[Terrapreta] Farm Produced Biochar

[Richard Haard]

Tom

a couple of nice posts from you. However your term 'entertainment  
value' marginalizes those of us who dabble in biochar on our farms.  
My playful term for our activities is recreational science. It's  
entertaining for sure and in the process we are learning a lot and we  
are serving both the people who know nothing about this concept as  
well as a low cost focus group for people who are serious about  
commercializing processes for farm produced biochar.

Entertainment is something like chasing a ball with a stick - what we  
are doing is a bit more than that.

Rich H


On Aug 14, 2007, at 8:56 AM, Tom Miles wrote:

> Robert,
>
> I have talked with friends and clients who are grain farmers in the
> "prairies" (US Midwest and Canada) about making biochar on the  
> farm. So far
> there is: a) interest in the biochar and its potential; b) no real  
> interest
> in making it themselves unless there is a do-it-yourself model
> ("entertainment value"); and c) skepticism about the economic and  
> agronomic
> value ("show me").
>
> Why should a grower invest his labor, equipment and money in making  
> biochar
> on the farm? We haven't clearly made that case yet. (And, where is  
> he going
> to find a "lot of nitrogen rich manure" on a grain farm?) Growers I  
> know
> will not speculate unless there is a perceived pot of gold at the  
> end of the
> rainbow.
>
> Find an interested grower and build a system around his/her specific
> circumstances. Demonstrate that it's worth doing. Then watch 1% of the
> farmers in the area adopt it.
>
> Tom
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Robert Klein [mailto:arclein at yahoo.com]
>> Sent: Monday, August 13, 2007 11:01 PM
>> To: Tom Miles
>> Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Niels Bech's flash pyrolysis
>>
>> Hi Tom
>>
>> I am thinking of wheat straw in the prairies. I have
>> seen one ton bales sit out for years.
>>
>> I expect that most straw is currently just dumped and
>> its decomposition does nothing except return CO2 to
>> the athmosphere.
>>
>> Baling it and then converting it to Biochar is
>> completely within the capabilities of a grain farmer
>> with the equipment he has before he sets up a biochar
>> system.
>>
>> Wheat straw has been a recycling problem (as has corn
>> stover), particularly since we moved away from mixed
>> farming and the mixing of straw with manure.
>>
>> Both need to be mixed with a lot of nitrogen rich
>> manure in order to achieve a decent yield on
>> decomposition.
>>
>> regards
>>
>>
>> bob
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Terrapreta mailing list
> Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
> http://bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/ 
> terrapreta_bioenergylists.org
> http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org
> http://info.bioenergylists.org
>