Biochar

Many western forests are crowded with trees that increase the risk of large, severe wildfires. To reduce this risk, forest managers can cut these trees, but this creates large amounts of waste biomass (slash). Without value, slash is typically burned, harming air quality and forest soils, and emitting carbon.  

Forest Service research aims to find sustainable, climate-friendly options to convert slash to solutions: Biochar. Biochar is a carbon-rich soil amendment created by burning slash with specially designed equipment at relatively low temperatures. Biochar production from forest slash offers clear benefits for soil health and carbon emissions. Biochar applications include:

• Soil amendment and soil health improvement
• Pollution mitigation and site remediation
• Carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation
• Added to compost to form an organic fertilizer

Although biochar has many valuable applications, biochar use as part of forest management activities has been slow to be adopted due to policy and technology constraints, as well as a lack of direct experience creating and using biochar in wildland soils. Biochar research is delivering evidence of improved vegetation growth on degraded soils, restored soil health, economic viability of the technologies, air quality impacts, and more!  This information is critical for land managers to include biochar in their plans. 

Various production methods are available for land managers to understand the needed workforce and methods needed and appropriate for creating biochar from their forest residues and applied to their soils. Methods available include in-woods production method such as air curtain burners, elevated slash piles (built on top of large logs), or small or large mobile kilns. For larger scale operations, woody biomass can be transported off-site to a bioenergy production facility. In-woods demonstrations are a valuable opportunity for land managers to communicate directly with RMRS scientists to learn more about biochar and how it can benefit their forests. And, it allows a first-hand glimpse at biochar production. 

Biochar is persistent in the soil for up to a thousand years, thus its benefits can be long-lived in forest and range soils. This persistence contributes to its long-term climate change mitigation properties in addition to the soil health benefits. RMRS scientists are continuing to work on all facets of in-woods, near-woods, and off-site bioenergy and biochar methods, logistics, economics, and environmental impacts.

Featured Work

• Biochar basics: An A-to-Z guide to biochar production, use, and benefits provides a comprehensive overview of biochar. It gives information on the different production methods, several examples on application paradigms in different contexts, land manager perspectives, management implications, and economic benefits.
• The Northwest Climate Hub biochar page provides summary information in addition to highlighting research across forestry, agriculture, and abandoned mine reclamation.
• Pacific Northwest Biochar Atlas is an online platform developed by the Agriculture Research Service and provides information on what biochar is, its benefits, how it’s being made, and where to get biochar, among other subjects.