Biochar and Fertilization

Sorry for not posting so long, but I was off-line for over three weeks after our latest move. The good news is that TelMex finally installed our phone today. The better news is I now have a large garden and plenty of room for biochar experiments. I have a big pile of compost working, and am trying to track down the local herrerío to make me a biochar stove from a 55 gallon drum, similar to those illustrated on the Twin Oaks Forge site.

My original thought was to use the stove to make charcoal from coconut shells after the copra had been extracted, and perhaps use coir for the biochar source material. Haven’t found anyone to help me procure those yet, but did find a mill that specializes in coconut wood — and they just burn their sawdust! I can get that for just the cost of transport, so will probably be using it for the biochar. Still want to make charcoal too, and plan to use that to heat the stove for producing biochar. That way I will know if (as I’ve heard) about 1/3 load of charcoal is needed to produce an full load of biochar/charcoal.

Still catching up on lots of things after the move, so please excuse the lack of details here, but I’ll start posting pictures and more information soon.