonians produced biochar by smoldering agricultural waste (i.e., covering burning biomass with soil) in pits or trenches. European settlers called it terra preta de Indio.

Following observations and experiments, a research team working in French Guiana hypothesized that the Amazonian earthworm Pontoscolex corethrurus was the main agent of fine powdering and incorporation of charcoal debris in the mineral soil.

Biochar has been closely related to human civilization since the Paleolithic era of slash and burn. In China, a large amount of black pottery mixed with charcoal was found in the relics unearthed from the Hemudu site more than 7000 years ago.

To reduce the clay cohesion and increase the output of finished products, ancestors in Hemudu consciously mixed charcoal in the clay. There are also records of the use of charcoal from the Shang and Zhou dynasties, which is a testimony to China’s entry into the Bronze Age and then into the Iron Age from an agricultural civilization.

Biochar’s exceptional chemical and physical structure allows the material to be applied to many agricultural applications, and to many kinds of soil. The same properties that make biochar beneficial as a soil amendment also make it effective in stormwater treatment. The benefits of using biochar to improve soil health are multifold.

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