Bokashi
Biochar is not fertilizer, but it makes fertilizer work better by providing a conducive environment for the beneficial bacteria in the soil. Some biochar experiments use chemical fertilizer, and it seems to work fine. But under ideal situations, we would prefer to use naturally produced organic compost as the fertilizer, because it is more environmentally friendly.
That is were Bokashi comes in. If you have never heard of it, just google the term and see the first few web pages, including the wikipedia page, for the basic background. Bokashi is a Japanese term for fermented organic matter. A combination of (phototrophic) purple non-sulfur bacteria, Lactobacillus and yeast cultures are used. This mix of bacteria can be added to compost to make it work better and with less odor. The mix is added to septic systems to improve break-down of the organics. It is also used to inoculate wheat bran which is used in kitchen-compost bins to break down the lignin in organic kitchen wastes, so that they can be composted much more rapidly. The beauty of this system for composting is that it is supposed to eliminate bad odors, and it allows for meat, cheese and even bones to be composted — whereas those are typically excluded from normal compost.
I plan to experiment with this process a little, to see if it is possible to develop the beneficial bacteria culture (called EM for ‘effective microorganisms’) without buying the commercial version. I found this blog post that gives good details on culturing the lactobacillus. Also, I can buy the bacteria used for cheese-making. I plan to use basic sourdough culture methods to get wild yeast, which I expect to be more diverse than bakers yeast, and also usually includes lactobacillus. Or I may just use the bakers yeast. So far I have not found any methods that favor development of the phototrophic bacteria; if need be I’ll use some tea from my existing compost and hope it has enough of those naturally to be effective. I’m still researching that. Any suggestions welcome.